“If I were putting together my dream team to organize a volume to answer the question, ‘Is social justice just?’, it would be Rob Whaples, Mike Munger, and Chris Coyne. And the dream team delivers! Anyone concerned with social justice will find this book makes him question his assumptions, re-think his premises, and think! They have assembled their own dream team of authors to provide insights from a variety of disciplinary perspectives that provoke thought, provide new perspectives, and make the reader want more.”
Description
“Anyone concerned with social justice will find this book makes him question his assumptions, rethink his premises, and think!”
—Andrew P. Morriss, professor, Bush School of Government and Public Service, School of Law, Texas A&M University
What is social justice?
In these pages, twenty-one accomplished academics seek to do justice to “social justice.” Inequality exists and obviously causes rifts in societies. But it’s not obvious how the government should address those rifts, or if it should address them at all. Have we forgotten the perhaps more efficient power of personal choice—and the corollary obligation: to serve our neighbors—to make our society more humane?
Beginning with the first political philosophers in ancient Athens, and continuing right through Marx into our post-modern era, men have wrestled with the question of justice; and the answers have been as earnest as they have been varied.
Today, our “expert” class also claim to have answers—updated answers, more “equitable” answers, more technological answers ... in short, answers that are simply better suited to our times.
But are those answers in any way correct? Do they work? Are they—just?
In these elegant, nuanced essays, the authors use the wisdom of ancient and modern philosophers to shed light on these important questions—and the answers are revealing.
Armed with ample evidence from real-world experiences, lessons from history, the wisdom of the classics, modern philosophers, and even the teachings of the world religions, the contributors of Is Social Justice Just? illuminate the central role of the individual in achieving justice in all its aspects.
Read Is Social Justice Just? and discover:
In a world of partisanship, hysteria, maliciousness, and good intentions attached to hellish outcomes, this landmark book enters the public discourse at a critical time.
With a foreword by Jordan B. Peterson, a preface by Nicholas Rescher, and a collection of essays by some of the best and brightest scholars of our time, Is Social Justice Just? is a timely and urgent work.
Read it, and you will begin to think about “social justice,” and justice, in some surprising new ways.
Reviews
“In the world of public policy, words should mean something, not just sound like they mean something. The words ‘social justice’ are thrown around quite liberally these days, often with the assumption that their meaning is clear—but from the way these words are used, it’s clear that their meaning varies from author to author and sometimes even from paragraph to paragraph in the works of a single author. Here a stellar cast of policy-oriented intellectuals faces this problem head on, attacking the problem of what ‘social justice’ ought to mean and why it matters. It’s about time.”
“Social justice is an ambiguous concept that allows people to redefine justice to conform with their own biases. This volume clearly points out problems with the concept and offers a clear-headed analysis of the way the concept should be viewed, along with analyses of socially just policies.”
“Though plenty of people have opinions about the importance of social justice, they seldom explain what they mean by the term. Is it a meaningful concept? If so, what constitutes social justice? Are there better and worse ways to pursue it? This collection of readings addresses those controversial issues and more. It is a timely contribution to an important debate.”