Social Justice and Rights

Child Right and Poverty in Development

Spring 12

Social Justice and Rights

Social Justice : distribution of good, money and services•State & Market•Market is one important mechanism for distribution of social goods but only one.•Fairness is not the guiding principle

Objective to ensure life & freedom

Social Justice and RightsEvolution

1. Natural Law : god or universal harmony

2. Natural Rights =>Rights => violation & demand

3. Human Rights: human being +moral concern + more relevant

Right holders ---- WHO?

Duty bearers ----- WHO?

Social Justice and Rights

Isaiah Berlin

Why should I (or anyone) obey anyone else?

If I disobey, may I be coerced?

By whom and to what degree?

To coerce a person is to deprive him or her of freedom

Social Justice and RightsFreedom of what? Two senses:1. Sense of being free- freedom/ liberty

2. Sense of acquire the capacity of being free

Freedom to choose give the opportunity to decide what to do + also responsibility on what to do = accountability and demand of duty

Capability is the power and ability to do something for our own happiness

Social Justice and RightsFunctional capabilities = basic building blocks

that make human life possible and worthwhile (Martha Nussbaum)

1. Who define what interests and goods are basic or fundamental?

In the case of children needs and rights are interpreted from adult point of view not as different others. What children are not yet

2. What about social realization and social power? Freedom from systematic oppression.Children as oppressed minority

Social Justice and Rights

Freedom of what? Two senses:1. Sense of being free- freedom/ liberty

2. Sense of acquire the capacity of being free

1. Freedom = avoid interference (from state)/ no action but protection against

Negative Rights

Civil and Political Rights

Social Justice and Rights2. Capacity of being free = create

capabilities/ proactive action

Positive Rights

Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

Equal opportunities = Equity

Positive conception of freedom --- Virtue as public action/altruism/solidarity

Development as Freedom A. Sen

Social Justice and RightsFreedom --- Freedom from WHAT?

• Freedom from fear:Political freedom, conflict prevention, hazard

management, climate change adaptation

• Freedom from want:Access to water, health, education, roads

• Freedom to live in dignityEmpowerment, participation, legal reform.

Social Justice and RightsTheories of Distributive Justices:

LIBERALS • Utilitarian• Theory of justice/ Rawls

LIBERTARIAN

SOCIALISTS

Social Justice and RightsLIBERALS Utilitarian: Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham, J. Stuart Mill,

Pareto

Two principles

1. Rational choice of individuals

Information + free choice

2. Maximization of an economic wide WELFARE function

Individual maximize their utility ==> Society maximize total utility

Critics: total utility not care of distributionCritics: total utility not care of distribution

Social Justice and RightsLIBERALSTheory of justice: John Locke, Rousseau, Kant, John

Rawls Two liberal principles + Maximin principle

“Maximize the welfare of the LAST well-off (min) subject to the preservation of LIBERTY

Priority to liberty over other values

Greatest Equal Liberty Principle: Each person have Greatest Equal Liberty Principle: Each person have the greatest liberty that is compatible with other the greatest liberty that is compatible with other people having the same libertypeople having the same liberty

Critics: which liberties?, claims about greates liberty Critics: which liberties?, claims about greates liberty can not be value-freecan not be value-free

Social Justice and RightsLIBERALS Theory of justice: Rawls’ basic liberties

1.1. Political libertyPolitical liberty

2.2. Liberty of conscienceLiberty of conscience

3.3. Freedom and right to hold personal propertyFreedom and right to hold personal property

4.4. Freedom determined by rule of lawFreedom determined by rule of law

Critics: according to Gray Rawls move from Critics: according to Gray Rawls move from indeterminacy to arbitrariness => there are rival indeterminacy to arbitrariness => there are rival freedoms and tensions and conflicts among freedoms and tensions and conflicts among basic liberties and rightsbasic liberties and rights

e.I. Free speech vs violence or racisme.I. Free speech vs violence or racism

CONFLICT AMONG BASIC LIBERTIES ARE NOT CONFLICT AMONG BASIC LIBERTIES ARE NOT ANOMALIESANOMALIES

Social Justice and RightsLIBERTARIAN: Hayek, Robert Novik

Principles

1. Rational choice of individuals (same )

2. Distributive outcomes result from self-ordering - the market order - and not the result of desing of central authority

Social outcomes can be good or bad but NOT just or Social outcomes can be good or bad but NOT just or unjustunjust

Individual behavior can NOT be extrapolate to Individual behavior can NOT be extrapolate to societysociety

Critics: injustice in initial distribution (birth lottery)Critics: injustice in initial distribution (birth lottery)

Social Justice and RightsSOCIALIST: MARX

Theory of exploitation

Workers are the only souse of value creation => Workers are the only souse of value creation => unequal exchange between workers and capital / unequal exchange between workers and capital / social class strugglesocial class struggle

Critics: denied role entrepreneur and other factors Critics: denied role entrepreneur and other factors of productionof production

‘‘Reconstructed’ Marxist: Ronald DourkingReconstructed’ Marxist: Ronald Dourking

Consider other ‘internal resources’: talent, skills, Consider other ‘internal resources’: talent, skills, ambitionambition

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948PREAMBLE

Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is

the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world

Article 1.

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.

Social Justice and Rights

UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS

• Article 1• All human beings are born

free and equal in dignity and rights.

UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS

Is there an universal core criterion of social justice?

• YES HR HR but

• Why violation of HR are so permanent and massive?

• How can severe poverty of half of humankind continue?

• Why the citizen of the affluent western states not find it morally troubling? => Double standards Thomas Pogge

UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS

– HR = people mobilization and struggle • Not permanent• Not fixed• Claims about rights are the end-

products of long and complicate chains of acts and reasoning

UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS

• Human Rights protect human interests that are often in conflict. • Examples of conflict among HR: Education: teachers’ strike vs. children

right to education

Reproductive rights (abortion) vs. right to survive.

Breastfeeding vs. mothers freedom

UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS

• How should Human Rights be conceived?• HR are not immutable truths, free-

standing morals absolutes whose contents are self-evident• As human interest change or new

issues appear so do rights

UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS

• The aim of HR is not to project a single regimen. Is to assure ‘Modus Vivendis’ among regimens that will always be different John Gray

Two Faces of Lib

Evolution of HUMAN RIGHTS and Market

• XVIII Civil Rights: individual freedomSynergy

• XIX Political Rights: political participation and association

Some tensions and conflicts

• XX Social Rights: socioeconomics needs according with human standards Basic tension/opposition

• XXI Collective Rights: environmental rights Basic tension/opposition

The HRBA to development strengthens the State’s capacity to meet democracy’s

expectations• Directs attention and resources to the poorest,

marginalized, and discriminated against• Fosters democratic participation, citizenship, and

empowerment of the disenfranchised, women and youth

• Fosters integrated solutions to problems of social development and disparities

• Builds capacity of the state to assume its obligations and of people to claim their rights

• Demands accountability