Society and the

Human Person
John Rawls’s Modern Liberalism
• Founded in the dual commitment to freedom and
equality.

John Rawls
• Justice-is the first virtue of institutions, as truth is
of systems of thought.
• The dignity of the human person is grounded in
one’s basic moral worth.
The Social and
the
Interpersonal
The Social and the Interpersonal
• Paul Ricoeur- French philosopher
- in his enriching interpretation of the
Parable of the Good Samaritan, expounds for us a
profound meaning of human sociality.

Metaphor for the neighbor

• Neighbor- represents the meaning of person-to-
person or basic interpersonal relations.
- irreducible to being a social category
The Social and the Interpersonal
• The Good Samaritan- is the exemplar for our
interpersonal relations.
-his act as a neighbor lies in
the habit of making oneself available.

-being an outcast, goes beyond

categorization

Ricoeur says that:

“as the Good Samaritan is a person through his
capacity for encounter, all his compassion is a
gesture over and above roles, personages and
functions.”
The Social and the Interpersonal
• Priest and the Levite- represent the social
dimension of human existence.
-they portray the role of
institutions
-their inability to respond to
the surprise of the event bespeaks of the fact that
they are both pre-occupied by their social role.

• The performance of one’s function is the basis of

our social standards.
The Social and the Interpersonal
• For Paul Ricoeur, the dialectic, or unity between
the social and interpersonal, means that people do
not exist in opposition to each other but act as one
in the desire to attain the good life.

• The theme of the neighbor is an appeal to awaken

our consciousness.

• Being absorbed in the role that self plays means

that the other has become invisible. The other
becomes a mere client, a patient, or a victim – in
short, impersonal.
The Social and the Interpersonal
• Ricoeur thinks that in the dialectic or unity of the
socius and the neighbor, the social and the
interpersonal dimensions of our lives, may reveal
holistically what being human actually means.
Justice and Liberal
Equality
 Liberalism
• Refers to a theory of justice that sets human
liberty as priority

Human liberty
• They are universal, apply equally to all, and are
founded on the principle of dignity for
every human being.
 Social contract tradition
• The contractarian tradition indicates how a person
come into agreement or contract in order to form
a society
• Associated with the modern political theory
• Strongly defended by:

• Thomas Hobbes • Jean Jacques Rousseau

• John Locke • Immanuel Kant

 State of Nature
• Thomas Hobbes

• The state of nature is war

• Individuals must surrender a part of their freedom to

the state or sovereign. (Sovereign = Leviathan)

• Human nature is self-interested

 State of Nature
• John Locke

• The state of nature is not a state of war

• Property plays an essential role in civil government

• The aim of the government is the preservation of

liberty, property, life and well being in general
 State of Nature
• Jean Jacques Rousseau
• Prominent figure coming from the Enlightenment

• The original state of nature is not chaotic

• When free and equal persons surrender their will to a

collective, they agree to form a society in which
individuals are committed to the whole and the whole
society is committed to the well-being of each
individual. (General Will)
 State of Nature
• Immanuel Kant

• Human being is an end itself

• His basic freedom or autonomy constitutes his dignity as

a person that must be protected by the state
 John Rawls
• In a just society the rights secured by justice are
not subject to political bargaining or even to the
calculus of social interest

• Inequalities of wealth and authority are just only if

they result in compensating benefits for everyone
and in particular for the least advantaged
members of the society

• Injustice is simply inequality that are not to the

benefit of all
 Will Kymlicka
• Liberal equality does not mean the removal of all
inequalities but only those that do not benefit the
worst off
 Idea of impartiality
• People choose the principles of justice on equal or
fair terms

• The rulers or producers are not to anyone’s favor

or advantage

• Veil of Ignorance – one does not know his status or

position in an initial position of equality
 The Rawsilian Theory
• First Principle: Each person has the same
indefeasible claim to a fully adequate scheme of
equal basic liberties, which scheme is compatible
with the same scheme of liberties for all
• Second Principle: Social and economic equalities
are to satisfy two conditions:
• A. They are to be attached to offices and positions open
to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity
• B. They are to be the greatest benefit of the least-
advantaged
 Difference Principle
• Meant to regulate the manner by which income
and other social goods are redistributed

• Inequalities in terms of income can only be

allowed if it is to the greatest benefit of the
disadvantaged
 Robert Nozick
• Minimalist state

• The state must be limited to the protection

against force, theft and fraud

• The distribution of goods must be left to the free

market where there is a free flow of goods
 Democracy and Human
Development
• Amartya Sen – “development” is expanding the
real freedoms that people enjoy
• Human capabilities – basis of just and equitable
approach
• Human freedom depends on elements like social
and economic factors
• Equality – not on income and primary goods, but of
basic freedoms or capabilities which empower
people
• Positive freedom – democratic participation
• Not just procedural, but substantive
• Intrinsic value of freedom- e.g. education,
empower individual in his choices
• Expanding freedom – allows a person to
experience his social life fully
• Democracy – empowering the poor and
marginalized
• Vision of human development – possible
under a mature and functioning democracy
 The Problem of Global Justice
• Justice- serves the purpose of basic structure set
up under the rule of one sovereign government
• Political, not moral
• Global poverty – can be attributed to the
weakness of internal structures in the Third
World
• Poor nations – highly handicapped
• Thomas Nagel – explains the idea of state
sovereignty limits the relations between states
• Global justice – reduction of the relation
between nations into a duty of assistance
• Humanitarian assistance – no more than a
token gesture and surely will not solve
global poverty
• Thomas Pogge – says that global poverty
cannot be seen only at the level of the rich
country’s duty of assistance
• Global difference principle- re-
redistribution of global wealth in order to
compensate for the perpetual exploitation
of the natural resources of poor countries
• John Rawls’s The Law of Peoples- limits the
matter of justice to the domestic case
• Justice beyond borders
Justice as Fairness
By John Rawls
 Role Of Justice
• Justice is the first virtue of social institutions

• Laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well-arranged

must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust

• Justice denies that the loss of freedom for some is made right by
a greater good shared by others

• The rights secured by justice are not subject to political

bargaining or to the calculus of social interest

• Injustice is tolerable only when it is necessary to avoid an even

greater injustice
 The Subject of Justice
• The primary subject of justice is the basic structure of society
Justice as fairness aims to describe a just arrangement of the major
political and social institutions of a liberal society: the political
constitution, the legal system, the economy, the family, and so on. Rawls
calls the arrangement of these institutions a society's basic structure.

• The form of a society's basic structure will have profound effects on

the lives of citizens. The basic structure will influence not only their
life prospects, but more deeply their goals, their attitudes, their
relationships, and their characters.

• The justice of a social scheme depends essentially on how fundamental

rights and duties are assigned and on the economic opportunities and
social conditions in the various sectors of society
 The Original Position and
Justification
•Justice as fairness
•Conceptions of justice are
to be ranked by their
acceptability to persons
so circumstanced
 Two Principles of Justice
• First Principle- Each person is to have an equal
right to the most extensive basic liberty
compatible with similar liberty for others.

• Second Principle- Social and economic inequalities

are to be arranged so that they are both
(a) Reasonably expected to be to everyone’s
advantage, and
(b) Attached to positions and offices open to all.
 Two Principles of Justice
• First Principle
-The basic liberties of citizens are:
Political liberty (the right to vote and to be
eligible for public office)
Freedom of speech and assembly
Liberty of conscience and freedom of thought
Freedom of the person along with the right to hold
(personal) property
Freedom from arbitrary arrest and seizure
 Two Principles of Justice
• Second Principle
-applies to the distribution of income and wealth
and to the design of organizations that make use
of differences in authority and responsibility, or
chains of command.
 Two Principles of Justice
• All social values which are:
-liberty and opportunity
-income and wealth
-the bases of self-respect

…are to be distributed equally unless an unequal

distribution of any, or all, of these values is to
everyone’s advantage.
• Injustice- inequalities that are not to the benefit
of all.