Justice to Charity

Social Philosophy and Policy 12 (2):32-53 (1995)
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Abstract

Despite what one may be led to believe by breathless reports in the media, the acme of misery in America is not the woes, financial and otherwise, of Donald Trump and Michael Jackson. People lose their jobs, have their assets drained by reversals of fortune, suffer from illiteracy, malnutrition, lack of shelter, and other mishaps. The circumstances in which they find themselves are genuinely distressing. It would be an odd understanding indeed that failed to find these circumstances directly relevant to what morality asks of us. If morality is to count for anything, then surely it must take notice of exigent need. This is not merely the deliverance of a late twentieth-century Western moral consciousness massaged by the blessings of comparative affluence and graced with a newfound awareness of social justice. All traditional ethical codes of which I am aware, sacred and secular, demand that one take the distress of one's neighbor as bearing on one's own activities. “Am I my brother's keeper?” is the question; the well-nigh universal answer is “Yes.” The disposition to be moved by and respond to distress is the virtue ofcharity.

Other Versions

original Lomasky, Loren E. (1995) "Justice to Charity: LOREN E. LOMASKY". Social Philosophy and Policy 12(2):32-53
edition Loren, E. Lomasky (2002) "Justice to charity". In Wellman, Carl, Rights and duties, pp. 5--366: Routledge (2002)

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Loren Lomasky
University of Virginia

Citations of this work

Sufficientarian-Libertarianism and Basic Income.Akio Fukuhara - 2019 - Revue de Philosophie Économique 20 (1):35-61.

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References found in this work

Anarchy, State, and Utopia.Robert Nozick - 1974 - Philosophy 52 (199):102-105.
The Methods of Ethics.Henry Sidgwick - 1907 - Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia 30 (4):401-401.
Justice and charity.Allen Buchanan - 1987 - Ethics 97 (3):558-575.
Political Liberalism by John Rawls. [REVIEW]Philip Pettit - 1994 - Journal of Philosophy 91 (4):215-220.

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