Inevitability of Classification and Uncertainty of Telos in Distributive Justice: An Illustration from Olympics 2024

While a lot of material is produced on the idea of justice advancing various versions of the same, there is an aspect of justice that is relatively ignored. That aspect is the classification of people. In this paper the author has argued that a debate on justice necessarily demands a debate on the classification of people who are the recipients of justice. At the heart of the problem of justice lies the problem of classification of people. The classification may be reasonably done if there is an agreement on the purpose of the things that are up for distribution or on the purpose of the institution within which the distribution is supposed to take place. However such agreement is not easy to come by. The aim of the author in this paper is not to provide any concrete formula for classification, but only to highlight, taking an example from sports, that classification is necessary and difficult at the same time. There is a need for a deeper and wider debate on what various things that we prize actually mean to us.