Ethics

How can it possibly be the case that "injustice everywhere is a threat to justice anywhere"? It really plausible to suggest that Turkmenistan's oppression of the Bahá'ís has a substantial impact on the rights of Canadian Jews?

Comments

Perhaps Martin Luther King, Jr. did not mean this quotation quite as literally as you seem to be taking it. He seems to mean that we should take a more encompassing vision of what counts as justice and what our obligations are. So, it is unlikely that oppression in Turkmenistan has "a substantial impact" on the rights of people in Canada. But that does not mean that people in Canada shouldn't care about what is happening in Turkmenistan or vice versa, and if they are able to do anything about it, they should. And until justice is achieved everywhere, complete justice is not achieved.

King was responding in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail to Southern ministers and others he called 'moderates' because they argued that he should not be in Birmingham trying to change the segregation laws there (in what they thought were 'radical' ways). He argued that his view of justice, inspired by people like Jesus, demands that he do what he can to prevent injustice outside of his city or state (or nation--he also argued vehemently against injustices in Africa, Vietnam, etc.).

And obviously, in this case the injustices in Birmingham did have a substantial impact on people's rights elsewhere. More importantly, his fight against the injustices there had a dramatic impact on all Americans, and (like one of his role models, Ghandi) on other nations where people fight for justice.

So, basically, the lesson is sometimes wonderful statements are not meant to be analyzed as conceptual truths! (On a related note, I just taught MLK's letter in my intro class right before we discuss logic and informal fallacies, and one of the things we discuss is how MLK uses appeals to emotion, to fear, and to authority, but the point is that not that all such rhetorical moves count as fallacious.)

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