Realism, Moralism, Models and Institutions

This paper distinguishes between three methodologies for thinking about justice: principle-based, model-based and ‘realist’, concentrating mainly on the differences between the first two. Both model-based and realist approaches pride themselves on taking institutions seriously and argue that institutions make a fundamental difference to justice. This claim is at best not proven, and it may be possible to account for the difference that institutions make to what justice requires whilst retaining a non-institutional account of what justice is.