Social Justice versus Western Justice.

• Author: Guerriere, Daniel
• Position: Viewpoint essay

In the democratic socialist's lexicon, the term social justice designates what he aims to achieve: an egalitarian social, political, and economic configuration of the modern state--indeed, of humankind. In "a society deeply pervaded and structured by social oppression," he defines himself as the warrior fighting for this ideal (Feagin 2001, 12a). His indictment of "capitalism" has sounded the same for more than a hundred years. About twenty years ago, the president of the American Sociological Association urged,"[S]ocial justice requires resource equity, fairness, respect for diversity, as well as the eradication of existing forms of oppression. Social justice entails a redistribution of resources from those who have unjustly gained them to those who justly deserve them, and it also means creating and ensuring the processes of truly democratic participation in decision-making.... It seems clear that only a decisive redistribution of resources and decision-making power can ensure social justice and authentic democracy" (Feagin 2001, 5a). This is no small task, for every kind of social interaction is at stake: "In the end, social justice entails a restructuring of the larger social frameworks of social relations generally" (Feagin 2001, lib). Indeed, the task is, in the Marxian locution, "the reform of consciousness" (Feagin 2001, 16b). No metric for the success of this project is evident, though the means for it is obvious: total control. This account of "social justice" is synecdochic for the democratic socialist vision as a whole, however it names itself--progressivism, American liberalism, socialism. The opponent of this vision is, of course, deplorable and irredeemable, whereas its advocate is compassionate.

A synonymous term in this lexicon is equality. This equality goes beyond what the ancient Greeks already articulated--formal equality, political and legal. According to this articulation, all the citizens of a polity are equal as citizens: no one is more or less a citizen than anyone else. And all citizens are equal before the law: the court shows neither deference toward the mighty nor partiality for the lowly. In contrast, again, though a metric is again not evident, the equality pursued by democratic socialism is general. Any inequality that is not explicitly chosen by the person is identical to dominance and subordination by others and is thus a moral outrage. Wherever the egalitarian may focus his attention at the moment, there is inequality to be found and therefore oppression to be eradicated. Wherever persons may differ--whether in social status, economic class, political power, educational attainment, sexual persuasion, race, ethnicity, gender, citizenship, maternity--there is a potential source of egalitarian passion. All the philosophers prestigious for the democratic socialist agree: though equality is unprovable, redistribution of resources into equality for all is the principal aim of government (Kekes 2013). The great moral task is to reorganize all societies into regimes wherein all are "free and equal"--that is, wherein social justice prevails. The opponents of redistribution are greedy, oppressive, and even fascistic, while the proponents are compassionate.

The burden of this article is threefold: to refute the democratic socialist version of equality, to critique its version of justice, and to adduce a tenable sense of "social justice."

Refutation

It is easy to refute egalitarianism, even in its own terms. Equality is entirely compatible with evil. All may be free and equal--and evil. Equality by itself is no guarantee of justice or of any other virtue. Insofar as equality and social justice are identical, this argument also refutes social justice.

Critique

A critique is a delineation of limits. This critique aims to show how justice and equality interrelate, how far they imbricate. A critique that aims to penetrate to the foundations is philosophical, and so this critique will be. Because the concept of social justice arose in Western civilization, the strategy here will be ressourcement--that is, a recall of the sources of the Western practice and conception of justice so that the place of social justice or equality in it may be discerned.

Foundations

Western civilization inherited both the practice and the concept of justice from the ancient Greeks, the ancient Hebrews, and the Romans. For all three, human justice had been only the human alignment with cosmic justice. The preconceptual awareness of this cosmic justice is the foundation for the later concept of justice as a human endeavor.

As in all early civilizations, the Greeks recognized an all-encompassing Order, a Cosmos, a Whole, in which humanity only participates. Humankind discerned this Order prior to their differentiation of it into divinity and world, society and individual (Voegelin 1956-57). Although chaos keeps threatening to break in, the Cosmos is an order wherein all things are measured out as what and how they are. Insofar as everything keeps within its own bounds and does not trespass upon others, this Order is called, by the ancient Greeks, dike, "measuring-out," "balancing-out"; it is the allotting to each its own, the apportioning, no more and no less. And insofar as the Order is the guide for human conduct, it is called, again, dike, "justice," "righteousness" (Greene [1944] 1963; Havelock 1978; Voegelin 1956-57). In other civilizations, this originary Order and hence standard for human conduct come to expression in their basic words--for example, ma'at in Egyptian, kittu in Akkadian, ash a in Avestan, art a in Old Persian, 'adl in Arabic, rita in Sanskrit, dao (tao) in Chinese, do in Japanese, sydyk in Phoenician, and tsadaq in Hebrew (Carr and Mahalingam 1997; Assmann 2000; Snell 2000). However the Order be named, discernment of it is common to humankind; likewise is the acceptance of it as the measure for man.

The Hebrews inherited the idea from their Near Eastern neighbors and developed it in a distinctive way. Gradually, as the god YHWH separated from the mere cosmos and at once disputed and finally nihilated all the other gods, the cosmic tsadaq became "the tsadaq of YHWH." The Septuagent rendered tsadaq as dikaiosyne, whence "the righteousness/justice of YHWH." It is YHWH who restores righteousness to the world order after its violation by man, and man may again become righteous by attunement to the laws of YHWH (Schmid 1968; Knight 1985). Paul of Tarsus adds that ordinary humans can do nothing to restore the dikaidsyne of YHWH; only "the Messiah" could effect the restoration. The Latin Fathers of the Church later rendered dikaiosyne as iustitia, "justice."

Thus, when the Greek and Hebrew traditions intersected in the Roman Empire, the Hebrew and Christian undertones of the term dikaiosyne gave the quest for the Greek virtue of justice a religious resonance--a matter of ultimate concern.

Chaos--the wild and the waste, Leviathan and Hydra, monster and desolation--always threatens to return. The struggle against it is perpetual. However, if anything should indeed violate its bounds, if there should be a lapse into disorder anywhere, order will eventually prevail. This is so, too, for human action; the just fate will be measured out, necessarily though unpredictably, to anyone who violates the true order--even if this fate be delayed to postorganic existence.

Every member of the sociocultural order is to act within bounds, not to grasp for more than his allotment, to allot to others whatever is proper to them. Man, in order to fulfill his...