Justice And Love: Different Or United?
Simone Weil’s writing constitutes one of the best examples of a critical perspective in the history of thought. Her literature, by penetrating the depths of many concepts, enriched with metaphors and her technique along with the reconsideration of many issues related to life, leads to the development of a de-learning activity. Perhaps one of the most important of these – at least for lawyers – is her reasoning on the concepts of justice and right.
Weil states that justice and love were not evaluated as separate concepts in Ancient Greece. The main driving force or mirror of the rupture between the two concepts is found in the creation of law and rights. The concept of rights was originally envisioned in terms of commercial exchange relations. The discourse of rights, which prioritizes personality – in the sense of ownership – over the impersonal (for according to Weil, not the person but the impersonal is sacred in every human) – discusses all injustices through the duality of having and not having. Thus, injustices continue to be continuously produced with the language of rights, in a system that does not see the victim, does not recognize his/her pain, and does not hear his/her plea. In this way, justice, lost the element of sacred – the disappearance of the love for the other – is doomed to fail to fulfill its function.
The detachment of justice from love manifests itself many times in literature as the duality of justice and mercy. The fact that “mercy is brighter and loftier than that of justice” in Don Quixote, that “And earthly power doth then show likest God’s When mercy seasons justice” and “That in the course of justice none of us Should see salvation” in The Merchant of Venice and, and in Michael Kohlhaas nonproportional – merciless – “feeling of justice made him a robber and a murderer” of are among the examples that underline this rupture. In the framework outlined by the gender-based perspective that has been going on since Antigone, love and mercy are confined to the religion/ private sphere, under the rule of femininity, while justice remains in the sphere of the secular/subjective rights and masculinity – politics.
The rupture between justice and love is fastened by the law’s focus not on justice, but on subjective rights and thus on the glorification of the subject. The decisiveness of rights instead of law has taken over the discipline with modernity; objective natural law has been transformed into the subjective individual rights as Douzinas puts it. After WWII, especially since the 70s, by the institutionalization of “depoliticised” human rights, justice became a matter solely of international human rights law. However, according to Weil, the subjective nature of rights prevents them from expressing universal and impersonal values.
Disappearance Of The Other
Indeed, with highly concentrated individuality, human rights might have led to the destruction of the other. In this understanding, the subject can ultimately have a personality by destroying the other. Hence, dignity could not break ties with status or freedom, with endless pursuit of desires. This is only natural, considering economics is based on the subject’s desire – desire determines price and price determines value (marginalist revolution). In the same vein, person-centred economics gave rise to the importance of psychology, which deals not with where the object’s desires are directed, but with the mind as the source of these desires and forms of wanting, i.e. Freud’s concept of libido is evaluated in the terminology of investment in objects, as Baker notes. Therefore, what Byung Chul-Han calls the psychosociety, the person is the founder of everything. With the help of technology, the distance at which one can see the other disappears: “Today, more and more, dignity, decency, and propriety-matters of maintaining distance-are disappearing. That is, the ability to experience the Other in terms of his or her otherness is being lost.”
The redemptive role of the encounter with the other and the recognition of his/her pain in a not transcendent but immanent way might have been forgotten today. Yet in Faust, one of the greatest works of Western literature, this constitutes one of the most decisive elements in the story. Faust, by arrangement of Mephistopheles, starts reclaiming land from the sea. On this land, he builds dams, bridges, and canals. However, a cottage belonging to an old couple spoils Faust’s vast landscape – his own manifestation. Faust states that he cannot bear this pain:
“Yon old folk should give way that foil me,
Yon lindens for a seat I crave.
The few trees not mine own-they spoil me
The lordship of the world I have.
From branch to branch, that all unbaffled
Mine eye might range, I’d build a scaffold,
Thus were a spacious prospect won
To gaze on all that I have done,
And in one glance to compass it,
This masterpiece of human-wit,
Confirming with sagacious plan
The dwelling-place reclaimed for man.”
Faust then says that the stubbornness of the old couple will make one tired of being just – whereas here, “just” is highly subjective. Faust, whatever the cause, wants to have everything there, to build a world that suits his purpose. In this case, the other – the old couple – undermines his whole vision:
“Such opposition, such self-will
The highest gain embitter, till
With deep, fierce suffering he must
Enforce himself, that would be just”
So Faust asks for this obstacle to be removed. The problem is solved by Mephistopheles and his three friends by the death of the old couple and the burning of the hut. This development makes Faust realize the power of the force. However, he refuses to take the blame. Subsequently, four sisters visit Faust: Debt, Want, Need, and Care. Faust chases away the first three, but cannot send care away. Care blinds Faust, who previously did not care about anything and worked relentlessly. Faust, who feels the importance of caring for others and striving for a purpose, says “Don’t go, stay” to the moment, which means that his soul belongs to Mephistopheles according to their contract. However, mercy breaks this contract/law and Faust is taken in by God: Let me add that Faust’s caring is again provided by a woman and the work will be saved by the Eternal-Womanly (divine feminine).
Recognizing The Subjectivity: Care In International Law
Can it be argued albeit in a pathetic fallacy, that international law does not seem to have a salvation like Faust – to whom the angels said, we will save who is always weary of his purpose – ? This is because international law – mainly its main actors – has failed to provide care for all. Since its institutionalization, it has taken most of the world’s problems on its shoulders and set concrete goals to solve them. Yet the concept of “international community” which has a place in nearly all international documents is at a level where its members refuse to recognize each other’s suffering. Especially since October 7, it has been in a terrible state of collapse. Despite the clear violation of multiple jus cogens norms recognized by all states, the unwavering indifference to the pain of peoples makes it harder to make any sense of it.
International law has focused most of its efforts on the Palestine issue on individual violations of humanitarian law and human rights law. As Imseis points out, insufficient attention has been paid to the legality of the occupation regime as a whole and the unconditional end of the occupation regime. Attention has been focused more on individual rights and humanitarian violations by civil society and international organizations. For example, as Fassin points out, the main raison d’être of many humanitarian organizations can be seen in the concept of bio-legitimacy. The protection of one’s biological life becomes one of the hallmarks of ensuring justice. As Fassin quoted, the slogan of Doctors of the World exemplifies: “We cure all diseases, even injustice.” (one could even argue that this language of treatment is adopted by legal “clinics” or “laboratories” of law faculties). In this vein, he states that “in the contemporary world, there is probably no greater justification for action in international relations than saving lives.”
But of course, this valuation of lives is essentially subjective, as we have seen today too. This subjectivity is a crucial element to take into account in liberal international law since the discipline claims universality. On this plane, where the other is destroyed – both individually and collectively – liberal subjectivity is only possible through an understanding of the effects of everyday liberalism on individuals and communities. Also, this approach must be applied as it focuses on other’s engagement with international law. As Allen has done in his monumental work in making this assessment concerning to the Palestinian people, she states: “As in most of the scholarship on liberalism and its imperial histories, the absence of socially sensitive research into the nonelite actors and everyday dimensions of international law may be part of what has enabled the perdurance of faith in the possibility of international law as an anti-imperial tool of liberation.”
In Ntina Tzouvala’s recent seminal presentation, Christine Chinkin asked how much international law cares about peace. Her second question was how Tzouvala’s critique of aggression within the framework of political economy can be taken together with feminist theory’s critique of militarism. In this respect, I think it is useful to insist on claiming a hope that the sister named Care can transform international law. Recognizing the deep pain that these injustices cause in the other with attention and care – considering their subjectivity -, justice for suffering can be more than mere hope. This requires that states, even if they do not give the order themselves (like Faust), can confront their contributions to this injustice and stand against those who seek to legitimize these injustices. As Weil puts it, “Only he who has measured the dominion of force, and knows how not to respect it, is capable of love and justice.”
