If I were putting together my dream team to organize a volume to answer the question, 'Is social justice just?', it would be Rob Whaples, Mike Munger, and Chris Coyne. And the dream team delivers! Anyone concerned with social justice will find this book makes him question his assumptions, re-think his premises, and think! They have assembled their own dream team of authors to provide insights from a variety of disciplinary perspectives that provoke thought, provide new perspectives, and make the reader want more." - Andrew P. Morriss, professor, Bush School of Government and Public Service, School of Law, Texas A&M University
"In the world of public policy, words should mean something, not just sound like they mean something. The words 'social justice' are thrown around quite liberally these days, often with the assumption that their meaning is clear-but from the way these words are used, it's clear that their meaning varies from author to author and sometimes even from paragraph to paragraph in the works of a single author. Here a stellar cast of policy-oriented intellectuals faces this problem head on, attacking the problem of what 'social justice' ought to mean and why it matters. It's about time." - Steven Landsburg, professor of economics, University of Rochester
"Social justice is an ambiguous concept that allows people to redefine justice to conform with their own biases. This volume clearly points out problems with the concept and offers a clear-headed analysis of the way the concept should be viewed, along with analyses of socially just policies." - Randall Holcombe, DeVoe Moore Professor of Economics, Florida State University
"Though plenty of people have opinions about the importance of social justice, they seldom explain what they mean by the term. Is it a meaningful concept? If so, what constitutes social justice? Are there better and worse ways to pursue it? This collection of readings addresses those controversial issues and more. It is a timely contribution to an important debate." - Bruce Caldwell, Research Professor of Economics; director, Center for the History of Political Economy, Duke University
"What principles of social justice will foster peace, cooperation, and mutual respect among highly diverse individuals within a decidedly pluralist society rather than foster exploitation, tribal conflict, coercive re-education, and the enhancement of arbitrary state power? From their own distinctive philosophical or economic perspectives, the contributors to
Is Social Justice Just? converge toward the powerful conclusion that justice must be modest. It must protect each person's life, liberty, and property and not proclaim purportedly radiant social ends to which people's lives, aspirations, and fortunes are to be sacrificed." - Eric Mack, professor of philosophy, Tulane University
"With more clamor for 'social justice' in the public square today than seri-ous inquiry into what social justice consists of, the essays in
Is Social Justice Just? are timely and essential reading. Twenty-three scholars lay bare both the promise and pitfalls of initiatives that are taken under the social justice banner." - J. Daniel Hammond, Hultquist Family Professor (emeritus), Department of Economics, Wake Forest University
"
Is Social Justice Just? brings together a remarkable collection of scholars who study one of the most controversial issues of our time, one that has created enormous divisions across social, political, cultural, economic, racial and religious lines. Each author deconstructs
social justice using his own unique set of analytical tools, with the hope of creating a concept of justice that can help bring society back together. A broad consensus emerges from this process, as these scholars are individually led to a reconstruction of social justice focused on the sanctity and the beauty of each of us as individuals, individuals who have the same rights and freedoms and opportunities to create our own paths, while respecting the choices of others. Read this book, and you will look at our world with a very different and much more optimistic vision than you have now." - Lee Ohanian, professor of economics and director of the Ettinger Family Program in Macroeconomic Research, University of California, Los Angeles
"Readers of this book will be rewarded by the interdisciplinary perspectives on social justice from a distinguished group of contributors ..." - Barry W. Poulson, professor of economics (emeritus), University of Colorado
"In the zeitgeist of our times, social justice is just by definition, as well as by intuition and emotion. The articles in this book put the conventional wisdom to the test, with rational analyses from a number of different perspectives." - Pierre Lemieux, economist, Department of Management Sciences at the UniversitE du QuEbec en Outaouais (Canada)
"A popular intellectual sport is to classify individuals into this or that group and then to ask: Is this or that group 'owed' something by society? With such classifications typically guided by political considerations, the answer is very often 'yes.' And because 'owe' implies obligation, and because justice demands the fulfilment of all obligations, justice demands that society-in one form or another-pay up. Or so goes the argument for 'social justice.' The papers in this remarkable volume examine this argument from a variety of perspectives. It's a feature and not a bug of this collection that, no sooner are you convinced by one paper, then another paper turns your mind in a different direction." - Donald J. Boudreaux, professor of economics, George Mason University
