"Anyone concerned with social justice will find this book makes him question his assumptions, rethink his premises, and think!" —Andrew P. Morriss, professor, Bush School of Government and Public Service, School of Law, Texas A&M University What is social justice? In these pages, twenty-one accomplished academics seek to do justice to "social justice." Inequality exists and it obviously causes rifts in societies. But it's not obvious how the government should address those rifts, or if it should address them at all. Have we forgotten the perhaps more efficient power of personal choice—and the corollary obligation: to serve our neighbors—to make our society more humane? Beginning with the first political philosophers in ancient Athens, and continuing right through Marx into our post-modern era, men have wrestled with the question of justice; and the answers have been as earnest as they have been varied. Today, our "expert" class also claim to have answers—updated answers, more "equitable" answers, more technological answers ... in short, answers that are simply better suited to our times. But are those answers in any way correct? Do they work? Are they—just? In these elegant, nuanced essays, the authors use the wisdom of ancient and modern philosophers to shed light on these important questions—and the answers are revealing. Armed with ample evidence from real-world experiences, lessons from history, the wisdom of the classics, modern philosophers, and even the teachings of the world religions, the contributors of Is Social Justice Just? Illuminate the central role of the individual in achieving justice in all its aspects. Read Is Social Justice Just? And discover: how to do social justice wrong with the poison of resentment, envy, and ignorance; how to do social justice right with the insights of philosophers and theologians; how to respect people's rights and liberties without sacrificing true equality; and how to reform flawed public policies that just make everything worse. In a world of partisanship, hysteria, maliciousness, and good intentions attached to hellish outcomes, this landmark book enters the public discourse at a critical time. With a foreword by Jordan B. Peterson, a preface by Nicholas Rescher, and a collection of essays by some of the best and brightest scholars of our time, Is Social Justice Just? is a timely and urgent work. Read it, and you will begin to think about "social justice," and justice, in some surprising new ways.

In The Concept of Justice, Patrick Burke explores and argues for a return to traditional ideas of ordinary justice in opposition to conceptions of 'social justice' that came to dominate political thought in the 20th Century. Arguing that our notions of justice have been made incoherent by the radical incompatibility between instinctive notions of ordinary justice and theoretical conceptions of social justice, the book goes on to explore the historical roots of these ideas of social justice. Finding the roots of these ideas in religious circles in Italy and England in the 19th century, Burke explores the ongoing religious influence in the development of the concept in the works of Marx, Mill and Hobhouse. In opposition to this legacy of liberal thought, the book presents a new theory of ordinary justice drawing on the thought of Immanuel Kant. In this light, Burke finds that all genuine ethical evaluation must presuppose free will and individual responsibility and that all true injustice is fundamentally coercive.

This book explores the problematic relationship between education, social justice and the State, against the background of comparative education research. The book critiques the status quo of stratified school systems, and the unequal distribution of cultural capital and value added schooling. The authors address one of today’s most pressing questions: Are social, economic and cultural divisions between the nations, between school sectors, between schools and between students growing or declining?

This is the new edition of the award-winning guide to social justice education. Accessible to students from high school through graduate school, this comprehensive resource includes many new features such as discussion of contemporary activism. The text includes many user-friendly features, examples, and vignettes to not just define but illustrate key concepts.

Just Practice: A Social Justice Approach to Social Work provides a foundation for critical and creative social work that integrates theory, history, ethics, skills, and rights to respond to the complex terrain of 21st century social work. Just Practice puts the field of social work's expressed commitment to social justice at center stage with a framework that builds upon five key concepts: meaning, context, power, history, and possibility. How do we give meaning to the experiences and conditions that shape our lives? What are the contexts in which those experiences and conditions occur? How do structures and relations of power shape people's lives and the practice of social work? How might a historical perspective help us to grasp the ways in which struggles over meaning and power have played out and to better appreciate the human consequences of those struggles? Taken together, these concepts provide a guide for integrative social work that bridges direct practice and community building. The text prepares readers with the theoretical knowledge and practice skills to address the complex challenges of contemporary social work from direct practice with individuals and families, to group work, organizational and community change, and policy analysis and advocacy. Each chapter includes learning activities, reflection moments, practice examples, and the stories and voices of practitioners and service users to engage students as critical thinkers and practitioners. The author encourages teachers and students alike to take risks, move from safe, familiar, pedagogical spaces and practices, challenge assumptions, and embrace uncertainty.

In bioethics, discussions of justice have tended to focus on questions of fairness in access to health care: is there a right to medical treatment, and how should priorities be set when medical resources are scarce. But health care is only one of many factors that determine the extent to which people live healthy lives, and fairness is not the only consideration in determining whether a health policy is just. In this pathbreaking book, senior bioethicists Powers and Faden confront foundational issues about health and justice.