Properly understood, then, the desire to act justly derives in part from the desire to express most fully what we are or can be, namely free and equal rational beings with the liberty to choose.

Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. A theory however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue; likewise laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well-arranged must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust.

There are various ways you might define the common good, but that would be one way you could do it.

There are infinitely many variations of the initial situation and therefore no doubt indefinitely many theorems of moral geometry.

How did Madison get separation through Virginia and later Congress? The Baptists, the Presbyterians, and the smaller sects hated Jefferson; to them he was a secularist of the worst kind. But Madison could get Jefferson's bill passed because the Baptists, the Presbyterians, and smaller sects who were excluded in New England and in the South got together for their own protection.

Public reason arguments can be good or bad just like other arguments.

A political conception just applies to the basic structure of a society, its institutions, constitutional essentials, matters of basic justice and property, and so on.