Catholic social teaching and Hayek’s critique of social justice

Abstract: Debates surrounding the meaning of social justice divide philosophers and theologians. The concept was famously and influentially discussed by F. A. Hayek who strongly criticised Christian thinkers. In this paper, we return to the works that Hayek cited and we find that a) the intended meaning of social justice in Catholic thought was different from the meaning attributed to it by Hayek, and b) that Hayek might well have found some original uses of the term unobjectionable. We argue that Hayek’s criticism of the use of the term by Catholic writers was unjustified, even if his criticisms of later meanings of the term are endorsed.