Is Social Justice Just? A Review
Is Social Justice Just?
Edited by Robert M. Whaples, Michael C. Munger, and Christopher J. Coyne
Independent Institute, 2023; xxiii 348 pp.
Before one can answer the question posed by this excellent book’s title, one needs to ask what social justice is, and answering this proves to be no easy task. As Robert Whaples says, “For many, the term social justice is baffling and useless, with no real meaning. Most who use it argue that social justice is the moral fairness of the system of rules and norms that govern society.”
The book contains nineteen essays by distinguished scholars favorable to the free market. The essays attempt to determine what social justice is and to assess its merits. It contains, as well, a foreword by the famous psychologist Jordan Peterson, a preface by the eminent philosopher Nicholas Rescher, and a helpful introduction by Whaples in which he describes the main essays. The book has two parts, “How to Do (Social) Justice Wrong” and “How to do (Social) Justice Right” The latter part has two divisions, “Use the Insights of Philosophers and Theologians” and “Let People Build a Just Society on Their Own—and Reform Flawed Public Policies.”
Several of the contributors devote attention to Friedrich Hayek’s criticism of the notion of social justice in his book The Mirage of Social Justice (1976), and just as there is much disagreement among them about social justice, so is there also much disagreement about what Hayek meant and whether he was right. But though the authors differ on these points, they converge on the view stated in the second division of the second part. In what follows, I shall comment on one of the many interesting arguments contained in the book.
Pascal Salin quickly, and I think correctly, states the fundamental consideration that should govern our thinking
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