I did realize that this would be a particularly difficult read.

In your (effusive, for which I thank you) comments on "Real Justice" you made special note of a statement to the effect that universality requires rationality. The problem of universality is exposed in the postmodern critique of the 'Enlightenment project' (and its intellectual extensions). That critique has revealed that in the end all knowledge, even facts of material existence, can only be a matter of personal inclination.

All have agreed that universality is necessary for an ethic to govern the governance of society that is not arbitrary. Being arbitrary makes establishing it as the foundational principle of society inherently coercive. In arguing for real justice I had turned that around: since universality is necessary for an ethic of justice, the only possible source of a universal ethic would be one that is strictly rational that follows from (universally verifiable) observation within material existence.

It finally dawned on me the other day that for real justice universality is not necessary. That's because the ethic of real justice is not arbitrary. It is not arbitrary because it follows from observation within material existence. That is the point I am attempting to make in this tiny essay.

The final piece of the puzzle has clicked into place.