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.

India Should Vote in Favour of the Resolution on Sri Lanka

LTTE used terror among its own people and also against others in its quest for Tamil Eelam. But now LTTE is dead! The Government of Sri Lanka has defeated the Tamil Tigers. Whether Tamils in Sri Lanka deserve an Eelam or not, I have no idea. What I learnt, however, is that Sri Lankan army violated human right in all sorts of ways to end the bloody conflict. And that I cannot endorse. All sorts of human rights violation, whether by state or non-state actors, I condemn.

It is for this reason that I believe India should vote in favour of the resolution on Sri Lanka at United Nations Human Right Council. Whether DMK/AIADMK put pressure on the Government of India or not, my view is that India should vote in favour of the resolution. If a team to investigate on the human right violation is formed, and after impartial investigation if Sri Lankan government officials are found to be guilty, proper sentence should be given to those who are guilty. Such an example would prove successful in serving as a deterring factor even in future for other nation-states that may violate human right.

Defect in Immanuel Kant's idea of Rights

There is a tendency to attribute so much of importance to Kant's contribution to the idea of universal human right. No doubt Kant did contribute to the idea of human right, but I do think there is an history that goes beyond Kant why the concept of universal human right so emerged. I shall, however, not delve into that part for now. Kant believes that every human person is worthy of respect. His idea of worth of a person is derived from the fact that we human are rational beings. 

Jeremy Bentham argued that pleasure and pain are our sovereign masters. And so in Bentham's moral philosophy, what ought to be done is governed by this preference for pleasure and our dislike for pain. Bentham thus considered the idea of natural right as 'nonsense upon stilts'. Kant disagreed. Kant argued that we like pleasure and dislike pain, yet we are also governed by reason.And this capacity to reason gives an individual that worth, and so the right. Kant's ground for right thus is grounded on individual's capacity to reason.

But is Kant's idea well grounded for human right? I don't think so. If an individual's worth is based on her rational faculty then those individual's whose minds are blank have to be considered as devoid of any worth. This would leave out children who are not yet able to think rationally think or those aged human persons whose mind is now vegetable or even those who are in coma. Kant did give so much of respect for a human person. He went to the extent of arguing that we are to treat human person as end in themselves, and never as a mean to some end. However, had he provided a more sturdy grounding for the worth of a human person that can include all human beings, his overall argument about the idea of right would have gained more coherency. 

My comments on the idea of human rights of Amartya Sen and Nicholas Wolterstorff

In his chapter on Human Rights and Global Imperatives, Prof. Amartya Sen did not attempt to spend considerable time to ground the foundation for human right. He compared importance of the assertion of human right to the importance of happiness. But for a country like India, where discourse on human right has not be a part of the intellectual tradition, I would want that Prof. Sen goes further. Had the conviction that all humans are equal is not grounded sturdily, and therefore if certain members of the society are considered as lesser human, human right would not become such a pervasive quest.

Prof. Sen did comment that not all rights are part of human right. But in the endorsement of the inclusion of  "second generation" rights in UN declaration on Human Right, he did include right which should have not been part of human right. For example,"right to join trade union" should not have been part of human right, though such right is an important right. Though one would wish to see nation-states legislating such right as part of legal right, including such right in the sanctum of human right could open the door for all sort of rights to come under human right, and thus makes human right lose its steam. 

Prof. Wolterstorff's cogently argued that theistic grounding of human right is more plausible than secular grounding. Besides providing grounding for human right on theistic foundation, I wish that he would go on to address some contemporary relevant cases. The most common cases of human right violation takes place in the context of state maintaining its national security. But maintaining national security can take place in diverse ways. For example, the Burmese government's crackdown on civil right activist in the name of maintaining national security is different from that of Colombo's crackdown on Tamil Tigers, and these are different from operation on Al-Qaeda is being conducted. These are thorny issues, but they are live issues that need global debates. Whether it's Sen or Wolterstorff, I find some very important human right issues being skipped in the book. 

As an agnostic Prof. Sen may be reluctant to ground human right on theistic foundation. However, if that is the only intellectually compelling reason, I see no reason why one must not endorse the approach. Some of the points Wolterstorff left out, Sen included them in his essay. Taking Wolterstorff theistic grounding, and enfleshing it with Sen's material would make a book complete.One line of endorsement in favour of Wolterstorff's says, " Justice is the most impressive book on justice since Rawl's A Theory of Justice." Similar line is found in Sen's work too-- I believe that Amartya Sen's The Idea of Justice is the most important contribution to the subject since John Rawl's A Theory of Justice..." Well, I do endorse the books too. Both the authors have very important words for those who are concerned for human flourishing. 

The idea of Human Right in Nicholas Wolterstorff's Justice: Rights and Wrongs

Nicholas Wolterstorff is the Noah Porter Professor Emeritus of Philosophical Theology at Yale University. He has taught at Harvard, Oxford, Notre Dame, Princeton and others. His many books Until Justice and Peace Embrace, John Locke and the Ethics of Belief, Thomas Reid and the story of Epistemology and Justice in Love.

A human right is a right attached to the status of being a human being. Not all kinds of rights are human rights. The right not to be tortured is a human right. UN Declaration on Human Right-- example, that everyone has a right to periodic vacations with pay is not a human right.

It seems unlikely that secular grounding of human right would succeed, given that even after many attempts it has not succeeded. Kant adopted 'capacities approach' to ground human right. “Capacities approach” may roughly be defined as as that 'capacity to set ends through reason as contrasted with acting on the basis of impulse, addiction and the like. The problem with adopting 'capacities approach' is that people born with mental impairment and who would not be able to reason would have to be left out. For somewhat similar reason the secular grounding of Ronal Dworkin and Alan Gewirth too failed.

The Bible tells that humans are created in God's image. And thisis the most common grounding for theistic account. God loves each and every human being equally and permanently, and that worth bestowed by the love of God serves as the basis for human right.

Richard Rorty considers that grounding of human right in human dignity is 'outmoded'. To get more people to embrace human right culture, the far more effective mean is to tell 'sad and sentimental stories” to evoke sympathy, not find a philosophical grounding. Wolterstorff disagrees. The Serbian soldiers raped and killed Bosnian women in the latter's faces and voices; and the Nazis guards in the faces and voices of their Jewish victims. Yet sympathy was not evoked. As a long as a man believes that the other person does is unworthy of better treatment, seeing her face or hearing her voice will not ordinarily evoke sympathy. Conviction, therefore, must be engaged too. Conviction that this human person too has great worth.

A right is a legitimate claim to some good in life of the right-bearer. “So a right against someone is a legitimate claim against that person to their doing or refraining from doing something with respect to oneself.” To dishonour that right is to wrong someone. Rights are normative social relationship; and honouring these social relationships are foundational to human community.

The idea of Human Right in Amartya Sen's The Idea of Justice

Amartya Sen ( b. 1933) is a Nobel laureate in Economics and is currently the Lamont University Professor and Professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard University and was until recently the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge University. His many books include Development as Freedom, Rationality and Freedom, Identity and Violence and The Idea of Justice.

One can compare an assertion of human right to ethical proclamations such as “happiness is important” or “personal liberties must be preserved”. The question whether there is such a thing as human right is thus comparable to asking whether happiness is really important or liberty really matters.

Jeremy Bentham dismissed natural rights as nonsense. “ Right, the substantive right, is the child of law; from real laws come real rights; but from imaginary laws... come imaginary rights”, argued Bentham. Sen, however, argued human right as parents of law; and these laws motivate specific legislation. But this legislation of new law or legal rules need not be the only way to advance the ethics of human right; this can be achieved, for example, through “education and public discussion on civility and social conduct”.

Discourse on human rights is linked to the importance of human freedom. And this “importance of freedom provides a foundational reason not only for affirming our own rights and liberties, but also for taking an interest in the freedom and rights of others.” However, freedom of certain kind ( not to be disturbed at night) is not really a matter of human right as freedom of other kind ( not to be tortured). To determine which all kinds of freedom must be placed within the spectrum of human right further impartial scrutiny and debates need to continue.

Since freedoms are important, it is significant that others who are not themselves causing the violation of someone's rights do not brush away the violation of someone else's right as 'none of my business'; one should defend or promote the rights of others too. We are bound by various constraints in helping others realize their freedom, but these constraints must not be confused with having no obligations at all. There is loosely specified obligation (imperfect obligation) and more fully specified obligation ( perfect obgligation) which belong to an important category of Kant's duty.

UN declaration of Human Rights in 1948 have included 'second generation' rights such as 'right to work, right to education, protection against unemployment and poverty, the right to join trade unions and even the right to just and favourable remuneration.' Critics of these 'second generation' rights argue that such rights cannot be institutionalized and cannot be feasibly realized. Sen's answer to such critique is that obligations can be both perfect and imperfect. Excluding them in the inner sanctum of human right would be to “ignore the reasoning that fires these constructive activities, including working for institutional changes”. “ Indeed, if feasibility were a necessary condition for people to have any rights, then not just social and economic rights, but all rights,-- even the right to liberty-- would be nonsensical, given the infeasibility of ensuring the life and liberty of all against transgression.”

The nature of the topic requires that further disputation and discussion will go on. Despite repressive regimes refusing open discussions on the topic, monitoring of violation of human rights and the procedure of 'naming and shaming' can be so effective , at least, in putting the violators on the defensive, and this is some indication of the reach of public reasoning when information becomes available and ethical arguments are allowed to be debated rather than suppressed. Such exercise will advance the ethics of human rights.

Repeal Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1958.

This is a picture of a 39 years old lady by the name Irom Sharmila. She has been fasting, ( without food and water) since November 4, 2000. Her demand is that the Government of India  withdraw Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1958, (AFSPA) from Manipur and the neighbouring north eastern states.

But what is AFSPA? 

AFSPA was first introduced in the "Naga inhabited areas" of Assam and Manipur in 1958 to tackle the Nagas who were, and are, demanding independence. Since then it has been extended to other states of the north east and Jammu & Kashmir. The Act gave power even to a non-commissioned officer of the Indian army to fire upon or otherwise use force, even to the causing of death, against any person who is acting or is suspected of acting in contravention of any law...  in areas declared as 'disturbed'; and the official responsible for such death is granted legal immunity and cannot be prosecuted. Countless number of people have been subjected to gross violation of human rights under the Act and the officials who committed such atrocities never ever faced trial. Amnesty International has criticized the Act, but till date it is  still in place.

For many years I have endorsed the Act. My logic was that if the Act is lifted, the extremists will take over and the territory of the Indian Union will shrink. I believe that is still the position of the Government and so the Act still remains. My view on the subject began to shift after I picked up writings on Human Rights. I began to ask myself if it is morally right to violate human rights to protect part of a territory that a state claims as its own.Or putting it differently, is it morally right for mainstream Indians to violate human rights of the north eastern people to retain the latter's territory as part of India? So the question that I began to ask  myself  was whether protecting the state's territory is more important or protecting human rights is more important. 

If I worship Bharat Mata (Mother India) protecting her territory would be part of my expression of my allegiance to her. But I don't worship Bharat Mata. Rather I worship Jesus Christ, through whom all human beings are created and who allows states to be formed to protect human lives and bring about common good of all. Therefore I cannot endorse people of certain regions violating human rights of other regions to protect the interest of the former. Or putting in differently, I am of the view that human rights  of certain people trumps the interest of the state to protect its territory. Human rights of the citizens cannot be subservient to the interest of the state!

Even in an instance when the state's agent violates human rights the agent has to be brought to the court of law. AFSPA being imposed in a region for over 50 years as a state's policy, and 'guilty officials' never being brought before to the court to face trial of human rights violation is something I cannot endorse. I used to think Irom Sharmila was subverting the interest of the Indian Union; and I still do think she is. But  now I believe she is doing so because of her greater concern for human rights. I won't be surprised if she says, "It is not that I do not love India, it is just that I love humanity more". And though I am late to realise, I  would say Sharmila has got things in right perspective. With her I say "repeal AFSPA"!

Is Jefferson's "all men are created equal" really self-evident?

Of late there has been many cases of" honour killings" in north India. "Honour killing" takes place in situation where relatives object to a boy and a girl of different caste or religion wishing to get married. The Supreme Court of India on 19 April, 2011 declared that there is nothing honourable about honour killing and added that the institution,  the 'caste-council', that pronounces such judgment is illegal, and therefore must be ruthlessly stamped out. The Bench further observed, " Over two centuries have passed since Thomas Jefferson wrote those memorable words, which are still ringing in history, but a large section of Indian society still regards a section of its own countrymen as inferior. This mental attitude is simply unacceptable in the modern age, and it is one of the main causes holding up the country's progress". Furthermore, the Bench expressed anguish over the two-tumbler system prevalent in various places. The two-tumbler system is that in many tea shops and restaurants there are separate tumblers for serving tea or other drinks to Scheduled Caste persons and non-Scheduled Caste persons because giving the same cup/tumbler to both the persons would considered to be "polluting" the latter. 

In pronouncing the judgment the court quoted Thomas Jefferson in the American Declaration of Independence, 1776, saying, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator by certain inalienable rights that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” But is this truth that all men are created equal really self-evident? The cases stated above prove that this truth is not self-evident. At least it is not self-evident in India even today. How did Thomas Jefferson then arrive at such a conclusion?

We know that Jefferson was a deist. And for a deist God is wholly transcendent and he never communicates with the human world. So Jefferson could not possibly be informed of the profound truth he propositioned by his religious belief. In 1780s one British  politician by the name William Wilberforce led a campaign against the British slave trade as he felt deeply moved by his religious belief that all men are equal and slavery is immoral. For Wilberforce his belief was deeply informed by his understanding of the God of the Bible, whom he believed has created all human being. Wilberforce campaign for nearly 30 years eventually led to the abolition of slavery in the British Empire. Even on the other side of the Atlantic, Jefferson was living amongst those religious people who believed that God, who has revealed himself in Jesus Christ, created all men equal and that they are endowed with certain rights. And it is this belief that informed Jefferson that all men are equal!

Is there any religious belief that originated in the Indian sub-continent that teaches equality of men. Well, Sikhism that began in 16th century does teach equality of all its adherents.  The titles "Singh" for male and "Kaur" for female are mandatory for adherents of Sikhism, and they are  to erase the caste based title/surname that they had before they came to Sikhism. But Sikhism is a minority  in India. Christianity and Islam though considered to be "foreign" religion do teach equality of all as well.