Hello my name is David Ronserman and this is Talking Politics. Today's Talking Politics

Guide is with Chris Brooke, historian of political thought and political theorist and he is

going to be telling us about distributive justice. These Talking Politics Guides are brought

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Distributive justice is a complicated idea, distributive justice is a slightly daunting phrase,

what makes distributive justice different from other ways of thinking about justice.

The usual distinctions are between distributive justice and let's say corrective justice or

commutative justice. Corrective justice is what we think of with the criminal justice

system, the idea that they've been violations of right and they have to be corrected or that

under certain circumstances compensation might be called for and so on.

Distributive justice is a story about how we engage with one another in our everyday

dealings, what counts as just dealings with one another. Distributive justice nowadays looks

at the broad pattern of the distribution of goods across a society and argues that a

language of justice can be used to make a case for why certain distributions of good things

in life are morally desirable or morally required.

The language of distributive justice has changed quite strikingly over time. If you go back

to the 18th century and before, distributive justice concerns in the first instance what

we would call today the honour system. It's a matter if you're the prince, how you hand

out honours, how you distribute the recognition that you have the prerogative to do and a master

...