Justice enters into the picture as regulative only in the sphere of circumstantial equality and inequality, because only there can we make prescriptive proposals. Considerations of justice do not enter in the sphere of human equality and inequality where only declarative statements can be made and prescriptive proposals are impossible. Personal equality or inequality, natural or acquired, is neither just nor unjust. It is simply a matter of fact. It is pointless to say that if nature were just, human beings would be born equal in all important respects.
Nature is neither just nor unjust in the gifts it bestows.
Only human beings can be just or unjust in the proposals they advance with regard to an equality of conditions or with regard to an inequality of results. Where an inequality of conditions exists but ought not to prevail, justice may call for rectifying this by establishing an equality of conditions in its place. With regard to individuals who make unequal contributions by the work they do or the goods they produce, justice may call for an inequality of results in the rewards they receive. We come finally to the most difficult and at the same time the most important qualification or distinction to be considered in our statements about equality, whether declarative or prescriptive. The following example may make this clear.