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Contribution type: New Concept
Concept: Contributive Justice
Name of the contributor: Michael Karlberg
E-mail of the contributor: mkarlberg@gmail.com
Contributive justice can be understood as a set of social conditions that enable every individual and group to develop their latent capacities and thereby contribute to the flourishing of the entire social body, from which their own flourishing ultimately derives. Some of these conditions will vary in different cultural and historical contexts. Yet all such conditions can be understood as latent possibilities, or affordances, that can be collectively discerned and acted upon, in any given cultural and historical context, in efforts to advance toward them.
This expansive conception of contributive justice offers a positive vision of social justice that is linked to human aspirations for meaning and purpose. People long to know that they matter, and contributing is a primary way we matter. In addition, contributing is not a zero-sum game. Fostering social conditions in which everyone can contribute to the common good leads to abundance, not scarcity.
Contributive justice recasts distributive commitments, even as it invites us to consider other relevant commitments. The latter include commitments to basic human rights; to the dignified representation and recognition of diverse peoples; to valuing and protecting cultural self-determination and epistemological diversity; to ensuring environmental justice; to cultivating those virtues and relational commitments on which collective flourishing depends; and to developing the moral and legal frameworks needed to support all of these commitments globally.