Question

How can Ubuntu working together with justice balance inherent ideas of rehabilitative justice

Answer 1

Although I am not sure that I fully understand ubuntu since there appear to have been many ways in which the concept has been used, but from what I have been able to gather, ubuntu may well be tantamount to justice. To the extent that the philosophy holds that society gives human beings their humanity it seems essentially similar, if not identical, to my own notion that human rights, the basis of justice, are defined not as a gift from a transcendental god but by the legitimacy granted to claims that human beings make to hold specific rights. That legitimacy is, in turn, basically a consensus of any given society (or community) that recognizes the claims as valid.

Although I am not sure that I fully understand ubuntu since there appear to have been many ways in which the concept has been used, but from what I have been able to gather, ubuntu may well be tantamount to justice. To the extent that the philosophy holds that society gives human beings their humanity it seems essentially similar, if not identical, to my own notion that human rights, the basis of justice, are defined not as a gift from a transcendental god but by the legitimacy granted to claims that human beings make to hold specific rights. That legitimacy is, in turn, basically a consensus of any given society (or community) that recognizes the claims as valid.To the extent that rehabilitative justice focuses on bringing transgressors of these sorts of socially defined rights of other human beings, the victims of transgression, it appears to represent a claim of a human right to live as a productive, or valued, member of a society. Although I suspect that rehabilitative justice is often considered antithetical to restorative justice, with its emphasis on making whole the victims of transgressions, it is actually a complementary requirement. In order to be accepted into a society which has defined an action by one of its members as a transgression, or violation of another member’s rights, the transgressor can only be truly rehabilitated by making amends, i.e., doing all that is possible to restore the victim’s full humanity. I see this as very similar to 12-step programs’ to seeking forgiveness for the damage that has been caused by the transgressor’s actions.

I hope it helps you.....