Social Justice, Social Order, and the Common Good

As revealed in the 2023 Edelman Trust Barometer, Western societies are becoming increasingly polarized, with the US severely polarized and several countries, such as the UK, France and the Netherlands, in danger of severe polarization. There are worrying signs that countries like Canada, Australia and Ireland are on a path to polarization.

The causes are many and complex and, like all social science research, full of interpretive challenges. Nevertheless, certain trends seem clear. One is the growing division in our beliefs about what constitutes a good and just society and how best to achieve it.

On the one hand, there is nothing especially new or surprising about this. The concept of the good society – the common good – has been subject to normative theorizing for millennia, producing a vast array of insights and competing perspectives. Indeed, the plurality of views is such that the common good is regarded as an ‘essentially contested’ concept.

On the other hand, these divisions in our beliefs about what constitutes a good society create cause for concern. This concern is not related to the differences of opinion per se – this plurality of perspectives is generally to the good – but rather to the inability of each ‘side’ to understand and have constructive conversations with the other about our shared challenges.

How can these competing perspectives on the common good be understood? In addition to the competing unitary, aggregative, communitarian, and procedural approaches that I have summarized elsewhere, a new framework has been proposed by sociologists John Iceland, Eric Silver, and Ilana Redstone (2023) that delineates two basic moral and philosophical worldviews, termed Social Justice and Social Order, respectively.

As described in their new book, Why We Disagree About Inequality: Social Justice vs. Social Order, the Social Justice and Social Order worldviews are associated with distinct conceptions of human nature, morality, social change, and the wisdom of the past. Moreover, they are associated with distinct construals of inequality, such as gender, racial and income inequality, and distinct remedies for these inequalities.

To the extent that these competing worldviews contribute to the polarization we are witnessing in Western societies, it is instructive to examine the nature of these worldviews. Doing so is not only intrinsically interesting, illuminating the schism in Western societies, but the mutual understanding fostered by doing so may increase the odds that we start to talk to rather than past each other.

Fairness and equality

Although everyone is concerned with fairness, the Social Justice and Social Order worldviews have distinct conceptions of this concept. As described by Iceland and colleagues (2023), a person with a Social Justice perspective tends to understand and measure fairness in terms of outcomes, whereas a person with a Social Order perspective tends to understand and measure fairness in terms of processes. Corresponding differences are observed in how equality is construed. Specifically, a person with a Social Justice perspective emphasizes equality of outcome, viewing inequalities of outcome as the result of discrimination. By contrast, a person with a Social Order worldview emphasizes equality of opportunity, with variation in outcomes attributable to individual differences in talent, effort, and preferences.

Choice and responsibility

Similarly, although both value freedom, the Social Justice and Social Order worldviews have distinct conceptions of this concept. As described by Iceland and colleagues (2023), a person with a Social Justice perspective tends to understand freedom in terms of power and influence, whereas a person with a Social Order perspective tends to understand it in terms of options and opportunities. Although both perspectives are concerned with the ability of people to makes choices, they differ in terms of how they conceptualize the freedom of individuals to do so. From the Social Order perspective, people should have the freedom to pursue opportunities for well-being and success, whereas from the Social Justice perspective, freedom means freedom from discrimination and oppression.

Individual and group-based morality

As with fairness and freedom, most people value caring for others regardless of their specific moral, philosophical, and political orientations (e.g., Greene, 2013; Haidt, 2012). Drawing on moral foundations theory (Graham et al., 2009; Haidt, 2012), which posits that people’s moral foundations coalesce around ‘individualizing’ (i.e., putting the care and protection of individuals at the centre of moral concern) and ‘binding’ moral intuitions (i.e., putting social order and group cohesion at the centre of moral concern), Iceland and colleagues (2023) argue that the Social Justice and Social Order worldviews have distinct moral foundations. Specifically, care for the vulnerable is at the heart of the Social Justice perspective, whereas group loyalty and respect for authority are centered in the Social Order worldview.

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Social change

Finally, while proponents of the Social Justice and Social Order worldviews see room for improvement in existing social systems, they differ in their beliefs about type of social change that is needed and how it ought to be achieved. Whereas the Social Justice perspective tends to favour rapid, extensive change, the Social Order perspective tends to favour slow, incremental change, believing it is in the nature of complex systems to operate by means of ‘trade-offs’ rather than ‘solutions’. These perspectives also appear to be associated with markedly different dispositions towards the past and tradition, with the Social Justice view associated with a posture of repudiation and Social Order marked by an appreciative disposition towards traditional ‘discovered solutions’.

As we ease into the new year, it is salutary to reflect on our moral and philosophical perspectives and to contemplate how these worldviews, and our moral tribes, inform our moral thinking. Let’s begin by putting both perspectives on equal footing, understanding how the world looks from each perspective, and trying to talk to rather than past one another.