Is Social Justice Just?

by Robert M. Whaples (Editor), Michael C. Munger (Editor), Christopher J. Coyne (Editor), Jordan B. Peterson (Foreword by)

Overview

"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 it 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:

• how to do social justice wrong with the poison of resentment, envy, and ignorance;
• how to do social justice right with the insights of philosophers and theologians;
• how to respect people's rights and liberties without sacrificing true equality;
• and how to reform flawed public policies that just make everything worse.

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781598133554
Publisher:	Independent Institute
Publication date:	05/31/2023
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	376
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Robert M. Whaples is a Senior Fellow at the Independent Institute, Co-Editor and Managing Editor of The Independent Review, Professor of Economics at Wake Forest University, Director and Book Review Editor for EH.NET, and a member of the Board of Advisors for the Center on Culture and Civil Society at the Independent Institute. He is the co-editor of the Independent Institute books Is Social Justice Just?, In All Fairness, and Pope Francis and the Caring Society. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Pennsylvania. He has also served as Assistant Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, Associate Editor of the Business Library Review, Chair of the Cliometric Society, and editor of EH.Net's Encyclopedia of Economic and Business History.

Michael C. Munger is Senior Fellow and former co-editor of The Independent Review at the Independent Institute, and Professor of Political Science, Economics and Public Policy and Director of the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Program at Duke University. He has been Staff Economist at the Federal Trade Commission, President of the Public Choice Society, and President of the North Carolina Political Science Association, and he has taught at Dartmouth College, University of Texas at Austin, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Christopher J. Coyne is a Senior Fellow at the Independent Institute and Co-Editor of The Independent Review, Professor of Economics and Director of Graduate Programs for the Department of Economics at George Mason University, Co-Editor of the Review of Austrian Economics, and Book Review Editor at Public Choice. He received his Ph.D. in economics from George Mason University. He has taught at the University of West Virginia and Hampden-Sydney College, and he has been the Hayek Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics and Visiting Scholar at the Social Philosophy and Policy Center at Bowling Green State University.

Jordan B. Peterson is Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Toronto. Peterson received his B.A. in political science at the University of Alberta and Ph.D. in clinical psychology from McGill University. He remained at McGill as a post-doctoral fellow from 1991 to 1993 before moving to Harvard University, where he became Associate Professor of Psychology and was nominated for the Levinson Teaching Prize. In 1998, he moved back to Canada as a faculty member in the psychology department at the University of Toronto.

Editorial Reviews

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.

Bruce Caldwell

What principles of social justice will foster peace, cooperation, and mutual respect among highly diverse individuals within a decidedly pluralist society rather than foster exploitation, tribal conflict, coercive re-education, and the enhancement of arbitrary state power? From their own distinctive philosophical or economic perspectives, the contributors to Is Social Justice Just? converge toward the powerful conclusion that justice must be modest. It must protect each person’s life, liberty, and property and not proclaim purportedly radiant social ends to which people’s lives, aspirations, and fortunes are to be sacrificed.

Eric Mack

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.

Andrew P. Morriss

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.

Randall Holcombe

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.

Steven Landsburg

"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.”
—Andrew P. Morriss, professor, Bush School of Government and Public Service, School of Law, Texas A&M University

“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.”
—Steven Landsburg, professor of economics, University of Rochester

“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.”
—Randall Holcombe, DeVoe Moore Professor of Economics, Florida State University

“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.”
—Bruce Caldwell, Research Professor of Economics; director, Center for the History of Political Economy, Duke University

“What principles of social justice will foster peace, cooperation, and mutual respect among highly diverse individuals within a decidedly pluralist society rather than foster exploitation, tribal conflict, coercive re-education, and the enhancement of arbitrary state power? From their own distinctive philosophical or economic perspectives, the contributors to Is Social Justice Just? converge toward the powerful conclusion that justice must be modest. It must protect each person’s life, liberty, and property and not proclaim purportedly radiant social ends to which people’s lives, aspirations, and fortunes are to be sacrificed.”
—Eric Mack, professor of philosophy, Tulane University

“With more clamor for ‘social justice’ in the public square today than seri­ous inquiry into what social justice consists of, the essays in Is Social Justice Just? are timely and essential reading. Twenty-three scholars lay bare both the promise and pitfalls of initiatives that are taken under the social justice banner.”
—J. Daniel Hammond, Hultquist Family Professor (emeritus), Department of Economics, Wake Forest University

“Is Social Justice Just? brings together a remarkable collection of scholars who study one of the most controversial issues of our time, one that has created enormous divisions across social, political, cultural, economic, racial and religious lines. Each author deconstructs social justice using his own unique set of analytical tools, with the hope of creating a concept of justice that can help bring society back together. A broad consensus emerges from this process, as these scholars are individually led to a reconstruction of social justice focused on the sanctity and the beauty of each of us as individuals, individuals who have the same rights and freedoms and opportunities to create our own paths, while respecting the choices of others. Read this book, and you will look at our world with a very different and much more optimistic vision than you have now.”
—Lee Ohanian, professor of economics and director of the Ettinger Family Program in Macroeconomic Research, University of California, Los Angeles

“Readers of this book will be rewarded by the interdisciplinary perspectives on social justice from a distinguished group of contributors ...”
—Barry W. Poulson, professor of economics (emeritus), University of Colorado

“In the zeitgeist of our times, social justice is just by definition, as well as by intuition and emotion. The articles in this book put the conventional wisdom to the test, with rational analyses from a number of different perspectives.”
—Pierre Lemieux, economist, Department of Management Sciences at the Université du Québec en Outaouais (Canada)

“A popular intellectual sport is to classify individuals into this or that group and then to ask: Is this or that group ‘owed’ something by society? With such classifications typically guided by political considerations, the answer is very often ‘yes.’ And because ‘owe’ implies obligation, and because justice demands the fulfilment of all obligations, justice demands that society—in one form or another—pay up. Or so goes the argument for ‘social justice.’ The papers in this remarkable volume examine this argument from a variety of perspectives. It’s a feature and not a bug of this collection that, no sooner are you convinced by one paper, then another paper turns your mind in a different direction.”
—Donald J. Boudreaux, professor of economics, George Mason University

From the Publisher