Defining Social Justice in a Socially Unjust World

ONE OF THE IRONIES OF THE EARLY twenty-first century is that ideological struggles between and within nations have intensified a decade after the end of the Cold War. Today, proponents of diametrically opposed visions of society, secular and religious, march under the banner of social justice. As desirable social and political goals are depicted in starkly different forms, labels like “good” and “evil” become interchangeable and the meaning of social justice becomes obscured. As it has been for millennia, the concept of social justice is now used as a rationale for maintaining the status quo, promoting far-reaching social reforms, and justifying revolutionary action. If liberals and conservatives, religious fundamentalists, and radical secularists all regard their causes as socially just, how can we develop a common meaning of the term?