Q.What does it mean to give each person his/her due? How has the meaning of "giving each his due" changed over time?

The idea of justice as "giving each person his due" goes back to Plato's Republic, where Socrates argued that a just ruler, like a doctor, must be concerned with the well-being of all people. What counts as someone's "due," however, has changed a great deal over time.

In ancient Greece, Plato explored this idea through Socrates, who argued in The Republic that justice does not simply mean doing good to friends and harm to enemies, or narrowly pursuing one's own interests — it means being concerned with the well-being of all people. Just as a doctor's task is to look after the well-being of patients, a just ruler or government must be concerned with the well-being of the people, and this well-being was understood to include giving each person his due.

This basic idea — that justice means giving each person what is due to them — has remained a core part of how we understand justice even today. However, what is actually considered "due" to a person has changed since Plato's time. In earlier times, what was due to a person was often closely tied to their place or role within the social order. Today, our understanding of what is due to a person is closely linked instead to our understanding of what is due to them as a human being. Drawing on the German philosopher Immanuel Kant's idea that human beings possess dignity, if all persons are granted this dignity, then what is due to each of them is the opportunity to develop their own talents and pursue their own chosen goals. In other words, justice today requires giving due and equal consideration to all individuals — not because of their rank or role in society, but simply because they are human beings entitled to dignity.