Social justice

College students live in tents for a week to call

attention to perceived social injustice

Social justice is a concept of fair and just

relations between the individual and
society. This is measured by the explicit
and tacit terms for the distribution of
wealth, opportunities for personal
activity, and social privileges. In Western
as well as in older Asian cultures, the
concept of social justice has often
referred to the process of ensuring that
individuals fulfill their societal roles and
receive what was their due from
society.[1][2][3] In the current global
grassroots movements for social justice,
the emphasis has been on the breaking
of barriers for social mobility, the
creation of safety nets and economic
justice.[4][5][6][7][8]

Social justice assigns rights and duties in

the institutions of society, which enables
people to receive the basic benefits and
burdens of cooperation. The relevant
institutions often include taxation, social
insurance, public health, public school,
public services, labour law and regulation
of markets, to ensure fair distribution of
wealth, and equal opportunity.[9]

Interpretations that relate justice to a

reciprocal relationship to society are
mediated by differences in cultural
traditions, some of which emphasize the
individual responsibility toward society
and others the equilibrium between
access to power and its responsible
use.[10] Hence, social justice is invoked
today while reinterpreting historical
figures such as Bartolomé de las Casas,
in philosophical debates about
differences among human beings, in
efforts for gender, racial and social
equality, for advocating justice for
migrants, prisoners, the environment, and
the physically and developmentally
disabled.[11][12][13][14]

While the concept of social justice can

be traced through the theology of
Augustine of Hippo and the philosophy of
Thomas Paine, the term "social justice"
became used explicitly from the 1840s. A
Jesuit priest named Luigi Taparelli is
typically credited with coining the term,
and it spread during the revolutions of
1848 with the work of Antonio Rosmini-
Serbati.[2][15][16] However, recent research
has proved that the use of the expression
"social justice" is older (even before the
19th century).[17] In the late industrial
revolution, progressive American legal
scholars began to use the term more,
particularly Louis Brandeis and Roscoe
Pound. From the early 20th century it
was also embedded in international law
and institutions; the preamble to
establish the International Labour
Organization recalled that "universal and
lasting peace can be established only if it
is based upon social justice." In the later
20th century, social justice was made
central to the philosophy of the social
contract, primarily by John Rawls in A
Theory of Justice (1971). In 1993, the
Vienna Declaration and Programme of
Action treats social justice as a purpose
of human rights education.[18][19]

History
The different concepts of justice, as
discussed in ancient Western philosophy,
were typically centered upon the
community.

Plato
Plato wrote in The Republic that it
would be an ideal state that "every
member of the community must be
assigned to the class for which he
finds himself best fitted."[20] In an
article for J.N.V University, author D.R.
Bhandari says, "Justice is, for Plato, at
once a part of human virtue and the
bond, which joins man together in
society. It is the identical quality that
makes good and social. Justice is an
order and duty of the parts of the soul,
it is to the soul as health is to the body.
Plato says that justice is not mere
strength, but it is a harmonious
strength. Justice is not the right of the
stronger but the effective harmony of
the whole. All moral conceptions
revolve about the good of the whole-
individual as well as social".[21]

Aristotle

Aristotle believed rights existed only

between free people, and the law
should take "account in the first
instance of relations of inequality in
which individuals are treated in
proportion to their worth and only
secondarily of relations of equality."
Reflecting this time when slavery and
subjugation of women was typical,
ancient views of justice tended to
reflect the rigid class systems that still
prevailed. On the other hand, for the
privileged groups, strong concepts of
fairness and the community existed.
Distributive justice was said by
Aristotle to require that people were
distributed goods and assets
according to their merit.[22]
Socrates

Socrates (through Plato's dialogue

Crito) is attributed with developing the
idea of a social contract, whereby
people ought to follow the rules of a
society, and accept its burdens
because they have accepted its
benefits.[23] During the Middle Ages,
religious scholars particularly, such as
Thomas Aquinas continued discussion
of justice in various ways, but
 ultimately connected being a good
citizen to the purpose of serving God.

After the Renaissance and Reformation,

the modern concept of social justice, as
developing human potential, began to
emerge through the work of a series of
authors. Baruch Spinoza in On the
Improvement of the Understanding (1677)
contended that the one true aim of life
should be to acquire "a human character
much more stable than [one's] own", and
to achieve this "pitch of perfection... The
chief good is that he should arrive,
together with other individuals if
possible, at the possession of the
aforesaid character."[24] During the
enlightenment and responding to the
French and American Revolutions,
Thomas Paine similarly wrote in The
Rights of Man (1792) society should give
"genius a fair and universal chance" and
so "the construction of government
ought to be such as to bring forward... all
that extent of capacity which never fails
to appear in revolutions."[25]

Social justice has been traditionally credited to be

coined by Jesuit priest Luigi Taparelli in the 1840s,
but the expression is older
Although there is no certainty about the
first use of the term "social justice", early
sources can be found in Europe in the
18th century.[26] Some references to the
use of the expression are in articles of
journals aligned with the spirit of the
Enlightenment, in which social justice is
described as an obligation of the
monarch;[27][28] also the term is present
in books written by Catholic Italian
theologians, notably members of the
Society of Jesus.[29] Thus, according to
this sources and the context, social
justice was another term for "the justice
of society", the justice that rules the
relations among individuals in society,
without any mention to socio-economic
equity or human dignity.[26]

The usage of the term started to become

more frequent by Catholic thinkers from
the 1840s, including the Jesuit Luigi
Taparelli in Civiltà Cattolica, based on the
work of St. Thomas Aquinas. He argued
that rival capitalist and socialist theories,
based on subjective Cartesian thinking,
undermined the unity of society present
in Thomistic metaphysics as neither
were sufficiently concerned with moral
philosophy. Writing in 1861, the
influential British philosopher and
economist, John Stuart Mill stated in
Utilitarianism his view that "Society
should treat all equally well who have
deserved equally well of it, that is, who
have deserved equally well absolutely.
This is the highest abstract standard of
social and distributive justice; towards
which all institutions, and the efforts of
all virtuous citizens, should be made in
the utmost degree to converge."[30]

In the later 19th and early 20th century,

social justice became an important
theme in American political and legal
philosophy, particularly in the work of
John Dewey, Roscoe Pound and Louis
Brandeis. One of the prime concerns was
the Lochner era decisions of the US
Supreme Court to strike down legislation
passed by state governments and the
Federal government for social and
economic improvement, such as the
eight-hour day or the right to join a trade
union. After the First World War, the
founding document of the International
Labour Organization took up the same
terminology in its preamble, stating that
"peace can be established only if it is
based on social justice". From this point,
the discussion of social justice entered
into mainstream legal and academic
discourse.

Thus, in 1931, the Pope Pius XI stated

the expression for the first time in the
Catholic Social Teaching in the encyclical
Quadragesimo Anno. Then again in Divini
Redepmtoris, the Church pointed out that
the realisation of social justice relied on
the promotion of the dignity of human
person.[31] The same year, and because
of the documented influence of Divini
Redemptoris in its drafters,[32] the
Constitution of Ireland was the first one
to establish the term as a principle of the
economy in the State, and then other
countries around the world did the same
throughout the 20th century, even in
Socialist regimes such as the Cuban
Constitution in 1976.[26]

In the late 20th century, a number of

liberal and conservative thinkers, notably
Friedrich von Hayek rejected the concept
by stating that it did not mean anything,
or meant too many things.[33] However
the concept remained highly influential,
particularly with its promotion by
philosophers such as John Rawls. Even
though the meaning of social justice
varies, at least three common elements
can be identified in the contemporary
theories about it: a duty of the State to
distribute certain vital means (such as
economic, social, and cultural rights), the
protection of human dignity, and
affirmative actions to promote equal
opportunities for everybody.[26]

Contemporary theory
Philosophical perspectives

Cosmic values

Hunter Lewis' work promoting natural

healthcare and sustainable economies
advocates for conservation as a key
premise in social justice. His manifesto
on sustainability ties the continued
thriving of human life to real conditions,
the environment supporting that life, and
associates injustice with the detrimental
effects of unintended consequences of
human actions. Quoting classical Greek
thinkers like Epicurus on the good of
pursuing happiness, Hunter also cites
ornithologist, naturalist, and philosopher
Alexander Skutch in his book Moral
Foundations:

The common feature which

unites the activities most
consistently forbidden by the
moral codes of civilized peoples
is that by their very nature they
cannot be both habitual and
enduring, because they tend to
destroy the conditions which
make them possible.[34]

Pope Benedict XVI cites Teilhard de

Chardin in a vision of the cosmos as a
'living host'[35] embracing an
understanding of ecology that includes
humanity's relationship to others, that
pollution affects not just the natural
world but interpersonal relations as well.
Cosmic harmony, justice and peace are
closely interrelated:

If you want to cultivate peace,

protect creation.[36]

John Rawls

Political philosopher John Rawls draws

on the utilitarian insights of Bentham and
Mill, the social contract ideas of John
Locke, and the categorical imperative
ideas of Kant. His first statement of
principle was made in A Theory of Justice
where he proposed that, "Each person
possesses an inviolability founded on
justice that even the welfare of society as
a whole cannot override. For this reason
justice denies that the loss of freedom
for some is made right by a greater good
shared by others."[37] A deontological
proposition that echoes Kant in framing
the moral good of justice in absolutist
terms. His views are definitively restated
in Political Liberalism where society is
seen "as a fair system of co-operation
over time, from one generation to the
next".[38]
All societies have a basic structure of
social, economic, and political
institutions, both formal and informal. In
testing how well these elements fit and
work together, Rawls based a key test of
legitimacy on the theories of social
contract. To determine whether any
particular system of collectively enforced
social arrangements is legitimate, he
argued that one must look for agreement
by the people who are subject to it, but
not necessarily to an objective notion of
justice based on coherent ideological
grounding. Obviously, not every citizen
can be asked to participate in a poll to
determine his or her consent to every
proposal in which some degree of
coercion is involved, so one has to
assume that all citizens are reasonable.
Rawls constructed an argument for a
two-stage process to determine a
citizen's hypothetical agreement:

The citizen agrees to be represented

by X for certain purposes, and, to that
extent, X holds these powers as a
trustee for the citizen.
X agrees that enforcement in a
particular social context is legitimate.
The citizen, therefore, is bound by this
decision because it is the function of
the trustee to represent the citizen in
this way.
This applies to one person who
represents a small group (e.g., the
organiser of a social event setting a
dress code) as equally as it does to
national governments, which are ultimate
trustees, holding representative powers
for the benefit of all citizens within their
territorial boundaries. Governments that
fail to provide for welfare of their citizens
according to the principles of justice are
not legitimate. To emphasise the general
principle that justice should rise from the
people and not be dictated by the law-
making powers of governments, Rawls
asserted that, "There is ... a general
presumption against imposing legal and
other restrictions on conduct without
sufficient reason. But this presumption
creates no special priority for any
particular liberty."[39] This is support for
an unranked set of liberties that
reasonable citizens in all states should
respect and uphold — to some extent, the
list proposed by Rawls matches the
normative human rights that have
international recognition and direct
enforcement in some nation states
where the citizens need encouragement
to act in a way that fixes a greater degree
of equality of outcome. According to
Rawls, the basic liberties that every good
society should guarantee are:

Freedom of thought;
Liberty of conscience as it affects
social relationships on the grounds of
religion, philosophy, and morality;
Political liberties (e.g., representative
democratic institutions, freedom of
speech and the press, and freedom of
assembly);
Freedom of association;
Freedoms necessary for the liberty and
integrity of the person (namely:
freedom from slavery, freedom of
movement and a reasonable degree of
freedom to choose one's occupation);
and
Rights and liberties covered by the rule
of law.
Thomas Pogge

Thomas Pogge's arguments pertain to a

standard of social justice that creates
human rights deficits. He assigns
responsibility to those who actively
cooperate in designing or imposing the
social institution, that the order is
foreseeable as harming the global poor
and is reasonably avoidable. Pogge
argues that social institutions have a
negative duty to not harm the poor.[40][41]

Pogge speaks of "institutional

cosmopolitanism" and assigns
responsibility to institutional schemes[42]
for deficits of human rights. An example
given is slavery and third parties. A third
party should not recognize or enforce
slavery. The institutional order should be
held responsible only for deprivations of
human rights that it establishes or
authorizes. The current institutional
design, he says, systematically harms
developing economies by enabling
corporate tax evasion,[43] illicit financial
flows, corruption, trafficking of people
and weapons. Joshua Cohen disputes
his claims based on the fact that some
poor countries have done well with the
current institutional design.[44] Elizabeth
Kahn argues that some of these
responsibilities should apply globally.[45]

United Nations
The United Nations’ 2006 document
Social Justice in an Open World: The Role
of the United Nations, states that "Social
justice may be broadly understood as the
fair and compassionate distribution of
the fruits of economic growth..."[46]:16

The term "social justice" was seen by the

U.N. "as a substitute for the protection of
human rights [and] first appeared in
United Nations texts during the second
half of the 1960s. At the initiative of the
Soviet Union, and with the support of
developing countries, the term was used
in the Declaration on Social Progress and
Development, adopted in 1969."[46]:52
The same document reports, "From the
comprehensive global perspective
shaped by the United Nations Charter
and the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, neglect of the pursuit of social
justice in all its dimensions translates
into de facto acceptance of a future
marred by violence, repression and
chaos."[46]:6 The report concludes, "Social
justice is not possible without strong and
coherent redistributive policies
conceived and implemented by public
agencies."[46]:16

The same UN document offers a concise

history: "[T]he notion of social justice is
relatively new. None of history’s great
philosophers—not Plato or Aristotle, or
Confucius or Averroes, or even Rousseau
or Kant—saw the need to consider justice
or the redress of injustices from a social
perspective. The concept first surfaced in
Western thought and political language
in the wake of the industrial revolution
and the parallel development of the
socialist doctrine. It emerged as an
expression of protest against what was
perceived as the capitalist exploitation of
labour and as a focal point for the
development of measures to improve the
human condition. It was born as a
revolutionary slogan embodying the
ideals of progress and fraternity.
Following the revolutions that shook
Europe in the mid-1800s, social justice
became a rallying cry for progressive
thinkers and political activists.... By the
mid-twentieth century, the concept of
social justice had become central to the
ideologies and programmes of virtually
all the leftist and centrist political parties
around the world..."[46]:11–12

Religious perspectives
Hinduism

The present-day Jāti hierarchy is

undergoing changes for a variety of
reasons including 'social justice', which is
a politically popular stance in democratic
India. Institutionalized affirmative action
has promoted this. The disparity and
wide inequalities in social behaviour of
the jātis – exclusive, endogamous
communities centred on traditional
occupations – has led to various reform
movements in Hinduism. While legally
outlawed, the caste system remains
strong in practice.[47]

Islam

In Muslim history, Islamic governance

has often been associated with social
justice. Establishment of social justice
was one of the motivating factors of the
Abbasid revolt against the Umayyads.[48]
The Shi'a believe that the return of the
Mahdi will herald in "the messianic age of
justice" and the Mahdi along with the Isa
(Jesus) will end plunder, torture,
oppression and discrimination.[49]

For the Muslim Brotherhood the

implementation of social justice would
require the rejection of consumerism and
communism. The Brotherhood strongly
affirmed the right to private property as
well as differences in personal wealth
due to factors such as hard work.
However, the Brotherhood held Muslims
had an obligation to assist those
Muslims in need. It held that zakat (alms-
giving) was not voluntary charity, but
rather the poor had the right to
assistance from the more fortunate.[50]
Most Islamic governments therefore
enforce the zakat through taxes.

Judaism

In To Heal a Fractured World: The Ethics

of Responsibility, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
states that social justice has a central
place in Judaism. One of Judaism’s most
distinctive and challenging ideas is its
ethics of responsibility reflected in the
concepts of simcha ("gladness" or "joy"),
tzedakah ("the religious obligation to
perform charity and philanthropic acts"),
chesed ("deeds of kindness"), and tikkun
olam ("repairing the world").

Christianity

Methodism

From its founding, Methodism was a

Christian social justice movement. Under
John Wesley's direction, Methodists
became leaders in many social justice
issues of the day, including the prison
reform and abolition movements. Wesley
himself was among the first to preach for
slaves rights attracting significant
opposition.[51][52][53]
Today, social justice plays a major role in
the United Methodist Church. The Book
of Discipline of the United Methodist
Church says, "We hold governments
responsible for the protection of the
rights of the people to free and fair
elections and to the freedoms of speech,
religion, assembly, communications
media, and petition for redress of
grievances without fear of reprisal; to the
right to privacy; and to the guarantee of
the rights to adequate food, clothing,
shelter, education, and health care."[54]
The United Methodist Church also
teaches population control as part of its
doctrine.[55]
Catholicism

Catholic social teaching consists of

those aspects of Roman Catholic
doctrine which relate to matters dealing
with the respect of the individual human
life. A distinctive feature of Catholic
social doctrine is its concern for the
poorest and most vulnerable members of
society. Two of the seven key areas[56] of
"Catholic social teaching" are pertinent to
social justice:

Life and dignity of the human person:

The foundational principle of all
"Catholic Social Teaching" is the
sanctity of all human life and the
inherent dignity of every human
person, from conception to natural
death. Human life must be valued
above all material possessions.
Preferential option for the poor and
vulnerable: Catholics believe Jesus
taught that on the Day of Judgement
God will ask what each person did to
help the poor and needy: "Amen, I say
to you, whatever you did for one of
these least brothers of mine, you did
for me."[57] The Catholic Church
believes that through words, prayers
and deeds one must show solidarity
with, and compassion for, the poor.
The moral test of any society is "how it
treats its most vulnerable members.
The poor have the most urgent moral
 claim on the conscience of the nation.
People are called to look at public
policy decisions in terms of how they
affect the poor."[58]

Even before it was propounded in the

Catholic social doctrine, social justice
appeared regularly in the history of the
Catholic Church:

Pope Leo XIII, who studied under

Taparelli, published in 1891 the
encyclical Rerum novarum (On the
Condition of the Working Classes; lit.
"On new things"), rejecting both
socialism and capitalism, while
defending labor unions and private
property. He stated that society should
be based on cooperation and not class
conflict and competition. In this
document, Leo set out the Catholic
Church's response to the social
instability and labor conflict that had
arisen in the wake of industrialization
and had led to the rise of socialism.
The Pope advocated that the role of
the State was to promote social justice
through the protection of rights, while
the Church must speak out on social
issues in order to teach correct social
principles and ensure class harmony.
The encyclical Quadragesimo anno (On
Reconstruction of the Social Order,
literally "in the fortieth year") of 1931
by Pope Pius XI, encourages a living
wage,[59] subsidiarity, and advocates
that social justice is a personal virtue
as well as an attribute of the social
order, saying that society can be just
only if individuals and institutions are
just.
Pope John Paul II added much to the
corpus of the Catholic social teaching,
penning three encyclicals which focus
on issues such as economics, politics,
geo-political situations, ownership of
the means of production, private
property and the "social mortgage",
and private property. The encyclicals
Laborem exercens, Sollicitudo rei
socialis, and Centesimus annus are just
a small portion of his overall
contribution to Catholic social justice.
Pope John Paul II was a strong
advocate of justice and human rights,
and spoke forcefully for the poor. He
addresses issues such as the
problems that technology can present
should it be misused, and admits a
fear that the "progress" of the world is
not true progress at all, if it should
denigrate the value of the human
person. He argued in Centesimus
annus that private property, markets,
and honest labor were the keys to
alleviating the miseries of the poor and
to enabling a life that can express the
fullness of the human person.
Pope Benedict XVI's encyclical Deus
caritas est ("God is Love") of 2006
claims that justice is the defining
concern of the state and the central
concern of politics, and not of the
church, which has charity as its central
social concern. It said that the laity has
the specific responsibility of pursuing
social justice in civil society and that
the church's active role in social justice
should be to inform the debate, using
reason and natural law, and also by
providing moral and spiritual formation
for those involved in politics.
The official Catholic doctrine on social
justice can be found in the book
Compendium of the Social Doctrine of
 the Church, published in 2004 and
updated in 2006, by the Pontifical
Council Iustitia et Pax.

The Catechism (§ 1928–1948) contain

more detail of the Church's view of social
justice.[60]

Traditional Chinese religion

The Chinese concept of Tian Ming has

occasionally been perceived as an
expression of social justice.[61] Through
it, the deposition of unfair rulers is
justified in that civic dissatisfaction and
economical disasters is perceived as
Heaven withdrawing its favor from the
Emperor. A successful rebellion is
considered definite proof that the
Emperor is unfit to rule.

Criticism
Many authors criticize the idea that there
exists an objective standard of social
justice. Moral relativists deny that there
is any kind of objective standard for
justice in general. Non-cognitivists, moral
skeptics, moral nihilists, and most logical
positivists deny the epistemic possibility
of objective notions of justice. Political
realists believe that any ideal of social
justice is ultimately a mere justification
for the status quo.
Many other people accept some of the
basic principles of social justice, such as
the idea that all human beings have a
basic level of value, but disagree with the
elaborate conclusions that may or may
not follow from this. One example is the
statement by H. G. Wells that all people
are "equally entitled to the respect of
their fellowmen."[62]

On the other hand, some scholars reject

the very idea of social justice as
meaningless, religious, self-contradictory,
and ideological, believing that to realize
any degree of social justice is unfeasible,
and that the attempt to do so must
destroy all liberty. Perhaps the most
complete rejection of the concept of
social justice comes from Friedrich
Hayek of the Austrian School of
economics:

There can be no test by which

we can discover what is 'socially
unjust' because there is no
subject by which such an
injustice can be committed, and
there are no rules of individual
conduct the observance of which
in the market order would
secure to the individuals and
groups the position which as
 such (as distinguished from the
procedure by which it is
determined) would appear just
to us. [Social justice] does not
belong to the category of error
but to that of nonsense, like the
term 'a moral stone'.[63]

Ben O'Neill of the University of New

South Wales argues that, for proponents
of "social justice":[64]

the notion of "rights" is a mere

term of entitlement, indicative of
a claim for any possible
desirable good, no matter how
important or trivial, abstract or
tangible, recent or ancient. It is
merely an assertion of desire,
and a declaration of intention to
use the language of rights to
acquire said desire.

In fact, since the program of

social justice inevitably involves
claims for government provision
of goods, paid for through the
efforts of others, the term
actually refers to an intention to
use force to acquire one's
desires. Not to earn desirable
 goods by rational thought and
action, production and
voluntary exchange, but to go in
there and forcibly take goods
from those who can supply
them!

Janusz Korwin-Mikke states, "Either

'social justice' has the same meaning as
'justice' – or not. If so – why use the
additional word 'social?' We lose time, we
destroy trees to obtain paper necessary
to print this word. If not, if 'social justice'
means something different from 'justice'
– then 'something different from justice'
is by definition 'injustice.'"
Sociologist Carl L. Bankston has argued
that a secular, leftist view of social
justice entails viewing the redistribution
of goods and resources as based on the
rights of disadvantaged categories of
people, rather than on compassion or
national interest. Bankston maintains
that this secular version of social justice
became widely accepted due to the rise
of demand-side economics and to the
moral influence of the civil rights
movement.[65]

Social justice movements

Social justice is also a concept that is
used to describe the movement towards
a socially just world, e.g., the Global
Justice Movement. In this context, social
justice is based on the concepts of
human rights and equality, and can be
defined as "the way in which human rights
are manifested in the everyday lives of
people at every level of society".[66]

A number of movements are working to

achieve social justice in society. These
movements are working towards the
realization of a world where all members
of a society, regardless of background or
procedural justice, have basic human
rights and equal access to the benefits of
their society.[67]
Liberation theology

Liberation theology[68] is a movement in

Christian theology which conveys the
teachings of Jesus Christ in terms of a
liberation from unjust economic, political,
or social conditions. It has been
described by proponents as "an
interpretation of Christian faith through
the poor's suffering, their struggle and
hope, and a critique of society and the
Catholic faith and Christianity through
the eyes of the poor",[69] and by
detractors as Christianity perverted by
Marxism and Communism.[70]

Although liberation theology has grown

into an international and inter-
denominational movement, it began as a
movement within the Catholic Church in
Latin America in the 1950s–1960s. It
arose principally as a moral reaction to
the poverty caused by social injustice in
that region.[71] It achieved prominence in
the 1970s and 1980s. The term was
coined by the Peruvian priest, Gustavo
Gutiérrez, who wrote one of the
movement's most famous books, A
Theology of Liberation (1971). According
to Sarah Kleeb, "Marx would surely take
issue," she writes, "with the appropriation
of his works in a religious context...there
is no way to reconcile Marx's views of
religion with those of Gutierrez, they are
simply incompatible. Despite this, in
terms of their understanding of the
necessity of a just and righteous world,
and the nearly inevitable obstructions
along such a path, the two have much in
common; and, particularly in the first
edition of [A Theology of Liberation], the
use of Marxian theory is quite evident."[72]

Other noted exponents are Leonardo Boff

of Brazil, Carlos Mugica of Argentina, Jon
Sobrino of El Salvador, and Juan Luis
Segundo of Uruguay.[73][74]

Health care

Social justice has more recently made its

way into the field of bioethics. Discussion
involves topics such as affordable
access to health care, especially for low
income households and families. The
discussion also raises questions such as
whether society should bear healthcare
costs for low income families, and
whether the global marketplace is the
best way to distribute healthcare. Ruth
Faden of the Johns Hopkins Berman
Institute of Bioethics and Madison
Powers of Georgetown University focus
their analysis of social justice on which
inequalities matter the most. They
develop a social justice theory that
answers some of these questions in
concrete settings.
Social injustices occur when there is a
preventable difference in health states
among a population of people. These
social injustices take the form of health
inequities when negative health states
such as malnourishment, and infectious
diseases are more prevalent in
impoverished nations.[75] These negative
health states can often be prevented by
providing social and economic structures
such as primary healthcare which
ensures the general population has equal
access to health care services regardless
of income level, gender, education or any
other stratifying factors. Integrating
social justice with health inherently
reflects the social determinants of health
model without discounting the role of the
bio-medical model.[76]

Human rights education

The Vienna Declaration and Programme

of Action affirm that "Human rights
education should include peace,
democracy, development and social
justice, as set forth in international and
regional human rights instruments, in
order to achieve common understanding
and awareness with a view to
strengthening universal commitment to
human rights."[77]

See also
"Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence",
an anti-Vietnam war and pro-social justice
speech delivered by Martin Luther King, Jr.
in 1967
Counterculture of the 1960s
Climate justice
Environmental justice
Environmental racism
Essentially contested concept
Labour law and labour rights
Left-wing politics
Resource justice
Right to education
Right to health
Right to housing
Right to social security
 Socialism
Social justice art
Social justice warrior
Social law
Social work
Solidarity
World Day of Social Justice
All pages beginning with "Social
justice"
All pages with a title containing Social
justice

Notes
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4. Kitching, G. N. (2001). Seeking Social
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9. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (1971)
4, "the principles of social justice: they
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duties in the basic institutions of society
and they define the appropriate
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42. North, James. "The Resource
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References
Articles

LD Brandeis, 'The Living Law' (1915–

1916) 10 Illinois Law Review 461
A Etzioni, 'The Fair Society, Uniting
America: Restoring the Vital Center to
American Democracy ' in N Garfinkle
and D Yankelovich (eds) (Yale
University Press 2005) pp. 211–223
Otto von Gierke, The Social Role of
Private Law (2016) translated and
introduced by E McGaughey, originally
Die soziale Aufgabe des Privatrechts
M Novak, 'Defining Social Justice '
(2000) First Things
B O'Neill, 'The Injustice of Social
Justice ' (Mises Institute)
R Pound, 'Social Justice and Legal
Justice' (1912) 75 Central Law Journal
455
M Powers and R Faden, 'Inequalities in
health, inequalities in health care: four
generations of discussion about
justice and cost-effectiveness analysis'
(2000) 10(2) Kennedy Inst Ethics
Journal 109–127
 M Powers and R Faden, 'Racial and
Ethnic Disparities in Health Care: An
Ethical Analysis of When and How
They Matter,' in Unequal Treatment:
Confronting Racial and Ethnic
Disparities in Health Care (National
Academy of Sciences, Institute of
Medicine, 2002) 722–38
United Nations, Department of
Economic and Social Affairs, 'Social
Justice in an Open World: The Role of
the United Nations' (2006)
ST/ESA/305

Books

AB Atkinson, Social Justice and Public

Policy (1982) previews
Gad Barzilai, Communities and Law:
Politics and Cultures of Legal Identities
(University of Michigan Press) analysis
of justice for non-ruling communities
TN Carver, Essays in Social Justice
(1915) Chapter links.
C Quigley The Evolution Of Civilizations:
An Introduction to Historical Analysis
(1961) 2nd edition 1979
P Corning, The Fair Society: The
Science of Human Nature and the
Pursuit of Social Justice (Chicago UP
2011)
R Faden and M Powers, Social Justice:
The Moral Foundations of Public Health
and Health Policy (OUP 2006 )
J Franklin (ed), Life to the Full: Rights
and Social Justice in Australia (Connor
Court 2007)
FA Hayek, Law, Legislation and Liberty
(1973) vol II, ch 3
G Kitching, Seeking Social Justice
through Globalization: Escaping a
Nationalist Perspective (2003)
JS Mill, Utilitarianism (1863)
John Rawls, A Theory of Justice
(Harvard University Press 1971)
John Rawls, Political Liberalism
(Columbia University Press 1993)
C Philomena, B Hoose and G Mannion
(eds), Social Justice: Theological and
Practical Explorations (2007)
 A Swift, Political Philosophy (3rd edn
2013) ch 1
Michael J. Thompson, The Limits of
Liberalism: A Republican Theory of
Social Justice (International Journal
of Ethics: vol. 7, no. 3 (2011)

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