Introduction of Wolterstorff's Justice: Rights and Wrongs

Besides other posts, I am going to be blogging about Justice: Rights and Wrongs, written by philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff of Yale University. This is not a book review, but a summary of each chapter. I have read the book twice, and this is my third reading of the book. Most of the books I have read do not get the privilege of being read twice, let alone thrice. C S Lewis Mere Christianity, Vinoth Ramachandra's God's That Fail  and Michael Sandel's Justice: What's the Right Things to do? are the only three books I have read twice, as far as I could remember right now. The Bible and Wolterstorff's book Justice are going to be the only two books I would have read thrice or more! Since this is my third reading, I want to believe that I have understood him well.

The book has 17 chapters, besides Preface and Introduction in the beginning and Epilogue at the end. So it's as if it has 20 chapters. This post will summarise Preface and Introduction together.

Nick begins to engage with the concept of justice after two life-changing events. The first one is on Apartheid South Africa in 1976, where he witnessed the Afrikaners denying justice to the 'blacks' and 'coloured' people. The second event in on Palestinian  issue in 1978, where he heard the Palestinians speak out against injustice meted out to them. These events energised him to speak out against injustice like no other events before. 

Nick is explicit that he is a Christian and his account of justice is a theistic account. Even so, his account of justice is based on inherent right that an individual possesses. He begins in the Introduction by stating that there are oppositions to the concept of rights as justice from within and outside the religious tradition he comes from. Some say that ethics of care is more appropriate; others argue against right-talks due to political and social reasons. Some say that the idea of right as justice gives rise to individualistic way of thinking and therefore it should be discouraged. Right-proponents are alleged to have said, 'this is my right; that is my right etc.' and focus so much on individual right, and thus fail to talk about care, responsibility, duty, obligation etc. Nick argues that it is one thing to care, but another thing to be cared; it is one thing to fail to do one's moral duty and thus wrong a person, but another thing to be a victim and be wronged. The language of care, duty, obligation etc cannot accommodate the story of the victim, of the one being wronged. Thus, doing away with the language of rights is to entail doing away with the story of the victim, and this is something we cannot afford. Theory of justice requires language and concept of rights, and we cannot do away with rights based concept of justice. This is Nick's defence of rights based idea of justice. 

Nick says that there are two primary conceptions of justice in the western tradition: justice as right order and the concept of justice based on inherent rights. Former is Plato's view and those who agree with him and the latter is his view and those who have argued something similar to his view even earlier. Aristotle's concept of justice as equality is possibly the third conception. Nick is going to argue for the concept of justice based on inherent right. But he will also be rejecting what proponents of justice as right order say about rights based justice which is that rights based idea of justice emerged much later. Nick will argue  that right-theorists position emerged much before Medieval period and therefore is not of recent origin and that this concept does not necessarily give rise to excessive individualism.