ABSTRACT
The notion of justice implies a particular mode of social relationships between people or groups of people who “matter” to each other. Referring to criteria of justice means that values determine people’s belonging to a social entity and not their mere physiologically or habitually defined similarities (in the form of genetically or culturally defined criteria) and that these values need to be treated as an important normative dimension of the sets of relationships that make up a social unit. This perspective gives questions of justice altogether an intrinsic social dimension, although of course the treatment of the issue of social justice needs to focus more specifically on the particular quality of life resulting from relationships oriented towards justice.
