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So this gives us a bit of an answer to my last question, which was

To what extent does the injunction to treat equal cases equally answer our main question 'What is justice?'

The answer is that it supplies half of what we need. It supplies what the philosophers call the "formal" principle. The rest of our theory of justice would supply the other half -- what some philosophers call the "material" principles. It would tell us when and where rules of justice are relevant, what factors are relevant to certain decisions, what counts as equal treatment, what counts as appropriate treatment, and so on.

I think our larger theory would relate all those factors that Vera mentioned: need, merit, productivity, effort, gender, race -- the whole nine yards.