 Neoliberals stridently reject one of the most common rationales for the welfare state, namely pursuing an egalitarian conception of social justice. Hayek is clearest on this point, given his total rejection of the very idea of social justice, which he understands, somewhat peculiarly, as a set of moral principles that govern the justifiability of specific distributions of economic resources, though not moral principles that govern the functioning of an economic system as a whole. Hayek (1978: 78) thinks that the idea of social justice is confused in that justice cannot be applied to specific market outcomes because they are not the result of direct, conscious choices. Social justice is an incoherent idea, much like the idea of a “moral stone”. Hayek thinks it imperative that the state not be used to achieve a precise income distribution (Caldwell 2004: 350):