3

VALUES AND RIGHTS

UNDERLYING SOCIAL JUSTICE
K.D.lrani

A society is judged by the norms that govern the lives of its mem-
bers. The part of the norm structure that is enforced by the state is
the legal system, which reflects the rights, privileges, and obligations
of the citizens. Ideally the legal system is expected to preserve indi-
vidual interests of the citizens as well as collective interests of the
community. This structure is judged in its entirety or in part by
reference to some fundamental values. The value which immediately
strikes us is the satisfaction of interests; the two other values recog-
nized as fundamental in social evaluation are freedom and justice.
The concept of justice-the focus of this essay-is not a simple one;
it is multidimensional. One of its dimensions we characterize as social
justice. In this essay we shall be concerned both with the general
problem of how these values are employed in the evaluation of a
social system and with the more specific role of the value of social
justice in that scheme. A decision to change the social structure,
particularly by changing its legal system, is a political decision and
must be examined as such. However, the scheme for evaluation that
will emerge will set the limits of rationality to political decisions and
hence their justifications.

29

R. L. Braham (ed.), Social Justice

Martinus Nijhoff Publishing 1981
30 K.D. IRANI

RIGHTS

We shall begin this discussion by considering three types of rights and

their implications. The first is what is described in the legal tradition
as the right to peaceful enjoyment. It is the right to enjoy the state
of security of one's bodily self as well as of one's property, reputa-
tion, and social relations. This right implies an obligation on all to
desist from interfering with such peaceful enjoyment. The second is
the right that has come to be called freedom of action -the right to
be free to do that which is not prohibited by law. This right too
implies a corresponding obligation on all to desist from interference.
The third type of right is what is described in law as a claim. It is a
right to receive goods, services, power, or authority. It implies an
obligation on the party or parties upon whom the claim can legiti-
mately be made to perform the required act. There are many kinds
of claims; some arise out of contracts, some out of natural (family)
or social relations, and some out of previous actions, as when a per-
son has damaged another's property. These are claims of one party
upon another. We must also consider claims that a citizen in a civil
society is entitled to make on the state. The importance of this
type of claim will be recognized when we discuss the problem of
social justice.

INTERESTS

We have looked at rights abstractly. If we turn to the concrete ques-

tion and ask what are the situations that people commonly look
upon as the objects of rights, we find that these are interests of one
sort or another for which people demand the protection of the state.
A right is thus an interest protected by the power of the state. It is
important to recognize the exact nature of the interest that is being
protected. For example, a person may h~ve a strong interest in hear-
ing the Third Symphony of Gustav Mahler. Is this interest protected
as a right? One certainly has the right to hear Mahler's Third Sym-
phony. What that amounts to is that a person is protected from inter-
ference in attending concerts where the symphony is performed and
in purchasing records of its performance. In other words, it is the