What is social justice? What are its aims? A fair distribution of something? Or the promotion of equality and mutual recognition? In the contemporary debate, the answers to these questions revolve around two main approaches: luck egalitarianism and socio-relational egalitarianism. If the latter understands social justice in terms of relations among people, the former develops a distributive approach to social justice, that tries to integrate equality with responsibility-sensitivity.
In my talk I will engage in a critical reflection on both approaches and propose a different perspective, based on respect. Respect – this is my thesis – can both shed light on the constitutive dimensions of social justice and effectively promote it, shaping it through social and institutional practices.