Between Bigot and Believer: Mapping the Many Models of Justice

Heretic — the word evokes images of those who dared defy the dominant creed, who challenged the dogmas of their time and had their heads lopped off for it. In today's culture wars, it remains an apt label. Step out of line with the dominant narrative of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), and the chorus of condemnation rises quickly—heretic, bigot, fascist, Nazi. Punishment is immediate: public shaming, social exile, loss of voice and credibility (Nguyen, 2023). Yet in this moment of ideological aggression, we overlook a profound truth: justice is not a temple but a sprawling landscape, rich with competing visions, each with its own merits and limitations (Ahmed, 2012).

For thousands of years, societies have wrestled with fundamental questions: What do we owe to each other? How do we repair harm without causing new wounds? How can diverse communities live together without destroying differences? As communities become increasingly pluralistic, this has become more challenging. There is no singular altar of justice where all kneel. Instead, justice is a multifaceted dialogue—a battlefield and a laboratory—where ideas clash, evolve, and sometimes unite.

Let's explore eight of the most influential models of justice that have shaped movements, laws, and revolutions. Each carries gifts but also shadows. To truly understand justice, we must confront both.

Distributive Justice: Who Gets What, and Why

Distributive justice is perhaps the oldest intuition about fairness: how do we divide resources like wealth, opportunity, respect? Aristotle wrestled with this question in his Nicomachean Ethics, pondering proportional fairness—those who contribute should receive according to their merit, but the weak and vulnerable deserve special consideration (Aristotle, trans. 1999). John Rawls reimagined distributive justice for the modern age, arguing in A Theory of Justice that inequalities are justifiable only if they improve the lot of the least advantaged—a principle known as the “difference principle” (Rawls, 1971).

This idea finds expression in some taxation regimes such as those in Scandinavian countries, where the wealthy contribute more to fund universal healthcare and education (OECD, 2022). Canada’s healthcare system is another example, aiming to ensure that health is not a privilege but a right (Wilkinson & Pickett, 2010). Public education, likewise, offers opportunities to those born into disadvantage.

Yet, the model’s strength can also be its weakness. Distributive justice focuses on what is distributed but risks ignoring how and why certain groups wield power to control that distribution (Young, 2011). Redistribution without addressing systemic power may merely rearrange the deck chairs while leaving the ship intact. Furthermore, an exclusive focus on outcomes can neglect the importance of fair processes or the recognition of identity and dignity.

Procedural Justice: The Fairness of the Game

If distributive justice asks about outcomes, procedural justice asks about the game itself. Are the rules fair? Are decisions made transparently, consistently, and with respect for all voices? Procedural justice grounds our trust in institutions and the rule of law, insisting that everyone—regardless of wealth or status—must face the same fair procedures (Tyler, 2006).

Consider the right to a fair trial, a cornerstone of modern democracies. It ensures that even those accused of crimes are protected from arbitrary punishment, embodying the ideal that justice must be blind (Rawls, 1971). Another example is participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre, Brazil, where citizens, often from marginalized communities, directly influence how public funds are allocated (Baiocchi, 2005).

However, procedural justice carries its own paradox. Even perfectly fair processes can produce unjust outcomes when the initial conditions are unequal or when power imbalances distort participation (Lind & Tyler, 1988). Fairness in procedure may mask systemic injustices by legitimizing existing hierarchies rather than challenging them. It also often struggles to account for emotional or relational aspects of justice that matter deeply to communities.

Restorative Justice: Healing the Wounds

Restorative justice questions the traditional question of punishment. Rather than asking “What penalty fits the crime?”, it asks “How can we heal the harm?” This model centers on dialogue among victims, offenders, and the community, aiming to repair relationships and restore social harmony (Zehr, 2002).

One application is South Africa’s post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission, where public testimony and forgiveness sought to mend the wounds of a fractured nation (Tutu, 1999). Indigenous justice circles in Canada revive ancient practices that emphasize collective healing over individual punishment (Ross, 2006). Even in modern schools, restorative practices replace punitive suspensions with mediated conversations, recognizing that relationships, not just rules, matter (González, 2012).

Yet restorative justice’s success hinges on the willingness of all parties to engage honestly and openly. Trust is not always present. It can struggle to address severe crimes where dialogue cannot substitute for accountability. Moreover, it may fail to confront broader structural injustices that contribute to harm in the first place.

Retributive Justice: The Scales of Punishment

Retributive justice embodies a primal sense of fairness: wrongdoing deserves proportionate punishment. Rooted in Kantian ethics, it affirms moral boundaries and serves as a deterrent (Kant, 1797/1996). Courts, criminal codes, and prisons are its institutions.

While this model can protect society and uphold order, it also risks devolving into vengeance. The United States’ mass incarceration epidemic offers a stark example of retributive justice’s dark side—where punishment becomes disproportionate, cycles of harm perpetuate, and marginalized communities bear the brunt (Alexander, 2012). Retributive systems often neglect rehabilitation and fail to consider the social conditions that produce crime.

Human Rights: Inalienable Freedoms

Born from the horrors of World War II, the human rights framework proclaims universal, inalienable rights that no government or ideology can revoke (United Nations, 1948). It underpins civil rights movements worldwide and offers a moral compass.

Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision of equality and justice sprang from this foundation (King, 1963). Yet human rights are not without internal conflict. The right to free speech can clash with protections against hate speech; religious freedom can collide with anti-discrimination mandates (Sunstein, 1993; Eskridge, 1999). The framework often lacks clear mechanisms to resolve such clashes and can be co-opted by powerful interests to justify interventions at odds with social justice (Mutua, 2002).

The Capability Approach: What People Can Do and Be

Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum revolutionized justice by focusing not on resources but on capabilities—the real freedoms people have to live the lives they value (Sen, 1999; Nussbaum, 2011). It recognizes that a legal right means little if a person lacks education, safety, or social support to exercise it.

For instance, a woman legally entitled to run for office may still be disadvantaged by poverty or violence. Development programs inspired by this approach focus on empowerment rather than income alone. However, implementing the capability approach requires significant resources and political will, often running up against entrenched economic and cultural barriers (Nussbaum, 2011).

Critical Social Justice: Dismantling Oppression

At the heart of contemporary social justice debates stands Critical Social Justice (CSJ), which argues that oppression is baked into society’s structures and that justice demands dismantling these systems (Crenshaw, 1989; Delgado & Stefancic, 2017). Intersectionality—understanding overlapping identities and oppressions—is a key tool.

CSJ’s insights have exposed blind spots in older models, centring marginalized voices often ignored. Yet its tunnel vision on identity can create exclusionary dynamics where dissent is treated as betrayal. This has led to fractures within progressive movements, such as tensions between some feminists and transgender activists over sex-based versus gender-identity rights (Gill-Peterson, 2018). Critics also warn that CSJ may prioritize symbolic recognition over material conditions. To highlight the difference between the CSJ movement and the Civil Rights Movement, take as an example this excerpt from Martin Luther King Jr's most famous speech:

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

For King, liberty meant the freedom of the individual regardless of the colour of their skin, evaluated instead by personal character. CSJ on the other hand, is a refocusing on the colour of someone's skin (or sexual orientation, gender identity etc).

Environmental Justice: Justice Beyond Humanity

Environmental justice expands the scope, reminding us that justice is not only among people but between people and the earth (Schlosberg, 2007). It confronts the fact that environmental harm disproportionately affects the poor, Indigenous peoples, and politically marginalized groups.

Movements like Indigenous land defence and climate activism highlight this link (Whyte, 2017). Yet environmental justice grapples with difficult trade-offs: how to balance urgent human needs with the long-term health of the planet. Powerful economic interests often resist this model, limiting its influence (Schlosberg, 2007).

The Necessity of Pluralism and the Heretic’s Role

Justice’s complexity defies any one model. Each lens offers insight but also contains unique blind spots. Real justice demands weaving these frameworks together—balancing resources and rights, processes and outcomes, immediate relief and deep transformation (Young, 2011; Fraser, 2000).

In this light, the heretic can be seen not as an impediment to justice, but a necessary catalyst to evolving understandings of what justice means. True progress is only achievable when we tolerate uncomfortable truths and embrace plurality. What we call a heretic today is, in fact better characterized as a prophet, with the fortitude to withstand standing apart, even in the face of punishment. As Martin Luther King Jr. (1963) envisioned, a just future cannot be delivered by any one ideology alone. It requires the freedom and will to dream.

References

Alexander, M. (2012). The new Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. The New Press.

Ahmed, S. (2012). On being included: Racism and diversity in institutional life. Duke University Press.

Aristotle. (1999). Nicomachean ethics (T. Irwin, Trans.). Hackett Publishing. (Original work published ca. 350 B.C.E.)

Baiocchi, G. (2005). Militant publics: The Porto Alegre experiment in participatory democracy. Politics & Society, 33(1), 43–72.

Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A Black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine. University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1989(1), 139–167.

Delgado, R., & Stefancic, J. (2017). Critical race theory: An introduction (3rd ed.). NYU Press.

Eskridge, W. N. (1999). The clash of rights: Freedom of speech and religious liberty in the United States. University of Chicago Law Review, 66(3), 739–814.

Fraser, N. (2000). Rethinking recognition. New Left Review, 3, 107–120.

Gill-Peterson, J. (2018). Histories of the transgender child. University of Minnesota Press.

González, T. (2012). Keeping kids in schools: Restorative justice, punitive discipline, and the school to prison pipeline. Journal of Law & Education, 41(2), 281–335.

Kant, I. (1996). The metaphysics of morals (M. Gregor, Trans.). Cambridge University Press. (Original work published 1797)

King, M. L., Jr. (1963). Letter from Birmingham Jail.

Lind, E. A., & Tyler, T. R. (1988). The social psychology of procedural justice. Springer.

Mutua, M. (2002). Human rights: A political and cultural critique. University of Pennsylvania Press.

Nguyen, T. (2023). The new orthodoxy of dissent: Culture wars in the 21st century. Cultural Studies Quarterly, 12(1), 45–62.

OECD. (2022). Revenue statistics 2022. OECD Publishing.

Rawls, J. (1971). A theory of justice. Harvard University Press.

Ross, R. (2006). Returning to the teachings: Exploring Aboriginal justice. Penguin Canada.

Schlosberg, D. (2007). Defining environmental justice: Theories, movements, and nature. Oxford University Press.

Sen, A. (1999). Development as freedom. Knopf.

Sunstein, C. R. (1993). Democracy and the problem of free speech. In Free Speech and Democracy (pp. 77–84). Oxford University Press.

Tutu, D. (1999). No future without forgiveness. Doubleday.

Tyler, T. R. (2006). Why people obey the law. Princeton University Press.

United Nations. (1948). Universal declaration of human rights. https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights

Wilkinson, R., & Pickett, K. (2010). The spirit level: Why greater equality makes societies stronger. Bloomsbury Press.

Whyte, K. P. (2017). Indigenous climate justice: The role of Indigenous knowledge in climate policy. In D. Klein & D. McCullough (Eds.), Routledge handbook of climate justice (pp. 146–158). Routledge.

Young, I. M. (2011). Justice and the politics of difference (2nd ed.). Princeton University Press.

Zehr, H. (2002). The little book of restorative justice. Good Books.

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