Justice, Human Rights, and Paths to Peace

Posted on Jan 19, 2025 in Philosophy and ethics

A) Personas and Justice:

  • Equality: The equal distribution of social goods is essential to the dignity of a person.
  • Debt: When a person or institution owes something to another, the relationship of justice ends upon payment or satisfaction of the debt.

B) Theories of Justice:

Aristotle:

Justice means giving to each what belongs to them according to the law. He distinguishes several types:

  1. Commutative: From the Latin ‘commutatio,’ meaning exchange.
  2. Distributive: Governs relations between the state and citizens, concerning loads, jobs, and benefits.
  3. Social: Governs the relationship of the individual with society, aiming to achieve collective goals and good social relations.

Utilitarianism:

The conception of justice presiding over a society is that which promotes the greatest happiness or satisfaction for the greatest number of people.

Socialist Thought:

Justice is understood as the abolition of inequalities. Several trends exist:

  • Utopian Socialism: A prosperous and fair society can be achieved by using technological advances and eliminating economic inequalities, fostering education based on solidarity.
  • Social Harmony: A just society can be realized through the organized struggle of workers, advocating for the disappearance of private property as a cause of inequality.

Liberal Thought:

Walzer argues that justice implies a commitment to equality, understanding the disappearance of unjust dominations. His theory rests on two points:

  1. Different criteria exist for distributing social goods: fairness, merit, and need to avoid partiality.
  2. A society should not allow any one group to dominate all others.

C) Human Rights:

Human rights are a basic set of rights that precede every legal order of any country, a horizon of values for humans. They are characterized by the following features:

  • Universal: They must be recognized for all human beings equally.
  • Subjective: They refer to the legal requirement that a subject can demand something.
  • Indispensable: They are not lost over time.
  • Inalienable: They cannot be assigned or transferred to another person.
  • Preferential: In conflict with other rights, human rights must be protected as a priority.

Value Guidance – Generations Model:

  • First Generation: Civil and political liberty, liberal equality.
  • Second Generation: Economic, social, and cultural rights, social solidarity.
  • Third Generation: Respect for the environment, living in peace, solidarity with others.

D) Internal and International Peace:

Peace can be understood as a consensual search for solutions to conflicts, in the most satisfying way possible for all those affected. Several causes may lead to conflict:

  1. Psychological: Individual ambition, the eagerness for power and profit, the search for leadership.
  2. Political: Oppression, the imbalance of power.
  3. Economic: The unequal distribution of wealth, food, and extreme inequality between countries and social groups.
  4. Ideological: Fundamentalisms of various kinds.

In his book Perpetual Peace, Kant laid down three basic conditions for achieving lasting peace among states:

  • The political constitution of any state must be democratic. Peace between states cannot occur if the conditions for agreements and the expression of opinions are not met within each state.
  • Lasting peace cannot exist unless a supranational body monitors compliance with peace agreements. If the UN does not exist, countries with veto power could fulfill this role.
  • Equal opportunities for social development.