Book contents
- Compassion-Justice Conflicts and Christian Ethics
- New Studies in Christian Ethics
- Compassion-Justice Conflicts and Christian Ethics
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Tables
- General Editor’s Preface
- Preface
- Part I Nature of the Conflict
- Chapter 1 Rank Ordering of Claims
- Chapter 2 Deference to Justice
- Chapter 3 Agape in the Marketplace
- Part II How and Why Agape-Justice Conflicts Arise
- References
- Index
- Titles Published in the Series ()
Chapter 2 - Deference to Justice
from Part I - Nature of the Conflict
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 October 2023
- Compassion-Justice Conflicts and Christian Ethics
- New Studies in Christian Ethics
- Compassion-Justice Conflicts and Christian Ethics
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Tables
- General Editor’s Preface
- Preface
- Part I Nature of the Conflict
- Chapter 1 Rank Ordering of Claims
- Chapter 2 Deference to Justice
- Chapter 3 Agape in the Marketplace
- Part II How and Why Agape-Justice Conflicts Arise
- References
- Index
- Titles Published in the Series ()
Summary
Social philosophers and theologians prioritize the demands of justice whenever they conflict with agape’s claims. They do so based on the following implicit rules, namely: (1) Perfect duties take precedence over imperfect duties. (2) Subsistence test—whatever is critical for society’s existence has primacy. (3) Legal debt takes priority over moral debt. Both economic history and praxis validate the need to prioritize the claims of justice. After all, it provides critical legal institutional preconditions for the creation and protection of markets. It provides the economic guardrails to prevent anti-social preferences and transactions. It is essential to getting around collective-action problems.
Keywords
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Compassion-Justice Conflicts and Christian Ethics , pp. 38 - 57Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023