Związki między sprawiedliwością a równością

Abstract

This study points to two kinds of relationship between justice and equality: (1) the relationships between the concept of justice and equality, and (2) the relationships between different formulae of justice adopted in social life and the formula of justice based on simple egalitarianism or on the modified formula of egalitarianism (“according to needs”). Aristotelian distributive justice postulates identical treatment of similar people, and the controversy arises when it is being decided by virtue of what characteristics similar people are to be treated identically (this is the problem of the right criterion, easily, but not necessarily in a correct way solved by simple egalitarianism) or how differently people should be treated if they possess the relevant characteristic in different degrees (the problem of gradation). The viable moral doctrines of today accept egalitarian formulae only partially, and for various reasons. The opinions of the society that there is a required dependence of the compound formulae of justice on egalitarian formulae are rather fluid and susceptible to persuasion.