While acknowledging that a perfect society will never be within reach and that people will always find reasons to treat each other badly, we should not discard the concept of “social justice,” much as it might have been ridiculed by Hayek and his followers. Certainly, it cannot be defined in economic terms. One cannot infer from the expression “social justice” the answer to questions about what particular taxation system is desirable and economically sound in given conditions, what social benefits are justified, or what is the best way for rich countries to aid the poorer parts of the world. “Social justice” merely expresses an attitude toward social problems. It is true that more often than not the expression “social justice” is employed by individuals or entire societies who refuse to take responsibility for their own lives. But, as the old saying goes, the abuse does not abrogate the use.

In its vagueness, “social justice” resembles the concept of human dignity. It is difficult to define what human dignity is. It is not an organ to be discovered in our body, it is not an empirical notion, but without it we would be unable to answer the simple question: What is wrong with slavery? Likewise, the concept of social justice is vague and it can be used as an ideological tool of totalitarian socialism. Yet the concept is a useful intermediary between an exhortation to charity, to almsgiving, and the concept of distributive justice; it is not the same as distributive justice because it does not necessarily imply reciprocal recognition. Nor is it simply an appeal to charity, because it implies, however imprecisely, that some claims may be deserved. The concept of social justice does not imply that there is such a thing as the common destiny of mankind in which everybody takes part, but it does suggest that the concept of humanity makes sense”not so much as a zoological category but as a moral one.