This again is the ramblings of an uneasy mind on a Sunday morning triggered by the appearance of the term social justice in the newspaper. There has been, over the years, a nagging discomfort in my mind about the demands of people who are purveyors of the idea of social justice. In particular I was uncomfortable about the coercive elements of their demands and the reliance on a state to enforce social justice. I have not been quite clear in my mind on how could I explain my discomfort. Part of the reason being that I often found that the people were rather good natured and their objectives seemed desirable. Well, that was until today. Today a thought emerged in my mind. A result of numerous interactions with people on the ideas of social justice, compassion, fairness, governmental provision of public goods, reservation policy etc. I think now I have a foundation on which I can explain my discomfort. And as I went through the internet, I found that interesting people have said a few things which seemed to resonate with my point of view. Now that, as much as I hate to admit, is a source of comfort. So I will begin with a quote which I for now seem to agree with.
Ben O'Neill of the University of New South Wales argues that, for proponents of "social justice":[21]
the notion of "rights" is a mere term of entitlement, indicative of a claim for any possible desirable good, no matter how important or trivial, abstract or tangible, recent or ancient. It is merely an assertion of desire, and a declaration of intention to use the language of rights to acquire said desire.
In fact, since the program of social justice inevitably involves claims for government provision of goods, paid for through the efforts of others, the term actually refers to an intention to use force to acquire one's desires. Not to earn desirable goods by rational thought and action, production and voluntary exchange, but to go in there and forcibly take goods from those who can supply them! (sourced from Wikipedia page on 'Social Justice'.)
Now to get to my understanding.
Social justice as a word that possibly emerged from a realisation that normal applications of the concepts of justice does not seem to be delivering acceptable optimal outcomes. There could be many instances where the concepts of justice as we understand, when applied, seems to make decisions look unfair instead of fair. An easy example is when a hungry man steals bread from a wealthy man. Once we recognise right to property and accept stealing as a crime, the hungry man is indeed guilty. But we are not quite happy with the decision, are we? Not quite. So now we need to see why we are not quite happy with it and then see what can be done about it. I think the why is easily answered. We all have a quality called compassion. And that moves us. Moves us to sympathise with the plight of the hungry man. So now what do we do? We do not want our legal systems to pronounce the hungry man guilty and put him in jail. And we want the legal system and the government to protect him. So what do we do? We come up with the idea of 'social justice'. That gives us the opportunity to refer to the hungry man's requirement of food as a right. A right that must be guaranteed by the state/government. And if it means taxing the wealthy man to provide it, that is fine. And in some cases, if the hungry man does the taxation himself, that is not quite stealing. Coercion now has a justification. And here begins my discomfort. My discomfort is the coercion involved.
For the purveyors of the idea of social justice, I have a question. Why do you need to call it social justice? The trigger is your compassionate self. Why can you not say that society has to be compassionate? Why not say that an individual has to be compassionate to his of her fellow being? Why couch it in the phrase 'social justice'? My explanation for the necessity of this phrase is that in our democratic set up where reason, fairness and justice have to necessarily dominate law making and since we rely on the tool of law to ensure the hungry man's rights, we have to rely on support provided by the word justice. Justice is something that can be enforced. The arms of the state can be called upon to enforce it. Compassion is too nebulous an emotion and it would appear strange if one were to argue that the state should enforce compassion. Because compassion cannot be enforced. Just like love.
So my basic thesis is that social justice is a phrase which attempts to integrate the demands of compassion into the language of justice to bring about an 'enforceability' of those demands and legitimise coercion as a means.
So now if I were to reject the word social justice, where does that leave the hungry man? Is he to be taken to the prison. Not quite. We will try and construct an alternative premised on the starting point. Compassion. Secondly, we will also read closely into one of the statements earlier. To be precise the statement “we want the legal system and the government to protect him (the hungry man)”. Why do we want the legal system and the government to do the protection. How about me? How about the wealthy man himself? For these alternatives to be feasible, me and the wealthy man must be compassionate. We must be people who are moved by compassion. Are we? May be not. So then try convincing me or the wealthy man. No amount of argumentation or reasoning is going to make me compassionate. It is an emotion that has to be generated from within me or the wealthy man. That is not going to be easy. No one quite knows how it is generated. For a Christian, the solution is easily known. May be not easily attainable. Flip through the pages of the Bible and in Ephesians 4:32 you will find a standing instruction. “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just like Christ forgave you.” Many of Christ's miracles begin with Him being moved by compassion. And that compassion stemmed from His love of Man. And that love is a Fruit of the Spirit. Now attaining the Fruit of the Spirit. That is a stiff ask. There are no easy answers. Only a promise from God that it shall be give to people who yearn for it.
It is this difficulty which is behind the attraction of a phrase like social justice. It is far easier to be optimistic about a state that delivers social justice than to think of a society of men and women who are compassionate. Our worship of institutions seem to make us lose hope in engendering compassion amongst ourselves. The state sponsored compassion is no compassion. It is only a faceless coercive wealth transfer. It can at best result in a society in which different groups/individuals (I am not clear which) are in a tense equilibrium.
By the way, the origins of the word social justice seemed to be Christian according to Wikipedia. Apparently, the term was coined by a Jesuit priest by the name Luigi Taparelli based on the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas. And the Liberation Theologists who seemed to have accepted the idea of social justice (again according to Wiki) seems to have taken on the responsibility of establishing the Kingdom of God on themselves. I think the Bible does make it clear that the Kingdom of God will be established through a direct intervention by God himself and not through human beings. The standing instruction for humanity is to be compasssionate. Interestingly, God says that justice is not quite in your grasp. As far as I recollect, he does not seem to instruct human beings to be just.
