  One answer to this is to say that social justice demands that principles of justice be public in the sense that they involve principles that can be shown to be implemented to everyone who is reasonably conscientious and aware of some basic facts of political life (such as disagreement, fallibility and cognitive bias). This is a version of the basic maxim of justice that justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done. The thought then is that to the extent that there is significant disagreement about the substantive principles of justice in play when policy is being decided, a just society requires some way in which publicly to embody the equal treatment of all the individuals in society. The controversial principles guiding the formulation of policy do not generally satisfy this constraint of publicity. Indeed, given the controversies over justice, individuals will think that the policies do not accord with their favored conception of equality. The democratic process does seem publicly to embody the equal standing of all citizens and the equal worth of their interests against the background of disagreement and fallibility and all the facts that attend these phenomena. So the democratic process seems uniquely capable of publicly embodying the principle of the equal importance of each person and the equal importance of the advancement of their interests (Christiano 2004).