Short History of Distributive Justice

Samuel Fleischacker is Professor of Philosophy, University of Illinois, Chicago.

• Acknowledgments Abbreviations Introduction 1. From Aristotle to Adam Smith 1. Two Kinds of Justice 2. The Right of Necessity 3. Property Rights 4. Communal Experiments and Utopian Writings 5. Poor Laws 2. The Eighteenth Century 1. Citizen Equality: Rousseau 2. Changing Our Picture of the Poor: Smith 3. The Equal Worth of Human Beings: Kant 4. To the Vendome Palais de Justice: Babeuf 3. From Babeuf to Rawls 1. Reaction 2. Positivists 3. Marx 4. Utilitarians 5. Rawls 6. After Rawls Epilogue Notes Bibliography Index

Fleischacker takes on the conventional history of distributive justice, more commonly called ‘social justice’ or ‘economic justice.’ Who first advocated giving material goods to the poor purely on the basis of need? Some histories attribute this line of thinking to figures as far back as Plato or Aristotle; others claim to find it in Rousseau. But Fleischacker convincingly demonstrates that the true origin of this idea is far more recent than we might think—and that the first great thinker to advocate it was none other than that tree-hugging liberal Adam Smith. Although the topic may seem dauntingly academic, the author has a readable, conversational style; the work of philosophers as diverse as Cicero, Hume, and Kant is discussed with energy, style, and wit.