THIS is a virus that preceded Covid but is no less infectious and really more pernicious. Its symptoms are an inflated sense of entitlement, a skewed concept of fairness and persistent envy. It is what explains why there are perpetual malcontents, while grumbling jars what would otherwise be the harmony of organizations.

The Roman jurists and medieval philosophers were truly wise: Summ cuique tribuere...Rendering each what is his (or her) due! Very clearly then, the most venerable concept of justice does not require that all receive the same measure. In fact, by the classical standard of justice, giving each the same would be the classic example of injustice. When John Rawls sought a way of formulating the principles of just distribution, he employed the heuristic device of 'original ignorance' - ignorance of one's preferences, inclinations, choices - to find out how persons would want society's benefits to be distributed. Each person is entitled to as wide a range of liberties as is compatible with a similar range of liberties for others. That is the first principle and owing the lexicality that he insisted must obtain between the two principles - the second, dealing with differences in distribution - then it is this principle that captures his fundamental insight. And he does not advocate that the breadth of liberty should be the same for all. Thus, it would be, under this theory, fair to open the doors of university education to one who has the aptitude for it but not to one who is empirically incapable of it.