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Some of our most heated arguments are over what's relevant to moral questions and questions of justice. Here's a short list of factors that some people think are relevant -- and some do not:

Most people would agree that some of our greatest moral achievements as a society are cases in which we have collectively declared some factor to be irrelevant to considerations of justice. But was that a scientific discovery?

I'll agree with Ann that sometimes science can help here. It can clear away the brush, so to speak, especially by showing that certain traditional claims are false.

But at the end of the day science can only help. I don't think it can give us the final answer to the question whether a certain factor is relevant to determining which cases are equal. Suppose, as John said, people have different visions of the ideal society? Wouldn't science have to be able to tell us which vision is the best one? Can it do that? I don't see how it can.