It’s common these days (or any days, for that matter) to
read or hear something to the effect that feeding the hungry, paying a living
wage, providing healthcare, or any multitude of other things is “social
justice.” Trying to abstract the nature
of social justice from such statements or declarations, we reasonably conclude
that “social justice” means meeting people’s needs on a large scale, rather
than looking after people individually or on a small scale.
Now, such things are far from being bad things. They are, strictly speaking, very good
things. They are not, however, social
justice, and in many cases are not justice at all, but charity, or an expedient
in lieu of either justice and charity.
The problem is that, when we set out to “do” social justice,
we need actually to do social
justice, not just slap the label on anything that comes down the pike. Otherwise, we will not only not be doing what
we think we’re doing, we might end up doing exactly the opposite.
So, what is “social justice”? In the CESJ Glossary we define it relatively
simply — if not completely clearly, hence this “tutorial”:
Social justice is the particular virtue whose object is the
common good of all human society, rather than, as with individual justice, the
individual good of any member or group. It is one of the basic social virtues
in the field of social morality.
Social justice guides humans as social beings in creating and perfecting
organized human interactions, or institutions. It is the principle for
restoring moral balance and harmony in the social order.
Social Justice encompasses and operates within every level
of the social order, from the macro-level (the “common good” of society) to the
micro-level of each organization and enterprise. It organizes systems so that
they provide every member of that system with equal opportunity and access to
such social goods (or social tools) as money, credit, and the ballot, in order
to be able to participate fully in the system.
Social justice imposes on each member of society a personal
responsibility to work with others to design and continually perfect our
institutions as tools for personal and social development. To the extent an
institution violates the human dignity and rights of any person or group,
organized acts of social justice are required to correct the defects in that
institution. Actions such as “social justice tithing,” for example, recognize a
personal responsibility to devote a certain amount of time toward working with
others to improve the organizations and institutions in which we live and work.
