display all the ideas for this combination of texts
2 ideas
1845 | Justice has no independent existence, but arises entirely from keeping contracts [Epicurus] |
Full Idea: Justice has no independent existence; it results from mutual contracts, and establishes itself wherever there is a mutual engagement to guard against doing or sustaining mutual injury. | |
From: Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]), quoted by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.31.35 |
21005 | A human right is not plausible if public scrutiny might reject it [Sen] |
Full Idea: The force of a claim for a human right would indeed be seriously undermined if it were possible to show that it is unlikely to survive open public scrutiny. | |
From: Amartya Sen (The Idea of Justice [2009], 17 'Scrutiny') | |
A reaction: This is a public aspect of Scanlon's 'contractualist' approach to ethics. You can hardly disagree with the idea, though anti-racist legislation in a strongly racist society might be a good test case. |