  In several of his writings G. A. Cohen has mounted an attack on the Rawlsian position that the basic structure is the primary subject of justice and that beyond supporting just institutions individuals are not morally required to pursue justice goals including the difference principle in their choices of how to live (Cohen 2000 and 2008, see also Murphy 1998). In a nutshell, Cohen objects that in a society in which people and institutions are just according to Rawls's standards, the people endorse the difference principle: they believe institutions should be set to make the condition of the worst off in primary goods holdings as good as it can be made. However, their own actions, individually and in the ensemble, will have an impact on the condition of the least advantaged members of society. Hence their acceptance of the difference principle ought to have implications for the conduct of their lives. Grant that each person is free to live as she chooses, to some extent, without being required in every action to do her utmost to bring about the fullest realization of social justice in the universe. Each person has a legitimate personal prerogative to do actions that produce less than the best outcome within certain moral limits (Scheffler 1982). But the prerogative gives out, and where it does, if one is committed to the difference principle, one will make decisions concerning work and career that will aim to improve the condition of the worst off. Suppose one holds instead that justice requires an equal distribution of benefits and burdens among the members of society, except when inequality arises in a way for which the person who ends up with less should properly be held responsible (Cohen 2008). Then also, one will, to some considerable extent, shape one's economic behavior with this egalitarian aim in view, if one is seriously committed to the idea that justice demands equality.