A taxonomy of normative and empirically oriented theories of distributive justice

The study proposes a taxonomy that maps and organizes various normative (“ought”) and empirically oriented (“is”) theories of distributive justice, with the aim of examining possible relations between these two research traditions. The taxonomy distinguishes between theories according to two shared dimensions of content: (a) microjustice versus macrojustice principles and (b) the unidimen-sional versus multidimensional character of these principles. The combination of these dimensions yields four groups of theories of distributive justice: unidimen-sional macro (the utilitarian approach); multidimensional macro (Rawls ’ theory of justice); unidimensional micro (desert and equity theories); and multidimensional micro (Miller’s theory and the multiprinciple approach). A fifth group of hybrid the-ories is identified (including Walzer’s and Jasso’s theory of justice), which is built upon the layers of the other taxonomy cells, combining elements of macro- and mi-crojustice and emphasizing the multidimensional character of distributive justice. The analysis revealed that the empirical and normative traditions have much in common. In certain cases, as with the utilitarian approach and Rawls ’ theory, em