Social Justice in United States of America: Part 2

Social justice imposes on each of us a personal responsibility to work with others to design and continually perfect personal and social development. The term "social justice" was seen by the U.N. "as a substitute for the protection of human rights [and] first appeared in United Nations texts during the second half of the 1960s. At the initiative of the Soviet Union, and with the support of developing countries, the term was used in the Declaration on Social Progress and Development, adopted in 1969.

The Quran contains numerous references to elements of social justice. Charity and assistance to the poor – concepts central to social justice – are and have historically been important parts of the Islamic faith. The notion of social justice first surfaced in Western thought and political language in the wake of the industrial revolution and the parallel development of the socialist doctrine. It emerged as an expression of protest against what was perceived as the capitalist exploitation of labor and as a focal point for the development of measures to improve the human condition.

Many authors criticize the idea that there exists an objective standard of social justice.Some people accept some of the basic principles of social justice, such as the idea that all human beings have a basic level of value, but disagree with the tenet that all people are equally entitled to the respect of their fellowmen.Some scholars reject the very idea of social justice as meaningless, religious, self-contradictory, and ideological, believing that to realize any degree of social justice is unfeasible, and that the attempt to do so must destroy all liberty.