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Dialogue Education Update3 Social Justice THIS CD HAS BEEN PRODUCED FOR TEACHERS TO USE IN THE CLASSROOM. IT IS A CONDITION OF THE USE OF THIS CD THAT IT BE USED ONLY BY THE PEOPLE FROM SCHOOLS THAT HAVE PURCHASED THE CD ROM FROM DIALOGUE EDUCATION. (THIS DOES NOT PROHIBIT ITS USE ON A SCHOOL’S INTRANET).
Page 3 Penalty Shootout Game on Social Justice Page 4 You Tube Video Link on Social Justice Page 5 - 7 Definitions Page 8 - 13 John Rawls Page 15 - 17 Criticisms Page 18 Jewish Social Teaching Page 19 - 21 Democracy & Political Movements Page 22 - 29 Social Justice in the Catholic teaching Page 30 Bibliography Contents
Penalty Shootout • Click on the image above for a game of “Penalty Shootout”. Try playing the game with your students at the start and the end of the unit. Make sure you have started the slide show and are connected to the internet.
Click on the image to the right. You will need to be connected to the internet to view this presentation. Enlarge to full screen YOUTUBE Video -Catholic Social Teaching Prayer Slideshow Warning- Excellent video but some disturbing images are included
Social Justice • Social justice, sometimes called civil justice, refers to the concept of a society in which justice is achieved in every aspect of society, rather than merely the administration of law.
Social Justice • Social justice is both a philosophical problem and an important issue in politics, religion and civil society. Most individuals wish to live in a just society, but different political ideologies have different conceptions of what a 'just society' actually is.
Social Justice • Social Justice features as an apolitical philosophical concept (insofar as any philosophical analysis of politics can be free from bias) in much of John Rawls' writing.
Theories of Social Justice Rawls • The political philosopher John Rawls (1921-2002) draws on the utilitarian insights of Bentham and Mill, the social contract ideas of Locke, and the categorical imperative ideas of Kant.
Social Justice • All societies have a basic structure of social, economic, and political institutions, both formal and informal. In testing how well these elements fit and work together, Rawls based a key test of legitimacy on the theories of social contract.
Social Justice Rawls constructed an argument for a two-stage process to determine a citizen's hypothetical agreement: • the citizen agrees to be represented by X for certain purposes; to that extent, X holds these powers as a trustee for the citizen; • X agrees that a use of enforcement in a particular social context is legitimate; the citizen, therefore, is bound by this decision because it is the function of the trustee to represent the citizen in this way.
Social Justice • This applies to one person representing a small group (e.g. to the organiser of a social event setting a dress code) as equally as it does to national governments which are the ultimate trustees, holding representative powers for the benefit of all citizens within their territorial boundaries, and if those governments fail to provide for the welfare of their citizens according to the principles of justice, they are not legitimate
Social Justice • To emphasise the general principle that justice should rise from the people and not be dictated by the law-making powers of governments, Rawls asserted that, "There is . . . a general presumption against imposing legal and other restrictions on conduct without sufficient reason. But this presumption creates no special priority for any particular liberty." (at pp291-292)
Social Justice The basic liberties according to Rawls • freedom of thought; • liberty of conscience as it affects social relationships on the grounds of religion, philosophy, and morality; • political liberties (e.g. representative democratic institutions, freedom of speech and the press, and freedom of assembly); • freedom of association; • freedoms necessary for the liberty and integrity of the person (viz: freedom from slavery, freedom of movement and a reasonable degree of freedom to choose one's occupation); and • rights and liberties covered by the rule of law.
Click on the image to the right. You will need to be connected to the internet to view this presentation. Enlarge to full screen YOUTUBE Video -Teenage Afluenza
Social Justice Criticism • Many authors criticize the idea that there exists an objective standard of social justice. Moral relativists deny that there is any kind of objective standard for justice in general. Non-cognitivists, moral skeptics, moral nihilists, and most logical positivists and analytic philosophers deny the possibility of objective notions of justice.
Social Justice Criticism cont. • Many other people accept some of the basic principles of social justice, such as the idea that all human beings have a basic level of value, but disagree with the elaborate conclusions that may or may not follow from this.
Social Justice Criticism Cont. • On the other hand, some scholars reject the very idea of social justice as meaningless, religious, self-contradictory, and ideological, believing that to realize any degree of social justice is unfeasible, and that the attempt to do so must destroy all liberty.
Social Justice from Religious Traditions Jewish social teaching • In To Heal a Fractured World: The Ethics of Responsibility, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks describes how social justice has a central place in Judaism.
Social Justice from Religious Traditions Democracy & Political Movements • (United Nations, Socialists, Green Party, Separatist movements, etc.) Above all, it is the Socialist Parties of the world that have achieved major successes in social/economic justice.
Social Justice from Religious Traditions The Green Party • Social Justice is one of the Four Pillars of the Green Party. Social Justice (sometimes "Social and Global Equality and Economic Justice") reflects the general rejection of discrimination based on distinctions between class, gender, ethnicity, or culture.
Social Justice from Religious Traditions Green Party Cont. Several local branches of the worldwide green parties define social justice as the principle that all persons are entitled to "basic human needs", regardless of "superficial differences such as economic disparity, class, gender, race, ethnicity, citizenship, religion, age, sexual orientation, disability, or health".
Social Justice from Religious Traditions Social Justice Movements • Social justice is also a concept that is used to describe the movement towards a socially just world.
Social Justice movements • There are a number of movements that are working to achieve social justice in society.
Social Justice in the Catholic social teaching • Catholic social teaching comprises those aspects of Roman Catholic doctrine which relate to matters dealing with the collective aspect of humanity.
Social Justice in the Catholic social teaching Two of the seven key areas of Catholic social teaching are pertinent to social justice: • Life and dignity of the human person: The foundational principle of all Catholic Social Teaching is the sanctity of all human life and the inherent dignity of every human person. Human life must be valued above all material possessions. • Preferential option for the poor and vulnerable: Jesus taught that on the Day of Judgement God will ask what each person did to help the poor and needy: "Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.“The Catholic Church teaches that through words, prayers and deeds one must show solidarity with, and compassion for, the poor.
Social Justice in the Catholic social teaching Even before it was propounded in the Catholic social teachings, Social Justice appeared regularly in the history of the Catholic Church: • The term "social justice" was coined by the Jesuit Luigi Taparelli in the 1840s, based on the teachings of Thomas Aquinas. He wrote extensively in his journal Civiltà Cattolica, engaging both capitalist and socialist theories from a natural law viewpoint.
Social Justice in the Catholic social teaching • Pope Leo XIII, who studied under Taparelli, published in 1891 the encyclical, Rerum Novarum (On the Condition of the Working Classes), rejecting both socialism and capitalism, while defending labour unions and private property.
Social Justice in the Catholic social teaching • The encyclical Quadragesimo Anno (On Reconstruction of the Social Order, literally "in the fortieth year") of 1931 by Pope Pius XI, encourages a living wage, subsidiary, and teaches that social justice is a personal virtue as well as an attribute of the social order: society can be just only if individuals and institutions are just.
Social Justice • Pope Benedict XVI's encyclical Deus Caritas Est ("God is Love") of 2006 teaches that justice is the defining concern of the state and the central concern of politics, and not of the church, which has charity as its central social concern.
Bibliography • Atkinson, A.B. (1982). Social Justice and Public Policy. Contents & chapter previews. • Carver, Thomas Nixon (1915). Essays in Social Justice. • Quigley, Carroll. (1961). The Evolution Of Civilizations: An Introduction to Historical Analysis. Second edition 1979. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund. ISBN 0-913966-56-8 • Rawls, John. (1971). A Theory of Justice, Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-88010-2 • Rawls, John. (1993). Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press (The John Dewey Essays in Philosophy, 4). ISBN 0-231-05248-0 • For an analysis of justice for non-ruling communities, see: Gad Barzilai, Communities and Law: Politics and Cultures of Legal Identities. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. • For perspectives from Christian-informed contexts, see Philomena Cullen, Bernard Hoose & Gerard Mannion (eds.), Catholic Social Justice: Theological and Practical Explorations, (T. &. T Clark/Continuum, 2007) and J. Franklin (ed.), Life to the Full: Rights and Social Justice in Australia (Connor Court, 2007). • Wikipedia- Social justice- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_justice
