Whose justice?

Ina Praetorius

1. The Warc study on the theme of Reformed faith and economic justice attempts to deal with global social and ecological problems through the categories of European ethics. My paper is not intended to discredit this attempt. There is no obvious practicable alternative to English as the global means of communication in our interdependent world. But this European language also expresses a particular way of thinking. I would plead for great care and historical awareness in using the concepts of European ethics, and for more attention to attempts that have been made here and there to tackle the circumstances by means of other concepts, not deriving from the mainstream of European ethics.¹ For the concept of 'justice' (dikaiosune/justitia), which is meant to be used here as a neutral, ahistorical norm, is in fact a many-faceted value which has developed historically with roots in a particular conception of the world. If it is to go even some way towards fulfilling the function assigned to it, the inconsistencies and injustices which are historically built into the concept itself must be considered and clarified.

2. The modern notion of justice is derived primarily from the ancient Greek concept of dikaiosune. It stems from a social order in which free-born, adult, Greek men devised basic democratic rights and rules of behaviour for themselves, to the exclusion of slaves, foreigners, women and children. In the world view of ancient classical philosophy, the free man (anthropos) is the being that is 'by nature' in the world for its own sake. Women, foreigners, slaves and children on the other hand are defined - likewise 'by nature' - as not existing for their own sake. They are in the world to fulfil certain functions for the society of free men. Thus the function of slaves is to release the free citizens of the polis from the daily chore of looking after themselves. Women are there to ensure the continued existence of the polis through biological reproduction and the raising of children. Aristotle distinguishes between distributive justice (to each his own) and commutative justice (to each the same): while commutative justice essentially determines the rules of market exchange, distributive justice is chiefly concerned with needs. For the thinking man of antiquity, there was no question that women, children, slaves and foreigners did not have the same needs and could not in terms of distributive justice lay claim to the same consideration as free, male citizens. To this day, the European concept of justice bears the traces of its roots in this aristocratic, androcentric conception of the world.

3. The idea of a dignity attaching to all human beings regardless of age, sex, ethnic origin or social rank developed in the philosophical schools of the Hellenistic age - especially the Stoa - and in the Judeo-Christian tradition. This idea underlies a concept of justice which contradicts the aristocratic- androcentric view, by maintaining that every human being is in the world for his or her own sake, and not for the good life of another. We have here the root of the critical line of thinking which right up to the present time has tried to prove the unethical nature of the basic norms of the ancient slave-owning society, which are also implicitly present in this concept of justice.

The struggle to find the 'just' interpretation of justice is not confined to academic ethical debates. The continuing struggle of women to establish that they too are included in 'universal human rights' is just one indication of the real political dimension of the problem. The equation of 'human being' (anthropos) with 'free adult man' in the ancient world view became the basis on which - despite all enlightened rhetoric to the contrary - supposedly universal basic rights were seen historically as the rights of the adult white man, and continue to be interpreted as such in many cases even today.

4. If the European concept of justice is to provide an effective norm in terms of the good of all human beings, we have to remember that it brings together two contradictory preconceptions of the human condition - one aristocratic and androcentric, the other egalitarian and utopian. The perpetual difficulties of understanding in questions of ethics, and the feeling that our 'solemn declarations'² run into a wall of economic 'injustices' and ethical falsehood, can be traced to the ambiguity of the concept of justice itself - and, incidentally, of many other central concepts of western ethical thinking. Given the history of European ethics, it is not surprising that there are people who do not regard it as 'unjust' that women's work in the home is unremunerated or that children in Africa are dying of hunger. They hold this view because they have been schooled in the aristocratic-androcentric understanding of justice. Their moral sense tells them that women or Africans are not in the world for their own sake but for the well-being of white adult men. In view of European ethical history, it certainly cannot be taken for granted that the idea of the universal and equal dignity of all human beings is an integral part of the world view of all Europeans. The notion of a hierarchy of values naturally inherent in the human race is not confined to an eccentric fringe of right-wing radicals but represents one of the centres of western ethics.

In view of the multiple meanings of the concept, it is essential to clarify which concept of justice we are working with and, at the same time, to bear in mind that the Christian concept of justice is likewise not 'pure', but also has an marked undercurrent of aristocratic-androcentric ideas running through it. People who have internalized the aristocratic-androcentric understanding of justice are not going to be taught otherwise by appeals for 'fairer' economic structures or codes of conduct. They must be confronted directly with the dubious nature of the axiom on which they base what they subjectively feel to be 'just' behaviour: that is, the idea that they themselves as male, white adults belonging to a particular culture or nation have a higher 'innate' worth and hence a greater right to enjoy the goods of this earth than do women or children, the inhabitants of other parts of the world or the members of other cultures.

Church people cannot simply leave this fundamental anthropological question to 'others', however these may be defined. In view of the historical intertwining of Christianity and the history of European ethics, we Christians cannot simply place ourselves outside the aristocratic-androcentric distinction between 'complete men'³ and 'functional' human beings. If we are looking for an effective instrument in the struggle for the good of all, then we must acknowledge and examine the ambiguity of the presuppositions in our own thinking and work out a clear position for ourselves, leaving aristocratic- anthropocentric concepts behind.

5. It is not 'evil' but logical that the scientific-economic mainstream leaves the work done by women, the subsistence of economy of peasant farmers and the contribution of non-human nature⁴ to the functioning of the market out of account in its calculations and its definitions of what is economic. For economic discourse is also based on the all-pervasive presupposition in western thinking that only free men can work in the truly human sense, whereas women and other functional beings (slaves, foreigners, animals, nature) are unfree and operate blindly. To counter this discourse - and the practice that goes with it - by appeals to a morality which is itself at least partially based on the same unreflecting aristocratic-androcentric axioms is useless. That is why the churches' usual strategy of countering prevailing economic practice with calls for greater justice, without first reflecting on how far this concept is based on the same presuppositions as those of the opposite camp is inherently doomed to failure. This, and not the church's supposed role of David versus the Goliath of the economy, is the real root of the pervading sense of powerlessness in face of the relentless spread of economic rationality. To put it concretely, church people who refuse to look squarely at the aristocratic-androcentric structure of their own thinking and to work through the implications, cannot credibly admonish an 'unjust' economy. As far as the unreflective presuppositions of their ethics are concerned, they are in the same boat as the agents of the unjust economy.

6. To summarize: before the World Alliance of Reformed Churches uses the concept of 'justice' to attack an economy which massively restricts the chances of the majority of the world's population to live well and in peace, it must clarify what is meant by 'justice'. Reference to the Reformed tradition, which undoubtedly has its roots more in the biblical conception of the world than in that of classical antiquity, is not enough. For we do not possess a biblical understanding of the world and of the human being in a 'pure' form. Indeed, it has been proven that, although the Bible certainly does contain an egalitarian-utopian conception of what it means to be woman, man or child in the world, a large portion of the biblical texts are themselves based on androcentric presuppositions, so that the critical-egalitarian line is already contradicted within the Bible itself.

This critical work on the androcentrism in the concept of 'justice' - and in the categories of European ethics as a whole - is certainly not the only precondition for effective intervention by the churches for the well-being of all. But it seems to me to be crucial if we are to understand the reasons for the relative ineffectiveness of moral appeals and get away from the helpless feeling of crying in the wind and move towards a clearer view of things.

Ina Praetorius of the Evangelical-Reformed Church of the Canton St Gallen, Switzerland, is a theologian who writes and lectures especially on social ethics.

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