JUSTICE AS UNIVERSAL LOVE
AN ENDORSEMENT, DEFENSE AND BROADENING OFANDERSONS IDEA OF DEMOCRATIC EQUALITY
BY DAVID CASPERS
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STUDENT UNIVERSITY COLLEGE MAASTRICHT
WORD COUNT: 6743
Introduction....................................................31. Definition of Universal Love.................................31.1 The original position of universal love.........................4
2. The nine key characteristics of universal love...............42.1. Universal love is universal....................................52.2. Gude Laune as the end-state of happiness and the satisfaction of wants...............................................................52.3.Every human is capable of exercising unconditional love.........62.4.The remaining six characteristics in short......................9
3. Love Utopia..................................................94. The love test...............................................115. Anderson meets the Love Test and the 9 principles of universallove...........................................................125.1.The love-problem of luck-egalitarianism........................135.1.1. Option luck vs. “brute luck”...............................14
5.2.The alternative system of democratic equality and its coherence with the nine principles of universal love.........................155.2.1 Democratic equality and its institution of the state of Love Utopia............................................................155.2.2. Democratic Equality and distribution of resources in Love Utopia............................................................16
6. Conclusion..................................................197. References..................................................20
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Introduction
The philosophical concept of Universal Love has been initially
established in the paper “Justice as Universal Love- A critique of Robert
Nozick” by David Caspers (2014). It shall now be outlined,
analyzed and explained in more detail to serve its direct
application to Andersons theory of democratic equality as
distributive justice in our societies. The idea of universal love
in a philosophical context provides a radically different
egalitarian approach to distributive justice.
Firstly, the philosophical idea and concept of universal
love is introduced to the reader on the basis of a so-called
“original position of universal love”. Secondly, through an in-
depth guidance of the reader through the three most important key
principles of universal love the idea of universal love shall be
operationalized culminating in a set of in total nine key
principles that need to be fulfilled in order to form a society
of universal love. Thirdly, facilitating and simplifying a case-
application of these principles, an imagined community of hippies
living under the principles of universal love shall be
introduced. This hippie community, as designed to be the final
stage of universal love, shall be called Mini-Love Utopia.
Fourthly, in order to facilitate and streamline the abstract idea
of universal love into a philosophical tool to be worked with, a
love-test just as the envy-test inspired by Dworkin, shall be
introduced. Working from within the limited domain of resource
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distribution the love-test shall be capable to answer the
question of what brings us to a state of universal love. Fifthly
and lastly the love-test and the 9 principles of universal love
will be applied directly to Elizabeth Andersons text “What is the
point of equality”, and used as a means to reinforce, defend and
broaden the argument of Anderson, but also of justice as
universal love itself. Through this logical line of
argumentation, a theory of distributive justice capable of
promoting universal love as perceived in the original position of
universal love is identified, defended and reinforced.
1. Definition of Universal Love
When thinking about universal love, various different categories
of love can be identified first. There are many shapes of love,
such as the love to ones parents, to a friend, to a lover, to a
culture, to good food and music and smells. Love is a feeling and
a state of mind, and at the same time the driving source for the
most important things in life: the creation of life itself and
the sources of enjoyment within it.
Universal love is multi-significant. It can be seen as an
altruistic attitude of love and friendliness. It also means to
refuse animosity, bitterness and resentment. Self-interest is
subordinated to communal interest in a framework of universal
love, as the community is capable of constantly upholding a warm-
hearted feeling of fellowship and sympathy. Universal love
overcomes all social, religious, racial political and economic
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barriers. It has additional multiple meanings, such as being a
societal state of mind, a direct expression of an emotion or, as
will be shown, the basis for a theoretical framework for a theory
of justice.
1.1 The original position of universal love
I take it as granted, that universal love is highly desirable to
all human beings. After all, who dislikes the feeling of loving
and being loved? For the sake of realizing what would be the most
pure, and true to the core way that universal love would manifest
itself, I am putting myself behind a veil of ignorance and into
the so-called “original position”. This perspective ignores all
social realities that exist, that are surrounding us and that are
influencing our perception and ideal of what justice would look
like. It is from this perspective of standing in the original
position that the principles of universal love have to be looked
at. Seen from this position, universal love has great appeal for
humanitarian and egalitarian reasons, and provides one of the
most compelling arguments to strive for collective welfare,
communal engagement and less selfishness.
2. The nine key characteristics of universal love
To underline principles of universal love, and in order to bring
them into context with political philosophy, I have come up with
nine key principles of universal love in order to operationalize
the yet vague concept of universal love into an academically
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workable shape. The three most important ones are elaborated upon
in more detail: its universality, it´s aim for an end-state of
happiness through meeting “wants” at a sufficient level, and the
capability of every human to exercise universal love. Due to the
limited scope of this paper, the remaining six key principles are
written out only in short.
2.1. Universal love is universal
Universal love can be philosophically seen as the Higgs-Boson1
permeating the social glue of our communities, holding together
human bonds, families and societies. Using the Higgs-Boson as an
example, a cohesive example of the origins of universal love can
be provided. Universal love did not simply appear all of a sudden
during the Stone Age. Rather I argue, it has been there since the
beginning of time, since the big bang of our universe, and has
since then continued to permeate the surroundings in which human
societies are embedded in to different degrees determined by
humans themselves.
This theoretical view of universal love as a meta-physical,
non-detectable web of energies helps us to explain what is meant
with the word universal. Imagine that this ever-present web of
universal love-energies creates the capability for humans, to
from within naturally be capable of exercising and living the
spirit of universal love. How humans react to and interpret these
capabilities of universal love on everyday basis has been, is and
1 The Higgs Boson is proof of the existence of the so-called Higgs Field, ahypothetical, invisible kind of force field that pervades the whole universe
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always will be up to the personal freedom and character of each
human himself. As explained, the particles of universal love have
to be imagined to be all-encompassing, to exist at any time and
geographic point in the world and are thus to be understood as
unbounded by time and space constraints2. If we take these
premises as granted, universal love is universal, for it cannot
be constrained by any force in the world except by humans within
themselves. Consequently, if it can be constrained by humans for
their capability of themselves to exercise universal love, it can
also be liberated again by the human mind to thrive.
2.2. Gude Laune as the end-state of happiness and the satisfaction of wants
DJ Sven Väth, a famous German Techno-DJ and artist at the
famous Berlin Love Parade, is widely known in the scene for his
words of wisdom he repeatedly proclaims to crowds when playing
his sets: “It is all about the Gude Laune people!” (Väth, 2006).
For the Love Parade in Berlin is a group of lovers of music
united in their love for dance, the music itself and the other
people surrounding them can be compared to temporary members of a
2 The beauty about this cosmic way of explaining universal love is, that whileit obviously stands on very shaky grounds from a scientific perspective, ithas neither been scientifically proven as right nor wrong so far- no one hasbeen capable of measuring or detecting universal love reliably withinstruments, making it extremely hard to determine whether it exists or not.Given this background, the cosmic way deserves to be considered as ahypothetical and idealistic true way of explaining universal love
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hippie community. This comparison is deepened and made clearer at
a later stage as Love Utopia. Gude Laune means something like “it
is all about the good vibes and moods”, and carries its subtle
very own additional and precise meanings hard to translate to the
English language. I claim that Gude Laune is the second underlying
principle of universal love. The mental and societal state of Gude
Laune carries the positive attitude towards life, embracement of
joy, happiness, respect and an optimistic and positive attitude
towards life and other human beings inherently necessary for
universal love. One of the core attributes of a distributive
philosophical theory of universal love shall be reaching this
societal state of mind. In philosophical terms, Gude Laune refers
to a state of happiness induced through the satisfaction of basic
“wants” or needs such as food and shelter and a healthy state of
the body and mind.
Gude Laune simultaneously can be seen as the behavioral change
from individualist towards communal, from materialistic towards
idealistic, from selfish to benevolent attitudes. Gude Laune is a
societal state of mind acting very much alike a societal perpetuum
mobile3. The law of attraction states “like attracts like”. In other
words, humans focusing on positive thoughts will be attracting
other people with positive thoughts. Through this mechanism, and
because positive thoughts and attitudes are not limited in their
quantities, a constantly reinforcing mechanism is created.
3 a vehicle that per definition is feeding itself with energy without anyexternal source of energy necessary
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From a sociological, human perspective, Gude Laune can be seen
as state of extreme cohesion of social capital that provides the
community of universal love with a societal state of mind. This
enables increasingly sustainable, satisfying lives blessed by
universal welfare for all members of society in the here and now
and the foreseeable future.
2.3.Every human is capable of exercising unconditional love
For the argument of universal love as ideal theory of justice to
be defendable, it needs to be reasonably well established that
every human is capable of exercising and practicing universal
love. As only the proof of this capability allows building a
society in the first place that puts the ability to grow and
fully enjoy ones capability of universal love at its center,
without alienating or discriminating e.g. mentally disabled
citizens not capable of pracitcting universal love. If there
would be humans incapable of exercising or learning universal
love, it would be inherently unfair and unjust and against the
important principle of the universality of love. Without the
universality established, the theory of universal love would
become based on brute luck. However, as will be shown, the theory
of universal love provides a counter-theory to luck-
egalitarianism.
It is obviously extremely hard to scientifically prove the
existence of universal love as natural “God-given” surrounding
element in our societies, for it cannot be measured, quantified
or directly altered using technology. Yet, its philosophical
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existence can be proven. First however a quick detour to the
human underlying image that we accept has to be taken.
Underlying to the idea of universal love is an absolutely
positive and optimistic image of human nature, far away from the
limited models for predicting human behavior such as the homo
oeconomicus (lat.: economic man) that largely ignores vital human
dimensions such as ethics and morals. In opposition to the homo
oeconomicus that defines in many ways the selfish character
attributes of contemporary society, I would like to propose the
human image of the homo amoris universalitate (lat.: man of universal love). The
homo amoris universalitate I propose has ethical and emotional concerns
and morals at its center, subordinating all other values to the
ones of universal love, happiness and compassion at the core4.
The perfect homo oeconomicus, “that through his reinforcement of
economic models used in our world becomes more and more a reality
[…], and in the long run ultimately predictable and thus not only
eliminates the concept of a free market but also is the ultimate
humiliation to humans” (Hürter & Vasek, 2014) stands in contrast
to the homo amoris universalitate. This homo amoris universalitate rather
stands in the Aristotelian tradition of the desire for a life of
Eudaimonia (Greek: human flourishing). In this view, humans engage with
each other for the sake of experiencing universal love and the
flourishing of human nature and societies. Yet, while this short4 This radically different human image underlying the theory clearly needsfurther analysis and argumentative support structure. It nevertheless make thepoint clear, that a radical change to a different economic, social andpolitical perception of the human image is necessary to enable a broadunderstanding of universal love making our societies capable of accepting andliving it
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explanation of the alternative underlying human image does not
prove the capability of humans to universally love, it
established the necessary paradigm change one has to mentally go
through in order to avoid non-clarity and confusion with the
concepts of universal love.
Prove that humans are capable of exercising and living
universal love is established through looking at the two aspects
of capability of universal love. First of all I am talking about
the capability of practicing and living according to the
standards of universal love, thus by definition of the word
capability the power or ability to do this. Hence, it needs to be
proven that first of all every human is capable of love, and
secondly and crucially to be capable of loving universally.
There are more than enough proofs that every human is
capable of feeling and exercising love. Most of us remember the
love they felt as a young child towards their parents. The love
for my mother and father is different from the love I feel for my
very good friends, just as it is different to the love I feel
towards my partner in life. Apart from perhaps some extremely
rare cases of genetic dysfunction, every human born feels a
special love for their mother. It is an evolutionary trick of
nature to secure and protect the young, dependent and vulnerable
baby from harm, making it capable of surviving under the
protection of its parents. The feeling of love is a chemo-
biological process in the brain, based on serotonin, oxytocin,
dopamine and other chemicals that are poured out in the brain
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when falling or being in love. Thus, every human is technically
capable of feeling and exercising love. The widely perceived
limited applicability of its universal applicability to all
humans can be partially explained by the social norms governing
our industrialized, capitalist societies: to love universally,
thus to love everybody in a society is condemned as weird. After
all, capitalists argue that there is no materialistic benefit in
loving and giving to people unconditionally that one does not
know. However, especially within small-scale communities, humans
have repeatedly shown that they are capable of practicing
universal love. Resources are shared with everybody non-
conditionally, people have smiles on their faces and Gude Laune,
and love is given without the need to be given back immediately.
2.4.The remaining six characteristics in short
For the sake of this paper, only the first three key
characteristics of universal love according to me have been lined
out in more detail. The full list of the nine characteristics of
universal love is in short5:
1.) Universal love is universal
2.) It´s aim is the end state of Gude Laune
5 I want to express my concerns for the potential personal limitedness in coming up with „Key characteristics“ of universal love, and want to encourage every reader to take part in the discussion on this matter. For it is only with a working definition of universal love, that it becomes useful and discussable in an academic environment without creating too much confusion.
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3.) Every human is capable of exercising and living
universal love. Furthermore, universal love postulates the
idea of a homo amoris universalitate as underlying human image
4.) The universal love and power of a human community is
the strongest, most resources and welfare-giving, socially
uniting force between humans and groups of humans - strong
bonds between members of the hippie-community, and absolute
social openness are key pillars for universal love
5.) A community of universal love lives in harmony with
itself and its surrounding nature, for it sees any form of
live as sacred and loveable
6.) In a society founded in universal love, a strong
personal materialistic detachment takes place in the
interest of giving back to the community
7.) Universal love is voluntary
8.) Universal love is not limited or bound in time and
space
9.) Universal love should be lived and given to others
unconditionally, for creating conditions upon which
universal love is given or received would break the
universality of love
3. Love Utopia
After I have shown what the nine key principles of universal love
are according to me, a hypothetical utopian society that is very
much founded on and inspired by the idea of Plato’s Republic is
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successively introduced. Based on a set of virtues and values,
such as postulated and operationalized in the nine key principles
of universal love as seen above, a perfect and just society shall
be imagined that is based upon these principles. Love-Utopia is
an imagined community of hippies, living together on a small
island under the principles of universal love. Just like in the
Plutonian Utopia, Love Utopia has its own sets of rules and norms
on the basis of which equality and ultimately satisfaction and
fulfillment is achieved.
According to Socrates the newly founded city of Plato’s
Republic will be “wise, brave, sober, and just […] if it has been
rightly founded in the full sense” (Plato & Halliwell, 1988).
This slightly circular argument can be used just the same way for
Love Utopia. If it has been rightly founded, with the core belief
of absolutely fulfilling all nine key principles of universal
love, then it will be wise, sustainable, fulfilling and just.
So just like the voluntary community of dancers united in
the name of love and music during the times of the Love parade6,
the hippie community of Love Utopia is absolutely voluntary. For
it is permeated by universal love, which in itself has to be
given voluntarily to others, wherefore membership of the
community is to be chosen individually. Yet, for the
universalistic aspect of universal love and its time and
geographic non-limitedness, universal love is to be found
everywhere on the island. Love Utopia carries an underlying human
6 A free yearly techno parade in the heart of Berlin during the 90s, eventuallyattracting more than a million ravers and music lovers
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image of the homo amoris universalitate. This image is “implying the
eagerness and openness to always care and look out for each
other, to meet, discuss laugh and dance together with random
strangers on the streets, and to enjoy a fulfilling and happy
life” (Caspers, 2014). Seeing any form of life sacred and
loveable, as well as realizing that the community is the
strongest, most resources and welfare giving force will
incentivize the hippie on the island to voluntarily life
together. When the hippies are sharing their resources with each
other, everyone is better of. At the same time, given the strong
focus on upholding, creating and deepening social bonds between
each other, a different valuation of materialistic resources has
taken place in Love Utopia. The hippies realize, that they are
much happier with each other if they can stop bothering about the
protection of their own property, for they do not believe that
they really “own” anything (apart from their own body) to its
full extent that exists in the world.
“As everybody loves everybody unconditionally in this ideal state of Mini Love-
Utopia, and a strong detachment of materialistic obsessions has taken place,
there is no problem in redistributing material resources from the
materialistically rich to the materialistically poor, and in the end everybody is
left off happier - as the desires born out of universal love have been met
through the redistributive process.” (Caspers, 2014)
This way the state of justness has been reached in the society of
Love Utopia. Additionally, the desire to find happiness, and
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satisfaction of wants and desires (Gude Laune), has been achieved
as the end-state in the society of universal love. 7
4. The love test
From a concept such as the Love Utopia, where a fully
operationalized conception of universal love is lived, general
principles of justice promoting, supporting and realizing
principles of universal love in our current societies can be
deducted. The so-called love test provides us with a test that
allows us to establish whether or not the redistribution of
resources in a society is grounded in the key principles of
universal love. This test, when applied in the setting of love-
utopia, is capable of determining whether or not the ultimate
state of justice has been found. As a consequence, with this test
existing theories of justice that both promote and realize
principles of justice grounded in the key principles of universal
love as established earlier can be identified. Because the end-
state of love utopia is still unrealistically far away for the
societies we currently live in, this trick has to be undertaken
in order to find a path towards universal love. We want to know
what the perfect state of justice would look like in a society
founded entirely in the desirable state of universal love. This
state of justice is represented in the distributive method of
resources based on the love-test, which is considered as ideal
for it is in line with the nine principles of universal love.
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Consequently, the theories looked at should be either supported
and argumentatively deepened, or heavily criticized
The love test has been inspired by the envy test created by
Ronald Dworkin8, and is founded on the idea of a society with a
deeply rooted conviction of voluntary universal love and respect,
harmony for society itself and within it, and reaching an end
state of Gude Laune.
“The love test states, that resources are not distributed, but shared in such a
manner, that, as soon as no one would want anyone else anymore to receive
more materialistic resources an optimum state has been found.” (Caspers,
2014)
It has to be made clear one more time, that this love state has
the underlying assumption of a homo amoris universalitate. The universal
capability of every human to love is the source of this “wanting”
of more resources by individuals for others. It is through this
mechanism, that especially the most worse off will always receive
something, whilst being treated with respect and dignity equally
to the materialistically rich.
5. Anderson meets the Love Test and the 9 principles of universal love
8 „No division of resources is an equal division if, once the division is complete, any immigrant would prefer someone else´s bundle of resources to hisown bundle.”(Dworkin, 1981)
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After the nine principles of universal love have been established
and elaborated upon in depth in the case example of a
hypothetical perfect society following these principles called
Love Utopia, the love-test has been introduced as a means to
compare and contrast different theories of distributive justice.
It is not time to introduce a philosophical reading and use the
tools that have just been established.
Throughout the text “What is the Point of Equality?” by
Elizabeth Anderson several reoccurring themes have arisen. The
first theme consists of the philosophical arguments brought
forward by Anderson against luck-egalitarianism as postulated by
Arneson, Cohen, Dworkin, Nagel and van Parijs. The second theme
is the discussion about the proposed alternative system of
democratic equality as designed by Anderson herself. As a
consequence of the introduction of this new system, two new
themes about the role of the state and the ways of resource
distribution automatically arise too. As will be seen throughout
almost all of these themes, universal love serves as a useful
tool to deepen, defend and broaden the (counter-) arguments
brought forward by Anderson.
5.1.The love-problem of luck-egalitarianism
Elizabeth Anderson reiterates that Ronald Dworkin “defines
equality as an envy-free distribution of resources” (Anderson,
1999; Dworkin, 1981). Simultaneously, Anderson argues, that the
agenda of egalitarian theorizing is to narrowly focused “on the
distribution of divisible, privately appropriated goods such as
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income and resources, or privately enjoyed goods, such as
welfare” (Anderson, 1999). This is a principle shared by the
philosophy of universal love. The sole view of distribution of
material resources as a source of equality is counter-intuitive
for a philosophy that puts the human at its core, and not its
possessions. The communal consensus prevailing in the society of
Love Utopia views welfare and equality more holistically,
focusing on equality of respect and universal love for each
member at its core
Anderson deepens the argument with regards to brute luck and
optional luck by arguing that recent egalitarian writing has come
to be dominated by the view “that the fundamental aim of equality
is to compensate people for undeserved bad luck- being born with
poor native endowments, bad parents” (ibid.) etc. This, according
to Anderson, is out of touch with political aims of
egalitarianism, which at its core has the idea “to end
oppression, which by definition is socially imposed”(ibid.).
Furthermore, egalitarianism as proclaimed by Anderson should have
the aim “to create a community in which people stand in relations
of equality to others”(ibid.).
Universal love adds several important notions to this
reasoning. Firstly, given its universality, universal love is
lived by everybody in a society of love, and every member of the
love-society is capable of exercising it. Given the universal
capability of citizens to universally love, and the societal
consensus of loving everybody equally and unconditionally,
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oppression is unthinkable; the oppressors do not oppress people
for that it is against both principles of loving unconditionally
and universally. Secondly, with the end-state of Gude Laune in
mind, oppression is to be seen as a destructive social phenomena
acting against this end-goal. Oppression creates anger,
frustration and envy, which have a negative emotional influence
on the social bonds between humans and their capability to
exercise universal love freely. Therefore, it needs to be
criticized. Lastly, universal love supports creating a community
in which people stand in relations of equality to others, for
relations of equality create and maintain strong social bonds,
social openness and harmony within societies.
5.1.1. Option luck vs. “brute luck”
Taking the stand of luck egalitarians and their resulting
theories of equality of fortune, Ronald Dworkin argues that
“justice demand that the state compensate each individual for
whatever brute risks they would have insured themselves against,
on the assumption that all were equally likely to suffer from the
risk” (Anderson, 1999). Simultaneously, luck egalitarians also
argue that the victims of very bad option luck deserve their
misfortune, and society does not need to secure them against
exploitation.
Firstly, while it is appraisable that luck egalitarians want
to compensate the unlucky humans punished with an e.g. disability
or less intelligence, the motivations on which this compensation
takes place is highly questionable. The “chief appeal of equality
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of fortune […] lies in the appearance of humanitarianism9”(ibid.)
as reason for acting. This can be either seen as motivated by
ideas of universal love, or pity. A society that works towards
equality on the basis of pity violates the fundamental expressive
requirement of any theory of egalitarian justice, for it ignores
the idea of equal respect for all citizens. “Pity is incompatible
with respecting the dignity of others” (ibid.). Anderson states,
“it is hard to see how citizens could be expected to accept such
reasoning and still retain their self-respect”(ibid.). Pity in
itself is not necessarily bad from a perspective of universal
love, yet it becomes disrespectful as soon as it arises out of
negative emotions and not the true, inherent desire of humans to
help fellow human beings. Therefore, if it is pity for the sake
of treating others like inferiors, it has to be abolished. Yet,
truly felt pity grounded in feelings of universal love has to be
endorsed by the theory of universal love.
Secondly, the argument of not caring about victims of
optional luck has to be heavily criticized from the standpoint of
democratic equality and universal love. A society that permits
“the creation of outcasts and subordinate classes” (ibid.) can be
as repressive as a despotic regime. It ignores the fundamental
values of mutual unconditional respect and platonic communal love
within a framework of universal love, and ignores and actively
counteracts the power of the human community as the strongest9 Compassion becomes pity, as soon as the internal characteristic judgement about a person is not „She is badly off“ but „she is worse off than me and thus sadly inferior“. While both feelings carry potential positive outputs, only pity is condescending and disrespectful.
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most socially uniting force between humans. The community,
designed to liberate individuals in a community of universal
love, turns in this case into an oppressor within a framework of
luck-egalitarianism.
Anderson also lines out that equality of fortune assumes
atomistic egoism and self-sufficiency as the norm for human
beings. The contrast of the theory of equality of fortune to the
theory of universal love could not be clearer: the human image of
universal love is communal altruism and community-power, in
contrast to atomistic, individualistic selfish egoism and the
belief in self-sufficiency. Herewith, the last argumentative
deathblow to equality of fortune as acceptable to a theory of
justice based on universal love has been given.
5.2.The alternative system of democratic equality and its coherence with the nine principles of universal love
The idea of democratic equality by Anderson provides an
alternative philosophical framework, through which justice in
societies can be achieved. It will be analyzed on the basis of
the nine principles of universal love, whilst imagining what the
institution of the state would look like in Love Utopia. To
finalize, a discussion about how resources should be distributed
in a love-utopian society is established, using the envy and the
love-test to determine possible solutions to this problem.
5.2.1 Democratic equality and its institution of the state of Love Utopia
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The theory Anderson defends is called “democratic equality”. It
actively seeks the construction of a “community of equals”,
integrating “principles of distribution with the expressive
demands for equal respect” (ibid.). In Andersons theory of
democratic equality the fundamental aim of every citizen is to
secure everybody´s freedom, thus no one is told what to do or
judged on the responsibility for choices that had unfortunate
outcomes. Democratic equality proposes a society where “persons
stand in relations of equality”(Anderson, 1999). The democratic
community, in contrast to a hierarchical one, understands
democracy as a collective self-determination “by means of open
discussion among equals, in accordance to rules acceptable to
all” (ibid.). No one is inferior to anyone else, and everybody
shall receive the same amount of attention and respect when
talking. Furthermore, democratic equality is “a relational theory
of equality; it views equality as a social relationship”(ibid.).
This view enjoys strong support from the view of justice as a
consequence of universal love. The idea of superiority or
inferiority does not exist in a society truly grounded in
universal love, for everybody is loved unconditionally and
universally. The right to a collective self-determination ensures
the state of Gude Laune for all citizens of that society, for it
guarantees them with a self-determined, idealistic community that
is run by the community itself. This democratic management system
ensures furthermore that the society can live in harmony with
itself- thus, that no person in political power abuses his or her
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power for personal benefit and thereby creating societal
disharmonies. A relational theory of justice fulfills insofar the
requirements of a theory of justice congruent with universal
love, as it acknowledges the importance of each individual for
the society, without discriminating and marginalizing. Putting
every member on equal footing of respect gives true political and
societal value and power to the universally acknowledged inherent
value and sacredness of human life itself.
5.2.2. Democratic Equality and distribution of resources in Love Utopia
For every society talking about justice, needs to talk about how
resources should be distributed. Throughout this paragraph, the
importance of enabling citizens to being capable of living a
fulfilling and happy life is established. Following this, the
envy-test and the love-test are discussed
Democratic equality strives for equality of capabilities,
with capabilities as defined by Amartya Sen as sets of
functioning’s one can achieve, given the personal, material and
social resources available. For the e.g. capability of every
human to work, effective access to means of sustaining one´s
biological existence is necessary. Food, shelter, clothing,
medical care and “access to basic conditions of human
agency”(Anderson, 1999) such as the psychological conditions of
autonomy, including the self-confidence to think and judge for
oneself, freedom of thought and movement” are necessary for
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humans to being capable of being a free and equal citizen.
Societies based on universal love clearly endorse the idea of a
capabilities approach, as is also reflected in the belief of a
love-capability inherent to every human as manifested as key
principle. The state cannot tell its citizens what to do and how
to manage their lives on a long-term large-scale basis. Rather, a
society based on universal love proposes to equip its citizens
with the right capabilities to flourish, so to e.g. have food-
security, the right to shelter, water and education. It is
important to note, that securing only the capabilities the
citizens need and not declaring which ones are more important
than others allows individuals to decide for themselves how
useful or important the goods are that the state guarantees to
them. Citizens are obliged to provide each other with that
certain minimum level of resources for sufficiency reasons. For
without this sufficient level of care provided for each other
human dignity, mutual respect and the principle of universal love
are ignored and led ad absurdum.
The envy-test as proposed by Ronald Dworkin is based on
thought of: “I want what you have”. The only way citizens that
are materialistically worse off than others can claim their fair
share is through the expression of envy. This limited idea of
offering ones own “envy as a reason to the envied to satisfy one
´s desire is profoundly disrespectful” (ibid.). This shows the
limitation of the envy test for a theory of egalitarian justice
based on equality of respect. Theories of equality of fortune are
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distributive theories, perceiving equality as patterns of
distribution. The love-test on the other hand as has been
introduced earlier already, perceives equality not as a
materialistic issue to be solved, but as an idealistic issue of
respect. This goes hand in hand with the idea of democratic
equality, that argues, “goods must be distributed according to
principles and processes that express respect for all” (ibid.).
It furthermore states, that the correct distribution of resources
requires “that everyone have effective access to enough resources
to avoid being oppressed by others and to function as an equal in
civil society” (ibid.). Cultural norms, the natural environment
and individual circumstances determine what is “enough” in this
context.
The love-test states that, if “resources are not distributed, but shared
in such a manner, that, as soon as no one would want anyone else anymore to receive
more materialistic resources an optimum state has been found” (Caspers, 2014).
This test is in direct emotional contrast to the envy test, it
finds universal love at its center of thought and not envy. It
implies, that equal respect to all citizens is given
unconditionally, as mutual unconditional love and respect for
everybody is the philosophical basis in the society of universal
love. It rests on the assumption, that in a society where
everybody loves everybody unconditionally, justice with regards
to distribution of material resources is automatically achieved
through the human power of exercising universal love. Because
people know what other people like, want and need, they take care
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that each and everyone of them receives these resources from the
common pool. Given a strong materialistic detachment and a
perception of humans as strongly embedded within and dependent on
a community in love utopia, people are willing and ready to share
the resources for the purpose of strengthening everybody within
their community and thereby the health of the community itself.
The benevolent wanting for other people to receive more is
satisfied as soon as even the worst off have received a healthy
level of resources, making the capable of living a fulfilling
life. The question arises, which mechanism would be good and
useful to carry this out. Luckily, one way of doing this, which I
regard as highly useful, has come up in recent debates of
distributive justice.
The idea of an unconditional basic income provides every
citizen with the absolutely equal amount of respect, non-
conditionality, and lastly a sufficient level of resources. It
does not look at the age, gender, race or social standing of
citizens receiving the income. Already Rawls has stressed the
fact that people within a society hold different perceptions of
the good. If a society aims to provide its citizens with
resources to enable them of their capabilities, these goods can
be called neutral goods for the purpose of justice. Neutral not
in the sense of being equally valuable in comparison with other
goods, but because “reasonable people can recognize that these
form a legitimate basis for making moral claims on one
another”(ibid.). Anderson proposes that “one mechanism for
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achieving a decent minimum” on which people could live “would be
a minimum wage”(ibid.). The proposal of a minimum wage is
already the correct first step, as it provides a more equal
footing in guaranteed resources and also respect one receives for
his work. Universal love however goes further in arguing that an
unconditional basic income should be provided by the state to all
its citizens. It is the ultimate manifestation of what universal
love would look like if applied to the idea of a welfare state.
It provides a neutral ground from which people can make moral
claims on one another, and works absolutely hand in hand with the
nine principles of universal love10. The unconditional basic
income would equip all citizens with the most elementary basic
needs and capabilities to live a happy, fulfilling life, and thus
provides an elegant and swift solution to the end-state of
universal love, Gude Laune.
6. Conclusion
Throughout this text, the concept of universal love has been
established as a philosophical concept. It has been done by
moving from the original position of universal love towards nine
key principles of universal love that can be established from the
original position. On the basis of these nine principles, a
10 Given that the philosophical concept of universal love is still in its beginnings, an in-depth discussion of why Universal Love would work best with an unconditional basic income still needs to be elaborated upon and established in more detail. Time and space-constraints refrain me from doing this in the context of this paper as we speak.
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perfect society called Love Utopia has been imagined living to
the rules of universal love, and with the underlying human image
of the homo amoris universalitate. A test to reach the perfect state of
material distribution in Love Utopia has been established, called
Love-Test. This test, together with the nine principles of
universal love, has subsequently been applied to the discussion
of Anderson and her theory of democratic equality.
Several important conclusions can be drawn from this paper.
As Anderson and the theory of universal love have highlighted,
the principles of justice deductible from luck-egalitarian
theories are to be condemned for several reasons: Luck
egalitarians ignore the inherent value of every human being, his
dignity and the resulting necessity to always equally respect
every human being, as they either argue out of condescending pity
or on the basis of envy. Through failing to show the equal
respect to everybody, luck egalitarians consequently fail the
most important pillar of egalitarianism: to create a society of
equals. Anderson theory of democratic equality and my theory of
universal love share the condemnation of pity and disrespectful
behavior, whilst putting humans into the center of attention and
promoting a materialistic detachment. The theory of universal
love has deepened the idea of the capabilities approach as used
by Anderson and Sen, with regards to arguing that within a
society of universal love an equality of capabilities is
desirable.
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Lastly, the theory of universal love has argued, that in
line with Anderson’s idea of democratic equality and the idea of
a “minimum wage” to create more equality of capabilities, an
unconditional basic income should be introduced. This would
create a society of equals as postulated by Anderson, which is
founded in equal respect for everybody whilst maintaining
individual freedoms and incentive structures enabling people to
determine their own future.
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7. References
Anderson, E. S. (1999). What Is the Point of Equality?*.
Ethics, 109(2), 287-337.
Caspers, D. (2014). Justice as Universal Love - A
critique of Robert Nozick’s idea of self-ownership.
Dworkin, R. (1981). What is equality? Part 2: Equality
of resources. Philosophy & Public Affairs, 283-345.
Hürter, T., & Vasek, T. (2014). Zombies des Zasters.
Hohe Luft Philosophie Zeitschrift(5), 20-27.
Plato, & Halliwell, S. (1988). Republic 10: Cambridge Univ
Press.
Väth, S. (2006). It is all about the Gude Laune.
Youtube.
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