In all sectors of society there should be roughly equal prospects of culture and achievement for everyone similarly motivated and endowed. The expectations of those with the same abilities and aspirations should not be affected by their social class.
A society regulated by a public sense of justice is inherently stable.
An injustice is tolerable only when it is necessary to avoid an even greater injustice.
The sense of justice is continuous with the love of mankind.
In constant pursuit of money to finance campaigns, the political system is simply unable to function. Its deliberative powers are paralyzed.
Properly understood, then, the desire to act justly derives in part from the desire to express most fully what we are or can be, namely free and equal rational beings with the liberty to choose.
The fault of the utilitarian doctrine is that it mistakes impersonality for impartiality.
The naturally advantaged are not to gain merely because they are more gifted, but only to cover the costs of training and education and for using their endowments in ways that help the less fortunate as well.
Thus I assume that to each according to his threat advantage is not a conception of justice.
The intolerant can be viewed as free-riders, as persons who seek the advantages of just institutions while not doing their share to uphold them.
The extreme nature of dominant-end views is often concealed by the vagueness and ambiguity of the end proposed.
Ideal legislators do not vote their interests.
First of all, principles should be general. That is, it must be possible to formulate them without use of what would be intuitively recognized as proper names, or rigged definite descriptions.
We must choose for others as we have reason to believe they would choose for themselves if they were at the age of reason and deciding rationally.
Many of our most serious conflicts are conflicts within ourselves. Those who suppose their judgements are always consistent are unreflective or dogmatic.
At best the principles that economists have supposed the choices of rational individuals to satisfy can be presented as guidelines for us to consider when we make our decisions.
A scheme is unjust when the higher expectations, one or more of them, are excessive. If these expectations were decreased, the situation of the less favored would be improved.
Ideally a just constitution would be a just procedure arranged to insure a just outcome.
A just system must generate its own support.
Justice as fairness provides what we want.