Paper's abstract

Alain Steichen, Fiscal Justice, Between Commutative Justice and Distributive Justice
The author reviews the various forms of fiscal justice, inspiring himself from the Aristotelian classification of commutative and distributive justice. He especially tries to demonstrate that, contrary to classical teaching, fiscal law does not necessarily come close to the distributive justice, for a fair number of present tax rules can only be explained through a logic of commutative justice. But he also stresses that commutative justice show real flaws for it forgets that man is a social animal. The author concludes that, as there is no perfection on this world, it would probably be desirable to reconcile as far as possible the individualistic and liberal logic of the commutative justice with the collectivist and social logic of distributive justice by admittedly taxing the contributive abilities of the citizens but only at proportional (and not progressive) rates.

Key Words : justice
t. 46, 2002 : p. 243-279