Justice: Views from the Social Sciences

Ronald L. Cohen Justice is a central moral standard in social life. It is invoked in judging individual persons and in judging the basic structure of societies. It has been described as akin to a "human hunger or thirst" (Pascal, Pensees, cited in Hirschman, 1982, p. 91), "more powerful than any physical hunger, and endlessly resilient" (Pitkin, 1981, p. 349). The most prominent contemporary theory of justice proceeds from the claim that justice is "the first virtue of social institutions, ...