Bibliography: BIB22688

web link	bahai-library.com/bibliography/BIB22688
reference type	Journal Article
title	Love, Power and Justice
journal	Journal of Bahá'í Studies
author	Hatcher, William S.
Authority control 1	William S. Hatcher
authority control	William S. Hatcher
year	1999
date	September 1999
issue	3
volume	9
abstract	Human history is replete with systematic injustices, such as the persistence and ubiquity of slavery or the perennial domination of women by men. We hold that the pursuit of power, which has been the root cause of these injustices, was a moral choice to which there were viable alternatives, rejecting thereby the materialistic thesis that humans are inherently and ineradicably programmed to be powerseekers. Besides the fact of the abuse of power, there has also been the moral justification for this fact, provided primarily by various ideologies that attempt to legitimize interhuman cruelty as a defense of certain values which, though generated by humans themselves, are nevertheless presumed superior to humans. We hold that there are no such values -- that the human being is the highest value in creation. We can therefore escape the vicious cycle of ideologically justified cruelty by replacing the pursuit of power with the pursuit of authentic interhuman relationships based on love and universal mutuality.
language	English
keywords	POWER; LOVE; JUSTICE; ETHICS
pages	1–23