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OK. One more time. I'm not sure we are taking the right road here. I think there may be something in what most of you are saying; but I'm just not sure I can go all the way with it. I keep thinking that we are letting ourselves be trapped in a philosophical tradition.

Part of the problem has to do with what some philosophers call 'particularity.' It seems to me that there is a weak and a strong thesis about particularity.

• The weak thesis is that there are so many relevant details in some moral situations that trying to identify the relevant factors and formulate principles that relate them to the proper moral judgment is, for all practical purposes, impossible. It may be possible in theory, but in practice it's hopeless.
  
• The strong thesis is something I have read recently in the work of the philosopher Margaret Urban Walker. She has criticized the idea that we can find universal principles stating what is relevant to moral decisions. I'm trying to apply what she has said to the concept of justice, and it may turn out really different from what you are saying. What if the relevant factors in similar cases are different because of decisions a person has made or choices he or she has made? Maybe the whole idea of identifying relevant factors that apply to all cases is a mistake?

I think we ought to read some of Walker's work and try to apply it to the concept of justice.