Faith and Philosophy, Part 2: Resurrecting Justice

Episode Topic: Resurrecting Justice

For centuries, the dominant concept of justice in the West has been the constant will to render another his due. The Bible, though, contains a different way of thinking about justice: comprehensive right relationship. This justice affirms what is due, or rights, but also proffers duties that exceed due such as mercy, hospitality, care, forgiveness and reconciliation. Retrieving this justice, which the classical concept has overswept, holds out promise for politics today in matters ranging from the protection of life, to immigration, to healing the wounds of racial injustice.

Featured Speakers:

• Daniel Philpott, Professor of Political Science, University of Notre Dame

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This podcast is a part of the ThinkND Series titled Faith and Philosophy.

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Transcript

Introduction and Welcome

1 0:06

Welcome to our final Mariton Lecture event of the semester. If you are an undergrad or a graduate student and you are not already a Mariton fellow, I encourage you to apply. We will accept applications through the end of this semester, and then again starting in the spring so you can apply at any time to join us. So you can come to things like this. We do reading groups. We have a course that's going to run in the spring as well. So lots of opportunities for fellows to join us, and we encourage you to apply if you have not already. Tonight, I'll introduce our speaker, professor Daniel Philpot. Professor Philpot is a professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame. He earned his PhD in 1996 from Harvard University and specializes in religion and global politics focusing on religious freedom, reconciliation, the political behavior of religious actors and Christian political theology. His books include revolutions in sovereignty, God's Century Resurgent Religion in Global Politics. Just an unjust peace. Peace, an ethic of political reconciliation and religious freedom in Islam, the fate of a universal human right in the Muslim world. He is currently writing a book that sets forth a political theology based on a Christian concept of justice. Part of why he's joining us tonight, he has promoted reconciliation as an activist in Cashmere, the Great Lakes region of Africa and the Catholic Church with respect to clerical sex abuse. He is married to Diana Philpot and has three children, Angela, James, and Peter. So please welcome Professor Philpot.

Biblical Concept of Justice

Justice and Rights in Modern Political Thought

Historical Injustices in the United States

The Role of Apologies and Reparations

Justice and Abortion

Speaker 3 1:50

Thank you for the very kind introduction, Alexa, and, uh, thank you all for coming out on this, uh, snowy evening. it takes a special dedication and thanks to. The Maritan Center and your wonderful, uh, program for the, um, find invitation. For some years, I have followed societies in their efforts to address past evil, those of countries such as South Africa, Chile, Uganda, and Germany, and of the Catholic Church towards its clerical abuse. I have discerned two paradigms, the dominant paradigm held by diplomats, politicians, human rights activists, and international lawyers centers on restoring rights and the rule of law and dreams, most fervently of trials and punishment for arch offenders. But I heard a different language in the voice of religious leaders who spoke of reconciliation, forgiveness, reparation, and the healing of wounds. I have come to think that the two paradigms were at bottom two different ways of thinking about justice. This will surprise Westerners who think of justice as rights and law, and of the message of the religious leaders as something that might be good, but as something other than justice. I have become convinced though that the religious leaders had a different way of thinking about justice and that they drew it from their most important source. The Bible, the Apostle Paul, describes God's reconciliation through the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ as justice, at least in some translations. And this pivotal event in salvation history was nobody's right, but rather God's gracious gift as Paul wrote and Danes to restore the world. The justice of reconciliation was the axial idea of religious leaders in South Africa, Germany, and so many other places. So I sought to develop this concept of justice in my book of 2012, just an unjust peace, arguing that this justice could unfold rights in the rule of law, but also involved restorative measures such as public apology, the telling of the truth about injustice and forgiveness. Now, I seek to develop this concept of justice further and expand it to all of politics, not only to confronting the past and believe that it holds promise for divided and wounded political orders, including, as I shall explain. The United States, the eminent philosopher John Rawles wrote that justice is the first virtue of social institutions an apo that philosophers reaching back to Plato as easily could have voiced. And what is justice? Over the course of many centuries, the concept of justice that has attained the world's widest endorsement is the will to render each person his due. The concept originated in Greek and Roman thought was formulated most fully and enduringly by the Roman jurist Ian in the third century and is recognizable far more widely in dues synonymous guise Rights. Rights have an elephantine presence in Western political thought and political discourse in constitutions, which all but six states in the world possess and in international law, this concept of justice as rendering due or fulfilling rights is so pervasive and enveloping that seeing justice differently requires climbing to an overlook where one can take in a wider landscape. What we can see from there is that the justice streaming from the Greek and Roman traditions has overs swept the justice that streams through and from another source, the Bible. And what is the meaning of this justice? Nowhere does the Bible teach that justice means the will to render another her do. Justice in the Bible is rather, I argue, the totality of actions that bring about comprehensive right relationship between God and humanity, between human beings and within the human soul. These actions are governed by principles, some of which indeed call for rendering others their due. That is fulfilling their rights. A concept that Christian Justice does not omit, but due is not enough. Other principles in the Bible prescribe actions that exceed what is due to others. Including Mercy, generosity, care, gift, hospitality, forgiveness, peacemaking loving one's, enemies and reconciliation. Christian Justice entails both kinds of principles. Those that render what is due and those that exceed due, which together make up the entire set of commands that God enjoins upon humans. If it grates in our ears to call all of these principles justice. It is not an, is it not at all strange that modern Christians have adopted so readily a notion of justice drawn from Athens in Rome and not one from Jerusalem? Let us look more closely at the Bible. What is the case that its justice means comprehensive right relationship. Two terms in the scriptures are the best candidates for being translated to justice. In the Old Testament, the term is the Hebrew ek, or its feminine variant akah, which appears 276 times the authors of the subagent. The Greek translation of the Bible of the third century, BCE, widely used the term Dee, to translate sek a term that then appears 92 times in the New Testament, and that carries forth the meaning of sek. While all of these usages carry a bewildering variety of specific meanings, they also share an overarching meaning comprehensive right relationship. One of the most important variations in their meaning is agency. Sometimes sek and UNE refer to the actions that God carries out. Other times they refer to the actions that God prescribes for humans to perform. God carries out EK and UNE in creating and sustaining the moral order of the universe, an establishment of right relationship and in redeeming it and bringing it to completion. The restoration of right relationship divinely enacted. EK is most concentrated in Psalms, Proverbs, Isaiah and Ezekiel. Cek expresses God's restoration of Israel in in Isaiah, whose mysterious and messianic agent is the servant whom the Lord has called for the victory of cek. In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus identifies himself with a servant who brings about this victory by quoting Isaiah 42. This victory is the restoration of right relationship that Jesus achieves in the cross and resurrection. Is the term that the Apostle Paul adopts to describe this divine restoration and that he makes the central theme of his letter to the Romans. The culmination of this restoration is the new heavens and new earth that the apostle Peter describes as dune. Humans enact ek and de sunne when they act according to God's commands. Our EK before the Lord our God is to consistent, carefully observing all these commandments. He has enjoined on us. The book of Deuteronomy reads, continuing somewhat later, SEK and EK alone shall be your aim. Une means the entirety of God's commandments in the New Testament where it is most concentrated in the gospel of Matthew. Jesus teaches in the Sermon on the Mount that those who hunger and thirst for une are blessed that ones dune ought to surpass that of the Pharisees and teachers of the law, and that one ought to seek first the kingdom of God and his Dee, and that one ought not to practice kaune in order to be seen. Commandments in turn are central to the morality of both the old and New Testaments. Repeated in the Old Testament is God's decree to keep his commandments, statues, ordinances, laws. Psalm 19 indeed contains nine different words for principles. Aquinas categorizes the Old Testament commandments as moral precepts, which are the 10 Commandments, and as the many judicial and ceremonial precepts which are derived from them. Jesus fulfills the law in a way that upholds the injunctive force of the 10 Commandments, but not that of the judicial and ceremonial precepts, and add some other commands such as to be merciful, take up one's cross and follow him. Be a peacemaker and forgive all of the law, all of which protects or promotes right relationship, makes Ab Sek and Dee Art, EK and Dee. Then the Bible's justice. This may seem strange. The reason that it seems strange is that in English Bibles, these words are often translated into righteousness as well as justice. The problem with both English words righteousness and justice though, is that neither captures the wide meaning of sek and une. Righteousness in today's English connotes, personal probity, and even ishness, and fails to capture aspects of right behavior such as fairness and economic dealings or laws against extortion. For its part justice. Connoting What is due has a public and juri meaning and fails to capture, say, principles of mercy and compassion. Summoning either word to translate sek. Une then demands that modern English speakers expand their notion of this word's meaning if they are to be faithful to the Bible's, meaning I propose justice, I opt us because I hope that my fellow readers of the Bible and citizens at that would come to think of justice as having the wide meaning of sek and de kaune. The proposal is not merely notional. It is the choice of the Vulgate, the Latin translation of the Bible that stood as the most important Bible in the church for 1000 years. The Vulgate translates the many instances of Ek and une as usia or a close cognate, the term that readily translates to justice in English. Similarly, in languages based on Latin, such as French, Spanish, and English, the terms are translated as Usia and Sia and their variance. The Du Reems Bible, the English language Bible that is translated directly from the Vulgate also adopt justice terms. So seek first the kingdom of God and his justice, and you'll be seeking a justice that contains the wide meaning of Ek and DeKay sunne, all of the ways that God is calling you to trod. If the justice of the Bible means comprehensive right relationship, this same justice blends two kinds of principles, those that render and those that exceed what is due. And so contrast with the classical justice that only renders due, this blend shapes both divine and human justice in the Bible. Consider, for instance, God's justice in creating and sustaining the world in its moral order. These actions are gifts, not something that as humanities do, yet there is also a sense in which the justice of God's actions renders due. While it may seem irreverent to say that God owes humanity anything, God made promises to humanity in the form of covenants, and promises by definition are commitments to make good on what is promised. As St. Anselm wrote in k Homo. God put himself under an obligation to humanity doing so out of his free and sovereign will on the basis of his commitment to his creation. God makes good on his promises by redeeming the world a justice and also blends what is due and what exceeds due Bible scholar Gary Anderson makes the case, but that by the time of the Babylonian exile, the Bible had adopted debt as its primary metaphor for the condition that sin creates. Debt expresses the natural law principle of retribution. When a person sins, he now stands indebted to God and to any victims. He owes them actions that pay this debt and negate the standing victory of the sin, and they have a right to these actions in several passages in the Penate Penate. God promises to reward people who keep his commandments, that is who do justice and to punish people who break them. You render to each of us according to our deeds. Psalms 20 62, 12 puts it, exile is Israel's payment of the debt. It is accrued for centuries of idolatry, pride, corruption, and mistreatment of the poor. Under its kings, the word redemption occurring 22 times in Isaiah, more than in any other book, describes God's eventual release of Israel from debt, slavery, the condition that an entrapped debtor occur in curves, recompense, service, debt. All of these words in Isaiah imply a payment that Israel has rendered, a debt that it has paid yet due, does not tame limit or exhaust. God's rectifying justice in the Old Testament. Israel replete with EK or saving justice reports, super abundance Israel has received from the hand of the Lord double for all her sins, unquote. Over the next eight or so chapters, Isaiah reports that redemption involves more yet an actual restoration that exceeds all payment and recounts the return of the Israelites to Judah and the rebuilding of Jerusalem in the temple in terms of lush nature, prosperity, peace, justice, triumph over enemies, and the uplift of the poor and the dispossessed. This is a justice of comprehensive restoration, a healing of the wounds of sin. Not only a payment of its debts, but also a cleansing of the stain and burden that mar right relationship between people and God among people and within people. It is a justice realized in part through the Israelites return. Also prophesied in the final page of Es as Isaiah as a messianic restoration where God will make justice and praise spring up before all the nations. This justice of restoration reaches a climax in the nude testament where it, it again, melds dew and beyond. Due debt remains a metaphor for sin. Most pronouncedly in the gospel of Matthew in the Gospel of Luke. The payment of debt for sin is prominent among the New Testament's, metaphors for the salvation won by Jesus cross and resurrection, along with other metaphors that connote due ransom, price, expiration, acquittal and redemption. Yet the restoration of right relationship or justice that the cross and resurrection accomplish are far wider and fuller than the justice of rendering due. First Jesus'. Payment of the debt of sin is a gift. As Paul teaches in his letter to the Romans, a payment that he made on behalf of the ones who owed the debt and one that he made while we were still sinners, not upon humanity having first repented or settled accounts, God forgave on his initiative out of love. Second, Christ pays the debt super abundantly as Aquinas notes, as does God in Isaiah third again paralleling Isaiah. God does not only free humanity from the debt of sin, but also gains the grace that provides for the total healing of the wounds of sin and restoration of right relationship. This twofold movement of freedom from sin and restoration is the Bible's justification in reconciliation, which are one with God's justice. Reflecting divine justice. The human justice of right relationship combines what is due and what is more than due. It includes obligations that fulfill rights, so prominent in modern political thought and in law around the world, and differs from the skepticism of rights voiced by Christian intellectuals, including Oliver o' Donovan, Joan Lockwood, o' Donovan, John Milbank, Alistair McIntyre, Michel Vile, Ernest Forton, Nigel Bigger, Simone Vay, Richard Hayes and Stanley hwa, who look upon rights as possessive, individualistic, and vehicles of self-assertion rights. Find self, find sound defense, though as protections of human dignity rights are found explicitly in the Bible, for instance, the rights of the poor and Proverbs. They are found more extensively in the natural law, which the reasoning mind can apprehend in which the Catholic and certain Protestant traditions find in the 10 Commandments in their corollaries. The actions that these obligations prescribe or prohibit, not only engender the virtue of their performers, but also are demanded by the dignity of their recipients. The duty not to lie corresponds to a right, not to be lied to the duty, not to murder, to the right to life, and so on. Dignity or human worth arises from the image of God and persons declared in Genesis particular basic or intrinsically valuable human goods such as life, health, and knowledge manifest this dignity and serve the ground particular rights to life against torture and to freedom of speech, for instance. Rights grounded in the dignity of bearers of the divine image have a long place in the Christian tradition. Pope John the 23rd, espoused natural or human rights and Pacman Terrace in 1963 lauding the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, which roots human rights in dignity. In its preamble, Pope John Pauli endorsed the same ideas, making human rights grounded in dignity, central in his confrontation with communism. In the 1980s, natural Rights expend extend back to Leo Pope Leo the 13th, to several Protestant reformers to the Spanish Scholastics of the 16th century, and their defense of Native peoples in the new World to medieval cannon law, arguably to the thought of Thomas Aquinas and to early church fathers such as Lactus and Churchillian. Obligations that fulfill rights and thus are due to others belong to the justice of right relationship. Other obligations in the Bible, ones that God commands do not correspond to the rights of others. Though they are due, they are not due. They are not due, but are rather open-ended subject to discretion in how and to whom they are directed. Let us say that Theresa believes that she has an obligation to serve the poor, possessing finite time and resources. She must choose to volunteer at the homeless shelter, give to an overseas humanitarian agency or tutor at a local school. She cannot do all these things and none of them strictly obligates her. A poor person across town or in Nairobi may not claim a right to her resources. Theresa has a duty to care for the poor, but it is open-ended. It is what philosophers call an imperfect duty. The Bible contains many imperfect duties to be merciful. Practice generosity, live as a gift, take up one's cross, make peace form. Friendships, care for the poor, practice, hospitality and loved one's enemies. The combination of do and more than do also makes up the principles of human justice that address past wrongs. The justice of punishment, war, apologies, reparations, reconciliation, and forgiveness. Do is the idea of retribution. A person who commits a wrong breaks right relationship with a person wronged and is wrong, stands as a wound. The wrongdoer incurs a death. He deserves to make good on the wrong and the wrong to have a right to proportionate retaliation. If the wrong is a crime, it's victims include fellow citizens who live under the law, which defines right relationship in the political order, and the government represents them in pursuing just punishment, which involves deprivation. Retribution is axiomatic. It is a self-evident connection between deed, guilt, and consequences. It is affirmed widely across time and place, and underpins divine action and human institutions in both old and New Testaments. Modern theories of crime, the utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham and Chare Aria omit this justice and court further injustices at the other poll. Khans insisted on retribution apart from any good, that it brings punishment's purpose in the Bible. Is rather to restore right relationship to God's creation, including among communities. A principle rooted in the good punishment belongs to justice. Yet if justice towards past wrongs, honors do, it is not confined to do the wrong. To have a right to punishment, but may justifiably forego it just as a creditor may cancel a debt without committing a wrong in the political sphere, law enforcement agencies are forced by scarcity to choose which crimes to investigate and which to pass over. Admissible sometimes are presidential pardons or amnesties for rebels and dictators in order to secure a peace agreement or a transition to democracy. Restorative justice which has arisen in criminal justice in recent years in the West does not negate deserve punishment. Advocates forms of it that address the wide range of wounds that crimes inflict on persons in relationships and that involve wide participation reflecting Old Testament Israel's codes of best restitution and the holistic restoration initiated by the cross and resurrection. Restorative justice has been advocated by Mennonite theologians and taken up by the US Catholic bishops. It resonates with rituals for reintegrating wrongdoers found in Indi indigenous traditions such as those of the Maoris and New Zealand and Achos and Uganda. The Bible's most dramatic departure from retribution is Jesus teaching of forgiveness, forgive others their debts. This is a commandment and thus a matter of justice, but not justice as usual. Jesus tells his hearers on a hillside to forgo what their wrongdoers owe them on accounts of their wrong. He does not repudiate the lexxus of the rah, an eye for an eye, which affirms the retributive principle as well as its proper proportionality, but rather develops it, commanding his hearers, not merely to limit retribution, but rather to forego it altogether. Forgiveness also involves a will towards the restoration of the wrongdoer. Why does Jesus teach that we ought to forgive? Because God forgives our debt of sin and did so definitively through Jesus' death on the cross and his resurrection. Nowhere is this logic clear that in Jesus' parable of the unforgiving servant in the gospel of Matthew, the servant who refused to forgive his debtor, that we had been forgiven and who thus incurs debtor's prison does Jesus teaching of forgiveness, an null judicial punishment. No, because the state and other organizations are bound to uphold laws and norms, the contours of right relationship in a, in a community. Jesus was not speaking to his hearers in their capacity as magistrates or other heads. In other respects, though forgiveness may bear on crimes or other political matters, Pope John Paul two forgave his assassin in prison in 1983. Even while he did not call into question the principle of prison. A survey I conducted in Uganda found that 68% of victims of political violence claimed to have forgiven their perpetrators. What I have been arguing for so far to summarize is the justice of right relationship, which consists of actions governed by principles that render others what is their due or their right, as well as actions that exceed what is due. This justice is found in the Bible and consists of the natural law, known by reason and mirroring God and of supernatural principles that specify the natural law further and are known by the teachings of Jesus. Each sort of principle is important for moral and political life, the principles that fulfill rights, secure dimensions of human dignity by prescribing specific and dischargeable actions. Do not torture. Provide everyone safe working conditions. Respect everyone's practice of religion. The beyond due principles mostly involve the healing of wounds. The chief of these principles is mercy, which calls for alleviating distress. Mercy animates the principle of reconciliation, the comprehensive restoration of right relationship that just the justice that restores. I propose that this wider justice holds promise for Democratic political orders, including our own. The political order is a subset of the justice of right relationship. It bears on matters subject to public law and political authority, whose purpose is to coordinate and enforce aspects of this justice. If justice means right relationship and consists of both kinds of principles do and beyond due, then a Christian ought to work ought to work To realize this justice in the political order scholars have shown in recent works that political thought and discourse, since the Enlightenment has sidelined beyond due principles such as mercy, hospitality, care, and forgiveness, and have called for their revival in politics. True. Governments sometimes pursue beyond due principles, say through humanitarian relief or healthcare. Still, if justice is predominantly thought to be the will to render due, and if justice is the first virtue of institutions, then beyond due principles will come to be viewed as marginal and optional and political discourse and action. To be sure the justice of right relationship is to be realized through constitutional, liberal democracy and its limits on government, human rights, including religious freedom, equal citizenship, the rule of law, the rights of associations, the independence of church and state and their authority, economic freedom, subsidiarity and prudence. These principles themselves are rooted in natural law and a Christian concept of the person, one that features freedom. Here lies a Christian liberalism, a. None of these limits prevents the practice of mercy and hospitality care and forgiveness. These principles find all the more opportunity in the fact that politics is more than making and enforcing laws. The justice of right relationship also finds application in the prototypical liberal republic the United States. It has been practiced in response to this country's most colossal injustices and may still be practiced in response to them and to the historical wounds that they leave in the matter of race, which has been called America's original Sin. Historical justices fall into three episodes. The first is slavery, chattel racialized slavery, which was practiced legally from 1619 through 1865, and involved an estimated 10 million slaves and 10 billion hours of labor. The second is the period of Jim Crow spanning from around 1877. Through the mid 1960s, laws, policies and government action in 17 states practiced numerous forms of harsh discrimination and obstruction of economic development, and failed to enforce against the 4,000 lynchings that backed up the social system between 1877 and 1950. The third is less well known. It might be called distributive discrimination, consisting of vast transfers of wealth through the New Deal in the fair deal from the 1940s through the 1960s, and housing policies from the 1930s to the 1960s that largely and intentionally excluded African Americans and thus widen and sustained racial disparities in wealth, education, home ownership, and opportunities for economic advancement. American prophets against these injustices have given central place to natural rights, ones that they have understood to be embedded in natural law, established by God and articulated in the Declaration of Independence in the Constitution, the justice of de, the conviction that slavery flouted divinely grounded rights impelled Abraham Lincoln's involvement in politics as he first explained in his Peoria speech of 1854, as well as the advocacy of Frederick Douglass and the abolitionist movement that the Lincoln Memorial was the backdrop for Martin Luther King's. I have a dream speech of 1963 Is no accident for King two May natural rights and divinely grounded natural law central to his quest for civil rights Lincoln, the most Christian US President and thought and word. Sought to end slavery in a manner that would bring about healing and restoration and preserve unity in the nation's democracy. In contrast to other political advocates in the north, including some clergy, he interpreted slavery as the nation's common sin. And in his second inaugural address in March, 1865, interpreted the Civil war as the nation's common atonement for slavery. The woe that was due. It was a punishment though that could reunify. Lincoln's stance towards the confederacy met the criteria of forgiveness. He invaded against revenge and mostly for went retribution, provided that slaves were freed and southern states remained in the union. He concluded his second inaugural address by advocating mercy and care towards restoration of a combination with malice toward none, with charity for all to bind up the nation's wounds. To care for him who have born the battle and for his widow and his orphan. Similarly, king pursued his uncompromising campaign for rights through nonviolent action, that practice love for enemies, forgiveness, and a call for a united beloved community. Principles that exceed due complimented rights composing the wider justice that I have been describing. Colossal historical injustices leave behind wounds as they have in Northern Ireland, Yugoslavia, and Kashmir. The most central of these is what I term the standing victory of justice, the moral fact of the injustice itself. That persistent time and lust redressed, other wounds persist as well. In the case of race, the many disparities between African Americans and the larger population. The greatest of these is the gap in wealth one's total stock of possessions, which averages$240,000 per individual. Both controlled studies of population data and experimental studies reveal large disparities between blacks and whites in a wide range of measures such as health profiles, the ability to attain jobs and home loans, and rates of incarceration, arrest, and wrongful conviction of serious crimes. These disparities are wounds not simply because they consistent different levels of goods and are not less wounds on accounts of the income and wealth of African Americans having grown since 1970, but rather because they result from colossal injustices. None of these wounds was healed alone by the restoration of rights through legislation and constitutional amendments. Justice, also consistent governmental measures that seek to restore right relationship in the nation. Why the government and why should citizens today act to redress justices for which most of them are not directly responsible? Certain injustices consist of two dimensions, a collective one, and an individual one. These are ones that people commit in the name of an organization. For instance, the laws and policies, action and inaction. The government officials perform in the name of a political order while the individual's responsibility is her own and dies with her if she does not repudiate it. The collective dimension of justice stands victorious as long as the collective itself persists. It is one who has the standing to speak for the collective entity then who may redress past wrongs in its name. Such as the rationale for apologies that the US President and other heads of state have performed for past injustices, especially intensively since 1990, that Pope John Paul two performed over 100 times with respect to over 21 episodes of misdeeds that members of the Catholic Church committed in its name and that US officials might perform for the laws, policies, acts, and omissions of duty that performed and upheld slavery and racial injustice. An apology would if carried out well, negate the standing victory of the injustice, extend acknowledgement of suffering and strengthen civil friendship reparations are apologies materially fortified and achieve similar goods as apologies, as well as compensate victims and their descendants for the material damage of injustice. Like apologies. Reparations have become more common in global politics in the past century, including on the part of the United States government. In a recent poll conducted by the University of Massachusetts Amherst, 86% of African Americans favored reparations while only 28% of whites favored them. Reparations for racial and justice are in principle warranted, though must answer questions. Who exactly would receive them? What form would they take, and in what amount? Far more rarely in global politics do heads of collectivities practice forgiveness. Lincoln did. I have argued French Foreign minister Robert Schumann, the lead architect of European federalism after World War II was animated by forgiveness and reconciliation towards Germany, for which Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger remembered him in 2004. In. Legal scholar Roy Brooks has proposed that African Americans could practice forgiveness in response to a national apology and reparations in a national movement of reconciliation, represented by leaders of widely respected African American civil and religious leaders groups. They would release fellow Americans of moral debt and recommit themselves and their followers to common civic friendship. Apology, reparations and forgiveness belong to the justice of right relationship. In the case of individuals, apology and reparations are often required by the justice of rendering due for collectivities. These are imperfect duties on account of their not being readily dischargeable because of their dependency on resources and political circumstances. Forgiveness by definition, foregoes debt, or what is due. All of these principles might also bring about goods that exceed the payment of moral debt, such as acknowledgement, empathy, the alleviation of psychosocial wounds, and the strengthening of national bonds. The great African American civil rights activist, Fannie Lou Hamer of Mississippi, having been forcibly sterilized, fired from her job, beaten and subject to the firebombing of her home and fighting for equal rights promptly. Judge legalized abortion to be unjust when it became more common in the late 1960s and extended nationwide in 1973. Like slavery and racial discrimination, abortion defiled the dignity of human beings and was justified by popular choice. Hamer saw abortion as eugenics and turns it termed its wide practice genocide, as did Jesse Jackson in the 1970s. She also campaigned for maternal healthcare, housing, and nutritional needs, and rooted it all. In her Christian convictions, she demonstrated the justice of right relationship. The justice of rendering due means protection of the right to life for unborn persons enumerated in the Declaration of Independence In the UDHR, this right is a natural one embedded in the natural law prohibition of killing innocent human beings that a human being begins life at conception, then becoming a unitary and distinct organism is affirmed by 96% of embryologists Its right to life is denied mainly by the claim that it has not developed the attributes or the ability to perform the actions of a person, a claim that unavoidably negates the right to life of entire classes of persons who lack development in one way or another, or are deemed to be less than human. The claim that AERs every atrocity over 64 million violations of this right have taken place in the US since 1973 and some 2,800 continue to take place every day. On average, the justice that exceeds due widens and reinforces the justice that renders life. Its due the principle of care. A form of mercy is an open-ended duty to aid persons in a position of dependency. Its virtues are attention and responsiveness. Feminist theories have taken up care and recent decades to crying and abstract individualistic rationality of rights that, and contracts that pushes relationships with vulnerable and dependent people to the margins. Certain Christian feminists have adopted the principle and have enfolded, the mother's tie to their unborn children into care. Point to Mary, the mother of Jesus as the exemplar of this care. Care envisions life as the subject of the relationship between mother and child, both of whom are in turn dependent upon relationships to the birth father, doctors, family members, and the culture of the wider society. Fittingly titled are Women's Care Centers of which nearly 3000 exist in the United States, providing material support to pregnant women and encouraging them to bring their babies to birth with high rates of success. The care principle addresses the common poverty of women who consider abortion. About three quarters are low income, and eight in 10 are unmarried and urges policies that provide financial support for birth, healthcare, after birth, childcare, pregnancy leave, helping collecting payments from birth fathers, and measures that facilitate adoption. The justice that restores relationship involves healing and forgiveness for post-abortive women. The message and work of initiatives such as Project Rachel Mirroring, mirroring the Civil Rights Movement, justice for the Unborn is advocated through nonviolence and peaceful persuasion that invites opponents into a restored community. The most potent quality of the justice of right relationship may be its holism. It restores rights that protect essential dimensions of dignity, and also addresses the wide range of wounds that injustices inflict. This holism extends to the wide range of injustices, including historical ones, beyond life and race. I chose these because of their magnitude and their effects on our contemporary division. I have no optimism that this division will dissipate anytime soon. Yet, I'm confident that the justice of right relationship may further our unity better than a far less holistic concept of justice. Thank you.

1 46:30

Okay. Professor Phil Pot has agreed to take some questions. So if you have a question, just raise your hand and I will bring the mic to you.

Speaker 4 46:45

I'm Troy. Thank you very much. Phil, I have a very simple question. How do you relate justice in this process? To laugh?

Speaker 5 46:55

Yes. Yeah. The scriptures in the Bible, love has preeminent place, right, the great radius of the virtues of charity. And um, one of my convictions in um, my study of the Bible is that once one realizes the wide remit of justice, that it needs comprehensive right relationship, then the distance between justice and love decreases, they become much closer. And in my view, love, in the Bible can mean two things. One, it can mean willing the good of another. Second, it can mean attachments or affection. You, I could say I love ice cream or sunset or playing basketball. It doesn't mean that I'm holding the bit of another. It means that I have affection or desire for that thing. And God practices both kinds of love. He have great attachment, attachment or affection for his people, but also wills the good of the other. Now out of, of those two parts, I would say that willing, the good of the other is almost synonymous with the justice of right relationship because it consists of all of the commandments that one is, you know, required to perform. And, in my view, commandments are virtually exhaustive of, of human action. Indeed, love itself is a commandment, right? As Jesus gives love. The, the greatest commandments are to love God and love your neighbor. so com that commandment then almost converges with that justice. But yet love is wider than justice because love also involves the attachment, the desire, the affection, and that is something wider than justice. So I see it as kind of a wider balloon to which justice belongs, but, but not something that is fundamentally different than justice.

Speaker 6 48:53

Thank you, professor. Uh, I did question regarding how you view the scope of, um, duties and obligations, rights, for instance, because for example, you talk about, you know, this, hypothetical woman, Theresa, who, you know, she may not owe her time or her resource to someone across town or across the country or across the world. but then in you, you know, some of the later examples you give, you seem to be suggesting that there's an obligation for, for states to be dressing historical wrongs, uh, which necessarily involves, you know, redistributing Theresa's assets and resources to, you know, other people in the country, around the world. So how do you, how do you see, you know, those, the, the scope of, of duty in, in that sense?

Speaker 5 49:35

Yes. So I've been arguing that some duties correspond to the rights of others. Some duties are wide and don't correspond to the rights of others who are inevitable that Jesus. I call it imperfect bes. And, um, in my view, the, duty of governments to address historical injustices, is falls under largely an imperfect duty. And one of the things that, uh, corresponds, that makes a duty of perfect as opposed to rights is that they are not, specifiable and dischargeable in the kind of actions that they perform. So when it comes to, you know, writing historical wands, the possibility of a successful apology depends upon a lot of, I think it's a good thing to do, but it depends on a lot of, uh, political conditions being present. And I had a dissertation student who wrote a dissertation on the conditions for successful political apologies. And the same thing for reparations. Reparations are also resources dependent. However, governments may or may not have those resources. Also, I think. Generally there's a far wider range of, wrongs than one government could. you know, right. One of the questions about reparations is, well, what about, what about, what about, right? You say this, but why not this other group of people? Well, I don't know that it's possible to, you know, give reparations that kind of why, you know, endless sense. But what I would argue is, well, let's start with the biggest case and, you know, perform repair there. so I think that there is some kind of discretion there into like, um, you know, whether what, how much, how to do it, what, what form it takes and so forth. And for that reason, I think it falls more, um, under, under the, uh, perfect. New, does that answer the question? Yeah.

Speaker 2 51:35

That's Sure.

Speaker 7 51:39

Thank you, Dan. That was terrific. Uh, a question on the conceptual machinery. So we may have talked about this a bit on another occasion, but I'm wondering whether you think of justice as binary or scale or, so often in a standard case of commutative justice, you know, one person borrows$10 from another person, then they incur a duty to pay it back on time for any other conditions, et cetera. Uh, that's just binary. It can't, once that money is paid back, the relationship in that respect cannot become more just. But if we conceptualize justice as comprehensive right. Relationship, it seems like we can always have in principally a more just relationship.

Speaker 2 52:18

Yeah.

Speaker 7 52:18

Uh, so we are, we're called to grow in our love for God, for our family members, love and charity, for friends, colleagues, community members and so on. So, I. can you say a bit about that?

Speaker 3 52:28

Yeah. Well, I think this is precisely the difference between obligations that correspond to the rights of others and obligations that are open-ended. So right obligations that corresponded to the rights of others are specific and they're dischargeable. So like you say, if I, um, you know, owe back the$50 to somebody, or, um, you know, somebody does, uh, work on my house and now I owe them payment for it, right? it's very specific what the action requires. This much money and it's dischargeable, meaning once it's done, justice is done right, but open-ended obligations are not like that. Um, you know, you know, one's duty to help the poor if there's, if there is a duty, which I believe there is on Christian grounds to help the poor, well, it's largely unspecified. I, but I do think the poor have rights in some respects. One's duty to help the poor. It goes beyond, rights and involves a lot of discretion. You know, given finite amount of time and resources, I could do this, this, this, and this. I can't do them all. I can only do one. and yet it's limited, but it's also unlimited in a sense that it's exhaustive. One never really completes that duty. One always owes, you know, there's always more, you know, loving the poor, serving the poor that can be done, right? So that's an imperfect duty. And, um, I think in a way we see this in, um, Jesus' colloquy with a rich young man. You know, what must I do to gain it eternal life? Well, first, this commandment, this commandment, this commandment, you know, check, check, check. Yep, I've done it. So that's good. Right now, I, I would say all of those commandments, they're the 10, they belong to the 10 Commandments. They fit that obligation that corresponds to the rights of others. Then Jesus said to him, but no, there's more, you know, sell all that one has and give, give all that one has to the poor and come follow me. Well, that's, um, corresponds to the duty of alms giving, which in the Bible is kind of a stand in for one's general obligation to, you know, perform, uh, works of mercy towards others. And I think that that is seen as, um, you know, a lifelong obligation that has that, uh, open-ended discretionary, but also inexhaustible quality.

Speaker 2 54:48

We have time for one more question.

Speaker 8 55:03

Dan, it's great to see you. it's great to see you doing the work of peace in, in working what you're doing. That that is a work of peace. May I push back for a tiny bit on the suggestion that, well, that the distinction cuts so cleanly between, willing and others good and, and having a kind of affection for them. Um, you can see it most plainly perhaps in families, right? A child deserves to be loved, a child has a right to be loved, right? His mother and father or hers right, are, only do, they can't give enough right from the point of view, view of what is owed

Speaker 2 55:47

mm-hmm.

Speaker 8 55:47

In a way.

Speaker 2 55:47

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 8 55:48

Right. Why draw that line? If, if something like that is right there, why suppose that line draws neatly everywhere else? Don't, don't. People who are poor, who are strangers to you require. Help in kindness in, in, uh, in tenderness. Right? And isn't that kindness and tenderness exactly what draws everyone, to the, to the love of God, right? Yeah. so

Speaker 3 56:19

mm-hmm.

Speaker 8 56:20

Maybe you could comment a little bit on, on how cl clean that distinction is and whether maybe we're, victims of analytic philosophy there.

Speaker 3 56:27

Mm-hmm. Well, most often, most often works of justice will be motivated by affection. I think this is probably most true in the beyond due, um, principles. I mean, one can imagine like, some kinds of justice probably don't involve a lot of affection, you know, by paying bills to the phone company or something. Probably a fair, fairly minimal kind of, uh, you know, uh, motive, quality's there, but, um, other kinds involved Yeah. Are, it's hard to imagine them not being motivated by, by affection. And I think with, with God this is true in the sense that his love involves this affection and out of that affection then he wills, wills the good of others. In many cases that will be true for, for humans, um, as well. And so, yes, I do think in practice they go together. I was only, uh, my main distinction, but is only between love and justice in terms of whether there's a conceptual distinction. But of course, Christians are called to love, you know, as well as justice. And justice is enfolded in that love. So there's, um, you know, the, the, uh, affections are very much enjoined. Yeah. And maybe could, will Bill Murphy address, ask

Speaker 2 57:40

his question. He came from Chicago, so.

Speaker 9 57:51

Thanks, Stan for a wonderful talk. I was thinking practically about, you know, I, I, I like your message. I, I, I'm thinking like odd intra in the parishes, if, if we could do a better job of biblical preaching there, there's some work that has to be done to understand biblical justice, and then that is a great message to be preached. And there's lots of texts from the Old Testament through the New Testament that one could rely on to really bring that out. but in, like, in the broader, I'm wondering more about in the broader culture, like that's, that's the challenge in itself, but the kind of thing that we really should be doing Entra, but in the broader culture, what, what are your thoughts about this idea of, you know, right order of relations and communicating that, how, how do we get traction? If, if we could accomplish the first half of it, the odd intra, uh, how, how can c can that be communicated more broadly? will that, do you see any traction for that?

Speaker 3 58:48

Yeah, I, I, I do. I think that, um, yeah, maybe beginning with a Bible and realizing that this concept of justice is in a sense hidden behind the division of labor between justice and righteousness. That there's one concept there that means comprehensive right relationship and, um, that this, um, because justice is seen as the first virtue of political institutions saying that if we thought of justice is in, in this wider sense than these, you know, principles of mercy and care and so forth would be seen as come to be seen as more central to, to public life. And interesting the different theorists have written about this with respect to care and mercy and hospitality and so forth that. These things have kind of been marginalized in the political discourse, these principles, because of the kind of, um, really since the enlightenment, because of the kind of, more and more centralization of the, um, of the, of the rights concept. I think one concept is, I mean, one challenge is also something that is biblically rooted, being communicated in a public realm where, which is pluralistic, not everybody you know, is going to be coming from a Christian biblical standpoint. And that raises the issue of public reason. you know, what must one, kind of suppress one's religious, um, the religious logic. And I would argue, no, I don't think there's an obligation to do that. But I think there, when arguing with people from different standpoints and different epistemic sets, why ought to find analogous, seek to find analogous conceptions and other traditions. So if you're supporting the environment or, uh, or you know, if you're arguing with a secular person, a Muslim, a Jew, or what have you, seek to find parallel, conceptions and, um, given the intelligibility of the principles, I think that, that, that, that often can be done. So there is some kind of, um, often some kind of bridge building and dialogue to be done in the public realm.

1 1:00:51

Okay. Let's thank Professor Phil.

Speaker 3 1:00:53

Thank.