The Metaphysics of Philosophy, Knowledge and Morality Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Social justice

Most people think they know what social justice means, but they are at a loss when asked to be more specific.

There is general agreement about the need for equal opportunities, but there’s also general agreement that truly equal opportunities don’t exist anywhere. Princes and paupers could go to the same university in theory, but in practice they very rarely do, for a number of reasons that are clear to most people. Also, doctors’s kids stand a much better chance of becoming doctors than other kids, and there’s not much anybody can do about that. Musician’s kids are usually better at music, business people’s kids are more likely to make it in business, etc. The equal opportunities concept is more hype than reality, yet it seems to be better to half-believe the hype than to not not believe it at all.

There is general agreement that poverty should be minimised, but there’s also general agreement that wages should be proportionate to performance, and there is no agreement on the poverty threshold. Are you poor if you can’t afford to go to the movies and a restaurant once a week? There’s general disagreement about that.

There’s general agreement that people should not be exploited, but there’s general disagreement about the specifics. Is 25 percent annual interest charged for a whole month because you’re one day late with your credit card payment exploitation? Is 1 percent annual interest on your deposit exploitation? If yes, are you allowed to change the system? People tend to disagree about that.

The notion of social justice is intuitive, humans are not much better judges of it than are chimpanzees depending on the number of bananas they get. Yet, “social injustice” is used as though it represented firm grounds for social reform and action. It would be better to admit that there is no such thing as social justice, but everyone should receive enough bananas. People who work hard should keep most of their bananas, while people who don’t work at all should receive significantly fewer bananas. This seems to me the closest approximation of social justice.