Thesis Statement #8

Justice is the minimum demand of love rooted in the inviolability of the human person.
Introduction
When we talk of love, freedom, and responsibility, we almost always consider justice. As the Little Prince mentioned, "you become responsible, forever, for what you've tamed." However, we should note that we are not only responsible for those we have affinity with; we are not only responsible for our family, friends, or partner. Instead, we are responsible for any human being. We can ask ourselves, whenever a beggar asks us for some money, why is it that we have this little voice inside our heads saying that we should at least give that person a peso or two? And when not, why do we feel guilty? Again, this is because we as human beings are responsible for each other. When we talk of love, on the other hand, we imply a certain freedom, but at the same time we also experience a certain demand to love or be loved. Otherwise, we would feel unjust if we do not show some concern for the other. In this case, we can take the case of a lover giving a gift a girl. Even though the girl has a freedom of choice to accept or reject the gift, the lover would feel like the girl has at least some responsibility to accept the gift. When the girl rejects this, then he would feel like injustice has been done to him, since he would feel like the girl should at least show some concern for his feelings. Most of the time, we clamor for our rights and we demand to be treated justly. The case on the lover is an example of this. Now, we may ask, what is justice? Basically, justice is giving what is due to another What justice is not: 1. Justice is also not necessarily equity, since equity may be established simply in order to play safe. Yes, it may promote distributive justice, but justice is not at all this. o For example, a girl who is being courted by 2 lovers cannot forever spend the same amount of time with both lovers. She cannot forever "play safe." Even though both lovers expect to have a chance on the girl, the girl eventually has to choose between the two. Otherwise, it would only lead to pain for both lovers, and with this comes greater injustice. 2. However, justice is not necessarily equated with the legal order since it is also man who makes legal rules, and some of these may favor only a particular group of people. o An example here would be the cronyism in Marcos regime where Marcos' friends are given the benefit of monopolizing the market, as mandated by Marcos. This is an example of manipulation of legal rules which leads to great injustice. This is also why justice is not equated with isolated just demands, for this can lead to the same instance. Rather than the legal order, justice has something to do with the humanity of the law, the protection and respect of the rights of a human person or group. Justice is rooted in the dignity of man, the inviolability or sacredness of his person.

Justice

Rights & Being

This dignity of man is the value that makes man equal to his fellowman. Man has inalienable rights because he is created a person by the act of God in the world with other beings. It is also for this reason why man has the capacity for objective awareness (unlike animals). Man has learned to detach himself from the determinism of nature and holds the disposition of his life in his own hands. For man, the environment has begins to exist on its own terms. It becomes a world acting upon man and calling for his personal answer. This answer is not automatic. It is something that man himself can shape and mold. His intellectual awareness enables man t appreciates the objective values and factors inherent in a situation and to shape his actions to meet them. This basic notion of objectivity thus leads us to the idea of responsibility, whose context is the Being itself. Any human response is implicity an affirmation of Being itself. Failure to live up to this vocation is to negate the value by whose presence he lives, also betrays his own identity as a person. Foundation of mans moral life is the dynamic relation of the human self to Absolute Being. Our vocation is to be responsive to being, to promote Being, and this must be embodied in relationships to things and people who surround us. We then become beings by doing justice because we are using our discerning intelligence to look for new ways of behaving TO PROMOTE BEING. In our interaction with people, we should remember that man has inalienable rights because he is created a person by the act of God. Man has rights because he is a Person a spiritual being, a whole unto himself, a being that exists for itself and of itself, that wills its own proper perfection. For that very reason, something is due to man in the fullest sense, for that reason he does inalienably have a sum, a right which he can plead against everyone else, a right which imposes upon every one of his partners the obligation at least not to violate it. However, God still does not give me any right except in the presence of other persons. The presence of other persons are needed if we are going to speak of rights in the first place. It is because I am in your presence, you who are a person endowed with objective awareness and called by nature to respond to beings in terms of what they are and do, that the reality of my person and my action first takes on the character of a claim or right. Also, it is because you as a person are obliged to respond to me as a person that I have a right to such a response, that you are wrong when you do not give it, and that I can urge that wrong against you. My right to be treated as a person is therefore founded on your obligation to treat me as a person. Apart from this obligation, I have no rights. The act by which a person acquires rights is his insertion as a person in a society of persons. Injustice is not done only because you are obliged to be responsive to the personal character of my being and actively refuse to be so. The injustice is in you. Because you are obliged by your very nature as a person to be responsive to me, you corrupt yourself in your personhood when you refuse to be so. My obligation to be responsive to you forbids me to hurt you and be indifferent to you. By omitting the response I owe you, I wrong you I withhold something which by reason by my nature as a person, you have a right to expect from me, something which is your due. I therefore fail not merely in charity but in justice. By founding the rights of persons not something independent of their relationship to one another but precisely on their mutual obligations of responsiveness, the emphasis is put where it belongs in the pursuit of justice. Not solely what is due to him, with his rights. Not solely what he owes to others. From this, we can draw the features of justice.

Inviolability

Justice does not only concern us. Instead, justice has to do with the respect of rights of others, the humanity of laws. o Justice depends on the spirit of love. Justice is not justice unless it is also the beginning of love. Here we differentiate "I ought" (which is outward) from "I fear" (which is inward and selfish) Furthermore, the equality which arises from justice is on the equality of being rather than of having. Although having does affect the man's being, justice to be genuine must be inspired by non-partisanship, by a positive concern for the enhancement of the other's person, by love and not by a vested interest. Love, it is said, is the maximum of justice, and justice the minimum of love. Of course, justice is not to be confused with love, for justice demands that what we ought to do something for persons we do not have affection for. My love is untrue to itself if it is not universal I cannot live my vocation to be for Being unless my active concern for Being is deliberately extended to all its participations Intention to be for Being universally to give the response I owe to all its participations even where I feel no attraction, the intention is none other than the deliberate intention to do justice The foundation of justice is that affective kinship with Being, the affinity of myself with Being itself, the first of all constitutes me as a person and makes of my life a project of love Without love, there is a risk of sliding into legalism and blind obedience to the law In the light of my love for Being, I will be able to affirm the other in his otherness and really let the other fully be himself Justice and love are mutually interdependent. Love is the principle of justice. Justice is the form in which and through which love perform its work. Since love is at work in justice, love is in stake in justice, a society can never rest content w/ the level of justice it has achieved. Love always pushes forwards. Love is the origin of justice but also its consummation. Justice preserves and fosters the integrity and independence of persons who are ultimately called to communion. It is when I live up to that love, in all my encounters, that justice will be done I will be able to affirm the other in his otherness only in the light of my love for Being

No LOVE w/o Justice

No Justice w/o LOVE

Conclusion