Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No.3, 2015

 

The Two Basic Principles of Distributive Justice

(Abstract)

 

Yi Xiaoming

 

The various theories of justice that have appeared in the course of human history can be summarized and understood from the perspective of the difference principle and the identity principle. The tension between the two constitutes the internal dynamic driving the development of human civilization. The two principles are the product of long years of human development. Since human history is the history not only of natural development but also of social and cultural development, and since the principle of natural development tends to be expressed in the difference principle whereas the principle of social and cultural development tends to be expressed in the identity principle, the genesis and unification of the two principles essentially represent the genesis and unification of nature, society and culture on the basis of a common interactive function. This determines the three distinctive features of the development of the two principles of justice: from competition and substitution to collaborative coexistence, from total synthesis to a division of labor, and from spontaneous movements to conscious participation.