definition of social justice essay

What Is Social Justice?

Social justice is the belief that everyone in society deserves equal social, economic, and political rights; equal privileges; and equal opportunities.

The phrase “social justice” pops up a lot today in discussions around human rights issues. While its prevalence today makes it seem like a new idea, it’s an old concept. A Jesuit priest – Luigi Taparelli – is often cited as the originator of the term in the 1800s, but it appears earlier in The Federalist Papers in 1787. Social justice back then doesn’t mean what it means now, however. In this article, we’ll explore the evolution of social justice, what issues fall under social justice, and how social justice is achieved.

Where does social justice come from?

Ideas about justice, fairness, and social justice have evolved for thousands of years. In ancient Greece, Plato described the “perfect” city-state, which in his eyes meant a society ruled by philosopher-kings. In Athens, Greece, which is known as the birthplace of democracy, “rule by the people” only referred to certain people. In fact, the vast majority of Athenian society – including women, slaves, and foreigners – couldn’t participate in democracy. Not every society was so exclusive. According to research, women in Maya cultures often had shifting roles and more rights, such as the right to hold public office, beginning in 600 CE. However, gender equality doesn’t translate directly to social justice. Even societies with fairly progressive views on gender, power, and equality didn’t conceive of social justice the way we do now.

While the term “social justice” appears in the Federalist Papers, it wasn’t fully explored until the early 1840s by Jesuit priest Luigi Taparelli. Even then, he didn’t connect social justice to ideas about fairness or equality. In reviewing summaries from Catholic and conservative sources like Intercollegiate Studies Institute and Ava Maria University , it seems fair to say that Taparelli’s social justice sprouted from his Catholic beliefs and desire to counter liberal frameworks for society. Taparelli did not believe society should be equal; in fact, he believed the opposite. God chooses who has power, so a harmonious society is only possible when those with power rule over everyone else. Clearly, the modern definition of social justice is very different.

What does social justice mean now?

The definition of social justice has changed dramatically, so what do people mean today when they talk about social justice? There are four main principles you’ll see referenced over and over again: human rights, access, participation, and equity.

#1. Human rights

Social justice and human rights are often swapped in and out for each other linguistically, but human rights are technically the foundation of social justice. It’s the bare minimum upon which social justice is built. They need each other: when society respects and protects everyone’s human rights, social justice thrives, and when social justice is achieved, human rights thrive. Their connection is vital because human rights are recognized globally. Activists can use human rights law to hold governments, corporations, and individuals accountable when fighting for social justice.

A society that respects human rights provides necessities like housing, food, medical care, education, and more. However, who gets access to these necessities? How many barriers exist for certain groups based on things like their race, ability, age, gender, and sexuality? It’s not enough to simply provide certain goods and services, they must be easily accessible to everyone.

#3. Participation

Who gets to have a voice in society? Only the elite? Only the wealthy? Social justice wants everyone in society to participate in democratic processes like voting and running for office, as well as social and cultural life. Access is closely tied to participation. No one should mistake silence as a willful opting-out of decision-making. Are people getting access to what they need to participate in society? What can be done to encourage and promote participation?

Equity is one of the more complex and controversial social justice principles. It focuses on fairness and redistribution. Unlike equality, which treats everyone the same regardless of their backgrounds and needs, equity recognizes that people have different backgrounds, needs, and experiences. This means solutions need to be tailored, while the root causes of inequality – like racism and sexism – need to be addressed. What’s controversial about this? It means resources and opportunities will be unequally distributed. Those who have been historically discriminated against will get more than those who’ve enjoyed a privileged place in society. Critics say this perpetuates inequality, but that’s only true when it comes to the initial redistribution. The final result is still equality because it recalibrates the scales and addresses the unfair head start some in society have received.

What are the biggest social justice issues right now?

The most urgent social justice issues vary depending on where you live, but there are a handful that persist around the world. Here are five examples:

#1. Gender inequality

According to research on areas like political representation, education, and income, it will take around 300 years for the world to achieve gender equality if investments don’t improve. Why so long? COVID-19 stalled (and in some areas even reversed) much of the progress made over the past decades. Women lost around $800 billion in income during the pandemic, while reports of domestic violence against women and girls increased. Gender inequality is a pressing social justice issue as it affects every part of society, including its economic strength, political stability, and even human health and life expectancies .

#2. Unfair impacts of climate change

Climate change threatens us all, but certain people are facing disproportionate threats. As an example, the entire continent of Africa is responsible for less than 4% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, but it experiences the worst climate change effects. As the IPCC warns, “unavoidable increases” in risks to human health and life are on the horizon if global warming reaches 1.5°C in the near term between 2021-2040. Social justice focuses on fairness, which makes the unfair impact of climate change a pressing issue.

#3. Threats to the LGBTQ+ community

While LGBTQ+ rights – specifically marriage equality – have progressed significantly in recent years, serious threats remain. Just this past March in 2023, Uganda’s parliament passed one of the world’s harshest anti-LGBTQ+ bills. It criminalizes the mere act of identifying as LGBTQ+ and makes “aggravated homosexuality” (which includes having sex with someone who has HIV) punishable by death. According to a 2023 BBC article , homosexuality remains a criminal offense in 64 countries, leaving LGBTQ+ individuals vulnerable to prosecution and severe punishments. Attacks have increased in fairly progressive countries, as well, like the United States. The ACLU maps anti-gay bills in the US, and as of April 2023, it was tracking 452 bills.

#4. Systemic racial discrimination

Systemic racism, which leads to racial inequality, exists in various forms around the world. It affects things like education, healthcare access, homeownership, immigration policies, and much more. What can it look like? In the United States , Black men receive longer sentences than white men for committing the same federal crime. Research consistently shows discrimination in the American criminal justice system, which has ripple effects through entire communities and society at large.

#5. Wealth inequality

Around 8% of the world’s population lives on less than $2.15 a day, while just 1% of the world’s richest people got almost ⅔ of all the new wealth created since 2020. 1.7 billion workers are dealing with living costs that rise faster than their wages, which makes it much harder to stay out of poverty. COVID-19 made wealth inequality worse. The World Bank estimates that we lost about 3-4 years of progress toward ending extreme poverty. Making the wealthiest members of society pay their fair share and ensuring good pay for workers are among the two biggest social justice issues today.

How is social justice achieved?

Groups like government agencies, politicians, voters, and grassroots activist groups always struggle with what social justice means and how to achieve it. Some groups even push back on social justice initiatives as they believe they “punish” certain groups. More often than not, debates and criticism come down to disagreements about fairness, equality, and how progressive a society currently is. As an example, while most Americans believe racial discrimination persists in the United States, some believe there are no barriers to opportunity. Social justice education can help illuminate the truth.

Even when there’s agreement on social justice being a good goal, it’s common for solutions to only scratch the surface or unintentionally create more conflict. Society is full of different and specific needs; trying to balance them all while prioritizing the most marginalized is one of the most difficult tasks.

Many believe a human-rights approach is the best guide for successful social justice solutions. Why? Both social justice and human rights share a common goal: equality for all. The human-rights approach also holds governments accountable to the treaties and laws they’ve committed to. The term “social justice” is vague and not present in international law, while “human rights” is much better defined. Though both terms have been around for a while, international law stands on “human rights,” not social justice. A human-rights approach provides a framework of conduct activists can rely on – and expand – when fighting for social justice.

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About the author, emmaline soken-huberty.

Emmaline Soken-Huberty is a freelance writer based in Portland, Oregon. She started to become interested in human rights while attending college, eventually getting a concentration in human rights and humanitarianism. LGBTQ+ rights, women’s rights, and climate change are of special concern to her. In her spare time, she can be found reading or enjoying Oregon’s natural beauty with her husband and dog.

Roosevelt Review (Archives, 2014-2018)

Archives of roosevelt review: the roosevelt university alumni magazine, faculty essay: what is social justice.

May 14, 2015 by Susan Torres-Harding, associate professor of psychology 2 Comments

Susan Torres-Harding is an associate professor in the Department of Psychology. Her research interests include understanding the impact of sociocultural factors on physical and psychological health and assessing the development of social justice attitudes and social activism. She earned her PhD in Clinical Child Psychology from DePaul University in 2001.

Social justice has always been an important value to me and a foundation for my career aspirations. Therefore, in 2006, I was pleased to join the faculty at Roosevelt University, a university founded on inclusivity and one with a strong focus on social justice and social action. I quickly realized that this was a friendly “home” where I could continue to discuss the impact of societal inequalities and discrimination in health care, my own area of research.

At the same time, I was intrigued by the reactions of friends and colleagues when I told them that I was now at Roosevelt. Invariably, I would meet people who had been at Roosevelt in those early years, and they would tell me stories about what a special place Roosevelt is. They described Roosevelt as a school where people of all races came together—a college unlike others. The pictures hanging on the walls of the Auditorium Building from those early years are visual reminders of this truly unique integration of people from diverse racial groups at a time when racial segregation was the norm. Today Roosevelt continues to be ethnically and racially diverse, but the world has changed since Roosevelt came into being in 1945. In addition to racial injustice, which regrettably remains prevalent in our society, we now truly confront other forms of discrimination based on gender, sexual orientation, social class and disability status.

As a Roosevelt psychology professor, I often talked in my classes about social justice as a key value for the Roosevelt community, but I found students grappled with the meaning of social justice. What is social justice? Whom is it for? Many students talked about social justice as if it were a high-minded ideal, unrealistic or impractical to do in real life. While we often discussed the need to use our knowledge and skills to work for a more fair and just society, I wondered if students had become overwhelmed with the amount of injustice in society and whether they believed they could actually make a difference in the world.

This led me to ask myself, what do students think social justice is all about? More importantly, I wanted to know what I could do to empower them to take action and strive to make a difference while at Roosevelt and after.

In response to these questions, I started a series of studies to investigate how students understood social justice and how, if at all, they were learning about our social justice message and integrating it into their own lives. What did all of this talk of social justice mean to the students? And, how could we, as educators, facilitate the goals of students who had the sincere desire to promote social justice, but who also had the notion that it was too hard, impractical, unrealistic or idealistic? As an educator, I had a personal stake in these questions. I wanted to know if integrating social justice concerns into my classes was actually making a difference in how students viewed themselves, their communities, and their own personal and professional actions. In other words, were we living up to the Roosevelt University mission of educating “socially conscious citizens”? Does talking about social justice make a difference, or is it all a lot of feel-good talk that is disconnected from reality?

Students Define Social Justice

To begin answering some of these questions, my research team and I embarked on a study to first understand how students defined social justice. In textbooks, researchers and educators define social justice as “involving the recognition of the existence of social injustices based upon being a member of a non-dominant or marginalized social group.” These marginalized social groups can include people who live in poverty, women, people who are LGBTQ, people who are disabled, people from racial and cultural minority groups, and people who have severe mental illness or have a substance abuse disorder. Researchers also defined social justice as “a value or desire to increase access of power, privileges and socioeconomic resources to people from socially marginalized groups.”

But is this how students thought about social justice? I believed it unlikely that most students would think about social justice in such abstract terms. So we conducted a study with Roosevelt students simply asking how they defined social justice. We found that students were relatively consistent in their definitions. They tended to describe social justice as addressing injustices in equality and promoting opportunity, rights, fairness and acceptance of everyone, including people from diverse backgrounds. Interestingly, a significant proportion (44 percent) of the students said they engaged in some activity that promoted social justice.

Additionally, we asked students to describe what they were actually doing to promote social justice. In most academic papers, social activism is defined as political activism: marching in protests, attending rallies, writing legislators or voting in order to promote policy or legal changes.

They tended to describe social justice as addressing injustices in equality and promoting opportunity, rights, fairness and acceptance of everyone, including people from diverse backgrounds.

Interestingly, there was a tremendous range of responses to our question. In addition to political activism, we identified many different categories of social justice activities, including conducting social-justice-related research, being a member of or volunteering for an organization that focused on social activism, seeking out educational opportunities to learn more about social justice, engaging in advocacy on behalf of people from disadvantaged or marginalized groups, and talking to family and friends about social justice.

What was most impressive to me was the creativity displayed by students as they sought to promote social justice, as well as the diversity of issues addressed by their actions. Many students reported participating in marches, protests and other direct social actions for economic or racial change. One participant was working to promote social justice by acting in a short film that aimed to foster acceptance of LGBTQ youth during the coming out process. Some students were using a social justice approach when providing clinical services to children with developmental disabilities. A few reported that they were engaged in youth mentoring or were working on behalf of youth within the juvenile justice system. Others were working to promote racial justice, women’s empowerment and awareness around diversity-related justice. Still others described being LGBTQ allies or serving as advocates for women who have endured domestic and sexual violence. We also had students who volunteered at community or religious organizations to help individuals around issues of poverty and food security.

A significant number of students indicated that they spoke with family or friends about these issues. I think that these kinds of actions are more quiet forms of activism. Discussing issues of social justice with significant others might have the impact of changing attitudes or gaining support from them. In turn, this might ultimately increase awareness of social issues and might influence others to take action in some way in their own lives.

Many of the students’ efforts involved using resources available at Roosevelt University. These included engaging in social-justice related research, attending lectures, being part of student groups and organizations that promoted social justice such as RU PROUD (a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning and ally organization) and Students for a Sensible Drug Policy , engaging in social justice as part of their professional clinical training and volunteering as part of service learning. Although less than half of the students we surveyed reported engaging in activism, those who were active appeared to take advantage of the resources and opportunities available at Roosevelt, and many sought to integrate these experiences with their academic studies.

Connecting With The Mission

The second study that my research team and I conducted focused on the role of the University mission in promoting positive attitudes toward social justice. I wanted to understand whether students who felt more involved at the University and agreed with its mission were in fact more likely to engage in social activism. Interestingly, I found that students who reported having a high sense of community—that is, feeling as if they belonged to the “Roosevelt family”—said they valued the social justice mission more.

Students who respected the social justice mission were much more likely to state that they intended to work for social justice in the future and felt that they possessed the skills to effect positive change. These students were also more likely to report having engaged in social activism, talk about social justice issues with family and friends and personally identify as social activists. It seems that Roosevelt’s social justice mission influenced students by impacting both positive attitudes toward social justice and facilitating the integration of social justice concerns into their personal and professional lives. Feeling a part of the Roosevelt community mattered because it allowed them to share in this core community value.

Thus, the mission and values of Roosevelt University are having an impact on our students’ actions. We are currently conducting additional studies where we hope to follow undergraduate students over time to see how their ideas and views of social justice might change as they move from freshman to senior year. We are also interviewing student activists to learn from their unique experiences, motivations and perceptions of their own work.

Indeed, it has been a pleasure to be able to assess and document the amazingly diverse and creative activism that is going on at Roosevelt. In addition to the examples listed above, Roosevelt students have participated in walk-outs and rallies in Grant Park, lobbied at the state capital, made videos to help educate others about traditionally marginalized groups, conducted interventions to promote health and wellness in our communities, and organized programs that give our students and people in the community a voice. We have so much to learn from our students!

An important part of social justice education is to trust that students are able to evaluate the information we provide and use it in a way that is valid, realistic and relevant to their own lives. Because students are able to come up with so many unique and creative ways to address injustices in their interpersonal and professional lives, professors should not provide answers, but rather should pose questions to help students recognize the real challenges in our society. We can encourage them to critically evaluate their own views and the views of others and provide them with a range of interventions and interpersonal skills that they can then use to confront a range of social problems and issues in their own ways. We also need to recognize that this is hard, risky work.

An important part of social justice education is to trust that students are able to evaluate the information we provide and use it in a way that is valid, realistic and relevant to their own lives.

Working for social justice is, by its nature, “radical” because it focuses on changing the status quo, challenging existing policies and can involve breaking rules. As educators, it is important that we not only talk about social justice but provide students with the skills they need to take action and be effective. Promoting favorable attitudes and teaching interpersonal intervention and activism skills will have a positive impact on students and help them fulfill the Roosevelt mission of creating “socially conscious citizens” who change the world.

Contact Susan Torres-Harding at [email protected]

November 23, 2018 at 10:53 am

extremely nice one……..

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The idea of justice occupies centre stage both in ethics, and in legal and political philosophy. We apply it to individual actions, to laws, and to public policies, and we think in each case that if they are unjust this is a strong, maybe even conclusive, reason to reject them. Classically, justice was counted as one of the four cardinal virtues (and sometimes as the most important of the four); in modern times John Rawls famously described it as ‘the first virtue of social institutions’ (Rawls 1971, p.3; Rawls, 1999, p.3). We might debate which of these realms of practical philosophy has first claim on justice: is it first and foremost a property of the law, for example, and only derivatively a property of individuals and other institutions? But it is probably more enlightening to accept that the idea has over time sunk deep roots in each of these domains, and to try to make sense of such a wide-ranging concept by identifying elements that are present whenever justice is invoked, but also examining the different forms it takes in various practical contexts. This article aims to provide a general map of the ways in which justice has been understood by philosophers, past and present.

We begin by identifying four core features that distinguish justice from other moral and political ideas. We then examine some major conceptual contrasts: between conservative and ideal justice, between corrective and distributive justice, between procedural and substantive justice, and between comparative and non-comparative justice. Next we turn to questions of scope: to who or what do principles of justice apply? We ask whether non-human animals can be subjects of justice, whether justice applies only between people who already stand in a particular kind of relationship to one another, and whether individual people continue to have duties of justice once justice-based institutions have been created. We then examine three overarching theories that might serve to unify the different forms of justice: utilitarianism, contractarianism, and egalitarianism. But it seems, in conclusion, that no such theory is likely be successful.

More detailed discussions of particular forms of justice can be found in other entries: see especially distributive justice , global justice , intergenerational justice , international distributive justice , justice and bad luck , justice as a virtue , and retributive justice .

1.1 Justice and Individual Claims

1.2 justice, charity and enforceable obligation, 1.3 justice and impartiality, 1.4 justice and agency, 2.1 conservative versus ideal justice, 2.2 corrective versus distributive justice, 2.3 procedural versus substantive justice, 2.4 comparative versus non-comparative justice, 3.1 human vs non-human animals, 3.2 relational vs non-relational justice, 3.3 individuals vs institutions, 3.4 recognition vs. redistribution, 4.1 accommodating intuitions about justice, 4.2 utilitarian theories of justice: three problems, 5.1 gauthier, 5.3 scanlon, 6.1 justice as equality, 6.2 responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism, 6.3 relational egalitarianism, 7. conclusion, other internet resources, related entries, 1. justice: mapping the concept.

‘Justice’ has sometimes been used in a way that makes it virtually indistinguishable from rightness in general. Aristotle, for example, distinguished between ‘universal’ justice that corresponded to ‘virtue as a whole’ and ‘particular’ justice which had a narrower scope (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics , Book V, chs. 1–2). The wide sense may have been more evident in classical Greek than in modern English. But Aristotle also noted that when justice was identified with ‘complete virtue’, this was always ‘in relation to another person’. In other words, if justice is to be identified with morality as such, it must be morality in the sense of ‘what we owe to each other’ (see Scanlon 1998). But it is anyway questionable whether justice should be understood so widely. At the level of individual ethics, justice is often contrasted with charity on the one hand, and mercy on the other, and these too are other-regarding virtues. At the level of public policy, reasons of justice are distinct from, and often compete with, reasons of other kinds, for example economic efficiency or environmental value.

As this article will endeavour to show, justice takes on different meanings in different practical contexts, and to understand it fully we have to grapple with this diversity. But it is nevertheless worth asking whether we find a core concept that runs through all these various uses, or whether it is better regarded as a family resemblance idea according to which different combinations of features are expected to appear on each occasion of use. The most plausible candidate for a core definition comes from the Institutes of Justinian , a codification of Roman Law from the sixth century AD, where justice is defined as ‘the constant and perpetual will to render to each his due’. This is of course quite abstract until further specified, but it does throw light upon four important aspects of justice.

First, it shows that justice has to do with how individual people are treated (‘to each his due’). Issues of justice arise in circumstances in which people can advance claims – to freedom, opportunities, resources, and so forth – that are potentially conflicting, and we appeal to justice to resolve such conflicts by determining what each person is properly entitled to have. In contrast, where people’s interests converge, and the decision to be taken is about the best way to pursue some common purpose – think of a government official having to decide how much food to stockpile as insurance against some future emergency – justice gives way to other values. In other cases, there may be no reason to appeal to justice because resources are so plentiful that we do not need to worry about allotting shares to individuals. Hume pointed out that in a hypothetical state of abundance where ‘every individual finds himself fully provided with whatever his most voracious appetites can want’, ‘the cautious, jealous virtue of justice would never once have been dreamed of’ (Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals , pp. 183–4). Hume also believed – and philosophical controversy on this point persists until today – that justice has no place in close personal relationships, such as the family, where (it is alleged) each identifies with the others’ interests so strongly that there is no need and no reason for anyone to make claims of personal entitlement. (See Sandel 1982 for a defence of this view; for a critique, see Okin 1989. See also the entry on feminist perspectives on reproduction and the family) .

That justice is a matter of how each separate person is treated appears to create problems for theories such as utilitarianism that judge actions and policies on the basis of their overall consequences aggregated across people – assuming that these theories wish to incorporate rather than discard the idea of justice. In Section 4 below we examine how utilitarians have attempted to respond to this challenge.

Although justice is centrally a matter of how individuals are treated, it is also possible to speak of justice for groups – for example when the state is allocating resources between different categories of citizens. Here each group is being treated as though it were a separate individual for purposes of the allocation.

Second, Justinian’s definition underlines that just treatment is something due to each person, in other words that justice is a matter of claims that can be rightfully made against the agent dispensing justice, whether a person or an institution. Here there is a contrast with other virtues: we demand justice, but we beg for charity or forgiveness. This also means that justice is a matter of obligation for the agent dispensing it, and that the agent wrongs the recipient if the latter is denied what is due to her. It is a characteristic mark of justice that the obligations it creates should be enforceable: we can be made to deliver what is due to others as a matter of justice, either by the recipients themselves or by third parties. However it overstates the position to make the enforceability of its requirements a defining feature of justice (see Buchanan 1987). On the one hand, there are some claims of justice that seem not to be enforceable (by anyone). When we dispense gifts to our children or our friends, we ought to treat each recipient fairly, but neither the beneficiaries themselves nor anyone else can rightfully force the giver to do so. On the other hand, in cases of extreme emergency, it may sometimes be justifiable to force people to do more than justice requires them to do – there may exist enforceable duties of humanity. But these are rare exceptions. The obligatory nature of justice generally goes hand-in-hand with enforceability.

The third aspect of justice to which Justinian’s definition draws our attention is the connection between justice and the impartial and consistent application of rules – that is what the ‘constant and perpetual will’ part of the definition conveys. Justice is the opposite of arbitrariness. It requires that where two cases are relevantly alike, they should be treated in the same way (We discuss below the special case of justice and lotteries). Following a rule that specifies what is due to a person who has features X , Y , Z whenever such a person is encountered ensures this. And although the rule need not be unchangeable – perpetual in the literal sense – it must be relatively stable. This explains why justice is exemplified in the rule of law, where laws are understood as general rules impartially applied over time. Outside of the law itself, individuals and institutions that want to behave justly must mimic the law in certain ways (for instance, gathering reliable information about individual claimants, allowing for appeals against decisions).

Finally, the definition reminds us that justice requires an agent whose will alters the circumstances of its objects. The agent might be an individual person, or it might be a group of people, or an institution such as the state. So we cannot, except metaphorically, describe as unjust states of affairs that no agent has contributed to bringing about – unless we think that there is a Divine Being who has ordered the universe in such a way that every outcome is a manifestation of His will. Admittedly we are tempted to make judgements of what is sometimes called ‘cosmic injustice’ – say when a talented person’s life is cut cruelly short by cancer, or our favourite football team is eliminated from the competition by a freak goal – but this is a temptation we should resist.

This agency condition, however, is less restrictive than it might at first appear. It by no means excludes the possibility that agents can create injustice by omission – for example by failing to create the institutions or to enact the policies that would deliver vital resources to those who need them. Thus it is now common to speak of ‘systemic injustice’ in the case of bad outcomes that no-one intends to occur but that could be prevented by a shift in social norms or institutional practices. The agents in these cases are all those who by acting together to change these things could invert the injustice, but have so far failed to do so.

2. Justice: Four Distinctions

We have so far looked at four elements that are present in every use of the concept of justice. Now it is time to consider some equally important contrasts.

Philosophers writing on justice have observed that it has two different faces, one conservative of existing norms and practices, the other demanding reform of these norms and practices (see Sidgwick 1874/1907, Raphael 2001). Thus on the one hand it is a matter of justice to respect people’s rights under existing law or moral rules, or more generally to fulfil the legitimate expectations they have acquired as a result of past practice, social conventions, and so forth; on the other hand, justice often gives us reason to change laws, practices and conventions quite radically, thereby creating new entitlements and expectations. This exposes an ambiguity in what it means to ‘render each his due’. What is ‘due’ might be what a person can reasonably expect to have given existing law, policy, or social practice, or it might be what the person should get under a regime of ideal justice: this could mean what the person deserves, or needs, or is entitled to on grounds of equality, depending on which ideal principle is being invoked.

Conceptions of justice vary according to the weight they attach to each of these faces. At one extreme, some conceptions interpret justice as wholly concerned with what individuals can claim under existing laws and social conventions: thus for Hume, justice was to be understood as adherence to a set of rules that assign physical objects to individuals (such as being the first possessor of such an object) (Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature , Book III, Part II). These rules can be explained by reference to the natural associations that form in people’s minds between persons and external objects, and although the system of justice as a whole can be shown to be socially useful, there are no relevant independent standards by which its principles can be assessed (Hume briskly dismissed equality and merit as principles for allocating property to persons). In similar vein, Hayek argued that justice was a property of individual behaviour, understood as compliance with the ‘rules of just conduct’ that had evolved to enable a market economy to function effectively. For Hayek, to speak of ‘social justice’ as an ideal standard of distribution was as meaningless as to speak of a ‘moral stone’ (Hayek 1976, p. 78)

At the other extreme stand conceptions of justice which posit some ideal principle of distribution such as equality, together with a ‘currency’ specifying the respect in which justice requires people to be made equally well off, and then refuse to acknowledge the justice of any claims that do not arise directly from the application of this principle. Thus claims deriving from existing law or practice are dismissed unless they happen to coincide with what the principle requires. More often, however, ideal justice is seen as proposing principles by which existing institutions and practices can be assessed, with a view to reforming them, or in the extreme case abolishing them entirely, while the claims that people already have under those practices are given some weight. Rawls, for example, whose two principles of justice count as ideal principles for this purpose, is at pains to stress that they are not intended to be applied in a way that disregards people’s existing legitimate expectations. About the ‘difference principle’, which requires social and economic inequalities to be regulated so that they work to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged members of society, he says:

It applies to the announced system of public law and statutes and not to particular transactions or distributions, nor to the decisions of individuals and associations, but rather to the institutional background against which these transactions and decisions take place. There are no unannounced and unpredictable interferences with citizens’ expectations and acquisitions. Entitlements are earned and honored as the public system of rules declares. (Rawls 1993, p. 283)

Here we see Rawls attempting to reconcile the demands of conservative and ideal justice. Yet he does not directly address the question of what should happen when changing circumstances mean that the difference principle requires new laws or policies to be enacted: do those whose prior entitlements or expectations are no longer met have a claim to be compensated for their loss? We could call this the question of transitional justice (though this phrase is often used now in a more specific sense to refer to the process of reconciliation that may occur following civil war or other armed conflicts: see the entry on transitional justice ).

A second important contrast, whose pedigree reaches back at least as far as Aristotle, is between justice as a principle for assigning distributable goods of various kinds to individual people, and justice as a remedial principle that applies when one person wrongly interferes with another’s legitimate holdings. Thus suppose Bill steals Alice’s computer, or sells Alice faulty goods which he claims to be in perfect order: then Alice suffers a loss, which justice demands that Bill should remedy by returning the computer or fulfilling his contract honestly. Corrective justice, then, essentially concerns a bilateral relationship between a wrongdoer and his victim, and demands that the fault be cancelled by restoring the victim to the position she would have been in had the wrongful behaviour not occurred; it may also require that the wrongdoer not benefit from his faulty behaviour. Distributive justice, on the other hand, is multilateral: it assumes a distributing agent, and a number of persons who have claims on what is being distributed. Justice here requires that the resources available to the distributor be shared according to some relevant criterion, such as equality, desert, or need. In Aristotle’s example, if there are fewer flutes available than people who want to play them, they should be given to the best performers (Aristotle, The Politics , p. 128). In modern debates, principles of distributive justice are applied to social institutions such as property and tax systems, which are understood as producing distributive outcomes across large societies, or even the world as a whole.

The conceptual distinction between distributive and corrective justice seems clear, but their normative relationship is more difficult to pin down (see Perry 2000, Ripstein 2004, Coleman 1992, chs. 16–17). Some have claimed that corrective justice is merely instrumental to distributive justice: its aim is to move from a situation of distributive injustice brought about by the faulty behaviour to one that is more nearly (if not perfectly) distributively just. But this view runs into a number of objections. One is that so long as Alice has a legitimate title to her computer, her claim of corrective justice against Bill does not depend on her having had, prior to the theft, the share of resources that distributive justice ideally demands. She might be richer than she deserves to be, yet corrective justice still require that the computer be returned to her. In other words, corrective justice may serve to promote conservative rather than ideal justice, to use the distinction introduced in 2.1. Another objection is that corrective justice requires the wrongdoer himself to restore or compensate the person he has wronged, even if the cause of distributive justice could be better served by transferring resources from a third party – giving Alice one of even-more-undeservedly-rich Charles’s computers, for example. This underlines the bilateral nature of corrective justice, and also the fact that it comes into play in response to faulty behaviour on someone’s part. Its primary demand is that people should not lose out because others have behaved wrongfully or carelessly, but it also encompasses the idea that ‘no man should profit by his own wrong’. If Alice loses her computer in a boating accident, she might, under an insurance scheme, have a claim of distributive justice to a new machine, but she has no claim of corrective justice.

If corrective justice cannot be subsumed normatively under distributive justice, we need to explain its value. What is achieved when we make Bill return the computer to Alice? Aristotle ( Nicomachean Ethics , Book V, ch. 4) suggested that corrective justice aims to restore the two parties to a position of equality; by returning the computer we cancel both Bill’s unjustified gain and Alice’s unjustified loss. But this assumes that the computer can be returned intact. Corrective justice requires that Alice be made no worse off than she was before the theft, even if that means Bill suffering an absolute loss (e.g. by paying for a new computer if he has damaged Alice’s). Aristotle himself recognized that the idea of evening out gain and loss made no literal sense in a case where one person assaults another and has to compensate him for his injury – there is no ‘gain’ to be redistributed. It seems, then, that the value of corrective justice must lie in the principle that each person must take responsibility for his own conduct, and if he fails to respect the legitimate interests of others by causing injury, he must make good the harm. In that way, each person can plan her life secure in the knowledge that she will be protected against certain kinds of external setbacks. Philosophers and lawyers writing on corrective justice disagree about what standard of responsibility should apply – for example whether compensation is required only when one person wilfully or negligently causes another to suffer loss, or whether it can also be demanded when the perpetrator displays no such fault but is nevertheless causally responsible for the injury.

A third distinction that must be drawn is between the justice of the procedures that might be used to determine how benefits and burdens of various kinds are allocated to people, and the justice of the final allocation itself. It might initially seem as though the justice of a procedure can be reduced to the justice of the results produced by applying it, but this is not so. For one thing, there are cases in which the idea of an independently just outcome makes no sense. A coin toss is a fair way of deciding who starts a game, but neither the Blues nor the Reds have a claim of justice to bat first or kick off. But even where a procedure has been shaped by a concern that it should produce substantively just outcomes, it may still have special properties that make it intrinsically just. In that case, using a different procedure to produce the same result might be objectionable. In an influential discussion, John Rawls contrasted perfect procedural justice , where a procedure is such that if it is followed a just outcome is guaranteed (requiring the person who cuts a cake to take the last slice himself is the illustration Rawls provides), imperfect procedural justice , where the procedure is such that following it is likely, but not certain, to produce the just result, and pure procedural justice , such as the coin-tossing example, where there is no independent way to assess the outcome – if we call it just, it is only on the grounds that it has come about by following the relevant procedure (Rawls 1971, 1999, § 14).

Theories of justice can then be distinguished according to the relative weight they attach to procedures and substantive outcomes. Some theories are purely procedural in form. Robert Nozick distinguished between historical theories of justice, end-state theories, and patterned theories in order to defend the first against the second and third (Nozick 1974). An end-state theory defines justice in terms of some overall property of a distribution (of resources, welfare, etc.) – for example whether it is egalitarian, or whether the lowest position in the distribution is as high as it can be, as Rawls’ difference principle requires. A patterned theory looks at whether what each receives as part of a distribution matches some individual feature such as their desert or their need. By contrast, an historical theory asks about the process by which the final outcome has arisen. In Nozick’s particular case, a distribution of resources is said to be just if everyone within its scope is entitled to what they now own, having acquired it by legitimate means – such as voluntary contract or gift – from someone who was also entitled to have it, leading back eventually to a just act of acquisition – such as labouring on a plot of land – that gave the first owner his valid title. The shape of the final distribution is irrelevant: according to Nozick, justice is entirely a matter of the sequence of prior events that created it (for critical assessments of Nozick’s position, see Paul 1982, Wolff 1991, Cohen 1995, chs. 1–2).

For most philosophers, however, the justice of a procedure is to a large extent a function of the justice of the outcomes that it tends to produce when applied. For instance, the procedures that together make up a fair trial are justified on the grounds that for the most part they produce outcomes in which the guilty are punished and the innocent are acquitted. Yet even in these cases, we should be wary of assuming that the procedure itself has no independent value. We can ask of a procedure whether it treats the people to whom it is applied justly, for example by giving them adequate opportunities to advance their claims, not requiring them to provide personal information that they find humiliating to reveal, and so forth. Studies by social psychologists have shown that in many cases people care more about being treated fairly by the institutions they have to deal with than about how they fare when the procedure’s final result is known (Lind and Tyler 1988).

Justice takes a comparative form when to determine what is due to one person we need to look at what others can also claim: to determine how large a slice of pie is rightfully John’s, we have to know how many others have a claim to the pie, and also what the principle for sharing it should be – equality, or something else. Justice takes a non-comparative form when we can determine what is due to a person merely by knowing relevant facts about that particular person: if John has already been promised the whole of the pie, then that is what he can rightfully claim for himself. Some theories of justice seem to imply that justice is always a comparative notion – for example when it is said that justice consists in the absence of arbitrary inequality – whereas others imply that it is always non-comparative. But conceptually, at least, both forms seem admissible; indeed we can find cases in which it appears we have to choose between doing justice comparatively and doing it non-comparatively (see Feinberg 1974; for a critical response, see Montague 1980). For example, we might have several candidates all of whom are roughly equally deserving of an academic honour, but the number of honours we are permitted to award is smaller than the number of candidates. If we honour some but not others, we perpetrate a comparative injustice, but if to avoid doing so we honour no-one at all, then each is treated less well than they deserve, and so unjustly from a non-comparative perspective.

Theories of justice can then be categorised according to whether they are comparative, non-comparative, or neither. Principles of equality – principles requiring the equal distribution of some kind of benefit – are plainly comparative in form, since what is due to each person is simply an equal share of the benefit in question rather than any fixed amount. In the case of principles of desert, the position is less straightforward. These principles take the form ‘ A deserves X by virtue of P ’, where X is a mode of treatment, and P is a personal characteristic possessed by A (Feinberg 1970). In the case of both X and P , we can ask whether they are to be identified comparatively or non-comparatively. Thus what A deserves might either be an entitlement, or an absolute amount of some benefit – ‘a living wage’, say – or it might be a share of some collective benefit, or a multiple or fraction of what others are receiving – ‘twice what B is getting’, say. Turning to P , or what is often called the desert basis, this may be a feature of A that we can identify without reference to anyone else, or it may be a comparative feature, such as being the best student in a graduating class. So desert-based claims of justice might take one of four different forms depending on whether the basis of desert and/or the deserved mode of treatment is comparative or non-comparative (see Olsaretti 2003 for essays that address this question; for a more advanced treatment, see Kagan 2012, Part III).

Among principles of justice that are straightforwardly non-comparative are ‘sufficiency’ principles which hold that what justice requires is that each person should have ‘enough’, on some dimension or other – for instance, have all of their needs fulfilled, or have a specified set of capabilities that they are able to exercise (for a general defence of sufficiency, though not one that links it specifically to justice, see Frankfurt 2015; for a critique, see Casal 2007). Such principles, however, need to be supplemented by other principles, not only to tell us what to do with the surplus (assuming there is one) once everyone has sufficient resources, but also to guide us in situations where there are too few resources to bring everyone up to the sufficiency threshold. Should we, for example, maximise the number of people who achieve sufficiency, or minimise the aggregate shortfall suffered by those in the relevant group? Unless we are prepared to say that these are not matters of justice, a theory of justice that contains only the sufficiency principle and nothing else looks incomplete.

Some theories of justice cannot readily be classified either as comparative or as non-comparative. Consider one part of Rawls’ theory of social justice, the difference principle, which as noted above requires that social and economic inequalities be arranged to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged (Rawls 1971, 1999, §12–13). Under this principle, ideally just shares are calculated by determining what each person would receive under the set of social institutions whose economic effect is to raise the worst off person to the highest possible level. This is neither a fixed amount, nor one that depends in any direct sense on what other individuals are receiving, or should receive. Applying the difference principle does require making comparisons, but these are comparisons between the effects of different social institutions – say different tax laws, or different ways of defining property rights – not between individual people and the amounts of benefit they are receiving. We might call theories of this kind ‘holistic’ or ‘systemic’.

3. The Scope of Justice

When we raise questions about the scope of justice, we are asking about when principles of justice take effect and among whom . We have already, when discussing Hume, encountered the idea that there might be circumstances in which justice becomes irrelevant – circumstances in which resources are so abundant that it is pointless to allocate individual shares, or, as Hume also believed, in which resources are so scarce that everyone is permitted to grab what he can in the name of self-preservation. But even in circumstances that are less extreme than these, questions about scope arise. Who can make claims of justice, and who might have the corresponding obligation to meet them? Does this depend on the kind of thing that is being claimed? If comparative principles are being applied, who should be counted as part of the comparison group? Do some principles of justice have universal scope – they apply whenever agent A acts towards recipient B , regardless of the relationship between them – while others are contextual in character, applying only within social or political relationships of a certain kind? The present section examines some of these questions in greater detail.

What does a creature have to do, or be like, to be included within the scope of (at least some) principles of justice? Most past philosophers have assumed that the line should be drawn so as to exclude all non-human animals, but more recently some have been prepared to defend ‘justice for animals’ (Nussbaum 2006, ch. 6; Garner 2013). Against this, Rawls asserts that although we have ‘duties of compassion and humanity’ towards animals and should refrain from treating them cruelly, nonetheless they are ‘outside the scope of the theory of justice’ (Rawls 1971, p. 512; Rawls 1999, p. 448). How could this claim be justified?

We can focus our attention either on individual features that humans possess and animals lack, and that might be thought relevant to their inclusion within the scope of justice, or on asymmetries in the relationship between humans and other animals. To begin with the latter, Hume claimed that the domination humans exercised over animals – such that an animal could only possess something by virtue of our permission – meant that we were ‘bound by the laws of humanity to give gentle usage to these creatures, but should not, properly speaking, lie under any restraint of justice with regard to them’ (Hume, Enquiry , p. 190). For Rawls and those influenced by him, principles of distributive justice apply among agents who are related to one another as participants in a ‘cooperative venture for mutual advantage’, and this might seem to exclude animals from the scope of such principles. Critics of this view have pointed to cases of human-animal co-operation (Donaldson and Kymlicka 2011, Valentini 2014); however these arguments focus mainly or entirely on the special case of dogs , and it seems implausible to generalise from them in an attempt to show that human-animal relationships generally have a co-operative character.

But the claim that justice only applies to participants in co-operative practices is anyway vulnerable to the objection that it risks excluding seriously disabled people, people living in isolated communities, and future generations from the scope of justice, so it does not seem compelling as a claim about justice in general (see further below). Might there be other reasons why animals cannot make claims of justice on us? Another Rawls-inspired suggestion is that animals lack the necessary moral powers, in particular the capacity to act on principles of justice themselves. They cannot distinguish what is justly owed to them from what is not; and they cannot determine what they owe to others – whether to humans or to other non-human animals – as a matter of justice. This suggestion interprets justice as involving a kind of reciprocity: an agent to whom justice is due must also in principle be an agent who could dispense justice to others, by virtue of having the relevant capacity, even if for physical reasons – such as suffering from severe disability – they cannot do so in practice.

If this suggestion is rejected, and we allow that some animals, at least, should be included within the scope of justice, we can then ask about the form that justice should take in their cases. Using the distinction drawn in 2.4 above, it appears that justice for animals must be non-comparative. For example, we might attribute rights to the animals over whom we exercise power – rights against cruel treatment, and rights to food and shelter, for instance. This would involve using a sufficiency principle to determine what animals are owed as a matter of justice. It is much less plausible to think that comparative principles might apply, such that giving special treats to one cat but not another could count as an injustice.

The Rawlsian view introduced in the previous section, which holds that principles of social justice apply among people who are engaged together in a co-operative practice, is a leading example of a relational theory of justice. Other theories offer different accounts of the relevant justice-generating feature: for example, Nagel has argued that principles of distributive justice apply among people who by virtue of being citizens of the same state are required both to comply with, and accept responsibility for, the coercive laws that govern their lives (Nagel 2005). In both cases, the claim being made is that when people stand in a certain relationship to one another, they become subject to principles of justice whose scope is limited to those within the relationship. In particular, comparative principles apply within the relationship, but not beyond it. If A stands in a relationship (of the right kind) to B , then it becomes a matter of justice how A is treated relative to B , but it does not matter in the same way how A is treated relative to C who stands outside of the relationship. Justice may still require that C be given treatment of a certain kind, but that will be justice in its non-comparative guise.

Whether justice is relational in either of the ways that Rawls and Nagel suggest has large implications for its scope. In particular it bears on the question whether there is such a thing as global distributive justice, or, in contrast, whether distributive principles only apply to people who are related together as members of the same society or citizens of the same state. For example, might the global inequalities that exist between rich and poor in today’s world be unjust simply as inequalities, or are they unjust only insofar as they prevent poor people from living lives that we judge to be acceptable? (see entries on international distributive justice and global justice ) So much hangs on the question whether, and if so in virtue of what, distributive justice has a relational character. What reason can be given for thinking that it does?

Suppose we have two people A and B , of whom one is significantly better off than another – has greater opportunities or a higher income, say. Why should this be a concern of justice? It seems it will not be a concern unless it can be shown that the inequality between A and B can be attributed to the behaviour of some agent, individual or collective, whose actions or omissions have resulted in A being better off than B – in which case we can ask whether the inequality between them is justifiable, say on grounds of their respective deserts. This reiterates the claim in 1.4 above that without an agent to whom the outcome can be attributed there can only be justice or injustice in a metaphorical, ‘cosmic’, sense. Relational theorists claim that when people associate with one another in the relevant way, they become agents of justice. On a small scale they can organize informally to ensure that each receives what is due to him relative to the rest. On a larger scale, distributive justice requires the creation of legal and other institutions to achieve that outcome. Moreover failure to co-ordinate their actions in this way is likely to be a source of injustice by omission.

Debates about the scope of justice then become debates about whether different forms of human association are of the right kind to create agency in the relevant sense. Take the question of whether principles of social justice should apply to market transactions. If we see the market as a neutral arena in which many individual people freely pursue their own purposes, then the answer will be No. The only form of justice that arises will be justice in the conduct of each agent, who must avoid inflicting harm on others, must fulfil her contracts, and so forth. Whereas if we see the market as governed by a humanly-constructed system of rules that the participants collectively have the power to change – by legislation, for example – then we cannot avoid asking whether the outcomes it currently produces meet relevant standards of distributive justice, whatever we take these to be. A similar issue arises in the debate about over principles of global justice referred to above: is the current world order such that it makes sense to regard humanity as a whole as a collective agent responsible for the distributive outcomes it allows to occur?

Once institutions are established for the purpose (among other things) of delivering justice on a large scale, we can ask what duties of justice individual people have in consequence. Is their duty simply to support the institutions, and comply with whatever rules of conduct apply to them personally? Or do they have further duties to promote justice by acting directly on the relevant principles in their daily lives? No one doubts that some duties of justice fall directly on individuals, for example duties not to deceive or defraud when engaging in commercial transactions (and duties of corrective justice where behaviour is faulty), or duties to carry out one’s fair share of an informally organized project from which one expects to benefit, such as cleaning up the neighbourhood park. Others fall on them because they are performing a role within a social institution, for example the duty of an employer not to discriminate on grounds of race or gender when hiring workers, or the duty of a local government officer to assign public housing to those in greatest need. But what is much more in dispute is whether individual people have more extensive duties to promote social justice (for contrasting views, see Cohen 2008, ch. 3, Murphy 1998, Rawls 1993, Lecture VII, Young 2011, ch. 2).

Consider two cases: the first concerns parents who confer advantages on their children in ways that undermine fair equality of opportunity. If the latter principle of justice requires, to cite Rawls, that ‘those who have the same level of talent and ability and the same willingness to use these gifts should have the same prospects of success regardless of their social class of origin’ (Rawls 2001, p. 44) then there are myriad ways in which some parents can bestow advantages on their children that other parents cannot – financial benefits, educational opportunities, social contacts, and so forth – that are likely to bring greater success in later life. Are parents therefore constrained as a matter of justice to avoid conferring at least some of these advantages, or are they free to benefit their children as they choose, leaving the pursuit of equal opportunities entirely in the hands of the state (for a careful analysis, see Brighouse and Swift 2014)?

The second example concerns wage differentials. Might individuals whose talents can bring them high rewards in the labour market have a duty not to make use of their bargaining power, but instead be willing to work for a fair wage – which if fairness is understood in egalitarian terms might mean the same wage as everyone else (perhaps with extra compensation for those whose labour is unusually burdensome)? Rawls, as we saw above, argued that economic justice meant arranging social and economic inequalities to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged, and in formulating the principle in this way he assumed that some inequalities might serve as incentives to greater production that would also raise the position of the worst-off group in society. But if individuals were willing to forego incentives, and so economic inequalities served no useful purpose, then the arrangement that worked to the greatest benefit of the (otherwise) least advantaged would be one of strict equality. Cohen (2008) argues that Rawls’ position is internally inconsistent. As citizens designing our institutions we are supposed to be guided by the difference principle, but as private actors in the marketplace, we are permitted to ignore that principle and bargain for higher wages, even though doing so will work to the disadvantage of the worst-off group. Justice, according to Cohen, requires us to embrace an ethos of service that disdains material incentives.

Why might we hesitate before agreeing that in cases such as these, justice requires people to refrain from doing things that they are permitted to do by the public rules of their society (passing on benefits to their children; seeking higher wages)? One reason is that the refraining is only going to have a significant effect if it is practised on a large scale, and individuals have no assurance that others will follow their example; meanwhile they (or their children) will lose out relative to the less scrupulous. A connected reason has to do with publicity: it may be hard to detect whether people are following the required ethos or not (see Williams 1998). Is the person who sends her child to a private school because she claims he has special needs that the local state school cannot meet being sincere, or is she just trying to buy him comparative advantage? How can we tell whether the person who claims more money, but merely, he says, as compensation for the unusual stress that his work involves, is reporting honestly? (for Cohen’s response, see Cohen 2008, ch. 8) It appears, then, that there are principles of justice that apply to what Rawls calls ‘the basic structure of society [as] a public system of rules’ that do not apply in the same way to the personal behaviour of the individuals who live within that structure. Attending to the scope , as well as the content , of justice is important.

Recent philosophical writing on justice has drawn attention to forms of injustice that do not involve the material treatment that people receive, either from other persons or from institutions, but the harms they suffer through failures of recognition. They are impacted by social norms and social practices that diminish their sense of agency and induce them to see themselves as of lesser value than others. Here then justice is understood as being adequately and appropriately recognized, and injustice as involving failures of recognition, or in some cases ‘misrecognition’, when a person is placed in a category or assigned an identity that is not their own. In one influential formulation of this idea, ‘it is unjust that some individuals and groups are denied the status of full partners in social interaction simply as a consequence of institutionalized patterns of cultural value in whose construction they have not equally participated and which disparage their distinctive characteristics or the distinctive characteristics assigned to them’ (Fraser in Fraser and Honneth 2003, p. 29).

What, then, does it mean to be recognized? In general it means to be viewed and treated by others in the way that is appropriate to the features that you possess, but most philosophers regard recognition as multidimensional. In particular, they distinguish between being recognized as an equal, where a person is accorded the kind of standing that gives them an equal status with other members of the relevant group, and being recognized for having characteristics, achievements or an identity that may be uniquely their own. Recognition in this second sense may involve the unequal granting of social esteem. Justice as recognition, therefore, is internally complex. At the social level, Axel Honneth distinguishes ‘three forms of social recognition, based in the sphere-specific principles of love, equal legal treatment, and social esteem’ (Fraser and Honneth 2003 p. 180)

The question that arises is how best to understand the relationship between justice of this kind and distributive justice, involving the allocation of material resources and so forth. For Honneth, justice as recognition is understood expansively so that it can also capture issues of economic justice, the thought being that the harm inflicted when, say, labour is not adequately rewarded can be understood as a failure to offer adequate recognition of the worker’s social contribution. For Nancy Fraser, by contrast, recognition and redistribution are seen as two mutually irreducible but jointly necessary conditions for social justice. Failures of recognition can be experienced by some among the economically privileged – such as ‘the African-American Wall Street banker who cannot get a taxi to pick him up’ (Fraser and Honneth 2003, p. 34). Justice as recognition requires cultural shifts in the way that different forms of identity and different types of achievement are valued that are independent of the institutional changes required to achieve distributive justice.

A particular form of recognitional injustice is epistemic injustice as diagnosed by Miranda Fricker (Fricker 2007). This occurs when someone is wronged in their capacity as a source of knowledge, and it takes two main forms: testimonial injustice and hermeneutic injustice. As Fricker explains ‘testimonial injustice occurs when prejudice causes a hearer to give a deflated level of credibility to a speaker’s word; hermeneutical injustice occurs at a prior stage when a gap in collective interpretive resources puts someone as at an unfair disadvantage when it comes to making sense of their social experiences’ (Fricker 2007, p. 1). She argues that testimonial injustice matters for two reasons. First, the person who suffers from it is less able to protect or advance their interests – for example they are less likely to be believed when having to defend themselves in court. Second, since others are unwilling to regard them as competent sources of knowledge, they may lose trust in their own capacity to know, leading in some cases to ‘prolonged self-doubt and loss of intellectual confidence’.

Hermeneutical injustice arises in the context of unequal relationships in which the subordinated party lacks the concept or concepts needed to make sense of their experience (and thereby to challenge their subordination). Fricker uses the example of a woman who suffered sexual harassment at the time before feminists had developed that concept, and so had no adequate word to describe what she was experiencing. Hermeneutical injustice matters most when it is systematic, brought about by power inequalities that leave certain groups ‘hermeneutically marginalised’. However she treats epistemic justice as a virtue that individual hearers can develop, in contrast to recognition theorists like Fraser and Honneth for whom achieving recognitional justice requires collective action to change social and cultural norms on the part of misrecognized groups.

4. Utilitarianism and Justice

Can justice be understood in utilitarian terms? This may in the first place depend on how we interpret utilitarianism. We treat it here as a normative theory whose aim is to supply a criterion – the greatest happiness principle – that can be used, directly or indirectly, both by individuals and by institutions (such as states) in deciding what to do, rather than simply as a tool for evaluating states of affairs. Utilitarianism cannot plausibly provide a theory of justice unless it is interpreted in this action-guiding way, in light of what was said above about justice and agency. We also assume that the most likely candidate will be a rule-utilitarian view that treats principles of justice as belonging to the set of rules which when followed by the relevant agents will tend to produce the greatest total utility (for different ways of formulating this view, see the entry on rule consequentialism) .

Most utilitarians have regarded it as part of their task in defending utilitarianism to show that it can both accommodate and explain much of what we intuitively believe about justice. This is certainly true of two of the greatest among them, John Stuart Mill and Sidgwick, both of whom went to considerable lengths to show that familiar principles of justice could be given a utilitarian rationale (Mill Utilitarianism , ch. 5; Sidgwick 1874/1907, Book III, ch.5). Bentham, in contrast, was more cavalier: ‘justice, in the only sense in which it has a meaning, is an imaginary personage, feigned for the convenience of discourse, whose dictates are the dictates of utility, applied to certain particular cases’ ( The Principles of Morals and Legislation , pp. 125–6). If we follow the lead of Mill and Sidgwick in wishing to take seriously how justice is commonly understood, the utilitarian has two challenges to face. First he or she must show that the demands of justice as commonly understood correspond roughly to the rules that when followed by persons, or implemented by institutions, are most conducive to the greatest happiness. They need not mirror the latter exactly, because utilitarians will argue, as both Mill and Sidgwick did, that our intuitions about justice are often ambiguous or internally inconsistent, but there must be enough overlap to warrant the claim that what the utilitarian theory can accommodate and explain is indeed justice . (As Sidgwick (1874/1907, p. 264) put it, ‘we may, so to speak, clip the ragged edge of common usage, but we must not make excision of any considerable portion’.) Second, some explanation must be given for the distinctiveness of justice. Why do we have a concept that is used to mark off a particular set of requirements and claims if the normative basis for these requirements and claims is nothing other than general utility? What accounts for our intuitive sense of justice? The task confronting the utilitarian, then, is to systematize our understanding of justice without obliterating it.

By way of illustration, both Mill and Sidgwick recognize that desert , of both reward and punishment, is a key component of common understandings of justice, but they argue that if we remain at the level of common sense when we try to analyse it, we run into irresolvable contradictions. For instance, we are inclined to think that a person’s deserts should depend on what they have actually achieved – say the economic value of what they have produced – but also, because achievement will depend on factors for which the person in question can claim no credit, such as inborn talent, that their deserts should depend only on factors for which they are directly responsible, such as the amount of effort they expend. Each of these conceptions, when put into practice, would lead to a quite different schedule of rewards, and the only means to escape the impasse, these utilitarians claim, is to ask which schedule will generate most utility by directing people’s choices and efforts in the most socially productive way. Similar reasoning applies to the principles of punishment: the rules we should follow are the rules that are most conducive to the ends for which punishment is instituted, such as deterring crime.

To explain the distinctiveness of justice, Mill suggests that it designates moral requirements that, because of their very great importance to human well-being, people have a right to have discharged, and are therefore matters of perfect obligation. A person who commits an injustice is always liable to punishment of some kind, he argues. So he explains our sense of justice in terms of the resentment we feel towards someone who breaches these requirements. Sidgwick, who laid greater stress than Mill on the connection between justice and law, also underlined the relationship between justice and gratitude, on one side, and resentment, on the other, in order to capture the way in which our concern for justice seems to differ from our concern for utility in general.

Yet despite these efforts to reconcile justice and utility, three serious obstacles still remain. The first concerns what we might call the currency of justice: justice has to do with the way that tangible benefits and burdens are assigned, and not with the happiness or unhappiness that the assignees experience. It is a matter of justice, for example, that people should be paid the right amount for the jobs that they do, but, special circumstances aside, it is no concern of justice that John derives more satisfaction from his fairly-earned income than Jane does from hers (but see Cohen 1989 for a different view). There is so to speak, a division of labour, under which rights, opportunities, and material benefits of various kinds are allocated by principles of justice, while the conversion of these into units of utility (or disutility) is the responsibility of each individual recipient (see Dworkin 2000, ch. 1). Utilitarians will therefore find it hard to explain what from their point of view seems to be the fetishistic concern of justice over how the means to happiness are distributed, rather than happiness itself.

The second obstacle is that utilitarianism judges outcomes by totalling up utility levels, and has no independent concern for how that utility is distributed between persons. So even if we set aside the currency issue, utilitarian theory seems unable to capture justice’s demand that each should receive what is due to her regardless of the total amount of benefit this generates. Defenders of utilitarianism will argue that when the conduct-guiding rules are being formulated, attention will be paid to distributive questions. In particular, when resources are being distributed among people we know little about individually, there are good reasons to favour equality, since in most cases resources have diminishing marginal utility – the more of them you have, the less satisfaction you derive from additional instalments. Yet this is only a contingent matter. If some people are very adept at turning resources into well-being – they are so-called ‘utility monsters’ – then a utilitarian should support a rule that privileges them. This seems repugnant to justice. As Rawls famously put the general point, ‘each member of society is thought to have an inviolability founded on justice which….even the welfare of every one else cannot override’ (Rawls 1971, p. 28; Rawls 1999, pp. 24–25).

The third and final difficulty stems from utilitarianism’s thoroughgoing consequentialism. Rules are assessed strictly in the light of the consequences of adopting then, not in terms of their intrinsic properties. Of course, when agents follow rules, they are meant to do what the rule requires rather than to calculate consequences directly. But for a utilitarian, it is never going to be a good reason for adopting a rule that it will give people what they deserve or what they are entitled to, when desert or entitlement are created by events in the past, such as a person’s having performed a worthwhile action or entered an agreement. Backward-looking reasons have to be transmuted into forward-looking reasons in order to count. If a rule such as pacta sunt servanda (‘agreements must be kept’) is going to be adopted on utilitarian grounds, this is not because there is any inherent wrongness in defaulting on a compact one has made, but because a rule that compacts must be kept is a useful one, since it allows people to co-ordinate their behaviour knowing that their expectations about the future are likely to be met. But justice, although not always backward-looking in the sense explained, often is. What is due to a person is in many cases what they deserve for what they have done, or what they are entitled to by virtue of past transactions. So even if it were possible to construct a forward-looking rationale for having rules that closely tracked desert or entitlement as these are normally understood, the utilitarian still cannot capture the sense of justice – why it matters that people should get what is due to then – that informs our common-sense judgements.

Utilitarians might reply that their reconstruction preserves what is rationally defensible in common sense beliefs while what it discards are elements that cannot survive sustained critical reflection. But this would bring them closer to Bentham’s view that justice, as commonly understood, is nothing but a ‘phantom’.

5. Contractarianism and Justice

The shortcomings of utilitarianism have prompted several recent philosophers to revive the old idea of the social contract as a better way of bringing coherence to our thinking about justice. The idea here is not that people actually have entered a contract to establish justice, or that they should proceed to do so, but that we can understand justice better by asking the question: what principles to govern their institutions, practices and personal behaviour would people choose to adopt if they all had to agree on them in advance? The contract, in other words, is hypothetical; but the search for agreement is meant to ensure that the principles chosen would, when implemented, not lead to outcomes that people could not accept. Thus whereas a utilitarian might, under some circumstances, be prepared to support slavery – if the misery of the slaves were outweighed by the heightened pleasures of the slave-owners – contractarians claims that no-one could accept a principle permitting slavery, lest they themselves were destined to be slaves when the principle was applied.

The problem that contractarians face is to show how such an agreement is possible. If we were to ask people, in the real world, what principles they would prefer to live under, they are likely to start from a position of quite radical disagreement, given their interests and their beliefs. Some might even be willing to endorse slavery, if they were fairly certain that they would not end up as slaves themselves, or if they were sado-masochists who viewed the humiliations inflicted on slaves in a positive light. So in order to show how agreement could be achieved, contractarians have to model the contracting parties in a particular way, either by limiting what they are allowed to know about themselves or about the future, or by attributing to them certain motivations while excluding others. Since the modelling can be done differently, we have a family of contractarian theories of justice, three of whose most important members are the theories of Gauthier, Rawls and Scanlon.

Gauthier (1986) presents the social contract as a bargain between rational individuals who can gain through co-operating with one another, but who are competing over the division of the resulting surplus. He assumes that each is interested only in trying to maximise his own welfare, and he also assumes that there is a non-co-operative baseline from which the bargaining begins – so nobody would accept a solution that left her less well off than in the baseline condition. Each person can identify the outcome under which they fare best – their maximum gain – but they have no reason to expect others to accept that. Gauthier argues that rational bargainers will converge on the principle of Minimax Relative Concession , which requires each to concede the same relative proportion of their maximum possible gain relative to the non-co-operative baseline. Thus suppose there is a feasible arrangement whereby each participant can achieve two-thirds of their maximum gain, but no arrangement under which they all do better than that, then this is the arrangement that the principle recommends. Each person has made the same concession relative to the outcome that is best for them personally – not accepting the same absolute loss of welfare, let it be noted, but the same proportionate loss.

There are some internal difficulties with Gauthier’s theory that need to be recorded briefly (for a full discussion, see Barry 1989, esp. Part III). One is whether Minimax Relative Concession is in fact the correct solution to the bargaining problem that Gauthier introduces, as opposed to the standard Nash solution which (in a simple two-person case) selects the outcome in which the product of the two parties’ utilities is maximised (for discussion of different solutions to the bargaining problem, see the entry on contemporary approaches to the social contract , § 3.2). A second is whether Gauthier is able to justify positing a ‘Lockean’ baseline, under which each is assumed to respect the natural rights of the others, as the starting point for bargaining over the surplus – as opposed to a more conflictual ‘Hobbesian’ baseline in which individuals are permitted to use their natural powers to threaten one another in the process of establishing what each could expect to get in the absence of co-operation. But the larger question is whether a contract modelled in this way is an appropriate device for delivering principles of justice. On the one hand, it captures the idea that the practice of justice should work to everyone’s advantage, while requiring all those involved to moderate the demands they make on one another. On the other hand, it prescribes a final distribution of benefit that appears morally arbitrary, in the sense that A ’s bargaining advantage over B – which stems from the fact that his maximum possible gain is greater than hers – allows him to claim a higher level of benefit as a matter of justice . This seems implausible: there may be prudential reasons to recommend a distribution that reflects the outcome that self-interested and rational bargainers would arrive at, but claims of justice need a different basis.

John Rawls’ theory of justice is the most widely-cited example of a contractarian theory, but before outlining it, two words of caution are necessary. First, the shape of the theory has evolved from its first incarnation in Rawls (1958) through his major work A Theory of Justice (Rawls 1971) and on to Rawls (1993) and Rawls (2001). Second, although Rawls has consistently claimed that the principles of justice he defends are the principles that would be selected by people in a suitably designed ‘original position’ in which they are asked to choose the social and political institutions they will live under – this is what qualifies his theory as contractarian – it is less clear how important a role the contract itself plays in his thinking. His principles, which are discussed elsewhere (see the entry on John Rawls) , can be defended on their own merits as a theory of social justice for a modern liberal society, even if their contractual grounding proves to be unsound. Rawls presents the contracting parties as seeking to advance their own interests as they decide which principles to favour, but under two informational constraints. First, they are not allowed to know their own ‘conception of the good’ – what ends they personally find it most valuable to pursue – so the principles must be couched in terms of ‘primary goods’, understood as goods that it is better to have more rather than less of whatever conception of the good you favour. Second, they are placed behind a ‘veil of ignorance’ that deprives them of any knowledge of personal characteristics, such as their gender, their place in society, or the talents and skills they possess. This means that they have no basis on which to bargain for advantage, and have to consider themselves as generic persons who might be male or female, talented or untalented, and so forth. In consequence, Rawls argues, all will choose to live under impartial principles that work to no-one’s advantage in particular.

The problem for Rawls, however, is to show that the principles that would be selected in such an original position are in fact recognizable as principles of justice . One might expect the parties to calculate how to weigh the primary goods (which Rawls catalogues as ‘rights and liberties, opportunities and powers, income and wealth’) against each other, and then to choose as their social principle ‘maximise the weighted sum of primary goods, averaged across all persons’. This, however, would bring the theory very close to utilitarianism, since the natural method of weighing primary goods is to ask how much utility having a given quantity of each is likely, on average, to bring (for the claim that utilitarianism would be chosen in a Rawlsian original position, see Harsanyi 1975). Since Rawls wishes to reject utilitarianism, he has to adjust the psychology of the parties in the original position so that they reason differently. Thus he suggests that, at least in developed societies, people have special reason to prioritise liberty over the other goods and to ensure that it is equally distributed: he argues that this is essential to safeguard their self-respect. In later writing his argument is less empirical: now the parties to the contract are endowed with ‘moral powers’ that must be exercised, and it is then fairly easy to show that this requires them to have a set of basic liberties.

When he turns to the distribution of income and wealth, Rawls has to show why his choosers would pick the difference principle, which considers only the position of the worst-off social group, over other principles such as maximising average income across the whole society. In Theory of Justice he does this by attributing special psychological features to the choosers that make it appropriate for them to follow the ‘maximin’ rule for decisions under uncertainty (choose the option whose worst possible outcome is least bad for you). For example, they are said to be much more concerned to achieve the minimum level of income that the difference principle would guarantee them than to enjoy increases above that level. In his later work, he abandons this reliance on maximin reasoning and gives greater prominence to another argument hinted at in Theory . This portrays the contracting parties as starting out from the presumption that income and wealth should be distributed equally, but then recognizing that all can benefit by permitting certain inequalities to arise. When these inequalities are governed by the difference principle, they can be justified to everyone, including the worst off, thus creating the conditions for a more stable society. But we need then to ask why equal distribution should be treated as the benchmark, departures from which require special justification. When Rawls says that it is ‘not reasonable’ for any of the parties initially to expect more than an equal share (Rawls 1971, p. 150; Rawls 1999, p. 130), is this simply a corollary of their position as rational choosers behind a veil of ignorance, or has Rawls in addition endowed them with a substantive sense of justice that includes this presumption of equality?

Although Rawls throughout presents his theory of justice as contractarian, we can now see that the terms of the contract are in part determined by prior normative principles that Rawls engineers the parties to follow. So in contrast to Gauthier, it is no longer simply a case of self-interested contractors negotiating their way to an agreement. Rawls candidly admits that the contractual situation has to be adjusted so that it yields results that match our pre-existing convictions about justice. But then we may ask how much work the contractual apparatus is really doing (see Barry 1989, ch. 9 for a critical appraisal).

Scanlon (1998) does not attempt to deliver a theory of justice in the same sense as Rawls, but his contractarian account of that part of morality that specifies ‘what we owe to each other’ covers much of the same terrain (for an explicit attempt to analyse justice in Scanlonian terms, see Barry 1995). Like Rawls, Scanlon is concerned to develop an alternative to utilitarianism, and he does so by developing a test that any candidate moral principle must pass: it must be such that no-one could reasonably reject it as the basis for informed, unforced general agreement (see the entry on contractualism ). Scanlon’s contractors are not positioned behind a veil of ignorance. They are able to see what effect adopting any proposed principle would have on them personally. If that effect is unacceptable to them, they are permitted to reject it. Each person has, so to speak, a veto on any general principle for regulating conduct. Those that survive this test are defensible as principles of justice – Scanlon concedes that there might be alternative sets of such principles appropriate to different social conditions.

It might seem, however, that giving each person a veto would lead straightforwardly to deadlock, since anyone might reject a principle under which he fared badly relative to some alternative. Here the idea of reasonable rejection becomes important. It would not, Scanlon thinks, be reasonable to reject a principle under which one does badly if the alternatives all involve someone else faring worse still. One needs to take account of other people’s reasons for rejecting these alternatives. It might then appear that Scanlon’s contractualism yields the difference principle, which requires the worst-off group in society to be as well of as they can be. But this is not the conclusion that Scanlon draws (though he acknowledges that there might be special reasons to follow Rawls in requiring basic social institutions to follow the difference principle). The claims of other groups must be considered too. If a policy greatly benefits many others, while slightly worsening the position of a few, though without leaving them very badly off, it may well not be rejectable. Scanlon’s position leaves some room for aggregation – it makes a difference how many people will be benefitted if a principle is followed – though not the simple form of aggregation that utilitarians defend.

Scanlon also says that a person can have a reason for rejecting a principle if it treats them unfairly, say by benefitting some but not others for arbitrary reasons. This presupposes a norm of fairness that the contractarian theory does not itself attempt to explain or justify. So it looks as though the purpose of the theory is to provide a distinctive account of moral reasoning (and moral motivation) but not to defend any substantive principles of distributive justice. In this respect, Scanlon’s contractualism is less ambitious than either Gauthier’s or Rawls’.

6. Egalitarianism and Justice

In the recent past, many philosophers have sought to establish a close connection between justice and equality: they ask the question ‘what kind of equality does justice require?’, and to that several competing answers have been given (see, for example Cohen 1989, Dworkin 2000, Sen 1980). But we should not be too hasty to assume that what justice demands is always equality, whether of treatment or of outcome. Perhaps it does so only in a formal sense. As we saw in sect 1.3, justice requires the impartial and consistent application of rules, from which it follows that when two people are alike in all relevant respects, they must be treated equally. But, as Aristotle among others saw, justice also involves the idea of proportional treatment, which implies recipients getting unequal amounts of whatever good is at issue (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics , Book V, ch. 3). If A is twice as deserving or twice as needy as B , justice may require that she receives more than B does. So here formal equality of treatment – the same rule applied to both – leads to an unequal outcome. Again, when justice takes the conservative form of respect for existing entitlements or legitimate expectations (see para 2.1) there is no reason to anticipate that what is due to different people will be substantively the same.

So we need to ask about the circumstances in which justice requires a substantively equal distribution of advantages. One rather obvious case occurs when the members of the group within which the distribution is going to occur have no relevant distinguishing features, so there are no grounds on which some can claim greater shares of benefit than others. Suppose a group experiences a windfall gain for which no-one can claim any credit: a pot of gold somehow appears in their midst. Then unless any member can make a justice-related claim for a larger-than-equal share – say that she has special needs that she lacks sufficient resources to meet – an equal distribution of the gold is what justice demands, since any other distribution would be arbitrary. Equality here is the default principle that applies in the absence of any special claims that can be presented as reasons of justice.

Equality also acts as a default in circumstances where, although people may indeed have unequal claims to whatever good is being distributed, we have no reliable way of identifying and measuring those claims. By sharing the good equally, we can at least ensure that every claim has been partially satisfied. Thus suppose we have limited supplies of a drug that can treat malaria, and a number of patients displaying symptoms of the disease, but lacking specialised medical knowledge we cannot tell whether one person’s condition is more serious than another’s; then by sharing out the drug equally, we can guarantee that each person at least receives the highest fraction of what they really need. Any other distribution must leave at least one person with less (this of course assumes that there is no threshold amount of the drug beneath which it is ineffective; if that assumption is wrong, justice under the stated conditions might require a lottery in which the chosen ones receive threshold-size doses).

If justice requires equality only by default, it might seem to apply only in a narrow range of cases. How could egalitarian justice be made more robust? One approach involves declaring a wider range of factors irrelevant to just distribution. Thus one formulation of the principle holds that no-one should be worse-off than anyone else as a result of their ‘morally arbitrary’ characteristics, where a characteristic is morally arbitrary when its possessor cannot claim credit for having it. This captures a widespread intuition that people should not be advantaged or disadvantaged by virtue of their race or gender, but extends it (more controversially) to all personal features with a genetic basis, such as natural talents and inborn dispositions. In doing so, it discounts most claims of desert, since when people are said to deserve benefits of various kinds, it is usually for performing actions or displaying qualities that depend upon innate characteristics such as strength or intelligence. In the following section, we will see how egalitarian theories of justice have tried to incorporate some desert-like elements by way of response. But otherwise justice as equality and justice as desert appear to be in conflict, and the challenge is to show what can justify equal treatment in the face of inequalities of desert.

A second approach answers this challenge by explaining why it is positively valuable to afford people equal treatment even if they do display features that might appear to justify differential treatment. A prominent advocate of this approach is Dworkin, who argues that fundamental to justice is a principle of equal concern and respect for persons, and what this means in more concrete term is that equal resources should be devoted to the life of each member of society (Dworkin 2000). (The reference to membership here is not redundant, because Dworkin understands egalitarian justice as a principle that must be applied within sovereign states specifically – so in the terms of 3.2, this is a relational view of justice.) The thought is that showing persons equal respect may sometimes require us to afford them equal treatment, even in the face of relevant grounds for discrimination. Thus we insist on political equality – one person, one vote – even though we know that there are quite large differences in people’s competence to make political decisions.

As noted above, justice as simple equality of treatment seems open to the objection that it fails to acknowledge the agency of the recipients, who may have acted in ways that appear to qualify them to receive more (or less) of whatever benefit is being distributed. To answer this objection, several recent philosophers have presented alternative versions of ‘responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism’ – a family of theories of justice that treat equal distribution as a starting point but allow for departures from that baseline when these result from the responsible choices made by individuals (see Knight and Stemplowska 2011 for examples). These theories differ along several dimensions: the ‘currency of justice’ used to define the baseline of equality, the conditions that must be fulfilled for a choice to qualify as responsible, and which among the consequences that follow from a choice should count when the justice of an outcome is being assessed (it may in particular appear unjust to allow people to suffer the full consequences of bad choices that they could not reasonably have anticipated). The label that is often used to describe a sub-class of these theories is ‘luck egalitarianism’. According to luck egalitarians, justice requires that no-one should be disadvantaged relative to others on account of ‘brute’ bad luck, whereas inequalities that arise through the exercise of personal responsibility are permissible (for a full discussion of luck egalitarianism, see the entry on justice and bad luck ). ‘Brute’ luck is interpreted widely to include not only external circumstances such as one person’s initially having access to more resources than another, but also internal factors such as possessing natural abilities or disabilities, or having involuntarily acquired expensive tastes. All such inequalities are to be ironed out by redistribution or compensation, while people’s choices about how to use the assets they are granted should be respected, even if this leads to significant inequality in the long run.

Luck egalitarianism has proved surprisingly influential in recent debates on justice, despite the evident difficulties involved in, for example, quantifying ‘brute luck disadvantage’ in such a way that a compensatory scheme could be established. There are, however, a number of problems it has to face. By giving scope to personal responsibility, it seeks to capture what is perhaps the most attractive part of the conventional idea of desert – that people should be rewarded for making good choices and penalised for making bad ones – while filtering out the effects of having (undeserved) natural talents. But in reality the choices that people make are influenced by the talents and other qualities that they happen to have already. So if we allow someone to reap advantages by, for example, devoting long hours to learning to play the piano at a high level, we must recognize that this is a choice that she would almost certainly not have made unless early experiment showed that she was musically gifted. We cannot say what she would have chosen to do in a counterfactual world in which she was tone deaf. There seems then to be no coherent half-way house between accepting full-blooded desert and denying that people can justly claim relative advantage through the exercise of responsibility and choice (see further Miller 1999, ch. 7) .

A second problem is that one person’s exercise of responsibility may prove advantageous or disadvantageous to others, even though they have done nothing to bring this change about, so from their point of view it must count as ‘brute’ luck. This will be true, for example, in any case in which people are competing to excel in some field, where successful choices made by A will worsen the comparative position of B , C , and D . Or again, if A acts in a way that benefits B , but does nothing comparable to improve the position of C and D , then an inequality is created that counts as ‘brute bad luck’ from the perspective of the latter. One of the most influential exponents of luck egalitarianism seems to have recognized the problem in a late essay: ‘unlike plain egalitarianism, luck egalitarianism is paradoxical, because the use of shares by people is bound to lead to a distribution flecked by luck’ (Cohen 2011, p. 142).

We have seen that equality can sometimes be understood as required by justice; but it can also be valued independently. Indeed there can be circumstances in which the two values collide, because what justice demands is inequality of outcome. The kind of inequality that is independently valuable is social equality, best understood as a property of the relationships that prevail within a society: people regard and treat each other as social equals, and the society’s institutions are designed to foster and reflect such attitudes. A society of equals contrasts with one in which people belong to different ranks in a social hierarchy, and behave towards one another as their relative ranking prescribes. Different reasons can be given for objecting to social inequality, and conversely for valuing social equality (see Scanlon 2003).

Those who find equality valuable for reasons other than reasons of distributive justice are often described as ‘relational egalitarians’ (see Anderson 1999, Wolff 1998, Fourie, Schuppert and Wallimann-Helmer 2015). It is tempting to regard relational egalitarianism as a rival theory of justice to the luck egalitarian theory outlined in §6.2, but it may be more illuminating to see it instead as providing an alternative account of why we should care about limiting material inequality. Thus, faced with a world like the one we currently inhabit in which income differences are very large, justice theorists are likely to criticize these inequalities on grounds that they are not deserved, or arise from brute luck, etc., whereas relational egalitarians will say that they create a divided society in which people are alienated from each other, and cannot interact in a mutually respectful way. Relational equality does not address issues of distribution directly, and so cannot function as a theory of justice itself, but it can provide grounds for preferring one theory of justice to its rivals – namely that implementing that particular theory is more likely to create or sustain a society of equals.

We saw at the beginning of this article that justice can take a number of different forms, depending on the practical context in which it is being applied. Although we found common elements running through this diversity of use – most readily captured in Justinian’s ‘suum cuique ’ formula – these were formal rather than substantive. In these circumstances, it is natural to look for an overarching framework into which the various contextually specific conceptions of justice can all be fitted. Three such frameworks were examined: utilitarianism, contractarianism and egalitarianism. None, however, passed what we might call the ‘Sidgwick/Rawls test’, namely that of incorporating and explaining the majority at least of our considered convictions about justice – beliefs that we feel confident in holding about what justice requires us to do in a wide and varied range of circumstances (for Rawls’ version of the test see the entry on reflective equilibrium ). So unless we are willing to jettison many of these convictions in order to uphold one or other general framework, we will need to accept that no comprehensive theory of justice is available to us; we will have to make do with partial theories – theories about what justice requires in particular domains of human life. Rawls himself, despite the bold title of his first book ( A Theory of Justice ), came to recognize that what he had outlined was at best a theory of social justice applied to the basic institutional structure of a modern liberal state. Other forms of justice – familial, allocative, associational, international – with their associated principles would be applicable in their respective domains (for an even more explicitly pluralist account of justice, see Walzer 1983; for a fuller defence of a contextual approach to justice, see Miller 2013, esp. ch. 2).

One way to loosen up our thinking about justice is by paying greater attention to the history of the concept. We can learn a great deal by reading what Aristotle, or Aquinas, or Hume, has to say about the concept, but as we do so, we also see that elements we would expect to find are missing (there is nothing about rights in Aristotle, for example), while others that we would not anticipate are present. This may in some part be due to the idiosyncrasies of each thinker, but more importantly it reflects differences in the form of social life in which each was embedded – its economic, legal and political structure, especially. Various attempts have been made to write histories of justice that are more than just catalogues of what individual thinkers have said: they aim to trace and explain systematic shifts in the way that justice has been interpreted (for contrasting examples, see MacIntyre 1988, Fleischacker 2004, Johnston 2011). These should not be read as enlightenment stories in which our understanding of justice steadily improves as the centuries roll by. MacIntyre’s view, for example, is that modern liberal societies cannot sustain the practices within which notions of justice find their proper home. We can get a better grasp of what justice means to us by seeing the various conceptions that compete for our attention as tied to aspects of our social world that did not exist in the past, and are equally liable to disappear in the future.

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• Perry, Stephen, 2000, “On the Relationship between Corrective and Distributive Justice,” in Oxford Essays in Jurisprudence, Fourth Series , edited by Jeremy Horder, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Raphael, D. D., 2001, Concepts of Justice , Oxford: Clarendon Press.
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• –––, 1993, Political Liberalism , New York: Columbia University Press.
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• –––, 2001, Justice as Fairness: a restatement , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Ripstein, Arthur, 2004, “The Division of Responsibility and the Law of Tort,” Fordham Law Review , 72: 1811–44.
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• –––, 2003, “The Diversity of Objections to Inequality,” in The Difficulty of Tolerance: essays in political philosophy , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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How to cite this entry . Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society . Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers , with links to its database.

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• Justice Everywhere , a group blog about justice in public affairs

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What Is Social Justice?

Understanding social justice.

• Main Principles

Areas of Focus

Equity vs. equality, social justice in law.

• Social Justice FAQs

The Bottom Line

Social justice meaning and main principles explained.

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Social justice refers to a fair and equitable division of resources, opportunities, and privileges in society. Originally a religious concept, it has come to be conceptualized more loosely as the just organization of social institutions that deliver access to economic benefits. It is sometimes referred to as "distributive justice."  

Social justice is a broad term, and there are many variations in how advocates apply the perspective. However, social determinants like the racial wealth gap or inequitable access to health care feature heavily in social justice analysis. Some applications related to social justice, such as critical race theory, have become a battleground for American politics.

Key Takeaways

• Social justice refers to the fair division of resources, opportunities, and privileges in society.
• It emphasizes fairness in how society divides its social resources.
• One of the most famous examinations of social justice is John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice (1971) .
• Gender inequality, racism, and LGBTQ+ discrimination are frequent subjects of social justice advocacy.
• Some applications of social justice, like critical race theory, have become embattled in the American culture wars.

The phrase "social justice" draws its roots from Christian theology, with the first noted use occurring in the early 1840s in Theoretical Treatise on Natural Law by Luigi Taparelli. Taparelli was an Italian Jesuit priest writing during the rise of Risorgimento , a 19th-century Italian nationalist movement, and debates around the unification of Italy.

Taparelli’s version of social justice was simply an application of justice to social affairs and held that people should do what’s right based on a conceptualization of morality based on natural theology and religion, and for much of its history social justice has been a religious concept.

Not all notions of social justice emphasized religion, though. With the social impact of the Industrial Revolution , the term grew. Later theorists would focus on social justice as a moral obligation for people within a society to work for the common good; the most famous example is discussed below. 

The term, which has been historically contentious, has become more popular since the end of the 20th century. Some scholars point toward the neoliberal policies of the Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan administrations as a possible reason for this change.

An Old Concept

Though the phrase is attributed to Luigi Taparelli, social justice builds on older concepts. Taparelli relied heavily on the work of Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas (who was relying on the work of the Macedonian philosopher Aristotle).

One of the most influential explorations of social justice comes from the 20th-century American philosopher John Rawls. In A Theory of Justice (1971) , which he labeled as a theory of social justice, Rawls outlined his vision of “justice as fairness.”

For Rawls, this meant that people ought to consider the rules for a fair allotment of social goods within a society as well as the levels of inequality that can be allowed within a society. Rawls famously used the concept of a "veil of ignorance," a pretense of ignorance about where one will end up in any given society that Rawls thought ought to be used to arrange society, as well as the "principle of difference," which holds that social and economic inequalities can be acceptable if they benefit the whole of society.

The basic element of fairness is crucial, especially in the access to social resources, sometimes called “social goods.” While it may sound abstract, how social goods are distributed is immensely impactful. Importantly, the “social determinants” of outcomes are considered central to whether or not a system is just.

In public health, for example, the place of birth can alter what health care options a person has and, therefore, also how long that person lives. To account for this, social justice advocates in healthcare might focus on extending the probability that people will be healthy despite resource inadequacies they may face for historical or economic reasons.

Main Principles of Social Justice

While there is no single definition of social justice, most approaches share the broad goals of inclusion and fairness. In order to achieve those goals, they establish a set of ethical principles for a just society.

These principles may include:

Equal access to social goods is one of the most fundamental principles of social justice. This holds that society's resources should be equally available to all. For example, many social justice theorists believe that people should have equal access to education, health care, and employment opportunities. Public servants can uphold this principle by ensuring that everyone has access to these resources.

Equity is the principle that people should have the same opportunities to succeed, despite any past injustices or systemic discrimination. This may mean that resources are distributed in a way that addresses the specific needs of underprivileged communities or people.

Diversity is the principle that government and business leaders should be broadly representative of the communities they serve. This means that not only should there be women and people of color in positions of power, but also that minority communities should be equally represented in public institutions. On a policy level, this principle may entail prohibitions on discrimination or providing resources in multiple languages.

Participation

Participation is the principle that everyone in a community should have a voice in making important decisions. In many societies, public policies are set by a small group of powerful people, without consulting the communities they represent. This may have the unintended effect of excluding a large part of the community.

Public policymakers can address this shortcoming by consulting the advocates of minority communities and considering their needs.

Human Rights

The final principle of social justice, and arguably the most fundamental, is human rights. In addition to political rights, such as freedom of conscience, it also requires freedom from police abuse and respect for one's reproductive rights and bodily autonomy.

Careers in Social Justice

The most common jobs relating to social justice are related to public administration and social work since these occupations deal directly with providing access to social and government resources. People who work in these professions should be conscious of the explicit and implicit biases that may reduce access to these resources for some members of society.

But it is also possible to advocate for social justice in other fields. For example, lawyers can help ensure equitable access to the justice system by representing clients who are traditionally underserved by existing institutions, and lobbyists can push for legislation that addresses community injustices. Other social justice-oriented occupations include mental health workers, victim advocates, and community developers.

While social justice seeks to ensure equality and fairness for all, it may focus on those groups that have been the victims of historical oppression. The following are some areas of focus for social justice workers:

Racial Equality

Racial equality is one of the most common issues in social justice, and many countries have a history of discrimination or oppression of minority ethnic or racial groups. Members of these groups may be at an economic disadvantage or suffer from unequal access to education, health services, or other essential institutions.

Gender Equality

Almost every country suffers from some sort of gender inequality, whether in the form of wage gaps , glass ceilings , or other forms of gender-based discrimination. In addition, women are also more likely to suffer from violence or sexual assault. or face threats to reproductive rights. Gender equality also affects other rights, such as racial equality. Many social justice advocates consider this a key aspect of social reform.

LGBTQ+ Equality

Starting in the 20th century, LGBTQ+ rights emerged as another issue for social justice advocates. Members of the LGBTQ+ community face high levels of violence and discrimination and may be denied access to healthcare or employment.

Although they are both related to the distribution of social goods and privileges within a society, equality and equity have taken on slightly different meanings in conversations around social justice. Equality, in this context, means that people are given the same access to opportunities, regardless of historical or other forms of injustice that may alter how much someone can access those opportunities. Equity, in contrast, tries to account for an imbalanced social system by providing the resources to create an equal outcome.

It is social justice’s adoption of equity that most of its critics focus on, but those in favor of the concept suggest that equity is a vital part of ensuring a just society. Paula Braveman, a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, for instance, has commented that “health equity” and social justice in health are interchangeable. The goal of social justice in health care, she implies, “[is that] no one is denied the possibility to be healthy for belonging to a group that has historically been economically/socially disadvantaged.”

In law, social justice perspectives have become a touchpoint for the American culture wars. Critical race theory (CRT), an approach to law that actively seeks to account for how racial prejudices affect legal outcomes, has drawn particular outcry.

The term was developed by American legal theorists such as Kimberlé Crenshaw to analyze how racism is advanced by American legal structures, even in some cases in the absence of racist individuals. Central to CRT is the notion that race is not validated by science, and that the law has maintained an unjust order.

The Critics

Detractors of critical race theory have claimed that it is merely a way of permitting discrimination. According to the Brookings Institute, a public policy think tank, opponents of critical race theory tend to view the claim that American institutions are racist as a way of accusing White people of being individually racist, rather than as an attempt at broad analysis about the effect of institutions on social outcomes.

Campaigns against CRT have become increasingly vocal in state legislatures across the U.S., with many banning its teaching in primary and secondary schools. To date, 36 states have moved to install legislation to ban teaching about racial bias in the U.S., and 17 have moved to expand that teaching, according to a state legislative tracker created by Chalkbeat, a nonprofit newsroom focused on the American education system.

In 2020, President Donald Trump had also forbidden diversity and equity training from federal contracts, which has been described as an "equity gag order." That executive order conflated diversity training and CRT, calling both "divisive." The ban was reversed in 2021.

What Does Social Justice Mean?

Social justice is the belief that the social benefits and privileges of a society ought to be divided fairly.

Why Is Social Justice Important?

Advocates say that social justice is worth pursuing because it defends people from suffering deprivations due to unfair prejudices and because it tries to provide everyone with the essentials for a good life.

How Is Social Justice Related to Equity?

The concept of equity focuses on outcomes. It’s related to the belief that social determinants massively affect how people’s lives turn out and that, therefore, a truly fair arrangement of society will account for the tangible ways that this harms socially and economically disadvantaged groups.

Social justice is a political and philosophical movement aiming for a more division of resources and opportunities. By addressing historical injustices and directing resources to underserved communities, social justice advocates hope to establish a more fair and equal society.

United Nations. " Social Justice in an Open World ." Pages 13-14.

Center for Economic and Social Justice. " Defining Economic Justice and Social Justice ."

Intercollegiate Studies Institute. " The Origins of Social Justice: Taparelli D'Azeglio ."

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. " Thomas Aquinas ."

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. " Original Position ."

Kent State Online. " The Five Principles of Social Justice ."

Our Lady of the Lake University. " Discover 8 Careers in Social Justice ."

Human Rights Careers. " What Does Social Justice Mean? "

Milken Institute School of Public Health, George Washington University. " Equity vs. Equality: What’s the Difference? "

Braveman, Paula. " What are Health Disparities and Health Equity? We Need To Be Clear ." Public Health Reports , vol. 129, no. 2, January-February 2014, pp. 5-8.

American Bar Association. " A Lesson on Critical Race Theory ."

The Brookings Institution. " Why Are States Banning Critical Race Theory? "

Chalkbeat. " CRT Map: Efforts to Restrict Teaching Racism and Bias Have Multiplied Across the U.S ."

UCLA Law. " Biden Reverses Trump Executive Order Banning Diversity Training ."

Human Rights Careers. " 10 Reasons Why Social Justice Is Important ."

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• Education vs. Experience: Which One Gets the Job? 3 of 30
• Unemployment Rate by State 4 of 30
• Can a Family Survive on the U.S. Minimum Wage? 5 of 30
• The Economics of Labor Mobility 6 of 30
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• Predatory Lending: How to Avoid, Examples and Protections 8 of 30
• Unbanked: What It Means, Statistics, Solutions 9 of 30
• Underbanked: What It Is and Who They Are 10 of 30
• Underinsurance: What it is, How it Works, FAQ 11 of 30
• The History of Unions in the United States 12 of 30
• What Is Middle Class Income? Thresholds, Is It Shrinking 13 of 30
• What Is Poverty? Meaning, Causes, and How To Measure 14 of 30
• Gini Index Explained and Gini Coefficients Around the World 15 of 30
• Measuring Inequality: Forget Gini, Go with the Palma Ratio Instead 16 of 30
• Lorenz Curve 17 of 30
• What Is the Human Development Index (HDI)? 18 of 30
• What Are the Criticisms of the Human Development Index (HDI)? 19 of 30
• Poverty Trap: Definition, Causes, and Proposed Solutions 20 of 30
• Conflict Theory Definition, Founder, and Examples 21 of 30
• America's Middle Class Is Losing Ground Financially 22 of 30
• Hollowing Out: What It Means, How It Works 23 of 30
• Social Justice Meaning and Main Principles Explained 24 of 30
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• Welfare Economics Explained: Theory, Assumptions, and Criticism 26 of 30
• Egalitarianism: Definition, Ideas, and Types 27 of 30
• The Nordic Model: Pros and Cons 28 of 30
• Equity-Efficiency Tradeoff: Definition, Causes, and Examples 29 of 30
• The Economic Message Behind Martin Luther King Jr.'s 'Dream' Speech 30 of 30

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The Concept of Justice

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• Wojciech Sadurski 4  

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What is the use of defining justice? One could argue that a definition of justice should be the product of reflections about justice, rather than a starting point. In the case of evaluative concepts such as liberty, democracy and justice, the distinction between defining and advocating is extremely hard to make. Any such definition presupposes certain values and those values should be defended rather than contained in an inevitably arbitrary definition.

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For a not dissimilar account of concept/conception distinction, see John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), pp. 5, 9–10

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Iredell Jenkins, Social Order and the Limits of Law ( Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980 ), p. 324.

Henry Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1962; Ist. ed. 1874), pp. 265–266.

Brian Barry, Political Argument ( London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1965 ), p. 44.

Joel Feinberg, Social Philosophy (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1973), pp. 98–99, and in a much more developed form in his essay Noncomparative Justice’, in Rights, Justice, and the Bounds of Liberty (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980), reprinted from The Philosophical Review (1974). Subsequent references in brackets in the main text discussing Feinberg’s views are to the pages of this essay.

Phillip Montague, `Comparative and Non-Comparative Justice’, Philosophical Quarterly 30 (1980), p. 132.

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This example of `absolute’ (as opposed to `comparative’) principle of justice is given by Barry, op. cit. ,p. 44 in connection with p. 96.

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See Wojciech Sadurski, “Non-Comparative Justice” Revisited’, Archiv für Rechts-und Sozialphilosophie 69 (1983), pp. 504–514, esp. 505–507.

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Friedrich A. Hayek, New Studies in Philosophy , Politics , Economics and the History of Ideas ( London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978 ), p. 58.

See excellent discussion by John Kleinig, `Good Samaritanism’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 5 (1976), pp. 382–407, esp. pp. 391–398.

James Gordley, `Equality in Exchange’, California Law Review 69 (1981), p. 1589.

Georges Burdeau, Traité de science politique ,Vol. V (Paris: Librarie générale de droit et de la jurisprudence), p. 89.

Halsbury’s Laws of England (London: Butterworths, 1977), 4th ed., Vol. 18, p. 344. On the development of this doctrine in the United Kingdom, see S. M. Waddams, ‘Unconscionability in Contracts’, Modern Law Review 39 (1976), pp. 369–393.

Horwood v. Millar’s Timber and Trading Co. Ltd. [1917] 1 K.B. 305, 311.

This Act has been replaced by the Consumer Credit Act (1974).

Contracts Review Act, 1980 (N.S.W.), s.7(1)

John Goldring, Joan L. Pratt, D. E. J. Ryan, `The Contracts Review Act (N.S.W.)’, University of N.S.W. Law Journal 4 (1981), pp. 1–16.

Tasman Dry Cleaners (Balmain)Pty. Ltd. v. Diamond [ 1960 ] N.S.W.R. 419.

A. Schroeder Music Publishing Co. Ltd. v. Macaulay [1974] 3 All E.R. 616. 36. Ibid., at p. 623. See also Lloyds Bank Ltd. v. Bundy [1974] 3 All E.R. 757.

See Lord Denning M. R. in Clifford Davis Management Ltd. v. W.E.A. Records Ltd. [1975] 1 All E.R. 237, a case concerning two musicians who signed an evidently unfair contract with their manager. He said (at p. 240): “They were composers talented in music and song but not in business. In negotiation they could not hold their own”.

U.S. V. Bethlehem Steel Corp., 315 U.S. 289, 326–328 (1941), Frankfurter, J., dissenting.

See a recent powerful restatement of this proposition by Anthony T. Kronman, `Contract Law and Distributive Justice’, Yale Law Journal 89 (1980), pp. 472–511.

Scott v. U.S., 79 U.S. 443, 445 (1870). On the recent development of this doctrine in the U.S., see particularly M. P. Ellinghaus, `In Defense of Unconscionability’, Yale Law Journal 78 (1969), pp. 757–815

John E. Murray, `Unconscionability: Unconscionability’, University of Pittsburgh Law Review 31 (1969), pp. 1–80.

See, e.g., Richard E. Epstein, `Unconscionability: A Critical Reappraisal’, Journal of Law and Economics 18 (1975), pp. 293–315 and Arthur Allen Leff, `Unconscionability and the Crowd — Consumers and the Common Law Tradition’, University of Pittsburgh Law Review 31 (1970), pp. 349–358.

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan ,ed. by C. B. Macpherson (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1981, 1st ed. 1651), p. 208.

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Hans Kelsen, What Is Justice? ( Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971 ), p. 430.

John Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), in particular pp. 363 —366.

Lon L. Fuller, The Morality of Law (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972, 1st ed. 1964), pp. 33–39.

L. L. Fuller, `Positivism and Fidelity to Law’, Harvard Law Review 71 (1958), p. 474.

See also Peter P. Nicholson, `The Internal Morality of Law: Fuller and His Critics’, Ethics 84 (1974), pp. 307–320.

H. L. A. Hart, The Concept of Law ( Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961 ), p. 206.

See A. M. Honoré, `Social Justice’, McGill Law Journal 8 (1962), p. 82.

Dupréel, op. cit. , pp.485–489; D. D. Raphael, Justice and Liberty (London: Athlone Press, 1980), pp. 80–93; Sidgwick, op. cit. , p. 293; Chaim Perelman, The Idea of Justice and the Problem of Argument ( London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1963 ), p. 63.

See Julius Stone, Legal System and Lawyers’ Reasoning (Sydney: Maitland Publications, 1968, 1st ed. 1964), pp. 263–267.

W. J. Wagner, `Equity and Its Socialist Equivalent in the Polish Legal System’, Review of Socialist Law 1 (1975), pp. 151–169.

Hans Kelsen, General Theory of Law and State (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1946), p. 410 (trans. A. Wedberg).

Ronald Dworkin, ’ “Natural” Law Revisited’, University of Florida Law Review 34 (1982), p. 165.

See, in particular, Neil MacCormick, Legal Right and Social Democracy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), ch. 7.

See, e.g., Norman P. Barry, An Introduction to Modern Political Theory ( London: Macmillan, 1981 ), p. 119.

See also William Nelson, `The Very Idea of Pure Procedural Justice’, Ethics 90 (1980), pp. 502–511.

David Resnick, `Due Process and Procedural Justice’ in J. Roland Pennock, John W. Chapman, eds., Due Process , Nomos XVIII ( New York: New York University Press, 1977 ), p. 213.

Rupert Cross, Evidence , Australian Edition by J. A. Gobbo (Sydney: Butterworths, 1970 ), p. 288.

Hawkins v. United States, 358 U.S. 74, 75 (1958).

Carl J. Friedrich, `Justice: The Just Political Act’, in Carl J. Friedrich, John W. Chapman, eds., Justice , Nomos VI (New York: Atherton Press, 1963), pp. 27–28, 43.

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Sadurski, W. (1985). The Concept of Justice. In: Giving Desert Its Due. Law and Philosophy Library, vol 2. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7706-9_2

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Social Justice

Last updated on September 29, 2023 by ClearIAS Team

Justice in terms of wealth distribution, opportunities, and privileges in society is termed social justice. At its sixty-second session, in November 2007, the General Assembly of the United Nations proclaimed 20 February as World Day of Social Justice. Read here to understand social justice.

The World Day of Social Justice Day was observed for the first time on 20 February 2009.

On June 10, 2008, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) endorsed the ILO Declaration on Social Justice for Equitable Globalization. This is the International Labour Conference’s third major declaration of principles and policy since the ILO’s Constitution of 1919.

The observance of the day is intended to contribute to the further consolidation of the efforts of the international community in poverty eradication, promotion of full employment and decent work, gender equity, and access to social well-being and justice for all.

Table of Contents

What is Social Justice?

A fair and equal distribution of resources, opportunities, and privileges in society is referred to as social justice.

Once a theological idea, it is now more loosely understood to refer to the just arrangement of social structures that provide access to financial advantages. It is also known as distributive justice.

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It emphasizes fairness in how society divides its social resources.

Gender inequality, racism, and LGBTQ+ discrimination are frequent subjects of social justice advocacy.

Social justice establishes rights and obligations within societal institutions, allowing everyone to share in the advantages and costs of collaboration.

Taxation, social insurance, public health, public education, public services, labor legislation, and market regulation are common examples of pertinent institutions that help assure equitable opportunity and wealth distribution.

The concept of Social Justice has been in place since the ancient ages when Plato and related philosophers wrote about it.

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• 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.”
• Plato 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.”
• Socrates (through Plato’s dialogue Crito) is credited with developing the idea of a social contract, whereby people ought to follow the rules of society, and accept its burdens because they have accepted its benefits.

Significance of Social Justice

Poverty and inequalities within and among countries are on the rise in many parts of the world.

The economic and social crises of recent years have been exacerbated by the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic , natural disasters due to accelerating climate change , geopolitical tensions, and armed conflicts.

Beyond the human tragedies associated with them and their impact on the world of work, these crises have highlighted the interlinkages and dependencies of economies and societies around the world and shown the crucial need for concerted action to respond to them, at global, regional, and national levels.

Important global changes have led to growing disruptions in economies linked to globalization and technology, significant demographic transformations, increasing migration flows, and prolonged situations of fragility.

The need of the hour is to curb the growing divide between problems and solutions and call for more inclusive and networked multilateralism, re-embracing global solidarity and renewing the social contract between governments and their people and within societies with a comprehensive approach to human rights.

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Social justice makes societies and economies function better and reduces poverty, inequalities, and social tensions.

It plays an important role in attaining more inclusive and sustainable socio-economic development paths and is key for reaching the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (2030 Agenda), especially at a time when the achievement of those goals remains far away.

Hence, social justice must become one of the pillars of the revitalized multilateralism that is needed; it must serve as a unifying ideal as well as a key tool for a more effective multilateral system, maintaining coherence across a variety of policy areas.

World Day of Social Justice

2023 Theme: Overcoming Barriers and Unleashing Opportunities for Social Justice

The 2023 World Day of Social Justice provides an opportunity to foster dialogue with UN Member States, youth, social partners, civil society, UN organizations, and other stakeholders on actions needed to strengthen the social contract that has been fractured by rising inequalities, conflicts, and weakened institutions that are meant to protect the rights of workers.

Despite these multiple crises, there are many opportunities to build a coalition for social justice and to unleash greater investments in decent jobs, with a particular focus on the green, digital, and care economy, and young people.

Social justice in India

The problem of social justice is associated with social equality and the constitution makers were strongly affected by the feeling of social equality and social justice at the time of the independence.

The terms, like Socialist, Secular, Democratic, and Republic, were inserted in the Preamble for the same cause.

Social justice denotes that all people are treated fairly without any social distinction. This ensures that the absence of privilege is limited to every specific segment of society and the conditions of poor classes (SCs, STs, and OBCs) and women are strengthened.

It involves eliminating glaring disparities in wealth, pay, and property. What is referred to as “distributive justice” is a combination of social and economic fairness. All Indians are guaranteed equality of opportunity and status under the Preamble.

Social injustice is a critical problem in Indian society. The analysis of a society’s social stratification based on either caste or class is primarily concerned with the definition of inequality.

The constitution guarantees social justice to the people of the country through articles:

• Article 15(1) forbids discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex, or place of birth
• Article 16 (1) ensures equal opportunity for all
• Article 17 states that untouchability has been abolished and prohibits its existence
• Article 19 enshrines the fundamental rights of the country’s people
• Articles 23 and 24 provide for fundamental rights against exploitation.
• Article 38 directs the State to secure a social order for the promotion of the welfare of the people
• Article 41 entails the Right to work, to education, and public assistance in certain cases

Government initiatives

NGOs Schemes

• Scheme of Grant in Aid to Voluntary Organisations working for Scheduled Castes
• National Action Plan for Drug Demand Reduction
• Atal Vayo Abhyuday Yojana (AVYAY)
• Scheme of National Awards for Outstanding Services in the field of Prevention of Alcoholism and Substance (Drug) Abuse
• Implementation Framework of National Action Plan for Drug Demand Reduction

Educational Schemes

• National Fellowship for OBC Students (NF-OBC)
• Ambedkar Scheme of Interest Subsidy on Educational Loan for Overseas Studies for OBCs & EBCs
• National Overseas Scholarship
• National Fellowship for Scheduled Caste Students
• Free Coaching Scheme for SC and OBC Students
• Babu Jagjivan Ram Chhatrawas Yojana (BJRCY)
• Pre-Matric Scholarship for OBC Students
• Scholarships for Higher Education for Young Achievers Scheme (SHREYAS) (OBC &Others) – 2021-22 to 2025-26.
• PM young achievers’ scholarship award scheme for vibrant India for OBCs and others (PM -YASASVI)
• Scholarship for PM CARES children

Schemes for Economic Development

• Entrepreneurial Schemes of NBCFDC
• Credit Enhancement Guarantee Scheme for the Scheduled Castes (SCs)
• National Safai Karamcharis Finance and Development Corporation (NSKFDC)
• National Scheduled Castes Finance and Development Corporation (NSFDC)
• Scheme of Assistance to Scheduled Castes Development Corporations (SCDCs)
• Self-Employment Scheme for Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers (SRMS)
• Pradhan Mantri Dakshta Aur Kushalta Sampann Hitgrahi (PM-DAKSH) Yojana

Schemes for Social Empowerment

• Centrally Sponsored Scheme for implementation of the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955, and the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989
• Pradhan Mantri Adarsh Gram Yojana (PMAGY)
• Support for Marginalized Individuals for Livelihood and Enterprise (SMILE)
• Pradhan Mantri Anusuchit Jaati Abhyuday Yojna (PM-AJAY)

Also read: Children and Armed Conflict

Way forward

To make social justice an effective tool for social advancement, it is vital to guarantee that policies are implemented correctly and fairly.

Liberalism prioritizes freedom, but it is aware that this freedom is meaningless unless it is supported by a sense of security and equality.

A liberal social policy should work to increase opportunity for the most disadvantaged while also building a social safety net that makes it easier for them to handle emergencies.

-Article written by Swathi Satish

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Article Contents

Guiding organizations and social justice.

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Social Work and Social Justice: A Conceptual Review

• Article contents
• Figures & tables
• Supplementary Data

Brittanie E Atteberry-Ash, Social Work and Social Justice: A Conceptual Review, Social Work , Volume 68, Issue 1, January 2023, Pages 38–46, https://doi.org/10.1093/sw/swac042

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As a profession, social work has codified within its ethical guidance and educational policies a commitment to social justice. While a commitment to social justice is asserted in several of our profession’s guiding documents, social work continues to lack consensus on both the meaning and merit of social justice, resulting is disparate and sometimes discriminatory practice even under a “social justice” label. This study examines how social justice has been operationalized in social work via a conceptual review of the literature. Findings show that social work leans heavily on John Rawls’s definition of social justice, Martha Nussbaum’s and Amartya Sen’s capabilities approach, and the definition of social justice included in The Social Work Dictionary . Unfortunately, none of these adequately align with the National Association of Social Workers’ Code of Ethics , which drives the profession. This conceptual review is a call to social workers to join together in defining the guiding principle of the profession.

The commitment to social justice is codified within the ethical guidance and educational policies of the profession of social work. While the concept of social justice is enumerated in several guiding documents, social work continues to lack consensus on both the meaning and merit of social justice ( Abramovitz, 1993 ; Funge, 2011 ; Garcia & Van Soest, 2006 ; Hong & Hodge, 2009 ; Specht & Courtney, 1995 ; Van Soest & Garcia, 2003 ), impeding how effectively social work has been able to enact social justice in practice ( Reisch, 2010 ).

Guided primarily by two organizations in the United States—the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) and the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE)—social workers are called on to practice socially just values and to address the consequences of oppression, specifically lost opportunity, social disenfranchisement, and isolation. NASW does this through the establishment and monitoring of licensure for practitioners and through maintaining the discipline’s Code of Ethics ( NASW, 2021 ), which states, “Social workers promote social justice and social change with and on behalf of clients” (p. 1). Further, social justice is identified as one of NASW’s core values of the profession of social work.

CSWE guides educational practices and policy through membership and the accreditation of programs of social work through the Council on Accreditation. The CSWE Education Policy and Accreditation Standards (EPAS) identify the purpose of social work as promoting personal and community well-being, actualized through the quest for social and economic justice, the prevention of conditions that limit human rights, the elimination of poverty, and the enhancement of the quality of life for all persons, locally and globally ( CSWE, 2022 ).

In 2013, paralleling a similar process in numerous disciplines, the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare sought national input from the field to identify critical, compelling issues that were measurable. The 12 Grand Challenges for Society that emerged from this process were meant to inspire researchers and practitioners, to focus attention, and to drive innovation and collaboration in the profession. Among these challenges is the call to achieve equal opportunity and justice—yet another restatement of the centrality of social justice to the field ( Uehara et al., 2013 ).

is a practice-based profession and an academic discipline that promotes social change and development, social cohesion, and the empowerment and liberation of people. Principles of social justice, human rights, collective responsibility and respect for diversities are central to social work. ( IFSW, 2014 , Global Definition of the Social Work Profession)

National Association of Social Workers and Social Justice

The first NASW Code of Ethics appeared in 1960, with no mention of social justice; however, in 1967 , a new principle was added, which created a pledge to nondiscrimination, although with no specific mention of social justice ( NASW, 1960 ). The language of social justice was added in 1979, under “Social Worker’s Ethical Responsibility to Society” ( NASW, 1979 ). Social justice then moved to the forefront. Starting with the 1996 update, the term appears in the preamble and as a value, with an accompanying ethical principle calling for social workers to challenge injustice, and in ethical standards 6.01 and 6.04 ( NASW, 1996 , 1999 , 2008 , 2017 , 2021 ). Currently, the NASW preamble states that social work’s mission is to “enhance human well-being,” assist in meeting the “needs of all people,” and promote social justice and social change. The preamble specifically states that social workers must “strive to end discrimination, oppression, poverty, and other forms of social injustice’ ( NASW, 2021 , p. 1). The Code of Ethics , which is broken up into Ethical Principles and Ethical Standards, ensures that social work stays grounded in its mission, provides a guide to reference back to and rely on, and acts as an accountability measure to both the field and individual social workers ( NASW, 2021 , p. 2). The second of the six ethical principles expresses the value of social justice by articulating that social workers are called to challenge injustice. More specifically, principle 2 affirms that social workers’ change efforts (e.g., advocacy, community organizing, and individual work with clients) are to focus on ending discrimination and other forms of social injustice ( NASW, 2021 , p. 5). The third principle calls on social workers to value the dignity and worth of the person, and states that social workers should actively consider individual differences and cultural and ethnic diversity and treat each person with care and respect. Last, ethical standard 4, social workers’ ethical responsibilities as professionals, includes section 4.02, discrimination, which suggests that social workers should not discriminate “on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, marital status, political belief, religion, immigration status, or mental or physical ability” ( NASW, 2021 ).

Implications of the Lack of Consensus in Defining Social Justice

These numerous calls from social work’s guiding organizations to confront injustice and work toward a socially just society distinguish social work from other helping professions, such as psychology or counseling ( American Psychological Association, 2017 ; NASW, 2021 ; Rountree & Pomeroy, 2010 ). Yet, despite this expressed and often repeated link between social work and social justice, as well as the enumeration of the principles of social justice, human rights, collective responsibility, and respect for diversity ( Abramovitz, 1993 ; Funge, 2011 ; NASW, 2021 ; Specht & Courtney, 1995 ), there is no unified understanding of what social justice is, how it is operationalized in social work, or even whether the profession should be driven by it. The term “social justice”—while definitionally complex and lacking consensus in the field ( Finn, 2016 )—has become a buzzword that is often used in everyday conversations, in schools’ mission statements, and by government and community leaders, rarely with a concrete delineation of exactly what the user means. Broadly, social justice is commonly understood as the promotion of social equality by reducing barriers to services and goods. However, social work scholars have concluded that multiple definitions of social justice exist and that it may be a concept that is not well understood or clearly defined ( Longres & Scanlon, 2001 ). Scholars also note that this lack of understanding and consensus on a definition has negatively impacted social work’s ability to address injustice ( Reisch, 2010 ).

Due to the definitional inconsistencies and the lack of agreement within the profession about the centrality of social justice, many educational practices, attitudes, and actions of those working within the profession may not align with socially just ideals that are included in the Code of Ethics and the EPAS ( Longres & Scanlon, 2001 ; Reisch, 2010 ; Specht & Courtney, 1995 ). As academics debate the professionalism of social work, its commitment to its values and ethics, and the role of social justice, social work educators continue to educate students who may neither understand nor connect social justice to their social work practice, despite the guidance provided via the Code of Ethics and the EPAS ( Finn, 2016 ; NASW, 2021 ; Longres & Scanlon, 2001 ). This lack of understanding may also contribute to the perpetuation of injustice by social workers in education settings. Discrimination at the hands of instructors, students, and institutions has been documented in scholarly literature (for a discussion on multiple identities see A. Davis & Mirick, 2022 ; Wong & Jones, 2018 ; for Black faculty see M. Davis, 2021 ; for Black students see Hollingsworth et al., 2018 ; for LGBTQ+ students see Atteberry-Ash et al., 2019 ; Byers et al., 2020 ). These are examples of the stark and dire misalignment between what social work professes and what social workers often practice. There is, additionally, well-documented research showing that individuals with marginalized identities experience discrimination in common social work practitioners’ settings, including in healthcare settings (for multiple identities and experiences of discrimination in healthcare settings see Nong et al., 2020 ; for transgender people and experiences of discrimination in healthcare settings see James et al., 2016 ; for LGBT experiences of discrimination in healthcare see Thorenson, 2018 ).

This disconnect between social justice and how social work operationalizes the value can also be seen in the accrediting body, CSWE, which accredits at least 76 schools of social work (over 10 percent of all schools of social work) that operate in universities that have discriminatory policies directed at LGBTQ+ students. Outside of these specific examples there are large movements within the profession, based on a commitment to social justice, to divest from participation with police systems ( Abrams & Dettlaff, 2020 ; Jacobs et al., 2021 ; Roberts, 2020 ) and child welfare systems ( Dettlaff et al., 2020 ; Roberts, 2020 ), given both of these institutions’ roles in perpetuating oppression, violence, and often unjust practices. These examples of experiences of discrimination within social work education and practices settings, of discriminatory policies, and of movements within the profession may serve as examples of how a disconnect in how we understand social justice and its centrality may impede how we enact social justice in practice ( Reisch, 2010 ).

Social workers may banter about the term “social justice” without actually understanding all that it entails. This lack of connecting concept to practice can cause a myriad of harms to clients and students, who assume that social justice will be practiced in a certain way, but then have different and even discriminatory experiences with social workers. Ergo, I hypothesized that a better understanding of the different ways that the field of social work conceptualizes “social justice” can lay a foundation for a clearer and more unified definition of the term, in turn leading to a more effective and impactful praxis of social justice, both in social work education and in practice.

To understand how social justice is defined in the field of social work, I conducted a conceptual review of the literature. A conceptual review, which is not an exhaustive search of all the literature that exists, seeks to synthesize an area of knowledge as a means of providing a clearer understanding of a concept ( Petticrew & Roberts, 2005 ). It aims to elucidate key ideas, debates, and models of the concept under investigation ( Nutley et al., 2002 ).

Article and Book Selection

To collect relevant articles for review, four databases were searched: ERIC, PsycINFO, Social Services, and Sociological Abstracts. All databases with the exception of PsycINFO (which did not offer that option) used the “anywhere except full text” option with the search terms of “social work*” AND “social justice.” The search was limited to articles written in English that were published between 1996 and 2019. The year 1996 was used because this was the year social justice moved to the forefront of the Code of Ethics .

The initial search of the four databases resulted in 3,245 articles. The results were exported to RefWorks, and the “remove duplicates” option was employed. Manual removal of duplicates ( n  =   1,073) resulted in 2,172 abstracts to be reviewed. Abstracts were reviewed for inclusion if they offered a definition of social justice within social work in the United States. Articles were excluded from the full-text review for the following reasons: There was no mention of a social justice definition or social justice as a concept in the abstract ( n  =   1,366), the article was not about social work in the United States ( n  =   113), the article was not in English ( n  =   4), the article was not related to the field social work ( n  =   14), the article was a book review ( n  =   201), the document was a correction of a previous article ( n  =   5), or the article was an introduction to a special edition or was a document in memory of a person ( n  =   51). The abstract review resulted in 417 articles to be included in the full-text review. After completion of the full-text review, an additional 315 articles were excluded from the conceptual review: a definition of social justice was not provided ( n  =   234), there was no mention of social justice at all ( n  =   9), the article was not about social work in the United States ( n  =   45), the article was not related to the field of social work ( n  =   25), the article was a newly found duplicate ( n  =   1), or the article was an introduction to the journal ( n  =   1). A total of 102 articles remained for the conceptual review. All articles were downloaded from the institutional library; any article not available was requested via interlibrary loan.

The database WorldCat was used to include books in the conceptual review. Similar to articles, the review focused on books written in English that were published between 1996 and 2019. Additional criteria of nonjuvenile and nonfiction were applied to the WorldCat search criteria.

For books, the initial review resulted in 477 texts. Duplicates were removed ( n  =   102), leaving 375 books for abstract/table of contents review. First, if available, abstracts were reviewed. If an abstract was not provided, the table of contents of the book was examined, as often both were provided in the WorldCat search results. Books were excluded from the full-text review for the following reasons: There was no mention of social justice definition or social justice as a concept in the abstract or table of contents ( n  =   238), the book was not about social work in the United States ( n  =   44), the book was not related to the field of social work ( n  =   41), the returned search result was not actually a book ( n  =   13), and the return result displayed no description and no description could be found for the title provided ( n  =   2). This left 37 books for inclusion in the conceptual review. All books were either downloaded if available electronically or requested from the library. Any book not available was requested via interlibrary loan.

Analysis Process

I conducted this conceptual review over a one-year period, beginning in April 2019, as part of a doctoral dissertation. To examine journal articles, each article was reviewed for its definition of social justice and each mention, along with context, was copied and pasted into an Excel file. Once books were received, they were examined for the inclusion of social justice within the text through both book chapter titles and inclusion in the book index; all relevant chapters or the specific text where social justice appeared were then copied for examination. Once the relevant book pages were copied, they were reviewed for the inclusion of social justice, and each mention, along with context, was then transcribed into the Excel file with the journal article excerpts. Once all identified excerpts were compiled, they were examined for the following: a unique definition of social justice, if a unique definition did exist, whom the article cited in the definition or explanations of social justice (e.g., John Rawls, Amartya Sen, Martha Nussbaum, Robert L. Barker, or another source) was noted. Additionally, I documented if the article mentioned that social justice was not well defined, if social justice was core to the discipline and practice of social work, or if the article mentioned that there was a historical incompatibility between social justice and social work.

Definitions of social justice in the conceptual review relied primarily on three different sources: Rawls (2001) , the capabilities approach ( Nussbaum, 2003 ; Sen, 1992 ), and The Social Work Dictionary ( Barker, 2003 , 2013 ).

Fifty percent ( n  =   70) of the literature reviewed used John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice to define or discuss social justice. In social work literature, Rawls’ contributions are twofold: First, social justice is conceptualized as fairness through the distribution of goods (distributive justice) and equal access to basic liberties, including freedom of thought, speech, and assembly, access to participate in the political system, the right to have and maintain personal property, and freedom from unreasonable arrest ( Morgaine & Capous-Desyllas, 2014 ). Second, the focus of distributive justice is on those who are least advantaged in society. Rawls argues that if society is to be equitable, it must benefit those who are the least advantaged, which he defined as those who had the least wealth ( Rawls, 2001 ). A just society as theorized by Rawls (2001) is one where the basic needs of all humans are met, unnecessary stress is minimized, the capability of all people is maximized, and threats to well-being are reduced. Overwhelmingly, the use of Rawls in the social work literature centers on the notion of social justice as distributive justice. Many scholars rely heavily on this conceptualization as it aligns well with social work’s call to meet the basic needs of human beings, and its emphasis on the benefits and well-being of economically disadvantaged people ( NASW, 2021 ; Wakefield, 1998a , 1998b ).

Capabilities Approach

Fifteen percent ( n  =   21) of the reviewed articles and texts moved from Rawls’ contribution of distribution of goods to the capabilities approach ( Sen, 1992 ) to social justice, noting the shortcomings of Rawls’s distributive justice conceptualization. The Sen approach moves from a focus on how goods are distributed to the expanded concept of the distribution of capabilities ( Morris, 2002 ). Although the capabilities approach recognizes the importance of societal goods and their distribution, it also acknowledges that Rawls’s theory of justice lacks insight into how a person may be able to use those goods ( Morris, 2002 ). Articles and books reviewed noted that the capabilities approach to justice offers hope in expanding access to opportunity through several modalities, including agency (e.g., people’s ability to pursue goals that they see value in), instrumental freedoms (e.g., political freedom, freedom in accessing economic resources including access to financial credit, freedom to choose education and healthcare, freedom of access to information including financial information to reduce corruption, and freedom to seek protective security including social benefits), substantive freedoms (freedom of speech, freedom to avoid physical harm, freedom to participate in political movements), diversities (this concept relates to equity versus equality, noting for example that pregnant people need more nutrition than nonpregnant people), and health (healthcare should be available to all; Banerjee & Canda, 2012 ). The capabilities approach moves away from fairness as justice in that it also notes that equity, an approach to providing people the tools and resources needed to access opportunity, as opposed to equality, giving everyone the same tools and resources needed to access opportunity, may be a more effective means to justice.

The literature also relied on Nussbaum’s ( n  =   12) expansion of Sen’s (1992) capabilities approach and utilized Nussbaum’s explicitly defined 10 capabilities that must be protected to achieve social justice. These 10 capabilities represent what is required to live life with dignity or, in other words, the qualities that must be present for social justice to prevail ( Nussbaum, 2003 ): life; bodily health; bodily integrity; senses, imagination, and thought; emotions; practical reason; affiliation; other species; play; and control over one’s environment. Reviewed literature noted that Nussbaum’s approach to social justice adds, in addition to meeting the basic needs of humans, the connection to social work’s role in impacting well-being, human dignity, and self-determination ( Morris, 2002 ; NASW, 2021 ).

The Social Work Dictionary

an ideal condition in which all members of a society have the same basic rights, protection, opportunities, obligations, and social benefits. Implicit in this concept is the notion that historical inequalities should be acknowledged and remedied through specific measures. A key social work value, social justice entails advocacy to confront discrimination, oppression, and institutional inequities. (pp. 398–399).

This definition is the most closely aligned with the Code of Ethics ( NASW, 2021 ) in that it explicitly recognizes that social justice includes advocacy to address the inequalities that are identified in the guiding documents of the discipline.

Additional Findings

As part of the conceptual review, each article or text was also examined for several indicators (see Table 1 ). Almost 20 percent of the articles offered a unique definition (not mentioning or leaning on concepts by Rawls or Sen) of social justice ( n  =   25, 17.9 percent), while almost half mentioned that social justice is ill defined within social work ( n  =   62, 44.3 percent). A majority of the articles related social justice back to the Code of Ethics ( n  =   94, 67.1 percent), while fewer mentioned that it was core to the profession ( n  =   65, 46.4 percent). Last, slightly more than 20 percent ( n  =   30) of the texts reviewed mentioned that there is a history of incompatibility or tension between the concept of social justice and the profession of social work.

Social Justice within Social Work

Note: NASW = National Association of Social Workers.

Despite its widespread use within social work, and in line with the existing critiques, social work’s reliance on Rawls’ definition of social justice falls short of the values espoused by the field’s guiding documents. This is especially urgent given Banerjee’s (2011) suggestion that, overwhelmingly, social work has been misusing the interpretation of Rawls’s meaning of social justice due to lack of investigation of the details, the assumptions, and stipulations with Rawls’s conceptualization. Banerjee (2011) notes that Rawls’s view of social justice does not actually align with the primary definitions of social justice in the social work literature.

The findings from this conceptual review suggest that social work scholars most often use Rawls’s theory of social justice from his 1971 text, which he himself updated and critiqued. The most up-to-date version was completed in 2001 (see Rawls, 1971 , 1999 , 2001 ); given this, if social work scholars are to continue to lean on Rawls’s conceptualization of social justice as fairness, they should, at a minimum, be citing and integrating his most current understanding of the concept.

Findings from this review also elucidate that most of the reviewed social work definitions of social justice were missing the crucial role that advocacy plays in the enactment of social justice. Given the common reliance on Rawls, this is not surprising. However, considering the mission and values of social work, the definition that the profession uses necessitates the incorporation of social action. As such, it seems the definition from the 2013 edition of The Social Work Dictionary , which integrates the relationship between social justice and advocacy, is a better choice. Unfortunately, even this definition fails to address the role of personal agency, and to recognize that to best meet the needs of individuals and communities, those individuals and communities need to be central to the advocacy process.

It is also important to recognize that any understanding and definition of social justice is temporally bounded and because the communities, policies, and societal conditions within which social work operates are continuously changing, any agreed upon definition of social justice evolves with those changes. Embodied in any attempt to define and operationalize social justice within social work is the tension between the discipline’s stated goals of liberation and the reality of operating within systems that are inherently structured to maintain the status quo and, thus, the social stratification that we are attempting to eradicate. This tension can be seen, for example, in recent dialogues about exploring reformist and abolitionist approaches in policing (example.g., Jacobs et al., 2021 ; Rine, 2021 ) and the child welfare system (example.g., Dettlaff et al., 2020 ; Herrenkohl et al., 2021 ). While eliminating this tension is likely not possible, it is critical to explicitly acknowledge and understand the implications of these tensions and the resultant outcomes for marginalized peoples.

Even so, given the disparate definitions of social justice that exist currently in the social work literature, a move toward an agreed upon and inclusive definition of the concept of social justice is an important starting point. Next steps toward realization of this goal could be a qualitative study of social justice scholars’ understanding of the findings from this conceptual review, followed by a survey of NASW chapters and CSWE members to determine the degree of agreement around an emerging definition. While the goal of the current study is intentionally limited to the discipline’s body of scholarship, a further additional step would be to engage scholarship from other fields on their definition and operationalization of the construct of social justice. In doing so, increased clarity about the epistemological presuppositions and ontological understandings of social work may emerge.

Social justice means people from all identity groups have the same rights, opportunities, access to resources, and benefits. It acknowledges that historical inequalities exist and must be addressed and remedied through specific measures including advocacy to confront discrimination, oppression, and institutional inequalities, with recognition that this process should be participatory, collaborative, inclusive of difference, and affirming of agency.

Using this modified and updated definition across the field may help educators and practitioner better operationalize the concept of social justice, resulting in better engagement with and outcomes for students and clients alike.

Social work has debated the meaning of social justice for decades. While debate and theorization of concepts is an important process for the field, especially when approaching topics from a critical lens, social work must work toward a clear understanding of a definition that is better aligned with its mission and clearly understood by social work educators, scholars, and practitioners, echoing Banerjee’s (2011) call to develop a new theory of social justice that is inclusive of more than just economic class—a suggestion that would mean that it is time for the field to leave Rawls behind. With a new approach to social justice the profession can embrace its history of activism ( Abramovitz, 1998 ; Reisch & Andrews, 2014 ) while also recognizing and atoning for harm done within the profession. The aforementioned harm is well documented in how social work practice and social work education have negatively impacted and interfaced with marginalized people and communities, both historically and currently, and also contributed to, maintained, and perpetuated the status quo ( Ritter, 2012 ; Specht & Courtney, 1995 ).

In addition to looking at how we as social workers understand and operationalize social justice, we must also come to agreement on its merit within our profession. The finding that 20 percent of the reviewed texts recognized the tension between the concept of social justice and the current practice of social work is evidence that we are still pushing back against an established connection via all guiding organizations and documents.

Funge (2011) noted in an examination of educators’ role in teaching social justice that many educators feel isolated in developing their understanding of social justice. Funge’s (2011) conclusion mirrors the findings of this conceptual review, that we, as social work academics and educators, are relying on several different understandings of social justice, often in isolation from more current and comprehensive conceptualizations. We must challenge the ease at which we as a profession rely on and profess a commitment to social justice in our everyday approach to social work practice and education, and recognize that our lack of commitment to a critical approach to social justice has real-life negative implications that perpetuate injustice. Perhaps now more than ever, as our political pendulum swings far outside the realms of a just world, it is time to come together as a profession and examine the value that roots us in our journeys as social workers. May this conceptual review be a starting place for that journey.

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Essay on Social Justice

Students are often asked to write an essay on Social Justice in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Social Justice

Understanding social justice.

Social justice is the fair treatment of all people in society. It’s about making sure everyone has equal opportunities, irrespective of their background or status.

Importance of Social Justice

Social justice is important because it promotes equality. It helps to reduce disparities in wealth, access to resources, and social privileges.

Role of Individuals

Every person can contribute to social justice. By treating others fairly, respecting diversity, and standing against discrimination, we can promote social justice.

In conclusion, social justice is vital for a balanced society. It ensures everyone has a fair chance to succeed in life.

Also check:

• Paragraph on Social Justice

250 Words Essay on Social Justice

Social justice, a multifaceted concept, is the fair distribution of opportunities, privileges, and resources within a society. It encompasses dimensions like economic parity, gender equality, environmental justice, and human rights. The core of social justice is the belief that everyone deserves equal economic, political, and social opportunities irrespective of race, gender, or religion.

The Importance of Social Justice

Social justice is pivotal in fostering a harmonious society. It ensures that everyone has access to the basic necessities of life and can exercise their rights without discrimination. It is the cornerstone of peace and stability in any society. Without social justice, the divide between different socio-economic classes widens, leading to social unrest.

Challenges to Social Justice

Despite its importance, achieving social justice is fraught with challenges. Systemic issues like discrimination, poverty, and lack of access to quality education and healthcare are significant roadblocks. These challenges are deeply ingrained in societal structures and require collective efforts to overcome.

The Role of Individuals in Promoting Social Justice

Every individual plays a crucial role in promoting social justice. Through conscious efforts like advocating for equal rights, supporting policies that promote equality, and standing against discrimination, individuals can contribute to building a just society.

In conclusion, social justice is a fundamental principle for peaceful coexistence within societies. Despite the challenges, each individual’s conscious effort can contribute significantly to achieving this noble goal. The journey towards social justice is long and arduous, but it is a path worth treading for the betterment of humanity.

500 Words Essay on Social Justice

Introduction to social justice.

Social justice, a multifaceted concept, is often described as the fair and equitable distribution of resources and opportunities, where outside factors that categorize people into social strata are irrelevant. It encompasses the idea that all individuals should have equal access to wealth, health, well-being, justice, privileges, and opportunity irrespective of their legal, political, economic, or other circumstances.

Origins and Evolution of Social Justice

The concept of social justice emerged during the Industrial Revolution and subsequent civil revolutions as a counter to the vast disparities in wealth and social capital. It was a call for societal and structural changes, aiming to minimize socio-economic differences. The term was first used by Jesuit priest Luigi Taparelli in the mid-19th century, influenced by the teachings of Thomas Aquinas. Since then, the concept has evolved and expanded, encompassing issues like environmental justice, health equity, and human rights.

The Pillars of Social Justice

Social justice rests on four essential pillars: human rights, access, participation, and equity. Human rights are the fundamental rights and freedoms to which all individuals are entitled. Access involves equal opportunities in terms of resources, rights, goods, and services. Participation emphasizes the importance of all individuals contributing to and benefiting from economic, social, political, and cultural life. Equity ensures the fair distribution of resources and opportunities.

Social Justice in Today’s World

In the 21st century, social justice takes many forms and intersects with various areas such as race, gender, sexuality, and class. It is increasingly associated with the fight against systemic issues like racism, sexism, and classism. The Black Lives Matter movement, for instance, is a social justice movement fighting against systemic racism and violence towards black people. Similarly, the #MeToo movement is a fight for gender justice, aiming to end sexual harassment and assault.

Despite the progress, numerous challenges to social justice persist. Systemic and structural discrimination, political disenfranchisement, economic inequality, and social stratification are just a few. Moreover, the rise of populism and nationalism worldwide has further complicated the fight for social justice, as these ideologies often thrive on division and inequality.

Promoting social justice requires collective action. Individuals can contribute by becoming more aware of the injustices around them, advocating for policies that promote equity, and standing up against discrimination. Education plays a crucial role in this process, as it can foster a deeper understanding of social justice issues and equip individuals with the tools to effect change.

In conclusion, social justice is a powerful concept that advocates for a fairer, more equitable society. While significant strides have been made, numerous challenges remain, necessitating a continued commitment to promoting social justice. Through education and advocacy, individuals can play a crucial role in this ongoing effort. The pursuit of social justice, therefore, is not just a societal or institutional responsibility, but an individual one as well.

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Definition of Social Justice and Social Justice in Leadership Essay

Social justice is a concept that attempts to promote fairness in society. It encourages equal access to social privileges, opportunities, and wealth while eliminating discrimination. Activists play a great role in advocating and promoting social justice through fighting for equal rights and the elimination of issues affecting a certain community or group. However, the development and implementation of policies is the role of the administrators, including agencies, government, foundations, and non-profit organizations (Laura, 2018). They help shape public policies to deal with arising or existing issues, while political factors determine the effectiveness of social justice policies. This paper intends to discuss a personal view of social justice as it relates to aspiring educational and organizational leaders.

Promoting quality and equitable education to every student facilitates social, political, and economic development while ensuring that no one is left behind. Educational and organizational leaders should provide a favorable environment that favors everyone. In the education sector, it is necessary to support children from marginalized societies who are unable to access quality education. This means that effort should be made to finance their education and ensure that they are considered when seeking entry in public and private schools (Laura, 2018). Offering them equal access to quality education is one of the best ways to promote their position and opportunities to advance their economic status. Education leaders must note that knowledge acquired through learning can enable marginalized communities to acquire well-paying jobs (Kendi, 2019). This can play a role in enhancing fair distribution and equitable share of resources.

Leaders should strive to support anti-racism education through supporting curricular justice goals. Learning is considered the greatest equalizer in society because everyone learns about the existing rights and how they should be protected. It makes it possible for people to identify fundamental injustices in society and encourage the establishment of effective measures to address them (Laura, 2018). Achieving effective learning and knowledge acquisition requires the elimination of social injustices existing within the school system.

Classrooms should offer a good example of the meaning of social justice to help create a future society that promotes equality and fairness. Technological advancement has seen schools enroll students from around the globe, bringing the need for improving justice and effective integration. The increasing diversity implies that successful education leaders should strive to eliminate issues surrounding gender identity, class, race, ability, and sexuality (Goodman, 2011). Teachers must do more than just teaching students about the meaning of right and wrong. They should take corrective measures and focus on the elimination of existing barriers to ensure that every student is inspired, encouraged, and safe at school.

Organizational leaders should examine their policies and system, and ensure that they support social justice. They should ensure the best practices and provide an inclusive work environment by promoting fairness during the promotions and hiring process. Workers usually feel motivated when working for an organization that is concerned about fairness in every aspect. For instance, a skilled immigrant employee would feel motivated to work harder and support his team to achieve better results in case the company has well-established anti-racial injustice and black racism (Kendi, 2019). Moreover, organizations should realize that social-injustices hinder productivity since the affected individuals feel threatened and disoriented. Achieving success should start by ensuring that everyone is comfortable and contented with the environment.

Leaders are expected to establish effective approaches to promote fairness and equality in their organizations. They should evaluate the situation, identify areas that need improvement and develop a plan to support the achievement of social justice. Sharing what the organization is planning to do with the workers influences them to become part of the solution and support the process. Leaders should avoid being defensive about criticism but should focus on addressing the issue (Laura, 2018). It is necessary to encourage workers to share as much information as possible to understand the situation affecting the bottom workers (Rae, 2019). Leaders need to note that workers may fear telling the management the truth since it can be risky for their jobs. This means that they must use effective strategies to encourage everyone to speak and share beneficial information. Leaders for equity and social justice should be determined to enhance growth and lifelong learning, facilitate change, improve awareness, and eliminate oppression and prejudice.

As a reflective professional working toward social justice practices, I am making a determined effort to promote positive interactions by striving to eliminate discrimination and oppression. I have realized that social justice promotes coordination and positive integration that enable the achievement of set objectives. It helps accept and appreciate people from different places and learn to enhance productivity. I am becoming more concerned about issues affecting others and interest in improving their position.

In conclusion, social justice entails the promotion of equality and fairness through the provision of equal access to education, opportunities, resources, and integration. It promotes individual rights and ensures that certain communities or groups are not hindered from achieving their dream. Aspiring organizational and educational leaders have a great role to play in the establishment of effective policies and fair culture. They should ensure equal access to quality education while that it is provided in the best way possible. Since learning promotes impartiality and honesty, schools must offer a favorable environment. Diversity in schools means that leaders must make an extra effort to eliminate challenges in the learning systems. Organizational leaders should provide a favorable environment that is free from any form of oppression and injustices. Facilitating the development of appropriate policies can help promote social justice and offer equal growth opportunities.

Charmaraman, L., Jones, A. E., Stein, N., & Espelage, D. L. (2013). Is it bullying or sexual harassment? Knowledge, attitudes, and professional development experiences of middle school staff. Journal of School Health , 83 (6), 438-444. Web.

Goodman, D. J. (2011). Promoting diversity and social justice: Educating people from privileged groups . Routledge.

Kendi, I. X. (2019). How to be an antiracist . One world.

Laura, C. T. (2018). Enacting social justice leadership through teacher hiring. The Urban Review , 50 (1), 123-139. Web.

Rae, S. (2019). From inclusion to support: How to build a better workplace. The New York Times . Web.

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