Recording The Moral Destiny: Socialism, Secularism, And The Need of Social Justice to A Split World
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Socialism, secularism, moral philosophy, ethical pluralism, social justice, intersectionality, democratic socialism, participatory governance, secular ethics, cosmopolitanism, planetary solidarity, climate justice, redistribution, human dignity, plural secularism, solidarity, capability approach, care ethics, moral obligation, political imagination, global ethics, civil society, state role, authoritarian socialism, secular universalism, moral responsibility, social equality, democratic ethics, international crises, economic disparity, moral chaos, Karl Marx, welfare-state liberalism, Nordic model, religion, French secularism, covid-19, Amartya Sen, World Bank, Gaza
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Abstract
We live in an era of coinciding international crises, increased economic disparity, spiraling climate change, the re-emergence of autocratic dictatorships and a widening gap in our cultural and social context. All these issues are not occurring separately, but rather they are linked together like a web of mayhem that requires radical change that reaches to the system. All these are the downsides of liberal democracies and how liberal financially exploiting economics is. Against this background, the present paper aims at resurrecting the interrelated ethical doctrines of socialism and secularism not as obsolete ones, but as thriving traditions that can be used to bridge the moral vacuum of our day and age.
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[...] Without moral pluralism and civic humility, a justice claim becomes an act of coercion with great ease. Therefore, it does not mean that secularism is morally neutral rather it is morally demanding. It does not just want us to coexist but to co-reason, to create a common ground in the world, one that is based on freedom, equality and empathy. 4. Tradition-Confluence of Social Justice 4.1 The Imperative of social justice Social justice is not a fashionable category; it is the ethical backbone of the just society. [...]
[...] Adopting such values implies that we have to reconsider organizations such as the UN, the World Bank and even our cyberspace (Held, 2010). 7.3 Redistribution and climate Justice Climate justice demands: The ecological wisdom of indigenous people (Whyte, 2018) is too precious to be ignored when discussing debt relief and technology transfer to the Global South (Agarwal & Narain, 1991), and the future generation must have a say in the policymaking (Gardiner, 2011). Justice is not a charity; it is reparation and redistribution of resources on an equal basis. [...]
[...] This has been termed as moral socialism, acknowledges that redistribution is not the entire solution, although it is necessary. True justice gives us a reconsideration of our lives living in our homes, workplace, and political space. In most of the modern contexts, democratic socialism has come not as a theory of economics but as an ethical-political direction, which openly holds the position of human flourishing, collective well-being, and structural inclusion. The difference between democratic socialism and classic Marxist doctrine (or welfare-state liberalism) is not only the way it is morally grounded in terms of participatory justice: a principle, which decries not only away with redistribution, but also the democratizing of life-defining processes themselves. [...]
[...] The secularism should be dynamic, self-corrective and must be put into context as argued by Rajeev Bhargava. The ethical importance of it is that it permits one to disagree without degrading others and that no particular morality should be made hegemonic. In the case of any kind of political community aiming at social justice, this kind of secularism inclusive, reflective, and ethically plural, offers that needed room to dignity, dissent, and democratic ethics. 3.2 Secularism and Ethics based on Human beings The standpoint of secularism is an affirmation of the moral agency of a person and the fact that we do not have to appeal to divine orders to be able to do ethical reasoning. [...]
[...] In the meantime, these policies can be aligned with ethics through secularism, using which a discussion of such policies, as well as support thereof, can be done without excluding anybody. The combination of the two becomes powerful in seeking positive change. A society that recreates established privilege and naturalized pain cannot identify as a just society. Social justice, on this note, is not the process of simply remedying the apparent injustices, but also the process of challenge the moral presuppositions whereby the injustices remain unquestioned. [...]
