Justice in distribution is fundamentally a responsibility of particular persons. Each time we buy, sell, give, retain, or receive goods or services, we either respect the requirements of justice or we do not. Criteria of justice in distribution reflect the implications of the basic principles of practical reasonableness and the character of property rights as justified by their contributions to well being.

Practical reasonableness does not require any overall pattern of wealth distribution. Neither particular persons nor organizations nor communal institutions have any duty to envision and implement an overall distributional pattern, and the responsibility to promote economic security and address the problem of poverty does not flow from any such imagined duty. Rather, each person has a general distributive duty which communal norms, rules, and institutions may help her to perform. This obligation is to treat as a public trust resources one does not need in order to fulfill specific duties and which one cannot reasonably use to participate in authentic aspects of well being through personal consumption.

In Part I, I seek to show how the criteria of justice in distribution flow from the principles of practical reasonableness. In Part II, I highlight the implications of these criteria for our responsibilities to contribute to communal projects and assist other people. I recap my arguments in Part III.

Distribution and practical reasonableness

People have responsibilities to themselves, to other individuals in interpersonal relationships, and as participants in cooperative ventures with others.