Spheres of Justice
Encyclopedia
Spheres of Justice: A Defense of Pluralism and Equality is a book written by Michael Walzer
Michael Walzer
Michael Walzer is a prominent American political philosopher and public intellectual. A professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, he is co-editor of Dissent, an intellectual magazine that he has been affiliated with since his years as an undergraduate at...

 (ISBN 0-465-08189-4).

In it, Walzer argues in favour of an idea he calls "complex equality
Complex equality
Complex equality is a theory of justice outlined by Michael Walzer in his work Spheres of Justice. The theory posits that inequalities in the several spheres of society should not invade one another.Walzer's definition of complex equality is:...

", 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
John Rawls
John Bordley Rawls was an American philosopher and a leading figure in moral and political philosophy. He held the James Bryant Conant University Professorship at Harvard University....

, in his A Theory of Justice
A Theory of Justice
A Theory of Justice is a book of political philosophy and ethics by John Rawls. It was originally published in 1971 and revised in both 1975 and 1999. In A Theory of Justice, Rawls attempts to solve the problem of distributive justice by utilising a variant of the familiar device of the social...

from 1971. The book might be considered an attempt, from a liberal starting point, to bridge some of the disagreements between liberals
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...

 and communitarians
Communitarianism
Communitarianism is an ideology that emphasizes the connection between the individual and the community. That community may be the family unit, but it can also be understood in a far wider sense of personal interaction, of geographical location, or of shared history.-Terminology:Though the term...

 in political philosophy
Political philosophy
Political philosophy is the study of such topics as liberty, justice, property, rights, law, and the enforcement of a legal code by authority: what they are, why they are needed, what, if anything, makes a government legitimate, what rights and freedoms it should protect and why, what form it...

.

External links

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