THE LOVE AND JUSTICE FRAMEWORK

The principle of love

There are three well-known concepts of love originating from the Greeks, namely, agape or charity, erotic or passionate sexual encounter
and philia, the affection between friends.
 AGAPE or CHARITY- In Christianity, agape is “the highest form of love, charity” and “the love of God for man and of man for God”.
 EROTIC or PASSIONATE SEXUAL ENCOUNTER- describes the type of love found in romantic relationships (think “erotic”).The best
phrase in English to equal eros is “being in love,”.
 PHILIA - describes the type of love found in strong friendships. In relationships with philia, affection and support abounds, as well as
a sense of equality.
Love as a moral framework is the agapeic. Agape is the love principle preached by Jesus Christ. What Christ did asnarrated in the New
Testament are all acts of love. Feeding the hungry, giving drinks to the thirsty,healing the sick, rendering service to those in need. In general, as
St. Thomas defined it, agape is “willingthe good of another.” It is the act of sharing, or giving more than what is just because justice is just
theminimum of love. In the language of contemporary thinkers, this is love as “affirmation of the other’sbeing,” “being-with-others”, being
conscious of the other’s presence.”In Joseph Fletcher’s situation ethics, agapeic love is absolute norm, the absolute framework forthe
determination of the right thing to do or wrong to avoid. In moral reasoning, it is asked, is it an act ofloving? Fr. Bernard Haring, the advocate
of ethics or personalism, was also quoted as saying, “(t)he heartof moral life is charity to one’s neighbour.
JUSTICE AND FAIRNESS: PROMOTING THE COMMON GOOD AS A MORAL FRAMEWORK
a. SOCIAL JUSTICE
- Social justice is equal access to wealth, opportunities, and privileges within society. Hence,promotion of social justice is equivalent
to promotion of the common good. It may also be said thatpromotion of the common good is promotion of social justice. The common good is
explained as follows:In ordinary political discourse, the “common good” refers to those facilities – whether material,cultural or institutional –
that the members of a community provide to all members in order to fulfil arelational obligation they all have to care for certain interests that
they have in common. Some canonicalexamples of the common good in a modern liberal democracy include: the road system; public
parks;police protection and public safety; courts and the judicial system; public schools; museums and culturalinstitutions; public
transportation; civil liberties, such as the freedom of speech and the freedom ofassociation; the system of property; clean air and clean water;
and national defense. The term itself mayrefer either to the interests that members have in common or to the facilities that serve
commoninterests. For example, people may say, “the new public library will serve the common good” or “thepublic library is part of the
common good.
”In other words, it may be said that when the government improves public property and services,and develops the natural resources, it
simultaneously promotes equal access to wealth, opportunitiesand privileges within society. Farm to market roads, expressways, railways, etc.
will allow every individualthe opportunities to bring their products to the market. Free public schools will allow all children theopportunity to
go to school. This means social justice.
For Plato, justice means giving what is due by doing one’s own function. In Plato’s Republic, thereare three classes of people, namely, the
craftsmen, soldiers and rulers or guardian. The virtues expectedto be inherent in each class are correspondingly temperance, courage and
wisdom. Each member of itsclass must require and maintain the virtue in their class. Craftsmen should be temperant in all aspects oftheir
lives, temperant in acquiring, using and keeping their wealth; temperant in their ambition. If theybecome ambitious and hypocritical by
aspiring to become soldiers and pretending to be soldiers,injustice arises because they won’t be able to secure the country. A
policeman is just when he does his job job, providing security of his people with courage. He becomes unjust when instead of patrolling the
streets to drive bad elements, he is going around soliciting tongs. When he does not do his job by sleeping while on duty, then a lot of people
will suffer from the unrestrained criminalities. A guardian is a philosopher king. He possesses all the virtues of temperance, courage and
wisdom. He has the duty of wisely studying and identifying solutions to the problems of peace and order, equitable distribution of wealth, etc.
If he is not temperant, i.e. he is number one in graft and corruption, if he is a coward and has no will power, or political will to introduce what
is best for the people, and if he is not a wise president, then injustice results and the people suffer.
b. JUSTICE AS THE MINIMUM DEMAND OF LOVE
William Luijpen, referred to justice as “the minimum demand of love.” To do justice is ready an act of love, the minimum demand of love.
Which means that love is more, gives more than what is just.
Mathematically, if love is 100% of being for others, then justice may just be only 10%. A just employer pays the minimum wage to employees,
a loving employer, pays more than the minimum wage, even when it hurts. If there are 2 people lost in the cold and one has 2 jackets and the
other has none, justice demands that one should share the other his other jacket, the least that he can do, but that is just the minimum
demand of love.
c. DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE
Distributive justice is “justice that is concerned with the distribution or allotment of goods, duties, and privileges in concert with the
merits of individuals, and the best interests of society.” The following have features of distributive justice:
1. Egalitarianism is the doctrine of political and social equality. “No person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due
process of law; nor shall any person be denied the equal protection of the law.” This is not equalization in terms of quantity; it is
equalization in terms of entitlement to due process of law and equal protection of the law.
2. Capitalist and free-market system let the law of demand and supply follow its course. Ideally it is a self-regulation process. It lets
any excess of demand be regulated by the limits of supply, and lets any excess of supply by regulated by the limits of demand. This
means no artificial control or regulations. It is supposed to arrive naturally at its own equilibrium. Free market is supposed to be an
equalizer. During waiting time for natural course of things, public necessities or utilities may demand immediate intervention which
should be more of an exception than the rule.
3. Socialist follow the rule, “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” This requires collective ownership of
the means of production, distribution and exchange with the aim of operating for use rather than for profit. Possible downside of this
system is there is no motivation for expansion and growth.
4. Taxation is government’s getting a part of what its people earn in order have money to spend for public services, operating and
maintaining public places or properties, for people’s use. It is practically demanding from taxpayers a minimum of justice, to make
the enjoyment of the wealth at least more equitable although not equalizer. It is a government interference
with private property, more or less compelling people to give a share from the fruits of their
labor, a way of compelling diffusion of wealth.
 5. Protection and Preservation of Public Welfare – the government has constitution-granted power to govern, to make, adopt and
enforce laws for the protection and preservation of public health, justice, morals, order, safety and security and welfare. The
Constitution

GLOBALIZATION AND ITS CHALLENGES

Learning Objectives. At the end of the topic, students are expected to:a) to define globalization;b) to identify some emerging problems in
globalization;c) to identify some ethical challenges of globalization;d) to identify business ethics issues on globalization.

What is Globalization?
Globalization has become the trend of unity among countries as this concept made scattered states one interact with each other. Globalization
is defined through the following:
a. the world-wide integration of government policies, cultures, social movements, and financial markets through trade and the exchange of
ideas;
b. intensification of worldwide relationships which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring
many miles away and vice versa.
c. It is the stress on trans-nationalization of the connections taking place in the worldtoday.

Some Problems with Globalization

1. It uses up finite resources more quickly. Once one country opens up their product to the world wherein all countries can avail, there is a big
possibility of depleting the supply.
2. Increases world carbon dioxide.
3. It makes it virtually impossible for regulators in one country to foresee the worldwide implications of their actions
4. It acts to increase world oil prices.
5. It transfers consumption of limited oil supply from developed countries to developing countries.
6. It transfers jobs from developed countries to less developed countries.
7. It transfers investment spending from developed countries to less developed countries.
8. With the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, globalization leads to a huge US balance of trade deficits and other imbalances.
9. It tends to move taxation away from corporations, and onto individual citizens.
10. It sets up a currency “race to the bottom” with each country trying to get an export advantage by dropping the value of its currency.
11. It encourages dependence on other countries for essential goods and services.
12. It ties countries together, so that if one country collapses, the collapse is likely to ripple through the system, pulling many other countries
with it.
SOME ETHICAL CHALLENGES OF GLOBALIZATION
It cannot be denied that globalization has an emerging challenge to address. They can be deduced from the following:
1. Wealth concentration for the few and leaving behind the majority.
2. Laissez-faire capitalism deepens the inequalities within and between nations for consequentialist and deontological standpoints.
3. States are losing their own sovereignty.
4. Problem of handling the global environment in order to prevent a global ecological collapse.
5. Explosive population growth which threatens to surpass the earth’s carrying capacity and bust the biosphere.
SOME EMERGING ISSUES OF GLOBALIZATION AND BUSINESS ETHICS
As globalization is largely an economic concept and system, it is reasonable to enumeratethe different concerns in Business Ethics. Business
ethics is defined as a form of an appliedethics that examines moral principles concerning business environment involving issues about:
● corporate policies;
● corporate practices;
● business behaviors; and
● the conducts and relationships of individuals in the organization.
1. duplication/ imitation of products;
2. child labor;
3. money laundering;
4. environmental issues;
5. and other business malpractices and crimes
● cyber crimes
● seuxal harrasments
● intellectual property
● patent theftsDirections
Defining Globalization: Globalization is not an easy task to define. Ajayi in discussing globalization said that it has been
an elusive and contentious enterprise. He defines globalization as the process leading to the growing interdependence of
nation –states across political, economic and social spheres. This interrelationship is characterized by massive daily
commercial transactions, the homogenization of culture worldwide concurrently with the resurgence of emphasize on ethnic
and communal identity, some erosion of the political clout of many states and finally, the increasing reliance on
communication technology to perform more tasks.Scholte gave five broad classifications of globalization as internalization, liberalization,
westernization, or
modernization, deterritorialization or supraterritorialization and universalization. It is along this line that we shall start to
examine and understand the phenomenon of globalization.
 Globalization as INTERNATIONALIZATION: Globalization here is defined as internationalization, that is, an enlarged and
growing flows or movement of trade, capital investment, people, messages, information and ideas between countries. It is
thus a growth of international exchange and interdependence. This definition of globalization is mainly economic in
nature. Material exchanges are involved and information is needed to be able to adhere to high economic exchange and
interests in terms of labour, capital, raw materials and so on.
Globalization as LIBERALIZATION: Globalization as liberalization refers to the process of removing or reducing government-imposed restrictions
on movement of goods, services, capital and people between countries in order to create an ‘open’,
‘borderless’ world economy. This is in order to facilitate international economic integration. Here liberalization serves
as a vehicle for the success of globalization as internalization. For there to be success in movement of trade, capital
investment and so on there is a need for removal of restrictions on trade, barriers, foreign-exchange, capital and visas. This
need is political in nature. We can then say that globalization as liberalization is an extension of globalization as
internalization in that political wills and ideas are used to extend territories in order to enhance free flow of trade, ideas,
people, messages, information and capital investment between countries.
 Globalization as DETERRITORIALIZATION: Globalization can also be defined as a social process in which the constraints of
geography on social and cultural arrangement recede and in which people become increasingly aware that they are receding. Scholars argue
that deterritorialization has proceeded mainly and rapidly from the West. The developments within the
European Union are widely quoted as example of deterritorialization [9]. Waters also claims that the deterritorialization
of social and especially of political arrangements has proceeded most rapidly in the West especially with the example of
global deterritorialisation of European Union States. This is the geographical aspect of globalization in that
globalization is a form of deterritorialization or the growth of supraterritorial relations between people. The far-reaching
change in the nature of social space is emphasized here. The proliferation and spread of supraterritorial or what we can
alternatively term ‘transworld’ or ‘transborder’ – connection brings an end to what could be called ‘territorialism’, that is,
a situation where social geography is entirely territorial. Although, territory still matters in the globalizing world, it no
longer constitutes the whole of geography. By and large, globalization in this respect refers to a reconfiguration of
geography, so that social space is no longer wholly mapped in terms of territorial places, territorial distances and territorial
borders.
 Globalization as WESTERNIZATION: The idea of globalization as Westernization has gained much ground especially amongst
scholars in the developing world. Proponents of this idea are of the view that globalization is a Western idea and it is a
propagation of Western culture, thus, it is essentially Eurocentric. In this regard globalization is seen as colonization and
imperialism. Waters states that Globalization is the direct consequence of the expansion of European culture across the
planet via settlement, colonization and cultural mimesis.
This idea is also bound up with the capitalist development through political and cultural arenas. However, Waters
proceeded by saying that it does not imply that every corner of the planet must become Westernized and capitalist but
rather that every set of social arrangements must establish its position in relation to the capitalist West. In other words
every nation must make reference to Western and capitalist possibilities.
Globalization is seen as been Europeanized in the sense that even when we think we are globalizing we are more or
less Europeanizing. Scholte contends that Globalization introduces a single world culture centred on consumerism, mass
media, American and the English language. There is a homogenization of culture which breeds either progressive
cosmopolitanism or oppressive imperialism depending on the side in which one is.
 Globalization as UNIVERSALIZATION: Lastly, the phenomenon of globalization can be defined as universalization. Here,
it refers mainly to a planetary synthesis of cultures, a process of the worldwide spread of culture, ideas, objects and
experiences. This is the idea of globalization that this paper suggests as the philosophy for globalization. The
synthesis of cultures, ideas, objects and experiences should be world –wide and really global. In this regard we can talk of
globalization of ideas, economics, politics, decolonization and policies that will develop humanity. This does not rule out
cultural identity as a world phenomenon in that it is a philosophy which expects the global world to be structured along
respect for others, their cultures, ideas, goals and de-emphasizes of competition for the sake of it: That is, a universalization
of ideas that will lead to heterogenization of cultures and not homogenization.
From all the analysis so far, we can say that the various distinctions made about globalization are not mutually
exclusive but they overlap. Though, their respective focus appear different, in that, while one emphasizes the economic,
the other emphasizes political and another geographical, yet, what each position assumes is not wrong. In fact, it can be
argued that all of them, put together, better describe the phenomenon of globalization as Universalization.
Globalization needs to be seen as a process that unifies the world in a process of spreading various objects, be it
economic, political and cultural experiences to all people in all the nooks and crannies of the globe such that it benefits
humanity, this then becomes the essence of globalization as Universalization. In this respect, rather than bred
homogenization, globalization will breed heterogenization in which everybody, every culture will have one thing or the other
to contribute in terms of meaning, identity, culture, politics and economy.