The Conceptual History of Social Justice

Abstract

Social justice is a crucial ideal in contemporary political thought. Yet the concept of social justice is a recent addition to our political vocabulary, and comparatively little is known about its introduction into political debate or its early theoretical trajectory. Some important research has begun to address this issue, adding a valuable historical perspective to present‐day controversies about the concept. This article uses this literature to examine two questions. First, how does the modern idea of social justice differ from previous conceptualisations of justice? Second, why and when did social justice first emerge into political discourse?

Social Workers and Social Justice During a Period of Intensive Neoliberalization: A Preliminary Investigation From the Republic of Ireland

“…He argues that principles of social justice have tended to be founded on three assumptions. First, there must be a "bounded society with a determinate membership," which gives rise to a "universe of distribution" (Jackson, 2005); until recent times this has been perceived as the nation state. Second, there needs to be an institutional structure that provides for the application of social justice interventions to be validated or modified; here social science has played a key role.…”

Social Justice: A Concept Analysis

“…In political philosophy discourse, social justice is often described by the Aristotelian and Platonic concept of distributive justice (Jackson, ) and its further synthesis by Justinian as things individuals have a right to as a member in society (Boucher & Kelly, ). In contrast, the British Idealist school of thought of the late 19th century departed from the distributive emphasis of their philosophical ancestors and emphasized social justice as a means to promote self‐realization and societal improvement (Boucher, ).…”

Bread, Freedom, Social Justice: The Egyptian Uprising and a Sufi Khidma

“…The concept of social justice emerged in the late‐eighteenth‐century as the child of the industrial and French revolutions. Originally it had a strong distributive meaning in that it “explicitly aim[ed] to redistribute resources to those disadvantaged by a market distribution” (Jackson , 358). In its “willingness to submerge individual wants, needs, and desires in the cause of some more general struggle” (Harvey , 41), social justice seems to run counter to the neoliberal celebration of individual responsibility.…”