And justice?

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This article is from the Conservatism FAQ, by Jim Kalb kalb@aya.yale.edu with numerous contributions by others.

And justice?

Justice between man and man is respect for concrete obligations and
individual responsibility. Conservatives take both very seriously.

Social justice involves the ordering of social life toward the good
for man. Social injustice involves systematic destruction of the
conditions for that good. Because the good for man cannot be fully
known, because it includes respect for each of us as a moral agent,
and because human affairs are infinitely complex, social justice can
never be fully achieved, nor achieved at all through imposition of a
preconceived overall design on society. Attempts to do the latter
have led to degradation of social and moral order and, in several
modern instances, horrendous crimes such as the murder of millions of
innocents. Social justice must therefore evolve rather than be
constructed, and its furtherance therefore requires acceptance of the
authority of tradition. The two cannot be separated.

Social justice is sometimes thought to mean promotion of equality
through comprehensive government action. That view cannot be correct since men differ and what is just for them must also differ. In
addition, the goods which that view is concerned to divide
equally--wealth, power and the like--are not the ultimate human goods
and therefore can not be considered the ultimate concerns of justice.
Finally, a system guided by such a conception must defeat its own
purpose because it puts enormous and uncontrollable power in the
hands of those who control the government. Possession of such power,of course, makes them radically unequal to those they rule.