Spheres of Justice
book
Spheres of Justice: A Defense of Pluralism and Equality is a 1983 book by the political theorist Michael Walzer.
Summary
Walzer explores the concept of distributive justice, which concerns the fair allocation of goods and resources in society. He argues against the idea of a single universal principle of justice that can be applied uniformly across all spheres of life. Instead, he suggests that different social goods should be distributed according to different principles, taking into account the specific characteristics and values of each sphere.
Walzer argues in favour of an idea he calls "complex equality", and against the view that goods with different meaning and content can be lumped together into the larger category of primary goods, as is advocated by John Rawls, in his A Theory of Justice (1971). According to Walzer, each sphere has its own internal logic and should be governed by distinct principles of distribution that reflect the particular goods and values at stake.
Reception
Spheres of Justice has, together with Just and Unjust Wars (1977) and Interpretation and Social Criticism (1987), been identified as one of Walzer's most important works by the philosopher Will Kymlicka.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q612990. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1983, 1971, 1977 and 1987.
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This entry incorporates text from “Spheres of Justice” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.