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I read more anthropology than philosophy. But it seems to me that what Dee and Fred and John are all saying is that the statement

Treat equal cases equally

is not analytic. It is not a necessary truth. But the statement

Justice implies that we treat equal cases equally

is analytic. In other words, treating equal cases equally is an intrinsic part of justice.

If we had a system that allocated burdens and benefits at random, we couldn't say that it was a system of justice because it ignores the whole idea that there are relevant reasons to treat some cases differently.