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Modern democratic societies with pluralistic value systems tend to emphasize procedural justice over substantive fairness since the various actors in society disagree about what is a just and fair solution and what ratio of payoffs and risks is regarded as acceptable. Because disagreement is difficult or even impossible to resolve by abstract reasoning, the minimum requirement for a fair solution is procedural equity. The process of legitimizing decisions by procedure rather than substance, however, faces two major problems: First, regardless of the type of procedure selected, its content relies on the discussion of substantive issues that will surface as part of the discussion or debate