Justice, in its broadest context, includes both the attainment of that which is just and the philosophical discussion of that which is just. The concept of justice is based on numerous fields, and many differing viewpoints and perspectives including the concepts of moral correctness based on ethics, rationality, law, religion, equity and fairness.Often, the general discussion of justice is divided into the realm of social justice as found in philosophy, theology and religion, and, procedural justice as found in the study and application of the law.
Early theories of justice were set out by the Ancient Greek philosophers Plato in his work The Republic, and Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics. Thinkers in the social contract tradition argued that justice is derived from the mutual agreement of everyone concerned.Theories of distributive justice concern what is distributed, between whom they are to be distributed, and what is the proper distribution.John Rawls used a social contract argument to show that justice, and especially distributive justice, is a form of fairness.Property rights theorists also take a consequentialist view of distributive justice and argue that property rights-based justice maximizes the overall wealth of an economic system.
