First Virtue Of Social Institutions Research Articles

RIGHTOF PEOPLE AND HUMAN RIGHTS IN JOHN RAWLS PHILOSOPHY:PRESUPPOSITIONS OF THE RULE OF LAW IN AFRICA

Is there something like a social function of justice, organizing, alongside politics, our relationship to reality and constituting a minimum standard of action in society?John Rawls answered this question with his theory of justice where principles are presented as necessary substrates for well-ordered societies. This can be formulated the question of the relationship between justice presented as the first virtue of social institutions and the idea of the inviolability of the human person. (J. Rawls, 1997, p. 29).To the question of what link can be established between the law of nations and the notion of human rights, we hypothesize that the opening of the principles of justice to relations between societies allows an indiscriminate implementation of fundamental human rights beyond the borders of democratic societies.This is why the objective of this contribution is to analyse the possibility of a rule of law in Africa from the Rawlsian theory of the law of nations in the perspective of an institutional patriotism.

La relación de la obligación política y la desobedencia civil en correlación con las nuevas democracias del socialismo del siglo XXI

The purpose of this paper is to make a brief comparative analysis of the contributions of the Political Relation of Law, in its relationship with society and its application with justice, as opposed to the positivized legal norm in the theory of the State, in the new South American democracies with the ideal of socialism of the XXI century, for that reason. Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. A theory, however attractive, eloquent and concise it may be, must be rejected or revised if it is not true; similarly, it does not matter that laws and institutions are orderly and efficient: if they are unjust they must be reformed or abolished. Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that not even the welfare of society as a whole can trample upon.

COVID-19 and justice

John Rawls begins a Theory of Justice with the observation that 'Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought… Each person possesses an...

La insuficiencia de la teoría de la justicia distributiva rawlsiana ante la interdependencia económica global

La Teoría de la Justicia del filósofo norteamericano John Rawls es considerada una de las mayores contribuciones a la filosofía política del siglo XX. En esta, Rawls plasmó su preocupación por un orden institucional justo para todos los individuos. Por ello, concentra sus esfuerzos en la justicia, como primera virtud de las instituciones sociales, para que atraviese, en un ámbito doméstico, la estructura básica de la sociedad y, en el marco internacional, las relaciones entre Estados. En este escrito, se sostiene que dicha versión restringida de la sociedad y del alcance de la justicia, deja en deuda su teoría frente a las diferencias sociales en el nivel de vida de los países y la situación de pobreza absoluta de gran parte de las personas en el mundo.

Justice in Western Political Thought (John Rawles model)

John Rawls is one of the most prominent Western philosophers of contemporary political thought in the 20th century. Through his writings he tried to establish the foundations on which the theory of justice was built in practice and in order to achieve and establish the foundations of justice among peoples. Justice is one of the most important values of civil society, The conflicts of individuals in all their colors and controls the laws of civil society and the construction of the theory is consistent with the results of the public beliefs of what is fair and what is not fair and makes this theory a pattern stands on what is said by the doctrine of public utility and the consequences of a process that can serve as a framework for social life valid and John Rawls believes that justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as is the truth of intellectual systems. Whatever the theory is elegant and economical, it has to be rejected if it is not so honest. The rules and institutions, however efficient and well-formed, must be reformed or revoked if they are unfair.

Is Sincerity the First Virtue of Social Institutions? Police, Universities, and Free Speech

In the final chapter of Speech Matters, Seana Shiffrin argues that institutions have especially stringent duties to protect speech freedoms. In this article, I develop a few lines of criticism. First, I question whether Shiffrin’s framework of justified suspended contexts is appropriate for institutional settings. Second, I challenge the presumption that the knowledge-gathering function performed by police is necessarily compromised by insincere practices. Third, I criticize Shiffrin’s characterization of the university as involving a complete repudiation of enforced consensus, and I express doubts about the close connection between education and democratic legitimation that Shiffrin endorses. Finally, I raise a problem with the book’s overall argument: even if one agrees that speech freedoms are necessary for moral development, they also may be threatening to moral development. The upshot is that the protection of speech should be modulated in order to account for the potential conflicts between sincerity and other valuable ends, rather than being oriented above all to sincerity.

Analyzing abusive school leadership practices through the lens of social justice

Purpose The present study contributes to the growing body of research on abusive supervision in school settings, particularly by principals. School leadership (principal) behavior has been a topical issue for decades in educational research. This paper attempts to add to scholarly knowledge in the area of school leadership and specifically the effect of abusive school leadership on organizational productivity and organization citizen behavior. Put succinctly, the purpose of this paper is to examine the implications of abusive school leadership on school performance and teacher behavior. Abusive leadership is attributable to behavior that is deviant, antisocial and counter-productive and that which is uncivil. Design/methodology/approach In examining abusive school leadership behavior and its effect on school performance and teacher behavior, this conceptual paper draws heavily from an in-depth analysis of extant scholarship and uses Rawls theory of social justice as a conceptual tool. Social justice theorists believe that social institutions are embedded with immense responsibility of dispensing justice, fairness and equity. Findings Building from these relevant literatures and grounding the argument from the Rawlsian perspective of social justice, it can be argued that abusive school leadership perpetuates unfair and unjust practices toward teachers, which negatively affects performance. Literature reviewed convincingly indicates that abusive tendencies are practiced in school by school leadership. Further, these abusive practices negatively impact on the following: teacher productivity, teacher turnover and, finally, staff members’ well-being and health. The findings confirm that these practices perpetuate social injustice. Schools are social institutions and have to ensure that justice is served on all members of the organization, and, for this reason, Rawls (1971) argues that justice is the first virtue of social institutions. Practical implications The findings of this study have a number of important implications for future practice. It is critical in this study to suggest that in trying to deal with scourge, tougher measures need to be taken by various education departments to ensure that the problem is dealt with effectively. One of the interventions that is suggested is tougher policy positions on matters related to abusive leadership. In education departments that have legislation regarding consequences regarding abusive school leadership practices, tougher action should be taken against leadership which practice abuse. Originality/value School leadership is a highly contested research space and this conceptual paper is of great value because it adds to the already existing insights and understanding in abusive leadership in educational settings. This paper is of great significance because it focuses on the effect of abusive school leadership on teachers’ behavior and school performance.

Tax Policy and the Virtuous Sovereign: Dworkinian Equality and Redistributive Taxation

Among the purposes of a tax system, it is generally accepted that one role is to implement a society’s conception of distributive justice. Indeed, if justice is, as John Rawls famously declared, “the first virtue of social institutions,” distributive justice may properly be regarded as the first or sovereign virtue of a society’s tax system – to which a virtuous sovereign should properly attend.This article reviews Ronald Dworkin’s theory of distributive justice as equality of resources and its implications for redistributive taxation. Part II examines the theory itself in contrast to other prominent theories of distributive justice, arguing that Dworkin’s approach provides a more compelling conception of distributive justice than welfare-based theories that do not take rights and responsibilities seriously, Rawlsian theory which is insufficiently attentive to individual rights and responsibilities, and classical libertarianism which fails to take equality seriously. Part III considers the implications of Dworkin’s theory for redistributive taxation, addressing both the kinds of taxes that a virtuous sovereign should collect for this purpose and key features in the design of these taxes. Building on Dworkin’s theory, the article argues that progressive income and inheritance taxes are essential elements of a just tax system.

Judicial Administration during Ancient Period in India

Justice is the first virtue of social institutions as truth is of systems of thought. A theory, however, elegant and economical, must be rejected or revised if it is untrue: likewise laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well arranged, must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust. Ubiquitous divinity was universally associated with the unfettered ruler, the king in olden days. The evolution of the Hindu system towards a system having a legislative aspect was insistently warning the king that a judgment is not just unless it is given in conformity with the precepts of the sastras. The Vedas are the main source of laws. The regular word for law or custom in the Rig-Veda is Dharma.

On Sen on comparative justice

Against scepticism from thinkers including John Rawls and Thomas Nagel about the appropriateness of justice as the concept through which global ethical concerns should be approached, Amartya Sen argues that the problem lies not with the idea of justice, but with a particular approach to thinking of justice, namely a transcendental approach. In its stead Sen is determined to offer an alternative systematic theory of justice, namely a comparative approach, as a more promising foundation for a theory of ‘global justice.’ But in the end Sen offers no such thing. He does not develop a theory of justice and this is all to the good; for if values are plural in the way Sen suggests, then justice is not a master idea but one value among many, and it should be neither the first virtue of social institutions, nor the notion that frames all our reflections on ethical and political life.

Political philosophy: a historical introduction

Acknowledgments and Preface to Second Edition Chapter 1. Introduction Politics and Human Nature The Idea of Human Nature or the Human Good as 'Function': Normative Anthropology My 'Story' of Political Philosophy-and my Cast of Characters Enduring Issues in Political Philosophy Chapter 2. Classical Greek Political Philosophy: Beginnings Nature or Nurture? Protagoras' Democratic Traditionalism The Functionalistic Foundation of the Political Aretai in Nature (physis) Glaucon's Contractarian Political Theory Chapter 3. Plato: Government for Corrupted Intellects Socrates' Polis of Pigs The 'Republic' of Plato's Republic The Human Ergon and the Purpose of Political Organization Furthering Rationality by Means of the Polis? Why Should Anyone Return to the Cave? Plato and 'the Rule of Law' Chapter 4. Aristotle: Politics as the Master Art The Human Good: Intellectual and Political Acting Correctly (eupraxia) as a Grand End? The Polis as a Complete Community The Role of Politics: The Master Art? Concluding Thoughts Chapter 5. Cicero: The Cosmic Significance of Politics Cicero as Champion of the Res Publica What is Right (ius): The Rule of Law (lex) and Normative Anthropology Virtues, Duties, and Laws Chapter 6. Christianity: A Political Religion? The New Testament and Beyond Pauline Cosmopolitanism The Roman Empire Christianized The Advent of Tempora Christiana (the Christian era) Chapter 7. Augustine, Aquinas and Marsilius of Padua: Politics for Saints, Sinners, and Heretics St. Augustine The Two Rationales of Augustine's City of God The Two Cities Theoretical Political Consequences Christians as Good Citizens of Secular States? St. Thomas Aquinas The Human Function: Nature and Praeternature The 'Parts' of the Eternal Law: Divine, Natural, and Human Law Political Forms, Procedures, and Other Particulars Aquinas' Political Philosophy: Some Concluding Observations Marsilius of Padua The Autonomous but Coercive Regnum (Political Community) and its Law The Political Wisdom and Authority of the Whole Body of Citizens (or the weightier part thereof) Chapter 8. Hobbes and Locke: Seventeenth-Century Contractarianism Thomas Hobbes: Natural Law Simplified and Modernized Natural Law, Natural Rights, and the Human Function Law, Contracts, and the 'Leviathan' The Civil State: Sovereigns and Subjects Concluding Thoughts on God and Sovereigns John Locke: Divinely Mandated Autonomy, Natural Rights, and Property Moral Knowledge and Human Motivation The State of Nature and the Social Contract Property and Liberal Political Theory: Lockean Origins Chapter 9. Rousseau and Marx: Reaction to Bourgeois-Liberalism Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Autonomous Citizens for the true Republic The Intertwined Development of Civilization, Corruption, and Morality The Social Contract and the Emile: Republics and Republican Citizens Politics and the Human Function Karl Marx: Distortion of the Human Function within the Bourgeois-Liberal State Political Emancipation and the Bourgeois-Liberal State Alienation and the Human Function Historical Materialism and the Coming of Communism Concluding Thoughts: The Cook Shops of the Future Made Present Chapter 10. Mill and Rawls: Liberalism Ascendant? John Stuart Mill: Perfectionist Liberalism Mill's Liberalism Liberty and Government Democratic Republicanism Concluding Thought on Mill and Liberalism John Rawls: Political (and Non-Perfectionist?) Liberalism Egalitarian Justice as the First Virtue of Social Institutions: Basic Assumptions Rawls' Two Principles of Justice: What they Apply to and Why Consensus, Public Reason, and the Distinction between Citoyen and Bourgeois The Ultimate Justification of Rawlsian liberalism? Epilogue Notes

Justice and Pluralism in the EU

This article will focus on the issue of justice in the EU. Latterly, the notion of justice has tended to be overshadowed by other concepts. For example, human rights, democracy or accountability tend to be relied on far more frequently than justice as conceptual tools for diagnosing and treating EU problems. Yet perhaps we should remember the plea for the priority of justice as articulated by John Rawls: ‘Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is to thought. A theory however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue; likewise laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well-arranged must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust.’ While I will not argue for the application of Rawls’ actual theory of justice to EU law, I do argue that justice, or perhaps rather injustice, raises especially salient issues for the contemporary EU. Analyzing the EU’s actions in terms of justice highlights their impact on its peoples, and accentuates its imbalances of power. In attempting to deal with some particularly pressing 21st century issues, the EU has not added value but caused injustice. This paper will give some particular examples. However, the solutions to these instances of injustice are not readily apparent, nor may answers easily be found in other concepts such as human rights, democracy or accountability. I believe that some of these concerns are attributable in particular to the sui generis nature of the EU, in its existence neither as purely state, international law, nor federal body. In its form as ‘unidentified political object’ the EU presents singular challenges for justice.In the earlier, more descriptive part of this article, I do not attempt to define the notion of justice, nor argue that it should be understood in any particular sense – for example, as a thick or thin concept, or in a substantive or procedural sense. Rather, I proceed on the basis that it is a value whose importance is immediately recognizable in some sort of Dworkinian ‘pre-interpretive’ sense, and should surely be acknowledged by an EU that wishes to proclaim its values. In the later sections of the article, however, I turn to the concept of justice in more detail. My argument is that a partial solution to the problem of justice may be found in the particular relation of justice to law, in a concept I name Critical Legal Justice, bearing in mind the crucial role that legal integration has played for the development of the EU. However, justice is not confined to legal justice. Here, my suggestion is that, while justice in a broader sense may be so elusive as to be an ideal or utopian, that it is the diagnosis of injustice which is itself crucial, as justice is more likely to move people in its absence, rather than as an academic or rhetorical exercise that fails to convince. It is injustice that motivates and propels action, and the highlighting of injustice does its own work.

Framing, Reciprocity and the Grounds of Egalitarian Justice

John Rawls famously claims that ‘justice is the first virtue of social institutions’. On one of its readings, this remark seems to suggest that social institutions are essential for obligations of justice to arise. The spirit of this interpretation has recently sparked a new debate about the grounds of justice. What are the conditions that generate principles of distributive justice? I am interested in a specific version of this question. What conditions generate egalitarian principles of distributive justice and give rise to equality as a demand of justice? My paper focuses on relationalist answers to this question. Advocates of relationalism assume that ‘principles of distributive justice have a relational basis’, in the sense that ‘practice mediated relations in which individuals stand condition the content, scope and justification of those principles’. To say that principles of justice are ‘based’ on and ‘conditioned’ by practice mediated relations is ambiguous. I will here be concerned with advocates of what I call the relationalist requirement, viz. positions which assume that ‘practice mediated relations’ constitute a necessary existence condition for principles of egalitarian distributive justice. Relationalists who endorse this view come in different varieties. My focus is on relationalists that view social and political institutions as the relevant ‘practice mediated relation’. The question at stake, then, is this: Are institutionally mediated relations a necessary condition for equality to arise as a demand of justice? Strong relationalists of the institutionalist cast, call them advocates of the institutionalist requirement, differ in important respects. They argue about what set of institutions is foundationally significant, and they disagree on why only that institutional relation gives rise to egalitarian obligations of justice. My paper engages two ways of arguing for the institutionalist requirement: Julius’s framing argument and Andrea Sangiovanni’s reciprocity argument. The issue at stake are the grounds of egalitarian justice and I will argue that the institutionalist requirement is mistaken. It is not the case that egalitarian obligations of distributive justice arise only between and solely in virtue of individuals sharing a common institution.

Dialectics of Justice Vis---Vis Environment and International Environmental Jurisprudence: Some Reflections

THE IDEAS of and about justice occupy a central place in the philosophical discussions since time immemorial. It concerns each and every aspect of life. Many jurists starting from Plato and Aristotle have given various interpretations as to what justice really means. In justice is every virtue comprehended says Aristotle in Nicomachean Ethics. For Rawls “justice is the first virtue of social institutions”. Despite the vast volume of literature and diversity of opinions available, the question of justice still remains an enigma as new perspectives and issues emerge. One such relationship where the time demands a rethinking as to the meaning of justice is in the context of environment. As Low and Gleeson have pointed out, “the question of justice is today being reshaped by the politics of the environment. For the first time since the beginning of the modern science we are having to think morally about a relationship we had assumed was purely instrumental”.

Social Justice and the Normativity of Morality

The question: Why, if at all, is justice first virtue of social institutions? is one of chief questions of current political philosophy. But political philosophers have not asked: Why should societies strive to be just? In answer, this paper argues that societies should strive for social justice because unless they do so, morality will lack normativity for most of its members. Call this the undermining morality explanation. The paper first considers and tries to rebut three alternative views: a Rawlsian explanation from finality condition; Hegelian explanation from value of reconciling people to their social world; and a Frankfurt-school solidarity explanation, which is from value of achieving universal societal solidarity. The paper then argues for undermining morality explanation, on grounds that (1) if a society does not strive for social justice, it will not provide a majority of its members with self-respect necessary for valuing themselves and all other people as human; (2) that if a majority of society's members cannot so value themselves and others, then for them morality lacks normativity: requiring force; and (3) if morality lacks normativity for most of its members, then evils which morality is designed to reduce and eliminate will beset society. The paper then shows why avoiding causing those evils is obligatory for society, and offers reasons for thinking that this explanation is superior to its three rivals.

Separate Persons Acting Together-Sketching A Theory of Contract Law

This paper explores the following question: if, as John Rawls famously suggests, justice is the first virtue of social institutions, how are we to understand the institution of contract law? On the one hand, many writers take the view that the rules of contracts are merely a tool for bringing about distributive justice; on the other hand, some libertarian writers contend that the rules of contract leave no space for any idea of distributive justice. In this paper, I propose an alternative account. I situate contract law in terms of what John Rawls calls “the social division of responsibility”: society as a whole has to provide individuals with an adequate share of opportunities and resources that they need in order to set and pursue their own conception of the good. Once individuals have those fair shares, citizens have to take responsibility for how their own lives go. An important way that people may pursue their plans is by entering into arrangements with others. This requires a system of contract rules. I argue that justice requires that we understand contract rules in terms of the idea of fair terms of interaction – that is, terms that would be accepted by reasonable persons moved by a desire for a social world in which they, as free and equal, can cooperate with others on terms they accept. The underlying idea is that of reciprocity, that is, the idea that individuals should not set the terms of their interactions with others unilaterally. Those fair terms of interaction are reasonable terms. Thus, in this paper, I claim that contractual interactions should be approached from the perspective of the reasonable person. My aim is to explain the formation of a contract, the legal response to a breach, and other issues that come up with contractual interactions from that perspective.

Ricoeur’s Principle of Civic Inclusion

There has been much debate on the issue of priority between redistributive and recognitive justice.1 On one hand, recognition theorists assert that injustice results from the dominant relations of cultural, political, gendered, and racialized misrecognition of society's vulnerable and marginalized members. On the other hand redistributive justice theorists argue that such cultural forms of misrecognition as sexism, racism, ableism, and ageism cannot be fully understood apart from a class analysis of the maldistribution of income, social transfers, old age and disabiUty pensions as well as the exclusion of vulnerable members of society from public institutions of health, education and employment. In this essay, I want to explore Ricoeur's Aristotelian interpretation of the redistribution - recognition debate, and in particular, how he approaches the issue of priority between redistributive and recognitive justice in his reflections on the serial or the lexical ordering of Rawls's principles of justice.2 Recently, Gary Foster has argued that whereas Ricoeur emphasizes the conceptual priority of the good over the right, Rawls's conception of justice as fairness prioritizes the right over the good.3 Foster claims that neither the good nor the right may be shown to have a strict priority over the other. Rather, we may speak of the provisional priority of the right over the good, whereby the idea of justice is continually interpreted through historical and cultural conceptions of the good life. We must go beyond Ricoeur's articulation of the ethical aim, which prioritizes the good, to get at a dialectical relationship between the right and the good. But, as I read Ricoeur's theory of justice, it is both recognitive and redistributive. In developing what he refers to as the lexical ordering of the Rawlsian principles of justice, Ricoeur is not concerned with prioritizing the good over the just, but with developing a citizenship narrative. Rawls's lexical ordering of the principles of justice articulates a principle of civic inclusion, which states that no one is to be excluded from the public institutions of citizenship. This principle of civic inclusion funds the citizenship narrative. It is this civic narrative that gets lost when we become preoccupied by the issue of prioritization between the right (or the principles of justice), and the good (or the ethical intention). Rather than take Foster's issue of priority as a starting point, I begin with Ricoeur's conception of the norm of reciprocity, or the Golden Rule. It is the dialectic of the norm of reciprocity that mediates between the imperative of recognition owed to persons as ends in themselves (reflected in the solicitous care of persons in their singularity) and the imperative of redistributive justice (which extends the ethics of equality articulated by the solicitous care for the otherness of the other to all members of the political community).4 I shall underscore the specifically political character of Ricoeur's norm of reciprocity by following its development through Rawls's principles of justice, reaching in fine the principle of civic inclusion I have here introduced. From the Problem of Priority to the Norm of Reciprocity In his concluding remarks on his conception of a mediation between the just and the good, Foster argues that rather than concern ourselves with prioritizing either the right or the good, we are better off thinking of the two notions as co-dependent.5 My own argument departs from Foster's conclusion. In citing Rawls's central claim that justice constitutes the founding virtue of social institutions, Foster goes on to consider the possibility that justice is not the only 'first virtue of social institutions'6 but that we would do well to harmonize justice with other important social virtues, such as care, emphasized by feminist philosophers. But what a priori meaning could the virtue of justice be held to have, if it did not already encompass the social virtue of care? …

The priority of justice: A framework approach to ethics in program evaluation

The situations of evaluation are inevitably complex and various, often involving conflicts between ethical principles as well as among aims or stakeholders. To meet this challenge, evaluators and stakeholders need an interpretive framework to clarify the issues at hand and open the way to workable solutions. This paper provides a three-part framework of justice to guide practitioners in this interpretive task. First, evaluation is instituted to serve the public with fidelity to the values, standards, and ideals that characterize it as a profession and as an office deserving the public trust, here called public justice. Second, these requirements evoke and entail the more general demands of fair process, mutual respect, and right action known as procedural justice. Third, the operations of office and just process must serve the public good, meeting the demands of distributive justice that govern the allocation of goods and benefits. This framework takes as a starting point the priority of justice as articulated by John Rawls: “Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is to thought. A theory however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue; likewise laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well-arranged must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust” (1971, p. 3).

Justice as a virtue: An analysis of Aristotle’s virtue of justice

People currently regard justice as the main principle of institutions and society, while in ancient Greek people took it as the virtue of citizens. This article analyzes Aristotle’s virtue of justice in his method of virtue ethics, discussing the nature of virtue, how justice is the virtue of citizens, what kind of virtue the justice of citizens is, and the prospect of the virtue of justice against a background of institutional justice. Since virtue can be said to be a specific individual character, Aristotle also defines the virtue of justice as the character of justice, with which citizens act justly and desire to do what is just. The virtue of justice is also an individual ethical virtue, differing from others for it is at the same time a social ethic. We can call the virtue of justice a “non-individual individual ethical virtue.” It has been explained as between pure altruism and egoism, which is a wrong explanation. John Rawls regards justice as the first virtue of social institutions, challenging Aristotle’s virtue of justice, an assertion which also needs further deliberation.

THE PRIMACY OF JUSTICE

“Justice,” wrote John Rawls, at the beginning of his magisterial work on the subject, “is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought.”A theory however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue; likewise laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well-arranged must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust. [TJ3]