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Virtuous Circularity: Positive Law and Particular Justice
Author(s) -
Michelon Claudio
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
ratio juris
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.344
H-Index - 10
eISSN - 1467-9337
pISSN - 0952-1917
DOI - 10.1111/raju.12041
Subject(s) - distributive justice , allocative efficiency , economic justice , distributive property , commutative property , law and economics , sociology , law , focus (optics) , epistemology , political science , economics , philosophy , microeconomics , mathematics , pure mathematics , physics , optics
This paper argues that the positive allocative decisions paradigmatically carried out by the application of legal rules are a necessary condition for arguments about particular justice (i.e., distributive and commutative justice) to make sense. If one shifts the focus from the distinction between distributive and commutative justice to what the two aspects of particular justice are for , namely, providing criteria to judge the allocation of goods, it becomes clear that the distinction is conceptually unstable. The paper argues that stabilizing the distinction is worthwhile and that this can only be accomplished by the introduction of positive allocation schemes.