Justice, fairness and morality
13
Jun
The three words are important at a time of great crisis in thought (what is), what is an idea, and the idea of justice or the just, explored by current thinkers such as Jurgen Habermas (we mentioned in a previous post on the issue of including Outro) and we quote in passing the two volumes of Paul Ricoeur o Justo (volume two published by Martins Fontes) although the author himself says that it is an essay, he penetrates a deeper aspect, the question of truth and morals.
Reading the text, Inclusion of the Other by Habermas, clarifies that in philosophical terms, that morality in John Rawls, in Kantian terms, has differences between Kant’s original political liberalism and Kantian republicanism, which is how Rawls defends it, this would be enough, but there is a long analysis in Volume 1 by Paul Ricouer on justice in Rawls.
To understand Ricoeur’s book 2 it is necessary to understand that for the Greeks the first philosophy is that which for them, and the ontological resumption has to do with this, metaphysics as questions about Being, existence, the cause and the meaning of reality and physis (nature) must be placed prior to the second, aspects linked to logic and ethics.
Book 2 addresses what seems most essential in Ricoeur, although he confesses that it is an essay, its goal is “to justify the thesis that theoretical philosophy and practical philosophy are of equal levels; as none of it is first philosophy in relation to what Stanislas Breton characterized as the meta- function (I myself defended this reformulation of metaphysics in terms of the meta- function, in which “the maximum genres” of the dialectic of Plato’s last dialogues would be united and Aristotelian speculation on the plurality of the meaning of being or beings) “ (Ricoeur, 2008, p. 63) … but he did not speak (initially it was written in a conference) about this but rather about the two second philosophy.
His analysis is based “initially, thinking about justice and truth without each other; in a second moment, think about them in a way of reciprocal or crossed presupposition” (Ricoeur, 2008, p. 64) and this undertaking “has nothing revolutionary, it is located in the line of speculations about transcendentals…” (idem) .
When approaching the first stage of the analysis: “I thought of Rawls’ statement at the beginning of Théorie de la justice: “Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, just as truth is the first virtue of theories” (pg. 65) and There the author takes up the ethical part of another text of his: Soi-même comme um autre, to “guarantee the eminent status of justice”.
The idea developed there is that this triad leads to “equity”, it is not the dualism between the Self and the Other (the next one also uses Ricoeur), “the triad belongs to the horizontal axis and does not consist absolutely in the simple juxtaposition between the self, the near and far; it is the same dialectic of the self. The desire to live well roots the moral project of life, in desire and lack, as marked by the grammatical structure of the desire… but without the mediation of the other two terms of the triad, the desire for a good life would be lost in the darkness of the variable figures of happiness… I would say that the short circuit between wanting a good life and happiness is the result of ignorance of the dialectical constitution of the self” (pg. 66).
The author formulates the idea of distance in these terms: “fair distance, a middle ground between the very little distance typical of many dreams of emotional fusion and the excess of distance fueled by arrogance, contempt, hatred of the strange, unknown. I would see in the virtue of hospitality the closest emblematic expression of this culture of just distance” (pg. 66).
Justice on the vertical axis, that of power and norm, is seen by the author as follows: “on the vertical axis that leads to the pre-eminence of practical wisdom and, with it, justice as equity, a first observation can be made regarding the relationship between kindness and justice. The relationship is neither one of identity nor difference; goodness characterizes the goal of the deepest desire and, thus, belongs to the grammar of wanting. Justice as a fair distance between the self and the other, found as distant, is the fully developed figure of kindness. Under the sign of justice, good becomes common-good” (pg. 67).
I consider the triad to be the self, the other and the distant, if also seen as a transcendent alterity, there is another “unknown” that can be divine and a carrier of messages, in network theory for example the “weak link” is considered fundamental , Ricoeur’s essay is rich, however, when returning to the question of the Kantian categorical imperative, which justifies political idealism, I believe that Habermas is correct in stating that this is the mistake in John Rawls’ consistent and very current “A Theory of Justice”. influential.
A part of the biblical reading can expand the concept of this distant as transcendent otherness (Mt 5,20): “Unless your righteousness is greater than the righteousness of the teachers of the Law and the Pharisees, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven”, which in the deontological sense one could say “you will not enter into the truth of justice”.
A part of the biblical reading can expand the concept of this distant as transcendent otherness (Mt 5,20): “Unless your righteousness is greater than the righteousness of the teachers of the Law and the Pharisees, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven”, which in the deontological sense one could say “you will not enter into the truth of justice”.
Ricoeur, P. (2008) Justo 2: justiça e verdade. (Fair 2: justice and truth and other studies). Trans. Ivone C. Benedetti. Brazil, São Paulo: Martins Fontes.
