This puts him in opposition to theorists such as Robert Nozick or John Rawls, who both argue for some sort of 'unifying theory' in understandings of justice.
In 'solidaristic communities,' where people identify themselves as holding a shared culture or belief, distributions should be made in accordance with need (e.g. family or church group).
[5] Miller's arguments lead to tricky situations if more than one relationship could be said to exist (for example, two family members who also work together).
He does not give any 'lexical ordering' to his proposals, but does work through a wide range of scenarios arguing that in each situation, a 'just' understanding of the relationship can trump and maintain a wider social justice.
Critiques of Miller point out that he leaves the details, and the situations where it is most important to hold some notion of social justice to be able to argue the case, too vague.
Other critics of Miller take issue with his view that principles of justice must connect in some way with the current beliefs of individuals, arguing that this biases political theory towards the status quo, rendering it overly conservative.
Collecting evidence on people's deep held but rarely scrutinised beliefs about justice is notoriously difficult and unreliable.
For example, a person with no family or close friends may not belong to any 'solidaristic community' willing to distribute to compensate for their 'needs' beyond those which their position as a citizen will confer.
A person who has never and will never work (home-makers, severely disabled people) will never receive 'dues' for the labour or activity which they do engage with.
Many argue that meritocracy is a fundamental principle of the United States and to reject this idea is to vitiate our society of one of its core values.