Introduction

One of the ironies of the early 21st century is that proponents of vastly different visions of societysecular and religious, democratic and authoritarian, individualist and collectivist-march under the banner of social justice. As they have been for millennia, calls for social justice are used to rationalize the status quo, promote modest reforms, and justify revolutionary, even violent action. Consequently, labels like “good” and “evil,” freely used to characterize supporters or opponents, have become increasingly ambiguous and the meaning of social justice has become increasingly obscured. In a world where genocide, hunger, poverty, and disease persist, where richer nations often fail to act or act too late to address these problems, and where climate change threatens human life on Earth, a prerequisite to achieving even modest social justice goals is to cut through the fog of competing discourses on this topic.