Principles of Social Justice Author:David Miller Social justice has been the animating ideal of democratic governments throughout the twentieth century, yet existing theories by political philosophers have failed to capture the way people in general think about issues of social justice. In this book, David Miller argues that principles of justice must be understood contextually, with each prin... more »ciple finding its natural home in a different form of human association and reflecting the complexity of modern society. Miller uses empirical research to demonstrate the central role of three primary principles—desert, need, and equality—in social justice. He then analyzes each concept, defending principles of desert and need against a range of critical attacks, and exploring instances when justice requires equal distribution and when it does not. "As with all David Miller's work, a high level of scrupulousness marks Principles of Social Justice. He remains unswayed by ideological and philosophical background noise—no mean feat with this topic—and, as always, displays a distrust of grand generalization. The exposition, lucid and wholly unpretentious, is a model of its kind. And the argument is impressively sustained throughout, with some particularly acute remarks about the role of luck in judgments of desert, and about the relevance of procedures to just outcomes." —Glen Newey, Times Literary Supplement David Miller is Official Fellow in Social and Political Theory, Nuffield College, Oxford.« less