This post is part of the Series: Islam
Being one of the four cardinal virtues of classical moral philosophy, justice’s, along with the other virtues, main purpose “is to evaluate the dignity and sovereignty of the human person” (“Defining Economic Justice and Social Justice”). Justice is “a set of universal principles which guide people in judging what is right and what is wrong” (“Defining Economic Justice and Social Justice”). Social is not about the individual but about the workings of an individual amongst a group. Therefore, social justice is “working for the betterment of society as a whole” (Brubacher). Social justice calls every person into action to work to change root causes of injustices.
Social justice deals with how the advantages and disadvantages in society should be distributed in society (Robinson). Then how something is categorized as just or unjust depends on how the distribution of these advantages and disadvantages is within society (Robinson). Social justice worries itself with the “systemic root causes of inequality and social injustice” (Brubacher). Social justice is about improving the social systems in society. Social justice in terms of what a society that practices it would look like, it would be “a society whose organization and structure give all groups in the society an approximately equal possibility for basic well-being” (Brubacher). Everyone should be granted equal “economic, political, and social rights and opportunities” (National Association of Social Workers). Therefore, society should not give advantages to any group of people in a society and most important no advantages are given at the expense of another people. Furthermore, Social justice is not a theory or concept, but it is the actual situation at hand, what is being experience by people (Brubacher). It requires action to change social structures in order to give justice to real people experiencing injustice. Some people who put social justice into action are social workers. Looking at what they do will better exemplify what social justice is. People like social workers “aim to open the doors of access and opportunity for everyone, particularly those in greatest need” (National Association of Social Workers). Since an aim of social justice is to look at the systemic roots of injustice, social workers “use knowledge of existing legal principles and organizational structure to suggest changes to protect their clients, who are often powerless and underserved” (National Association of Social Workers). Social work’s philosophy is “Peace is not possible where there are gross inequalities of money and power” (National Association of Social Workers). Social justice works for peace in the world by attacking injustices that cause the “gross inequalities” which are the reasons for social unrest.
There are two areas in which social justice might be confused; socialism and charity. First, social justice may be misunderstood as being socialism, but that would be misunderstanding the applications of social justice. For example, calling for livable wages is a part of social justice and socialism. However, social justice it is not saying to take out all qualifications that may determine a wage, but that everyone who works “regardless of job — deserves a salary to provide for basic necessities” (Robinson). With social justice salaries and wages can still be determined by a wide array of factors, but everyone should be able to afford the basics of life. Social justice is compatible with a market economy (Robinson). Second, social justice and charity may mistakenly be used interchangeably. Justice does supply the foundation for charity, but just providing charity to people is not social justice (“Defining Economic Justice and Social Justice”). Charity is a short-term help. It is what “compels us to give to relieve the suffering of a person in need” (“Defining Economic Justice and Social Justice”). Charity is about supplying immediate aid to someone or cause. Social justice works to find the root causes of injustices, while charity is about dealing with the result of these injustices. There is nothing inherently wrong about charity, it just is not a substitute for justice (“Defining Economic Justice and Social Justice”).
Some people may view social justice as something only for those of faith, but so far social justice has only been described in secular terms showing that faith is not the leading factor of social justice. While it is true faith can inspire social justice and religions such as Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism do take a hard stand on social justice issues and urge and require followers to participate in social justice, it is not just a faith issue. Looking at it from a religious point of view, in Christianity and Islam, “the default situation is fairness and well-being for all” and if that is not the case it needs to be fixed (Brubacher). Acting out social justice is not an optional response to injustices but is “required to be done by all humanity and especially by the people of God” (Brubacher). The issue of social justice is explained similarly in both faith traditions and the secular world. The difference is that to faith traditions social justice is motivated by being in right relationship with God which is achieved by right relationship with people. Social justice brings together people of many different faiths and people of no faith, “human rights and environmental activists, labor organizers, young people who want to” put justice into action (Kikuchi).
There are three notable challenges to social justice. First, one way of looking at justice is viewing it as “giving to each what he or she is due” (“Defining Economic Justice and Social Justice”). The question then arises of what are people due? As discussed earlier, social justice is about the equal opportunities of well-being, but what exactly goes into that? Second, social justice must look critically at society in order for it to make necessary changes to be a more justice society, but it can not be utopian (Robinson). It must have the support of the “citizens and can realistically be achieved” (Robinson). If people within society are not behind the change, the change will not come to fruition. Third, just distribution of advantages and disadvantages within a society can not be judged “based on how they benefit us personally” (Robinson). This is hard since every single person has skin in the game when it comes to changes based on social justice, because social justice looks at root causes which are the foundations of many unjust structures in society. When judging whether something is just or unjust, it can not be based on the biases of the people making the judgments.
To further understand social justice, applying it to a real social justice issue may be helpful. One issue in particular is the how poverty affects education. Good education should be available to all, but students in low economic households suffer greatly from the circumstances they face. Students in poverty suffer from a lack of resources. Justice is often lacking from students facing poverty as they fall through the cracks of the education system because they do not have the same available resources as economically advantaged students do. There are programs that do to try to offer justice such as Title I. President Lyndon B. Johnson set one of his goals as the “War on Poverty.” Through this, Title I was established saying, “that poor children needed more educational services than wealthier children” because of the lack of resources they are faced with (Roza and Lake). This is where social justice is needed because social justice brings about the structural changes needed to bring justice to students facing poverty. Education’s ideal of equal education for all falls flat for students facing poverty, which is why social justice is required to help these students.
Social justice is not something that only applies to those of faith but to all people. Everyone takes shared responsibility in society and it is important that everyone works to fight injustices. Paraphrasing what Muhammad said, society “is like one body; if one part is ailing, the rest of the body responds with fever and ache” (Khaled). When there are injustices in society, it not only affects those suffering under them but everyone because of the imbalance it causes to society, and that is what social justice works to solve. Social justice gives “each of us a personal responsibility to work with others to design and continually perfect our institutions” to allow everyone to flourish (“Defining Economic Justice and Social Justice”).
Cited: Brubacher, Gordon. Terminology: Force, Violence and Social Justice. August 15, 2017. TS. Authors private collection.
“Defining Economic Justice and Social Justice.” Center for Economic and Social Justice, www.cesj.org/learn/definitions/defining-economic-justice-and-social-justice/.
Khaled. “Islam and Social Justice.” Dreamer, 11 Feb. 2008, muslimdreamer.blogspot.com/2008/01/islam-and-social-justice.html.
Kikuchi, Derrick. “Defining ‘Social Justice’ – What Is Social Justice?” Reach and Teach, www.reachandteach.com/content/index.php?topic=socialjustice.
National Association of Social Workers. “Social Justice.” National Association of Social Workers, Accessed on The Creighton University Blueline website for THL 464-N on August 27, 2018. Originally posed on the Internet at: www.socialworkers.org/pressroom/features/issue/peace.asp.
Robinson, Matthew. “What Is Social Justice.” Appalachian State University, Accessed on The Creighton University Blueline website for THL 464-N on August 27, 2018. Originally posed on the Internet at: gjs.appstate.edu/social-justice-and-human-rights/what-social-justice.
Roza, Marguerite, and Robin Lake. “Title I: Time to Get It Right.” Center on Reinventing Public Education, 1 Mar. 2015, www.crpe.org/publications/title-i-time-get-it-right.