Complex Justice for Complex Problems: Comments on Johannsen’sA Conceptual Investigation of Justice

Kyle Johannsen’s conceptual investigation of justice urges us to think of justice as a simple value, which is independent of the exigencies of practice. In what follows, I highlight two methodological issues as a way to raise concerns over whether Johannsen is operating with the ‘correct’ understanding of justice, and to persuade Johannsen that complex problems, such as those of social justice require understanding justice as a complex value. So, while contextualists about justice should embrace the distinction between justice and rules of regulation, justice must be more than an input in our deliberation, and instead constitutes an output.