(a) Liberty and Equality
(b) Fraternity
(c) Justice
The four concepts given above are democratic ideals. With the French revolution (1789) arose the idea of a people's reign (a democracy) with the triad "liberty, equality, and fraternity." This revolution meant an end to monarchy and the birth of a democracy (though it took many years to establish the same in practice). And we need to remember that democracy is still a work in progress. The Preamble of the Indian Constitutions the above four democratic ideals, besides others. These four seem to be fundamental values that have become the political constructs of many a nation, but also they have become essential social movements throughout history.
The first article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights contains the democratic ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity: "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another is a spirit of brotherhood."
Liberty
The rule of monarchs (kings and queens) and emperors sometimes meant the sacrifice of personal freedoms. To correct this democracy as system was ushered in to bring about order in society where personal freedoms are preserved. Liberty is the first democratic ideal. Other terms for liberty are freedom, independence, liberation. Liberty or freedom means freedom for all, not just for an individual. It does not mean licentiousness, or doing whatever one wishes to do. It is not an encouragement of laissez-faire attitude. (Or one may say that social and political freedom is greater to individual freedom.) Freedom therefore entails responsibility; they should go hand in hand as rights and duties should go hand in hand to ensure order; otherwise there will be only chaos. The individual and the society (state) are mutually interdependent on each other, they help each other; otherwise the relationship will be parasitic. A wrong understanding of liberty may lead to liberalism and individualism.
Now freedom regards both the external and internal aspects of the human person. External freedom signifies giving freedom to people, and not keeping them under the yoke of slavery or oppression. For instance, giving freedom to scientists would mean that they have their freedom of research; similarly with teachers, universities, etc. Internal freedom, on the other hand, concerns the free will of the human person. Atoms, animals, plants don't have this freedom. Only humans can talk of a free will, where s/he can choose what she wants, s/he has the capacity to opt in or opt out when faced with two or more alternatives.
Similarly, we can speak of a freedom from and a freedom for. Freedom from would signify freedom from slavery, oppression, torture, unjust treatment, etc. Freedom for indicates a freedom for making oneself; it is self-constitution, self-determination. Freedom is for achieving one's dreams, to grow, to develop, to progress, to decide for oneself, to actualize oneself -- it is for one's free development of capacity and talents, self-actualization.
Equality
Remember the humorous statement of the pigs in George Orwell's The Animal Farm: "All animals are equal, but some are more equal." Equality is one ideal that needs a lot of our understanding. Some say that equality is the most controversial of all the political ideals. Let us try to grasp the basic meaning of equality.
Equality is the state or quality of being equal. Social equality, in particular, would imply that all people have the same status. In the context of the Indian constitutions, technically there is no difference between the President of India and the last man on the street with regard to their rights; both are equal. "Equality" signifies, as in the name itself suggest, a "quality"; it signifies a qualitative relationship.
Therefore, it should not be confused with identity. When I say "All are equal" it does not mean that "All are identical" or "All are same." Equality entails similarity and not sameness. If I say the morning star is equal to the evening star, it means (and I'd better say that) they are identical to each other; it is the planet Venus that I will be talking about. Here it is a case of identity, not equality. The social and political idea of equality rather implies that there are differences (cultural, social, religious, etc.). The idea here is not descriptive but prescriptive. Descriptive use of equality is when one says, "You are thin; she too is thin" or "Two people weigh the same." The example of a prescriptive use of equality is "People are equal or have equal rights before the law." Finally, our idea of equality also involves a proportional equality. For instance, the rich are taxed more than the poor according to their incomes. Here equality doesn't mean that the rich and the poor pay taxes alike, but each according to this income. That is the idea of equality, being proportional; not a blind application of principles to achieve uniformity.
Liberty vs Equality
So can we say that complete liberty logically leads to inequality? Are these two values opposed to each other? As pointed out earlier, as freedom go hand in hand with responsibility, in the same way liberty and equality need to go hand in hand. They do complement each other. As the individual and the state/society are mutually interdependent, in the same way liberty (or freedom) and equality balance each other.
In fact, in the absence of political liberty, equality cannot be established. It is impossible to make a reasonable statement of the meaning of equality except in terms of freedom. Both are complementary to each other. Liberty thus implies equality; they are not in conflict nor even separate but are different facts of the same ideal. All individual liberties are related to the basic equality of all people.
(b) Fraternity
The battle cry of “liberté, egalité, fraternité” represented for the French revolutionaries a break from the existing political order. For some of the revolutionaries, the words represented a complete rejection of the existing Christian-dominated culture. For still others, the word “fraternity” was simply a means of expressing solidarity. Over time, fraternity has meant many things to many people. Some have thought fraternity to be subsumed into concepts of communalism or socialism. Others have interpreted fraternity to represent an expression of Christian values—to love one’s neighbour. Rawls thought fraternity to encompass the “difference principle” that one should not have greater advantages unless this is to the benefit of the less advantaged. Still others find fraternity to be subsumed within the concepts of liberty and equality. [Charles D. Gonthier, “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: The Forgotten Leg of the Trilogy, or Fraternity: The Unspoken Third Pillar of Democracy,” McGill Law Journal / Revue de droit de McGill 45 (2000) 567-589 at 572.]
The other terms for fraternity, the third political ideal of democracy, are brotherhood, sisterhood, and solidarity. Fraternity speaks of unity, and not uniformity. It proclaims that “All human beings are sisters and brothers. We all belong to one human family.” In social terms it is not enough to allow a person to be free and have equal rights with others, but it is necessary to help the person to develop herself/himself. For example, when slavery was abolished in Brazil, the former slaves were free but did have jobs or food to feed themselves, they didn’t have a place to stay. As Hobbes says, “What good is freedom to a starving person? S/he cannot eat freedom or drink it.” Therefore, fraternity or solidarity means helping those in need.
Fraternity presupposes the democratic values of freedom (liberty) and equality. It implies respect, dignity, and compassion. (Compassion means feeling with others, suffering with others.) Even though we may always talk of liberty and equality in a democracy, the third essential pillar of fraternity may be forgotten. When a society forgets this important value of solidarity of fraternity, we may see an increase in indifference, greed, selfishness, misery, utilitarianism or profit-making, and also a widening gap between the rich and the poor. In order to avoid all these social evils, we need to recognise and practise the value of fraternity.
The full spirit of fraternity acknowledges the just pride of others and anticipates other’s self-respect. It entails the values of empathy, cooperation, commitment, responsibility, fairness, trust, and equity. Though fraternity is not about friendship or intimacy, it certainly advances the values of courtesy, fair-mindedness, and admission of one’s own limitations. It must be extended to the broader and less personal relations of fellow citizenship and fellow humanity. Such a spirit is vital to a democratic community.
If the ideals of liberty and equality concern the individual directly (and the society indirectly), the ideal of fraternity concerns the community directly. It emphasizes the rights of the community, by advancing the goals of commitment and responsibility. Thus, fraternity is essential to the well-being of liberty and equality, because only with shared trust and civic commitment can one advance these goals of liberty and equality.
Another aspect of fraternity is cooperation. The difference between liberty and equality, on the one hand, and fraternity on the other, is that the former values promote the free association of individuals, whereas the latter promotes the cooperation of individuals in the community. Cooperation is inspired by the commonality of interests and gives rise to the pooling of resources in pursuit of a common goal. Association per se connotes a simple fact: people are connected with one another. Cooperation connotes something more: people who are connected can work together to advance common interests. [Gonthier 574.]
(c) Justice
Human rights is the minimum, but all need to get justice. What is justice? It is nothing but giving someone her/his due. The word comes from the Latin "jus," meaning right or law. The Oxford English Dictionary defines the “just” person as one who typically “does what is morally right” and is disposed to “giving everyone his or her due.”
The 18th century architecture of Lady Justice at Castellania (Italy), built during the Order of St John, stands as a symbol of justice. There are three symbolic items: 1) sword - coercive power of a court/institution, 2) scales - competing claims are weighed, and 3) blindfold - justice should be impartial, objective, without fear or favour or bias, regardless of money, power, and identity.
Justice is fairness (John Rawls and Amartya Sen). It can thus be defined as a legal or philosophical theory by which fairness is administered. An ancient theory of justice can be got from Plato's The Republic. A just person, according to Plato's discussion, is one who does his/her best wherever he/she is; such a person gives the precise equivalent of what he/she has received. This applies both at the individual level and at the universal level.
In his A Theory of Justice, Rawls used a social contract argument to show that justice, and especially distributive justice, is a form of fairness: an impartial distribution of goods. Rawls also says that justice is the first virtue of social institutions.
The concept of justice differs in every culture. Besides the above-mentioned theories, there are others who deal with this concept. Advocates of divine command theory argue that justice issues from God. In the 17th century, theorists like John Locke argued for the theory of natural law. Thinkers in the social contract tradition argued that justice is derived from the mutual agreement of everyone concerned. In the 19th century, utilitarian thinkers including John Stuart Mill argued that justice is what has the best consequences. Theories of distributive justice concern what is distributed, between whom they are to be distributed, and what is the proper distribution. Egalitarians argued that justice can only exist within the coordinates of equality. Property rights theorists (like Robert Nozick) take a deontological view of distributive justice and argue that property rights-based justice maximises the overall wealth of an economic system. Theories of retributive justice are concerned with punishment for wrongdoing. Restorative justice (also sometimes called "reparative justice") is an approach to justice that focuses on the needs of victims and offenders.
Matthew Robinson states: Social justice is defined as "promoting a just society by challenging injustice and valuing diversity." It exists when "all people share a common humanity and therefore have a right to equitable treatment, support for their human rights, and a fair allocation of community resources." In conditions of social justice, people are "not be discriminated against, nor their welfare and well-being constrained or prejudiced on the basis of gender, sexuality, religion, political affiliations, age, race, belief, disability, location, social class, socioeconomic circumstances, or other characteristic of background or group membership" (Toowoomba Catholic Education, 2006).
To Rawls, social justice is about assuring the protection of equal access to liberties, rights, and opportunities, as well as taking care of the least advantaged members of society. Thus, whether something is just or unjust depends on whether it promotes or hinders equality of access to civil liberties, human rights, opportunities for healthy and fulfilling lives, as well as whether it allocates a fair share of benefits to the least advantaged members of society.
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