McGowan: Social Justice
Richard J. McGowan 773 words
A widely used phrase in newspapers and on campuses across America, including the one where I taught, is ‘social justice.’ In fact, my school implemented a committee to design a required, social justice component for students. Was that smart? The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy says that “Western philosophers generally regard justice as the most fundamental of all virtues for ordering interpersonal relations and establishing and maintaining a stable political society.” If justice is about ordering interpersonal relations, then ‘social justice’ is redundant. Justice already is social.
I also note that the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has no entry for ‘social justice.’ Nonetheless, the hue and cry for social justice persists across academia, even if social justice is a philosophical phantom.
Further, my school’s committee, like so many other schools concerned about ‘social justice,’ had a very specific concept of justice in mind. Similar to other schools, my school acted as though the question about justice had a definitive answer. It does not.
Professors of philosophy, the academics whose bailiwick includes justice since the time of Plato’s Republic, have not settled the question of justice—otherwise the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy would not offer several positions on distributive justice nor would ethics textbooks list several notions of what justice demands regarding society’s distribution of benefits and burdens.
My students used a textbook that explained five major positions on distributive justice.
The egalitarian position defines justice in terms of equality, suggesting that no relevant differences exist among people to justify unequal treatment. Of course, that simplifies the world. When I stayed up late grading papers, my children were not allowed to stay up with me. If I had a tough day at work and cracked a beer, I offered none to my children. While equality is important to justice, equality needs qualification. Further, conceptual ambiguity exists: does equality mean economic equality or political equality? The former would provide equal material conditions while the latter stresses equal opportunity and equal rights.
The capitalist position holds that burdens and benefits should be commensurate. The position focuses on the contribution an individual makes to the success of the social endeavor—a company’s bottom line, a team’s winning percentage, a project’s completion, and so on. For my children, that meant “Mow the lawn and get an allowance.” For the Yankees, it means errorless ball and home runs, or strikeouts and a low ERA. The reality of human existence is that people are not equal and contribute unevenly, thus they benefit unevenly.
However, a capitalist system often lacks compassion. Some people make a marginal contribution and some, not at all. People born with physical challenges often cannot make a big contribution to a social entity’s goals. People hit and disabled by drunk drivers cannot make much of a contribution—and through no fault of their own.
Should we let them starve? Capitalist systems lack compassion.
Socialist justice fixes that weakness. Its mantra is “from each according to ability, to each according to need.” In my house, both as a kid and raising kids, a socialist system prevailed. My wife and I fed our children, housed our children, clothed our children, and cleaned their dirty diapers. They made few contributions to the house, yet we took care of their needs.
However, we also told them how to behave and foisted our judgments on them. While socialism captures an important aspect of justice, namely, compassion, any society that adopts the position will need some authority to make and execute decisions. Individual liberty is compromised.
The libertarian position fixes the weakness. Its mantra is “from each as each chooses, to each as each is chosen.” Justice must protect an individual’s ability to choose. Again, an important ingredient of justice is evident: freedom. However, pure libertarian systems would allow racism and a whole host of other isms.
The Rawlsian position is an amalgamation of the four previous positions. The position attempts to include the strengths of each position while avoiding the weaknesses. A big drawback from the position is its complexity to execute.
Which position on distributive justice is the best? That was up to my students to decide. Yet, the outcry for social justice on campuses across America suggests the question has been decisively answered. Many academics—professors and campus leaders—speak and act as though justice requires equity, the offspring of economic egalitarianism. Each individual must have a roughly equal share of society’s material benefits.
Nonetheless, campus leaders do not grant tenure to every professor. And professors continue to grade students. Higher education utilizes a capitalist model, with benefits based on merit and contribution, rewarding professors and students accordingly.
Policy is not designed around equity or any equitable system.
What is the real meaning of justice?
Justice is the ethical , philosophical idea that people are to be treated impartially, fairly, properly, and reasonably by the law and by arbiters of the law, that laws are to ensure that no harm befalls another, and that, where harm is alleged, a remedial action is taken – both the accuser and the accused receive a …
justice | Wex | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute
Legal Information Institute – Cornell University
https://www.law.cornell.edu › wex › justice
Western Theories of Justice
Justice is one of the most important moral and political concepts. The word comes from the Latin jus, meaning right or law. The Oxford English Dictionary defines the “just” person as one who typically “does what is morally right” and is disposed to “giving everyone his or her due,” offering the word “fair” as a synonym. But philosophers want to get beyond etymology and dictionary definitions to consider, for example, the nature of justice as both a moral virtue of character and a desirable quality of political society, as well as how it applies to ethical and social decision-making.
For Plato, justice is a virtue establishing rational order, with each part performing its appropriate role and not interfering with the proper functioning of other parts. Aristotle says justice consists in what is lawful and fair, with fairness involving equitable distributions and the correction of what is inequitable. For Augustine, the cardinal virtue of justice requires that we try to give all people their due; for Aquinas, justice is that rational mean between opposite sorts of injustice, involving proportional distributions and reciprocal transactions. Hobbes believed justice is an artificial virtue, necessary for civil society, a function of the voluntary agreements of the social contract; for Hume, justice essentially serves public utility by protecting property (broadly understood). For Kant, it is a virtue whereby we respect others’ freedom, autonomy, and dignity by not interfering with their voluntary actions, so long as those do not violate others’ rights; Mill said justice is a collective name for the most important social utilities, which are conducive to fostering and protecting human liberty. Rawls analyzed justice in terms of maximum equal liberty regarding basic rights and duties for all members of society, with socio-economic inequalities requiring moral justification in terms of equal opportunity and beneficial results for all; and various post-Rawlsian philosophers develop alternative conceptions.
Western philosophers generally regard justice as the most fundamental of all virtues for ordering interpersonal relations and establishing and maintaining a stable political society.
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy https://iep.utm.edu/justwest/
Aquinas accepts the Platonic-Aristotelian thesis that there are four virtues which are cardinal, that is on which the moral life and all other virtues hinge or depend: prudentia, justice, courage, and temperantia. Each is a strategic element in one’s integrating of the good of practical reasonableness into one’s deliberations, choices and execution of choices (prudentia), in one’s dealings with others justice), and in integrating and governing one’s desires by genuine reasons (temperantia) and enabling one to face down intimidating obstacles (courage, fortitudo).
4.4.2 Justice
Justice is the steady and lasting willingness to give to others what they are entitled to (their right: jus [or ius] suum). Aquinas works with this Roman Law definition (ST II-II q. 58 a. 1c), and with Aristotle’s division of justice into (i) distributive (good judgment about how to divide up and parcel out beneficial or burdensome wholes or sets in a way that is fair because guided by appropriate criteria) and (ii) what Aquinas calls commutative justice (good judgment going far wider than Aristotle’s “corrective” justice, and concerned with all other kinds of dealings between persons).
Justice means giving each person what he or she deserves or, in more traditional terms, giving each person his or her due.
There are, however, many differences that we deem as justifiable criteria for treating people differently. For example, we think it is fair and just when a parent gives his own children more attention and care in his private affairs than he gives the children of others; we think it is fair when the person who is first in a line at a theater is given first choice of theater tickets; we think it is just when the government gives benefits to the needy that it does not provide to more affluent citizens; we think it is just when some who have done wrong are given punishments that are not meted out to others who have done nothing wrong; and we think it is fair when those who exert more efforts or who make a greater contribution to a project receive more benefits from the project than others. These criteria—need, desert, contribution, and effort—we acknowledge as justifying differential treatment, then, are numerous.
“Justice and Fairness” article at the Marrkula Center for Applied Ethics
Manuel Velasquez, Claire Andre, Thomas Shanks, S.J., and Michael J. Meyer
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