Need-Based Justice from the Perspective of Philosophy

The first part addresses the concept of needs and their moral significance. That includes the demarcation of needs from desires; subtypes of needs, such as categorical and basic needs; the role of a decent life in the specification of needs; and the claim that the satisfaction of needs takes priority over the satisfaction of desires. In the second part, qualitative principles, both comparative and non-comparative, and quantitative measures of need-based justice are discussed. The last part is concerned with methodological and justificatory questions. We analyse the reconstructive and the constructive method of developing a theory of justice and examine Rawls’ model of reflective equilibrium. Special emphasis is placed on the ways in which theories of justice might draw on empirical findings.