Justice as Non-maleficence

Theoria ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 67 (162) ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Vittorio Bufacchi
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
John Stuart Mill ◽  
Moral Principle ◽  
Karl Popper ◽  
Deep Roots ◽  
Mutual Advantage ◽  
David Gauthier ◽  
Principle Of Justice ◽  
History Of

The principle of non-maleficence, primum non nocere, has deep roots in the history of moral philosophy, being endorsed by John Stuart Mill, W. D. Ross, H. L. A. Hart, Karl Popper and Bernard Gert. And yet, this principle is virtually absent from current debates on social justice. This article suggests that non-maleficence is more than a moral principle; it is also a principle of social justice. Part I looks at the origins of non-maleficence as a principle of ethics, and medical ethics in particular. Part II introduces the idea of non-maleficence as a principle of social justice. Parts III and IV define the principle of justice as non-maleficence in terms of its scope and coherence, while Part V argues that the motivation of not doing harm makes this principle an alternative to two well-established paradigms in the literature on social justice: justice as mutual advantage (David Gauthier) and justice as impartiality (Brian Barry).

Hume on Suicide

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eugenio Lecaldano
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
End Of Life ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Critical Discussion ◽  
Moral Principle ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Right

The chapter starts with the history of Hume’s essay on suicide, and the sources and the social context of it in 1755. It also exposes the first reactions to the essay, particularly that of Adam Smith. The central sections present a critical discussion of the interpretation of the essay as a text of the philosophy of religion. The thesis of the chapter is that “On Suicide” is a text of moral philosophy. Hume refutes the Christian position and also the distinction between rational and irrational suicide; he advances—as resolutive—the positive moral principle of the natural liberty of all human beings and “the right to dispose of their own lives.” The essay has an influence in the contemporary bioethical literature just for this conception on the choices for the end of life.

Utopophobia

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Estlund
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Ideal Theory ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
Sound Theory ◽  
Theory Versus ◽  
History Of ◽  
Practical Guidance

Throughout the history of political philosophy and politics, there has been continual debate about the roles of idealism versus realism. For contemporary political philosophy, this debate manifests in notions of ideal theory versus nonideal theory. Nonideal thinkers shift their focus from theorizing about full social justice, asking instead which feasible institutional and political changes would make a society more just. Ideal thinkers, on the other hand, question whether full justice is a standard that any society is likely ever to satisfy. And, if social justice is unrealistic, are attempts to understand it without value or importance, and merely utopian? This book argues against thinking that justice must be realistic, or that understanding justice is only valuable if it can be realized. The book does not offer a particular theory of justice, nor does it assert that justice is indeed unrealizable—only that it could be, and this possibility upsets common ways of proceeding in political thought. The book's author engages critically with important strands in traditional and contemporary political philosophy that assume a sound theory of justice has the overriding, defining task of contributing practical guidance toward greater social justice. Along the way, it counters several tempting perspectives, including the view that inquiry in political philosophy could have significant value only as a guide to practical political action, and that understanding true justice would necessarily have practical value, at least as an ideal arrangement to be approximated. Demonstrating that unrealistic standards of justice can be both sound and valuable to understand, the book stands as a trenchant defense of ideal theory in political philosophy.

Die Wirklichkeit des Sittlichen

2008 ◽  
Vol 2008 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wolfgang Kersting
Keyword(s):  
Social Environment ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Discourse Ethics ◽  
Moral Knowledge ◽  
Moral Principle ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Kantian Ethics ◽  
Hermeneutic Approach ◽  
The Given ◽  
Moral Convictions

Within the Kantian ethics consciousness of the moral principle is a fact of reason which cannot be grounded in any antecedent data, empirical or rational. Hegel however argues that the fact of reason is necessarily embedded in the fact of „Sittlichkeit“, that a pure reason is an empty and chimerical construction, that moral knowledge is unavoidably rootet in the contingent moral convictions of the given cultural and social environment. This essay defends Hegel’s critique of Kant’s moral philosophy and – by generalizing Hegel’s hermeneutic approach – sketches the outlines of an explicatory concept of ethics which contradicts the scientistic understanding of moral philosophy characteristic for Kant, the utilitarianism and the supporters of discourse ethics likewise.

The National and the Universal

2020 ◽  
pp. 368-386
Author(s):  
Sarah Collins
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Cultural Difference ◽  
John Stuart Mill ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Johann Gottfried Herder ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
The World ◽  
Respective Treatment ◽  
History Of

This chapter examines the continuities between the categories of the “national” and the “universal” in the nineteenth century. It construes these categories as interrelated efforts to create a “world” on various scales. The chapter explores the perceived role of music as a world-making medium within these discourses. It argues that the increased exposure to cultural difference and the interpretation of that cultural difference as distant in time and space shaped a conception of “humanity” in terms of a universal history of world cultures. The chapter reexamines those early nineteenth-century thinkers whose work became inextricably linked with the rise of exclusivist notions of nationalism in the late nineteenth century, such as Johann Gottfried Herder and John Stuart Mill. It draws from their respective treatment of music to recover their early commitment to universalizable principles and their view that the “world” is something that must be actively created rather than empirically observed.

Intergenerational Wealth Transfer and the Need to Revive and Metamorphose the Israeli Estate Tax

2014 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daphna Hacker
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Wealth Transfer ◽  
Estate Tax ◽  
Inheritance Tax ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Rich ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Needy

Abstract This article suggests enacting an accession tax instead of the estate duty – which was repealed in Israel in 1981. This suggestion evolves from historical and normative explorations of the tension between perceptions of familial intergenerational property rights and justifications for the “death tax,” as termed by its opponents, i.e., estate and inheritance tax. First, the Article explores this tension as expressed in the history of the Israeli Estate Duty Law. This chronological survey reveals a move from the State’s taken-for-granted interest in revenue justifying the Law’s enactment in 1949; moving on to the “needy widow” and “poor orphan” in whose name the tax was attacked during the years 1959–1964, continuing to the abolition of the tax in 1981 in the name of efficiency and the right of the testator to transfer his wealth to his family, and finally cumulating with the targeting of tycoon dynasties that characterizes the recent calls for reintroducing the tax. Next, based on the rich literature on the subject, the Article maps the arguments for and against intergenerational wealth transfer taxation, placing the Israeli case in larger philosophical, political, and pragmatic contexts. Lastly, it associates the ideas of accession tax and “social inheritance” with inspirational sources for rethinking a realistic wealth transfer taxation to bridge the gap between notions of intergenerational familial rights and intergenerational social justice.

Book Reviews: Studies in Sociology, Race Mixture, Hunger and Work in a Savage Tribe, Interpretations, 1931–1932, Faith, Hope and Charity in Primitive Religion, Genetic Principles in Medicine and Social Science, The Reorganisation of Education in China, Social Decay and Eugenical Reform, The Social and Political Ideas of Some Representative Thinkers of the Revolutionary Era, L. T. Hobhouse, His Life and Work, Corner of England, World Agriculture—An International Study, Small-Town Stuff, Methods of Social Study, Does History Repeat Itself? The New Morality, Culture and Progress, Language and Languages: An Introduction to Linguistics, The Theory of Wages, The Santa Clara Valley, California, Social Psychology, A History of Fire and Flame, Sin and New Psychology, Sociology and Education, Mental Subnormality and the Local Community: Am Outline or a Practical Program, Tyneside Council op Social Service, Reconstruction and Education in Rural India, The Contribution of the English Le Play School to Rural Sociology, Kagami Kenkyu Hokoku, President's, Pioneer Settlement: Co-Operative Studies, Birth Control and Public Health, Pioneer Settlement: Co-Operative Studies, Ourselves and the World: The Making of an American Citizen, The Emergence of the Social Sciences from Moral Philosophy, The Comparable Interests of the Old Moral Philosophy and the Modern Social Sciences, The World in Agony, Sheffield Social Survey Committee, Housing Problems in Liverpool, Council for the Preservation of Rural England, Forest Land Use in Wisconsin, The Growth Cycle of the Farm Family, The Farmer's Guide to Agricultural Research in 1931, A History of the Public Library Movement in Great Britain and Ireland, The Retirement of National Debts, Public and Private Operation of Railways in Brazil, The Indian Minorities Problem, The Meaning of the Manchurian Crisis, The Drama of the Kingdom, Social Psychology, Competition in the American Tobacco Industry, New York School Centers and Their Community Policy, Desertion of Alabama Troops from the Confederate Army, Plans for City Police Jails and Village Lockups

1933 ◽  
Vol a25 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-109
Author(s):  
R. R. Marbtt ◽  
E. E. Evans-Pritchard ◽  
E. O. Jambs ◽  
Florence Ayscough ◽  
C. H. Desch ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Psychology ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Agricultural Research ◽  
Public Library ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Pioneer Settlement

scholarly journals 1. Biographical Notice of J. S. Mill

1875 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 259-273
Author(s):  
Fraser
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
John Stuart Mill ◽  
Honorary Member ◽  
British India ◽  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
Small Farmer ◽  
University Of Edinburgh ◽  
The University ◽  
The Church

John Stuart Mill was born in London on the 20th of May 1806, and died at Avignon on the 8th of May 1873. He was of Scotch descent. He was connected with Edinburgh not only as having been an honorary member of this Society, but because his father, James Mill, the historian of British India, and author of the “Analysis of the Human Mind,” received his academical education here. His grandfather was a small farmer, at Northwater Bridge, in the county of Angus, of whom I find nothing more recorded. The father, by his extraordinary intellectual promise when a boy, drew the attention of Sir John Stuart, then member for Kincardineshire, by whom he was sent to the University of Edinburgh, at the expense of a fund, established by Lady Jane Stuart and some other ladies, for educating young men for the Church of Scotland. Towards the end of last century, James Mill attended the classes in Arts and Divinity. He was a pupil of Dalziel, the Professor of Greek, whose prelections he attended, I believe, for three sessions, and his philosophical powers were called forth by Dugald Stewart's lectures in Moral Philosophy.

scholarly journals Social Psychology and Social Justice: Dilemmas, Dynamics, and Destinies

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth J. Gergen
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Current Work ◽  
Value Pluralism ◽  
History Of

The emergence of this handbook on social justice represents a groundbreaking event in the history of social psychology. In this summary discussion, I outline significant limits to social justice work embedded in the empiricist tradition of inquiry and point to ways in which the current work transcends these limits. However, I also view the present endeavors as in a fledgling state. In the service of enriching and rendering these pursuits more effective, I discuss five domains in which tensions currently prevail and suggest directions for future undertakings. Challenges are discussed in terms of epistemological schisms, presumed ontologies, value pluralism, explanatory paradigms, and the limits of representationalism. A final invitation is made to shift from a mirroring orientation to research to world-making.

scholarly journals Garrett Barden and Tim Murphy. Law and Justice in Community (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010)

2011 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Guðmundur Heiðar Frímannsson
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Deep Roots ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
History Of ◽  
Law And Justice ◽  
Field Of Inquiry ◽  
Oxford University Press

Jurisprudence is a lively field of inquiry and law and justice are among its most important subjects. They are not exclusive to jurisprudence but are also inquired into in ethics and political philosophy. The book under review is an extensive inquiry into law and justice from the point of view of jurisprudence but it is jurisprudence that has deep roots in the history of the discipline. The authors use ideas from Aristotle, Gaius, Justinian, Thomas Aquinas, Adam Smith, Hobbes and from various law books from the Code of Hammurabi onwards. One way of understanding the book is to see the authors as reworking an old tradition that has not been prominent in modern jurisprudence. This approach leads to surprising conclusions from a modern point of view that are both radical and conventional.

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