Perspectives on Social Justice

1
Perspectives on Social Justice

• Context for Distributive Justice

2
Three Broad Traditions

• Conservativism
• Plato
• Aquinas
• Social Teachings of the Catholic Church
• Rerum novarum (1891)
• Quadragesimo Anno (1931)
• Post-Vatican II focus on individual or personal
  rights and tie or convergence with human rights
  
• Liberalism
• John Locke
• Adam Smith
• John Stuart Mill
• Socialism
• Marxism--Marx and Engels
• Democratic Socialism--Eduard Bernstein

3
The Conservative tradition

• Platos Republic--the ideal, just, or good
  society
• ordered society hierarchically
• three social classes each performing its task as
  intended by nature or by the gods
• Laborers/artisans
• Guardians
• Philosophers--among which is drawn the
  philosopher king
• That just society allows individuals to live
  the good life

4
Conservatism (continued) Catholic Social
Teachings

• Leo XIII writes Rerum Novarum
• Response to industrial modernization
• Asserts place in society of labor
• Becomes basis for corporatism
• Followed by Quadragesimo Anno (1931)
• Anti-socialist and
• Anti-liberal
• Emergence of Catholic Social Teaching
• Emphasis on worker and the poor
• Convergence with communitarianism
• Influence of Vatican II
• Accommodation with pluralist society
• Maintains emphasis on human life
• Tie with growing human rights movement

5
Liberalism

• John Locke
• Emphasis on the individuals rights
• Life
• Liberty
• Property
• Individuals pursue self-interest (property)
• Equality
• Separation of church and state
• Adam Smith provides economic theory
• Why does the baker bake bread?
• The invisible hand provides for the best
  society
• John Rawls provides a theory of justice
• A society based on self-interest in fairness
• Constructed from behind the veil of ignorance

6
Socialism

• Marx and Engels
• Radical break with liberalism
• Private property incompatible with just society
• Development of Leninism and Maoism in 20th
  Century
• Eduard Bernstein and democratic socialism
• Violent revolution abandoned
• Acceptance of liberal democratic regimes
• Vision of the just society through public
  ownership of the major segments of economy

7
Distributive Justice (social justice in the
liberal tradition)

• Points raised by Miller
• Justice has to do with fair distribution ofwell
  what? A careful but not dogmatic delimiting of
  goods and services to be included
• Meeting needs considered basic or a right
  Housing? Medical care? Higher education?
• Fair reward relative to contribution The person
  who contributes to society something that is
  twice as valuable should be rewarded more than
  those contributing less?
• An essential equality regarding access to those
  things deemed within the limits of social
  justice and in sharing the burdens--taxes,
  military service.
• Miller, in this chapter, prepares the reader for
  those things he would leave out.
• We cannot force people to be happy we cannot
  guarantee contentment--so it is not a delimited
  item.
• The list requires that we, as a society, share a
  broad consensus on the value of goods, services,
  and opportunities.

8
Miller continued

• Miller insists on the necessity of the state as
  well as substate institutions for enforcement and
  practice of social justice
• For Miller, the just society is not
  international it is not global

9
Questions

1. What of the international or global community?
2. When should the people of one society intervene
   in the affairs of another to stop injustice?
3. When should the people of a society act to stop
   injustice within that same society?
4. Does national identity have anything to do with
   answers to the first three questions?
5. How might social justice relate to democracy?
6. Does democracy bring about social justice? (Are
   the mobs just?)
7. How does social justice relate to digital media?
8. Is access or equality in access to digital media
   a matter of social justice?
9. Does (access to) digital media lead to the
   extension of social justice?