The book “Rethinking Social Justice” by Prof. Ahmad Vaezi was selected as the winner in the 25th edition of the Book of the Year Conference in the Seminary.
Publisher: BustaneKetab Publications
Author: Ahmad Vaezi
ISBN: 9789640924358
This research and theoretical study on social justice encompasses a wide range of issues and topics that have different logical and hierarchical priorities. While the aspects of justice studies that involve proposing models and ideas for changing the current state towards a desired fair state are more appealing, they necessarily rely on taking a position and theorizing about fundamental and foundational concepts, and they are considered a higher priority in terms of hierarchy.
This present research is dedicated to answering some important questions related to social justice in the previous ranks of the discussion, focusing on the principles of justice, criteria, and foundations of social justice. In other words, in a general categorization, the topics related to social justice can be divided into three categories: definition, rationale, and methodology. The first two categories are within the scope of this research, and the discussion on the methodology of justice and the principles and criteria for achieving social justice comes after addressing the issues of definition and rationale of social justice. The author hopes to focus on that in the next step of his justice studies.
This writing is organized into four chapters. The first chapter delves into the definition of social justice, after discussing some conceptual issues related to the semantics of justice and its real position in justice theories, it explains the concept of social justice, especially its relationship with distributive justice and its historical developments.
The second chapter focuses on the rationale and necessity of social justice and theorizing about changing the structure of social relationships according to any fair model and pattern. The necessity of theorizing about making various aspects of collective life fair faces denials and oppositions, which are discussed in this chapter regarding some of the main arguments of its deniers. Some of the oppositions and denials have emerged within the tradition of liberalism, and some have emerged in Islamic thought and jurisprudence. Therefore, a significant part of this chapter is devoted to examining the relationship between jurisprudence and theorizing about justice.
The discussion of the rationale and necessity of social justice naturally links with the issue of the relationship between the value of justice and other social values and virtues. Therefore, the third chapter of the book is dedicated to explaining the meaning of social values and the position of justice and its relationship with other social values. At the end of this chapter, we also briefly address the position of justice among the virtues of the political community from an intra-religious perspective.
The fourth chapter of the book, presented in the form of a theory titled “The Theory of Universal Ethical Value and Self-Sufficient Justice,” actually attempts to consolidate the author’s main points in the two important topics of the definition and rationale of social justice and provide them in the form of a coherent theory. This theory consists of three conceptual, value-based, and thematic pillars, which are discussed in the fourth chapter.
