An important juncture point between ideas of justice and
social good or welfare should be noticed. Very few social
changes or laws are agreeable to or advance the welfare of
all individuals alike. Only laws which provide for the most
elementary needs, such as police protection or roads, come
near to this. In most cases the law provides benefits for one
class of the population only at the cost of depriving others of
what they prefer. Provision for the poor can be made only out of the goods of others; compulsory school education for all
may mean not only loss of liberty for those who wish to educate
their children privately, but may be financed only at the
cost of reducing or sacrificing capital investment in industry
or old-age pensions or free medical services. When a choice
has been made between such competing alternatives it
may be defended as proper on the ground that it was for the
'public good' or the 'common good'. It is not clear what these
phrases mean, since there seems to be no scale by which
contributions of the various alternatives to the common good
can be measured and the greater identified. It is, however,
clear that a choice, made without prior consideration of the
interests of all sections of the community would be open to
criticism as merely partisan and unjust. It would, however,
be rescued from this imputation if the claims of all had been
impartially considered before legislation, even though in the
result the claims of one section were subordinated to those of
others.