“No one deserves his greater natural capacity nor merits a more favorable starting place in society.”

Source: A Theory of Justice (1971; 1975; 1999), Chapter II, Section 17, pg. 102

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "No one deserves his greater natural capacity nor merits a more favorable starting place in society." by John Rawls?

John Rawls63

American political philosopher 1921–2002

Related quotes

“A knight errant who turns mad for a reason deserves neither merit nor thanks. The thing is to do it without cause.”

Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright

Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Unplaced as yet by chapter

“True equality consists in each drawing benefits from society in exact proportion to his social outlay, that is to his real capacity, to the beneficent use he makes of his abilities. And this equality is the natural foundation of industrial society.”

Henri de Saint-Simon (1760–1825) French early socialist theorist

Syst. Indus, VI, 17, as quoted from E.Durkheim, Socialism and Saint-Simon (1958)

“The greater your capacity to love, the greater your capacity to feel the pain”

Jennifer Aniston (1969) television and film actress from the United States

Oprah Magazine (2004)

“Justice in no wise consists in meting out to another that exact measure of reward or punishment which we think and decree his merit, or what we call his crime, which is more often merely his error, deserves.”

Albert Pike book Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry

Source: Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871), Ch. III : The Master, p. 70
Context: Justice in no wise consists in meting out to another that exact measure of reward or punishment which we think and decree his merit, or what we call his crime, which is more often merely his error, deserves. The justice of the father is not incompatible with forgiveness by him of the errors and offences of his child. The Infinite Justice of God does not consist in meting out exact measures of punishment for human frailties and sins. We are too apt to erect our own little and narrow notions of what is right and just, into the law of justice, and to insist that God shall adopt that as His law; to measure off something with our own little tape-line, and call it God's law of justice. Continually we seek to ennoble our own ignoble love of revenge and retaliation, by misnaming it justice.