Normative economics, following a common utilitarian approach to justice, assumes that all rational members of society pursue a single common good: the maximization of social utility. Issues of justice that arise in these theories are considered in terms of this goal. An alternative approach is to view society as a cooperative venture for mutual advantage, and to consider issues of justice in terms of maintaining fair terms of cooperation. The author proposes the Kantian concept of “justice as fairness” as one version of this alternative, making the case that his approach to the nature of just claims and interpersonal comparisons is substantially different from that of utilitarianism and normative economics.
