QuestionsWhat is a just society?To each according to merit: distributive and corrective justice
What is a just society?Virtue and harmony

To each according to merit: distributive and corrective justice

Distributive justice

Aristotle 384 BC · 322 BCObserve, classify, reason: happiness through virtue.
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What it claims

Distributive justice gives each in proportion to merit (a "geometrical" proportion); corrective justice restores arithmetical equality between the parties; and injustice is whatever breaks the proportion: treating unequals equally, or equals unequally.

Why

Justice is a form of equality: shares should match each person's merit, while between private persons only the damage counts.

In short

"To each according to merit: distributive and corrective justice" is an argument by Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics V, 3-4; Politics III, 9 (c. 335 BC)) on the question "What is a just society?" (answer: virtue and harmony). Its claim: Distributive justice gives each in proportion to merit (a "geometrical" proportion); corrective justice restores arithmetical equality between the parties; and injustice is whatever breaks the proportion: treating unequals equally, or equals unequally. According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the argument is valid only if one grants a premise the author leaves unstated (P4). AskPhilosophy presents 3 objections, 2 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.

Nicomachean Ethics V, 3-4; Politics III, 9 (c. 335 BC)
Valid with an implicit premise

Aristotle is not looking for a model city, but for what people mean when they say "just". He starts from a fact: we complain of injustice when equals receive unequal shares, or unequals equal shares. From this he draws two kinds of justice. In the first, distributive justice, honours, burdens and common goods are shared out: each receives in proportion to merit, which is not the same as giving everyone the same. In the second, corrective justice, a wrong or an exchange is put right: only the damage is considered and the two parties are treated as equals. It is placed in the "harmony" camp because justice here is a right relation between things and persons: everyone in his fair place, according to what he contributes, like the terms of a well-balanced proportion. The P1..P5 → C form is our reconstruction.

P1The unjust is the unequal; so the just is a form of equality, a mean between too much and too little.
P2This equality relates persons and shares: there are at least four terms, and the ratio between the shares must be the same as between the persons. If the persons are not equal, they should not have equal shares.
P3When honours or common goods are distributed, everyone agrees that the sharing must follow merit (axia), even if there is no agreement on what merit is.
P4 · implicit premiseFor each distribution there is a criterion of merit that can be established: for instance what each contributes to the purpose of the community (for Aristotle, the good life and noble actions).
P5In exchanges and wrongs between private persons, the law looks only at the damage and treats the two parties as equals, whether good or bad. The equality is then arithmetical, and the judge restores it by taking away the unjust gain.
Therefore distributive justice gives each in proportion to merit (a "geometrical" proportion); corrective justice restores arithmetical equality between the parties; and injustice is whatever breaks the proportion: treating unequals equally, or equals unequally.

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.
Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.
Without the implicit premise: Without P4, the computer finds a case where the sharing is just and the ratios are equal, but where no criterion of merit exists: there is then no reason to share in proportion to merit rather than in equal shares.
Taking P1, P2, P3 and P5, one link is still missing: to say that persons are compared by their merit, a definite merit must be recognisable in each distribution. That is P4, which Aristotle assumes without stating it as such (in the Ethics he leaves the criterion open, in the Politics he looks for it). The real debate is therefore about P3 and P4: not everything is measured by merit, and no one agrees on its measure. Marx and Hayek say so in opposite ways. The last sentence of the conclusion (treating unequals equally is unjust) is the flip side of P1 and P2.
Analogy. In a football team, the best player award goes to whoever played best, not to everyone (distributive). If one player breaks another's watch, he must pay for it, whether he is the star or the substitute (corrective).

Objections

3

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

Democrats and oligarchs (as Aristotle reports them) 330 BC · attacks premise 4

Each political camp has its own criterion of merit: for democrats, being free makes people equal in everything; for oligarchs, being richer makes them superior in everything. Aristotle says so himself: each side takes equality (or inequality) on one point for equality (or inequality) on all points, and judges badly, because men are poor judges when their own interests are at stake (Politics III, 9).

Aristote replies
Aristotle 330 BC · Aristotle's reply: the criterion comes from the purpose of the community
The city does not exist merely for living together or for protecting property, but for the good life and noble actions. Those who contribute most to this community therefore have a larger share in the city than those who equal them in freedom or birth without equalling them in civic virtue, or who surpass them in wealth but are inferior in virtue (Politics III, 9).
Aristotle (the next chapter) 330 BC
Even this criterion is problematic: if the good rule, all the others are deprived of honours, and if it is one man, the best, it is even more oligarchic. Who should be sovereign: the multitude, the rich, the good, one man, a tyrant? Aristotle finds that each of these answers has disagreeable consequences (Politics III, 10).
Where the debate stands (our summary)Aristotle holds that merit is measured by contribution to the purpose of the city, but he admits that the question "who judges this merit?" has no simple answer. Democrats, oligarchs and the partisans of virtue do not agree, and each judges in his own cause. An open point, with no widely accepted answer. Our summary.
Karl Marx 1875 · attacks premise 3

Rewarding according to labour supplied means measuring everyone with the same yardstick. But individuals are unequal: one is stronger or more gifted, another has more children to feed. This equal right is therefore an unequal right, which treats unequal gifts as natural privileges and ignores needs. Marx concludes that a more advanced society will have to inscribe on its banners: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" (Critique of the Gotha Programme, I, 3).

no reply
see the argument
No reply possible: objection raised in 1875, after the author's death (-322).
Where the debate stands (our summary)Marx targets distribution by labour, not Aristotle's theory as such. Both agree on one point: treating unequals equally is unjust. They differ on what counts: contribution (Aristotle) or need (Marx). It is a core disagreement about the criterion of justice, with no widely accepted answer. Our summary.
Friedrich Hayek 1960 · attacks premise 4

For Hayek, merit cannot be rewarded in a free society. First, no one can know whether another's success comes from his effort, his gifts or his luck: moral merit stays invisible to others. Second, the market pays the value of the service rendered, not merit: a painful and highly deserving job may be worth little. To set incomes by merit would require an authority that judges the worth of each life (The Constitution of Liberty, ch. 6).

a defender replies
No reply possible: objection raised in 1960, after the author's death (-322).
D
David Miller defender of the argument · 1999
Miller argues that desert remains a legitimate criterion of justice in some areas, such as the pay of work, provided it rests on public criteria, such as effort or contribution, rather than on market value alone (Principles of Social Justice).
Where the debate stands (our summary)Hayek and Miller agree that intimate moral merit is unknowable. The core disagreement is what can be done with it: for Hayek, nothing, since the market is enough; for Miller, contribution can be judged from public criteria. An open point, with no widely accepted answer. Our summary.
What today's voices say
Defend it
Michael SandelLectures 18-19 present Aristotle's justice as giving people their due according to the purpose of what is distributed. A review says Sandel builds his own view on this Aristotelian approach.