If you listen carefully, you’ll soon discover that the phrase “social justice” is often used as a euphemism for something like socialism, where the state exercises coercion in service of greater “economic equality.” (Even Wikipedia defines it this way.) So, at the extreme, “social justice” can refer to a socio-economic system that is deeply unjust. I don’t think most folks realize this.
When I hear fellow Christians use the phrase, they’re usually referring to a set of issues, such as developing world poverty, political oppression, human rights, or sex trafficking. To work for social justice, in that sense, is to work to end, say, sex trafficking in the third world. Others apparently use the phrase to refer to the elusive third way between capitalism and socialism.
Since it’s ambiguous and tends to be used as a euphemism for bad things, the phrase is fraught with danger. When I hear it, I usually attempt a little consciousness-raising, by asking: “How is social justice different from justice?” I rarely get a clear answer. This suggests that many of us use the word but don’t really know what we’re saying. Worse, since the word often has perverse function (to identify socialism with justice), perhaps we’re using a tool of the devil.
F.A. Hayek objected to the word “social justice” for much the same reason (See The Mirage of Social Justice). In fact, he once wrote some two pages of various uses of the modifier “social,” to establish that the word had become a weasel word, with very little useful semantic content. He recommended that the word be abandoned.
No doubt he intended his advice to be provocative, since, as advice, it’s a little extreme. After all, the word “social” has some uses, as in the phrase “Catholic Social Teaching”—which is not the same thing as “social justice.” So, as with many tainted words (like “capitalism” and “democracy”), the question becomes: Should conservatives try to reclaim and carefully define “social justice,” or should we avoid it altogether?