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I mentioned this in another comment, but you've hit the nail on the head. This idea is expanded upon by Thomas Sowell's idea of "Cosmic Justice": > Presumably

I mentioned this in another comment, but you've hit the nail on the head. This idea is expanded upon by Thomas Sowell's idea of "Cosmic Justice": > Presumably, the vast ranges of undeserved inequalities found everywhere are the fault of "society" and so the redressing of those inequalities is called social justice, going beyond the traditional justice of presenting each individual with the same rules and standards. However, even those who argue this way often recognize that some undeserved inequalities may arise from cultural differences, family genes, or from historical confluences of events not controlled by anybody or by any given society at any given time. For example, there was no way that Pee Wee Reese was going to hit as many home runs as Mark McGwire, or Shirley Temple run as fast as Jesse Owens. There was no way that Scandinavians or Polynesians were going to know as much about camels as the Bedouins of the Sahara-- and no way that these Bedouins were going to know as much about fishing as the Scandinavians or Polynesians. > In a sense, proponents of "social justice" are unduly modest. What they are seeking to correct are not merely the deficiencies of society, but of the cosmos. What they call social justice encompasses far more than any given society is causally responsible for. Crusaders for social justice seek to correct not merely the sins of man but the oversights of God or the accidents of history. What they are really seeking is a universe tailor-made to their vision of equality. They are seeking cosmic justice. The above is an abbreviation of a speech, which itself is an abbreviation of a book. I highly recommend reading the speech as the ideas are heavily expanded upon: https://tsowell.com/spquestc.html https://tsowell.com/spquestc.html

pstuart 7y ago
Those snippets are a rather disingenuous dismissal of "social justice". Contemporary discrimination based on race, gender, etc. is real and endemic, and working to address that would be a better way of looking at it. Edit: an example to consider https://www.nyclu.org/en/stop-and-frisk-data https://www.nyclu.org/en/stop-and-frisk-data
- TheFiend7 7y ago
  This was just discussed in similar posts recently. But there are flaws with this idea of contemporary discrimination specifically when looking at statistics of people who get "approved" for a job, college, etc. Often times people advocate that those numbers should be equalized to some extent to be "fair", regardless of the context around which those approvals are made. If applicants are given preferential treatment to "balance" these "unfair" results, well you are in fact the very problem you're trying to solve. Jobs or college acceptance should be based on performance or capability, and the root of the problem actually really lies in opportunity. Often times minorities don't have access to equal opportunity, which results in sub-average performance. But that does not mean we should necessarily just "lower the bar" for a demographic because that's their average. Rather we should work to balance opportunity, and continue to make actions on capability and performance because that's what's truly fair. We should not compromise people's lives when they've worked hard (regardless of race etc) just because they aren't of a specific demographic and fit the majority even though they performed better and would theoretically contribute more than worse counterparts. Morgan Freeman actually talks about this in relation to race, and the blame lies on both of the sides of the spectrum that actively bring attention to and try to base decisions on race.
  - pstuart 7y ago
    I'm sorry, but where did I advocate for "lowering the bar"? A simple example of what I'm trying to describe: the treatment of POC by the police. For example, stop and frisk laws. The ACLU does not look favorably upon them: https://www.nyclu.org/en/stop-and-frisk-data https://www.nyclu.org/en/stop-and-frisk-data Please explain to me how the example given is not an example of social injustice that should not be tolerated by an enlightened society.
    - TheFiend7 7y ago
      I made assumptions about the kind of "social injustice" you were talking about. There are many different forms of social injustice (by definition) that captures both what I'm describing and what you're describing. My comments stand around the kind of social injustice I was describing, which was denying or accepting applicants for opportunities based on demographics vs performance. What you're describing is a different kind of social injustice which is arguably racism in the police force or in the justice system. They're different manifestations of the same concept that is social injustice. We aren't contradicting each other, I just didn't know what kind of social injustice you were talking about because you didn't specify in the original post.
threatofrain 7y ago
To me that’s a small argument not worth stating, because there are already so many accepted mechanisms by which to diffuse causal responsibility, such as in a corporation. And nobody is going to buy that toxic dumping is morally okay just because it’s causally diffuse, opaque, or cosmic somehow. Very few people think in terms of moral causality. Many people do not assume that people with mental illnesses deserve harsh treatment, as opposed to kindness, even though it is in a sense the cosmos which has done this. People already frame the cosmos as cold and cruel, and people seek to bring a little warmth to that story. The fact that the cosmos did it makes no difference when a greater moral vision is in sight. Another way of restating the cosmic argument is "it's not my fault".

pstuart 7y ago

Those snippets are a rather disingenuous dismissal of "social justice". Contemporary discrimination based on race, gender, etc. is real and endemic, and working to address that would be a better way of looking at it. Edit: an example to consider https://www.nyclu.org/en/stop-and-frisk-data https://www.nyclu.org/en/stop-and-frisk-data

TheFiend7 7y ago
This was just discussed in similar posts recently. But there are flaws with this idea of contemporary discrimination specifically when looking at statistics of people who get "approved" for a job, college, etc. Often times people advocate that those numbers should be equalized to some extent to be "fair", regardless of the context around which those approvals are made. If applicants are given preferential treatment to "balance" these "unfair" results, well you are in fact the very problem you're trying to solve. Jobs or college acceptance should be based on performance or capability, and the root of the problem actually really lies in opportunity. Often times minorities don't have access to equal opportunity, which results in sub-average performance. But that does not mean we should necessarily just "lower the bar" for a demographic because that's their average. Rather we should work to balance opportunity, and continue to make actions on capability and performance because that's what's truly fair. We should not compromise people's lives when they've worked hard (regardless of race etc) just because they aren't of a specific demographic and fit the majority even though they performed better and would theoretically contribute more than worse counterparts. Morgan Freeman actually talks about this in relation to race, and the blame lies on both of the sides of the spectrum that actively bring attention to and try to base decisions on race.
- pstuart 7y ago
  I'm sorry, but where did I advocate for "lowering the bar"? A simple example of what I'm trying to describe: the treatment of POC by the police. For example, stop and frisk laws. The ACLU does not look favorably upon them: https://www.nyclu.org/en/stop-and-frisk-data https://www.nyclu.org/en/stop-and-frisk-data Please explain to me how the example given is not an example of social injustice that should not be tolerated by an enlightened society.
  - TheFiend7 7y ago
    I made assumptions about the kind of "social injustice" you were talking about. There are many different forms of social injustice (by definition) that captures both what I'm describing and what you're describing. My comments stand around the kind of social injustice I was describing, which was denying or accepting applicants for opportunities based on demographics vs performance. What you're describing is a different kind of social injustice which is arguably racism in the police force or in the justice system. They're different manifestations of the same concept that is social injustice. We aren't contradicting each other, I just didn't know what kind of social injustice you were talking about because you didn't specify in the original post.

threatofrain 7y ago

To me that’s a small argument not worth stating, because there are already so many accepted mechanisms by which to diffuse causal responsibility, such as in a corporation. And nobody is going to buy that toxic dumping is morally okay just because it’s causally diffuse, opaque, or cosmic somehow. Very few people think in terms of moral causality. Many people do not assume that people with mental illnesses deserve harsh treatment, as opposed to kindness, even though it is in a sense the cosmos which has done this. People already frame the cosmos as cold and cruel, and people seek to bring a little warmth to that story. The fact that the cosmos did it makes no difference when a greater moral vision is in sight. Another way of restating the cosmic argument is "it's not my fault".