Justice & Society

The Moral Character

of a Society
Justice & Society

 We are fundamentally social beings

 It is through exchange with others that we
develop our potential as individual human
beings.
Society - is a group of persons bound together
organically by a principle of unity that goes
beyond each one of them. As an assembly
that is once visible and spiritual, a society
endures through time; it gathers up the past
and prepares for the future.
Justice

Justice - “disposes one to respect the rights of

each and to establish in human relationships
the harmony that promotes equity with
regard to persons and the common good”
(CCC,1807) or Justice is the striving to
ensure the well-being of others, as well as
ourselves
 When we look at the worlds troubles and
inequities we may feel a lack of any individual
responsibility and perhaps feel overwhelmed.
Anything we might do would make only a small
dent in the larger issue.
Grounds for Justice

 All of God’s creation is good and therefore

has innate worth and dignity. ( The demands
for justice spring primarily from this insight.)
 Pope Paul VI called justice love’s minimum
requirement.
 In 1963, Pope John XXIII issued the encyclical,
“Peace on Earth” (Pacem en Terris) that
outlined the principles of basic human rights
from a Catholic perspective.
Grounds for Justice

Rights - They flow from our inherent God-given

dignity. Rights are those things that we must
have to ensure our basic well-being and
empower us to actually be what God created
us to be. Applies to all of creation.
Natural Law

Natural Law - the natural law is human reason

commanding us to do good and counseling us to
avoid evil. It is God’s law written on our hearts.
Because it deals in reason, any thinking person
can discover it. It is universal. It discovers and
expresses human dignity which is the basis for all
human rights and responsibilities.
Expanding Our Moral Imagination

 Christian teaching on justice helps us expand

our moral imagination beyond a focus on the
behavior of individuals.
 Justice shifts our focus to identifying the
underlying causes and seeking long-term
solutions to deep-seated social problems.
 It is sometimes all too easy to overlook the fact
that these deep-seated social problems are
affecting real people - our neighbors, our
“brothers and sisters”
3 Qualities of Social Problems
From a Justice Perspective

1. Those who are suffering are lumped together

according to categories such as race, gender,
income, and education.
2. Responsibility for these problems is not clearly
designated. Victims are shown but villains are
not easily pinpointed. Ultimately, our society
itself seems to be the “villain” causing these
hardships.
3. Each personal problem relates to some value,
policy, or commonly accepted practice
pervading our entire society or the its
institutions.
4 Types of Justice

Commutative Justice - It is the justice of

exchange. It calls for fairness in agreements
and exchanges between individuals or social
groups. It requires that we respect the equal
human dignity of everyone in our economic
transactions, contracts, or promises.
 Understood as “one-to-one fairness”
 Selling a house, selling a car, making a promise,
etc.
 Negotiating a labor contract
4 types of Justice

Legal Justice - it regulates a citizen’s

obligations to the larger society and
government (common good). Legal justice
requires that citizens obey the laws of
society and may also require that a citizen
serve the government.
4 Types of Justice

Distributive Justice - Just as individuals owe a

duty to society, the reverse is also true:
Society has to look out for the good of its
members. It seeks the fair distribution of the
goods of creation that God intends for all of
us to share, paying special attention to the
weakest and poorest in our midst and makes
sure they are taken care of.
 Welfare programs, food distribution,
healthcare
4 Types of Justice

Social Justice (Contributive) - It focuses on

what is often called the “common good” -
that is, the condition of the social whole that
enables all of its members to flourish.
 It applies the gospel message of Jesus Christ to
the structures, systems, and laws of society in
order to guarantee the rights of individuals.
 It demands that everyone has a right to a fair
say in the social, political, and economic
institutions of society.
4 Types of Justice

 When one person’s rights are disregarded

everyone’s rights are endangered.
 Ultimately, unwillingness to contribute to the
“common good” ends up working against
everyone’s well-being.

“Social injustice saws at the limb upon which

we all sit.”
Common Good

Concerns our life together with other people,

protecting the welfare of each individual who
must in turn be concerned with the welfare of
each other person.

Solidarity Preferential Option for the Poor

Common Good

Solidarity - I am my brother and sisters keeper, no

matter where they live. Expression of global
concern for others.

Option for the Poor - Jesus’ special care and

attention to the poorest and weakest of his
society serves as a model and a mandate for us
to do likewise. Need to assess lifestyle, policies,
and social institutions in terms of their impact on
the poor.
Common Good

Centrality of the Family - the foundation of all

society is the family. It is the original cell of the
social life and it introduces us to the life of
society. If the rights of families are not protected,
we simply cannot have a just society. A society is
only as strong as its individual families.
Common Good

Subsidiarity - A community of a higher order

should not interfere in the internal life of a
community of a lower order, depriving the latter
of its functions, but rather should support it in
case of need and help to coordinate its activity
with the activities of the rest of society, always
with a view to the common good.
Principles of the Common Good

1. The betterment of each community member

leads to the betterment of all its members.
2. Those who are more likely to be left out require
special attention. (“Preferential Option for the
Poor”)
3. All members of a community should have
opportunities to contribute to the betterment of
their community.