Social Justice

The principles of social justice are used to assess whether the distribution of benefits and burdens among members (or groups) of a society are appropriate, fair, and moral. The substance of such assessments usually consists of arguments about the concepts of rights, deserts, or needs. When applied to society as a whole, the term social justice pertains to whether the institutions of a society are arranged to produce appropriate, fair, and moral distributions of benefits and burdens among societal members and groups. As such, social justice is linked directly to the evaluation of social and educational programs, policies, and personnel because these entities, and their evaluations, directly affect the distribution of benefits and burdens. Of course, there are competing conceptions of social justice within liberal ...