Comparative Philosophical Considerations on Justice and Human Rights

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Many fields of knowledge place much importance on the concept of justice and human rights. However, in the actual global political and multicultural situation, these two concepts are not made sufficiently clear. Furthermore the directionality of the restructuring of these concepts is still not definite. Against the background of these circumstances, we projected a comparative research on "Justice" and Human rights". The purpose of this research was the following.Primarily we organized concepts of justice and the circumstances surrounding them into several categories. Next, we made the meaning of the concepts of justice and human rights clear from a multicultural point of view. And lastly, we attempted to show the directionality of the restructuring of these concepts.This research was organized by researchers of Chinese, Japanese, ancient Greek and Islam thought in addition to researchers of modern western ideas. In these 3 years, we've held seven general seminars. In these seminars, ea … More ch member reported the meaning of the concept of justice in their research area and this report was followed by a discussion. Moreover, we reviewed critically the so-called universality of human rights.The results we obtained through these reports and discussions can be summarized as followsOf course in order to promote dialogue about justice between people of different cultures and political systems, it is important to make the "ideal or transcendental character of the concept of justice" clear. We believe, however, that it is even more important to research some ideas other than justice in a given society and consider the relationship they have with justice in that society.For example, we considered the different meanings of the words for justice in the ancient Greek, western Arabic, ancient Chinese and Japanese cultures. From these considerations, the following was clarified. To understand justice and for intercultural dialogue, above all, we must also research about emotional elements. These are on the opposite side of "the justice" demarcated by "the reason", and include such emotions as love, mercy, sympathy, rage, mortification, and feeling of injustice.It was also clarified that no matter how we determine the concept of justice in the modern western way like the concept "the human rights", this determination will always accompany an incompleteness and insufficiency to realize the "well-being". In many cases, it is the emotional element that tells about this insufficiency or incompleteness. To pay attention to such elements opens the roads to carry on dialogues about the concept of justice in various cultures. Less