by A.S. Cajes
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| Foto by www.iasc-culture.org |
Equity is best understood in the
context of justice, which is the foundation of any social order. Justice is
giving what is due to a person, i.e., something that is naturally necessary to
satisfy a fundamental human need.
But justice, says Manuel Dy Jr., is the
minimum of love, and love is the maximum justice. And love, which is to will
and to take steps to promote the well-being of people, cuts across generations,
across places and across time.
Thus, love and justice lie at the very core of
the concept of sustainable development. Indeed, sustainable development only
becomes meaningful if it is able to meet the demands of love and justice.
The commitment of sustainable
development to the fundamental option to love is not divorced from the idea of
fundamental option for the poor because “the concept of needs refers, in
particular to the essential needs of the world’s poor (WCED: 40)...” The idea of justice and love suggests a bias to the
“least disadvantaged in society.”
Thus, the first function of sustainable development is the satisfaction of the
fundamental human needs of the helpless.
Reference
World
Commission on Environment and Development (WCED). Our Common Future. Oxford and
New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.
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