Moral Principles of Social Justice For Human Rights

Michael Ryan

Introduction:

In 1963 while Martin Luther King was in jail in Birmingham, Alabama, he wrote a letter to a group of white clergymen who had attacked him for his methods of fighting racial discrimination. In that letter he defended himself by an appeal to an ancient distinction, between "a negative peace which is the albescence of tension" and "a positive peace which is the presence of justice". To carry his thought one step further, we must say that, if it is a positive peace which is the presence of justice, then it is nothing less than the common good of man which is the presence of social justice. I am deeply honoured to be asked to speak today about so noble a concept as that of social justice.

In the course of my remarks, I intend to put forward six principles of social justice for human rights. These are principles that should, I believe, serve as a guides in the work for human rights. First, however, I want to define my terms, and then unabashedly to won up to the picture of man that underlies my principles.

1. Moral principles might be sought in several ways. They might be taken from divine revelation. They might be discovered by reason. Or they might be gathered from what most people in society appear to hold. The principles I intend to discuss are the ones that can be discovered by reason. Such principles are not in confect with what is known by divine revelation, rather they are illumined by it. They have this advantage, that they can serve as common grounds for action by both those who believe in divine revelation and those who do not.

2. Human rights I take to be those claims enjoyed by human beings because they follow upon man's call to live according to his nature, that is, to pursue the ends that are proper to him.

3. Justice is the habit or disposition whereby we serve the rights of other people. Whereas other virtues look to perfection of one's own self, justice looks to the good of others. We speak also of social justice because others do not live in isolation but in community, with the result that their good, and the fulfilment of their rights, are only possible within the framework of common good. It can also be spoken of as the objective norm of social relationships.

The Picture of Man:

Underlying the descriptions I have given here for my key terms, there is, as I admitted, a particular picture of man. It is impossible for anyone to speak about human rights without having a definite picture or view of the nature of man. So I wish to say a few words about that. As opposed to the Marxist view, which sees man primarily as a worker, finding his fulfilment in self-creation through work, and as opposed to the liberal-democratic view, which sees man as primarily a possessor, finding his fulfilment in the acquisition of external goods and the power they bring, I am arguing that man is primarily a free and intelligent being, finding his fulfilment in knowing and loving. Because man has intelligence, he is able to recognize God as the source of the world in which he finds himself, and so to understand that supreme being fulfilment consists of knowledge, love and service of this God. It is because he is the kind of being that can know God, that man is infinitely above the rest of creation, and that he therefore is said to have dignity, and to deserve reverence from his fellow man. A creation that manifests the goodness and beauty of God would be senseless, if there were not within it a being who could recognize this manifestation and respond to it. This is why we say that man's end has dignity. A dignity is something that stands on its own. Whereas everything else on this means to a further end, man's end - the knowledge, love and service of God - stands on its own.

If we turn to revelation, to cast further light on this picture, we find that the Book of Genesis refers to this fact of human dignity by speaking of man as God's image. It is because he is God's image, because, being intelligent and free, he is somehow like God, that man can attain God, and can know and love him. It is for the same reason that man is pictured there as charged by God to exercise a kind of providence over creation, modelled on God's own Providence.

Returning now to what reason shows us, we find that man is also social by nature. That is to say, he is a being who can find his development and fulfilment only in community. In other words, what we call "society" is not primarily a competition, but a family. Human life is really only human life when lived in community. Not only does man require others in order to satisfy his basic physical needs, but there is radical generosity to human nature which drives man to share his knowledge and love with others. It is precisely in reaching out to others that he develops his own possibilities. The common conditions of social life, which guarantee and promote the recognition and fulfilment of man's individual and social rights are referred to as the common good. When the common good is in place, then those great human exchanges of knowledge and love can take place in a fruitful way. The principles of social justice are the principles that support the common good, and thereby serve human rights.

Some Principles of Social Justice:

Human rights have a spiritual character. Unless we have a clear criterion for distinguishing human rights, we will find, particularly in a permissive society, that many things get referred to as natural rights which are not such at all, and that some things which really are human rights get overlooked. Society must recognize as genuine rights whatever human beings need to fulfill their human nature and to pursue their human goal, which is, ultimately, to know and love God. When we describe it in this way, it is clear that there is a great difference between a human right and a mere individual advantage - the sort of thing that can be defended on the grounds that someone would like to have it. We can speak, then, of a right to pursue the truth, and of a right to pursue the truth, and of a right to be correctly informed about public events. We can also argue that everyone has the right to share of earthly goods sufficient for oneself and one's family. In some situations this translates into the right to a guaranteed income. We can say that every person has the right to useful employment, and to a just wage for that employment. A society that does not make jobs for those who want them, a priority, is to that extent unjust. We should not, however, speak of the natural right to make a million dollars, or to commit suicide. A human right is always ordered to something higher, ultimately to God.

Society is for the Person. Since man is social by nature, the real test of any social institutions is the degree to which it actually serves the person. This is its reason for existence. A society or social institutions that is not person-centred is, to that extent, unjust. The economy, for example, must be for the person, not the person for the economy. Consider haw far this principle goes. No matter how much an economy produces, or how fairly it distributes it, if it does not produce themselves more human in the process, it is an unjust economy; it violates human rights. On those grounds we must find much that needs radical change in both market and central economies. Again, since the family is an extension of the person, a society is only just to the extent that it provides the conditions and the social atmosphere required for healthy family life. There is a right to a society in which parents can expect to find that the media, for example, will be a positive help in raising the family.

It should be noted too that the social institutions exists in order to assist the person, to be an aid, a subsidium, to the person in those areas where the person needs such aid. If it goes beyond this, and begins to take over what the person can do for himself, this is a violation or subsidiarity, and is unjust. We might think of the basic right which parents have to educate their children, a right which they need social help to carry out, but a right that remains basically theirs all the same.

This seems also to be the appropriate place in which to mention that communities, minority groups, and distinct peoples, have a right to their own identity and their own life. This follows from the fact that, man being social by nature, society is not just one huge group, but is rather within groups.

Persons have a Right to Participate in Social Institutions. This right needs to be facilitated by the introduction of appropriate structures. The reasons for this principle are clear. For one thing, we can only insure that social institutions really serve human rights if the people involved have a clear voice in their operation. It is therefore vital that neither a spirit of paternalism nor a doctrine of national security be allowed to interfere with the right of people to participate in the institutions that affect their lives. Another reason urging participation is the fact that, while social institutions must be person-oriented, they are not simply "filling stations". Man derives personalizing benefits from them above all when he commits himself to the service of others through means of them. Human fulfilment in fact requires acts of self-emptying and self-giving. So it is essential that there be strong organs of participation, not only in the political process, but also in the workplace.

The common good enjoys a certain Primacy, because it is the guarantee of man's personal rights. In other words, there are times when the exercise OF some human rights has to be subordinated to the requirements of the common good. To explain my meaning, I must make a distinction between two kinds of human rights: Those which do not directly involve the use of nature in their exercise, and those which do directly involve it. Rights which do not directly involve the use of nature in their exercise are such rights as the right to worship, or the right to seek the truth. Society guarantees these rights by rules. Rights which directly involve the use of nature in their exercise however, have to come to terms with the fact that nature is limited and finite. Hence the exercise of such rights by all can only be guaranteed by putting limitations of some kind on the exercise of such rights by each and all. Perhaps the best illustration of this is property rights. Since all persons have dignity, all persons have the right to make use of the goods on the earth in order to live and develop in a human way. Any system of private ownership of property is defensible only to the extent that it serves this prior right of all to use the earth's goods. If a given system of private ownership begins in fact to interfere with the use of the earth's goods by all, then it becomes unjust. The principle of private ownership is being abused, for example, when property in the hands of those who have is not so used to help end the oppressed, exploited and dependent condition of those who have not. In this principle, then, we find the basis for legislating land redistribution in certain cases, for imposing taxes on wealth, and not just income, for actually breaking up, in some cases, the pools of wealth that tend to be passed on from one generation to the next, and for placing restrictions on lending practices, investment policies and trading arrangements.

The Common Good is not just National in Scope but International. Because every person has dignity, every person has an equal right to be treated with reverence. Because man is naturally social, this reverence includes the recognition of mankind as one family. It is unjust to recognize brothers and sisters only up to our national borders. It is unjust to use one standard of justice for the treatment of our own citizens, and another standard of so-called justice for the treatment of other people. There must be, therefore, international structures to insure justice between nations and on a world scale. Such structures need to recognize the natural right of people to emigrate and immigrate, so as to find on this earth, which belongs to the family of man, whatever they need to live a decent life. There must be structures too that allow participation by all in the goods, both cultural and economic, that man has been able to produce. sadly, we have to say that, at the present time, the structures needed to insure social justice on an international scale simply do not exist.

The Requirements of the Common Good can and do change. To the extent that the common good is presented in a society, some forms of growth take place in that society. In so far as a society is truly healthy, the requirements of the common good are constantly expanding. Thus, in a healthy society, where the conditions are present for people to share and exchange their knowledge and love, there is growth in the type and amount of cultural and material goods produced, and there is also growth in the level of human awareness. When growth takes place in the kinds and amounts of goods available, then social situations in that society need to be changed so that people in that society can have access to those new goods. We might think of the right that qualified people should have in our society today easy access to university education (and no longer just high school education). Similarly, when growth takes place in the level of people's awareness, then structures need to change to take account of this awareness. Thus there is increased awareness today of working people's rights, and of women's rights. Structures need to change to accommodate this new awareness, if the common good is going to remain integral. Regular social change in any society appears, then, to be a demand of justice.

There are of course other situations too in which oppressive or unjust social situations, structures, laws customs, become part of a society, thereby destroying the common good in part. In view of the primary importance of the common good in securing the conditions for guaranteeing human rights, there appears to be in such a situation a clear obligation on the members of that society to organize in order to combat the unjust element in question. I use the word "organize", because normally power can only be challenged by power. We need to be sensitive to the importance of these groups that organize for social change, to the crucial role they play in working for the common good, and to the basic legitimacy of groups of citizens to challenge what appears to be a lack or failure of one of the conditions of the common good.

Conclusion:

I have offered six principles of social justice to guide us in our work for human rights. Social justice has to do with the common good, which is the guarantee of each person's individual rights. In the words of a great commentator on the subject of justice, when we work for social justice, we serve the common good of the community, and in doing that, we actually serve each and every member of that community. For those people who work for social justice, that is a very consoling thought.

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© 2007 Atlantic Human Rights Centre, St. Thomas University