Spheres of Justice
Also known as Spheres of Justice: A Defense of Pluralism and Equality
Michael Walzer's 1983 case for complex equality across separate spheres of justice.
At a glance
Key ideas
Many principles, Complex equality, Against primary goods
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Will Kymlicka, Karel Martens
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Michael Walzer, A Theory of Justice and Anarchy, State, and Utopia
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Also on this page: Key facts · Links · Sources · Related pages
- Walzer argues against a single universal principle of distributive justice.
- Different social goods should be distributed by different principles, reflecting what each good means in its own sphere.
- His "complex equality" allows inequality within a sphere but not advantage in one sphere, such as wealth, deciding goods in another.
- He rejects Rawls's grouping of different goods as primary goods.
Why it matters
- It is one of the central communitarian alternatives to Rawls and is still applied, for example to transport justice.
Key facts
- Author
- Michael Walzer1
- Published
- 19831
- Origin
- Walzer's side of a 1971 Harvard course, Capitalism and Socialism, taught as a debate with Robert Nozick2
Key ideas
Influence
Connections
Links
Sources
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