Justice: word, idea, practice

Abstract

What do “justice,” “social justice,” and “injustice” mean? What is your idea of justice? This article analyzes macrolevel understandings of justice (distributive justice) in political philosophy and mesolevel understandings of justice as rectification (criminal and civil justice) in penal philosophy, law, and social science. I call attention to unresolved disconnects in these understandings of justice, and I propose the abandonment of ideal theories and construct of “distribution of benefits and burdens” in philosophy in favor of nonideal theories and societal inequalities or injustices. My review of criminal, civil, and restorative justice identifies limits on what each can achieve and discusses the compromised character of criminal justice in unjust societies. When comparing the fields of institutional, historical, and transitional justice, I identify distinctive questions for justice and obstacles for victims and society. No one field can accommodate all large-scale wrongs in diverse sociopolitical contexts. I put forward my idea of justice, which is keyed to research on victim–survivors’ claims for institutional justice. Drawing on Derrida (1992), I view justice as an unachievable ideal, but one that is empirically present in calculations of and struggles for justice.