Ebook The Elements of Social Justice

The subject of this book is the social application of the ethical principles explained by the writer in The Rational Good. These principles are summarized in Chapter I so as to be intelligible without reference to the preceding work, to which the reader is referred for the fuller state ment of the arguments on which they are based. The treatment as here developed is therefore in form deduc tive, but this is not to say that it is an attempt to apply abstract principles without experience. On the contrary, the only valid principles are those that emerge out of our experience, and the function of the highest generaliza tions is to knit our partial views together in a consistent whole. That our social philosophy must form such a whole and that our social efforts suffer from lack of articulate statement and rational coherence is only too palpable. To promote unity of aim among men of good will and lay a basis of co-operation between those attacking different sides of the social problem is a practical problem of the highest importance.