Social Justice vs Justice

What began as a short blog post has become a mini-debate on social justice vs justice between Peter Wehner @ Commentary and Paul Mirengoff @ Powerline. All four short posts are well worth reading to understand how the Left has corrupted a long-standing Catholic spiritual teaching to its faithful and twisted it into a moral political mandate on all citizens. Steve Hayward joins the debate at the close with "I prefer my Justice, like my single-malt scotch, neat and straight up, with no modifiers before it."

Wehner: In Defense of Social Justice

Acknowledging that social justice is not a term conservatives use, in part, due to Friedrich Hayek's criticism of it as a mirage, an "empty formula" and "hollow incantation," Peter Wehner argues that social justice is "a term conservatives should not only refuse to cede to the left but one they should embrace." He cites ethical and Biblical scholars to buttress his case that "to do justice and to love mercy is what is required of us, as individuals and as a society."

Mirengoff: "Social Justice," A Nonsensical Concept

Justice has always been understood in our tradition as justice for the individual, qua individual. When a person goes to court, either in a criminal or a civil case, our system strives to provide him with a result that is fair given what he has done or failed to do. This is what we understand justice to be. Thus, when we say that justice should be blind, we mean that it should be rendered without regard to a person’s social status and without regard to the demands of this or that social agenda.

Mirengoff argues that the pursuit of social justice may lead to actions consistent with justice, but it ...

...may also lead to action that is inconsistent with justice, such as granting racial preferences or expropriating someone’s property for “the greater good.” Such action is not justice, but rather justice’s antithesis. Thus, we should object when it is marketed “social justice.”

In sum, the concept of social justice has no value. In the first scenario, it is superfluous; in the second, it is false advertising. ... When it travels under the banner of social justice, it gains extra moral authority that it does not deserve.

Wehner: More on Social Justice

What I have in mind with the term is what we believe a society owes to others; the belief that living in a human society entitles our fellow human beings to some degree of sympathy and solicitude–and that a failure to grant these things is a failure of social justice. ...

Why wouldn’t taking a stand against state-enforced apartheid or Uganda’s harsh anti-gay laws or North Korea’s persecution of Christians qualify as standing up for social justice–that is, insisting that a society’s laws and institutions be more just?

My view has long been that conservatives ought to claim the term, since conservatism, in concrete ways, improves the lives of our fellow citizens, including and often especially the poor and most vulnerable members of society.

[T]he left already uses the term “social justice” with some effectiveness precisely because it does carry moral authority. The differences Mirengoff and I have are more about semantics than about ends; but in politics and political philosophy, semantics matter.

Mirengoff: On "Social Justice"—a Reply to Peter Wehner (With Comment from Steve [Hayward])

I believe the examples Pete cites as worthwhile stands for social justice support my point that the concept is superfluous when it comes to arguing for causes that are truly just. Apartheid, harsh anti-gay laws, and persecution of Christians can all be opposed based on simple justice for the victims as individuals. The fact that there are many such individuals does not require us to invoke “social justice.”

Which causes might require us to invoke social justice because individual justice will not support them? Causes like amnesty for an enormous class of lawbreakers (individual justice militates in favor of punishing law breakers, not rewarding them), preferential treatment for certain classes (it is unjust to favor one individual over another due to, say, race), and the redistribution of income by the government (what just claim does a person have on a stranger’s money?).

Do these causes deserve to be couched in the language of justice, “social” or otherwise? No. There are respectable arguments to be made for each cause, but they are arguments based on compassion (e.g., we want to help the poor), or aesthetics (e.g., we like some racial diversity), or pragmatism (e.g., conservatives need to stop alienating Hispanics and anyway, we can’t deport millions of illegal immigrants).

I agree with Wehner that our disagreement is more about semantics (or packaging) than about ends. And I agree that semantics matter. That’s why the left pushes the concept of social justice — it enables leftists to claim that what seems unjust actually constitutes a form of justice. Then, a cause can be pitched not as a reasonable tempering of justice — something we might choose do, but only reluctantly and on a small scale — but as something demanded by justice, a near-imperative.

Steve Hayward comments:

The Roman Catholic tradition has a very rich original teaching on social justice that goes back 1,000 years, based, needless to say, on very different grounds than the Left today.  It is this that Pete chiefly draws from I think, and as such he’s on substantively solid ground, Hayek’s important caveats (which I mostly agree with) notwithstanding.  I have found it useful, when confronted with Leftist “social justice” mongers spouting the contemporary meaning, to lay down that the Catholic teaching is the only species of the idea that is respectable.  This is great fun to do, because Leftists hate the Catholic Church, and this attack confounds them greatly.

Otherwise, I’m with Paul on the semantic/rhetorical problem.  To employ the term “social justice” is to play in the Left’s sandbox I think.  I prefer my Justice, like my single-malt scotch, neat and straight up, with no modifiers before it.