John Rawls introduces the concept of allocative justice in order to note the contrast with how justice as fairness treats distributive justice. Rawls says, “[A]llocative justice applies when a given collection of goods is to be divided among deinite individuals with known desires and needs” (TJ 77). A wealthy person deciding which charities to include among her beneiciaries when drawing up her will, for example, faces a problem of allocative justice. No charity has a prior claim to any portion of the inheritance, so the person might consider the relative importance of the needs that each charity addresses, and how far her legacy would go to address these on the basis of different allocations.

Justice as fairness understands distributive justice differently. It applies its principles of justice to the institutions of the basic structure of society. Distributive justice concerns the distribution of various primary social goods already built into the basic structure of society, which is conceived of as a cooperative system for their production and distribution. If the distribution of these goods already built into the basic structure is just, then whatever particular allocation of them that results from the free activity of citizens within that structure, consistent with its rules, is a just allocation, or “distribution.” He says, “A distribution cannot be judged in isolation from the system of which it is the outcome or from what individuals have done in good faith in the light of established expectations” (TJ 76). Note that while Rawls distinguishes distributive from allocative justice, he often uses the terms “distribution” and “allocation” interchangeably, such as the use of “distribution” in the previous quote, where “allocation” would be the better term.