1. Michael E. Sherr, Ph.D Johnny M. Jones, Ph.D.
Competence-Based Social Work: The Profession of Caring, Knowing, and Serving Chapter 9: Human Rights and Justice
Michael E. Sherr, Ph.D
Johnny M. Jones, Ph.D.

2. Case Vignette 9.1
Violet, a social worker, attended a high school orientation with Erica, a 15 year old African American girl, who was living in the group home where Violet worked.
Erica did so well in her last year of middle school that she qualified to register for gifted and talented courses.

3. Case Vignette 9.1 continued
When the assistant principal handed Erica her schedule at orientation she noticed she was in regular classes.
Before they could say anything the assistant principle told them that although Erica qualified for the gifted and talented program she and the principal felt that due to her unique living circumstances she might fit in better with the students in regular sessions.
What should Violet do as the social worker?

4. Case Vignette 9.2
Dustin, a social worker on a local housing and planning commission, noticed that two of his clients had an unusually high utility bills for a one bedroom apartment.
David discovered that all of the families living in apartment complexes had unreasonably high utility bills, which may be the reason why families are having trouble meeting their expenses.
What can Dustin do to help?

5. Case Vignette 9.3
Teresa works for Area Agency on Aging as a social worker in the consumer education and protection program.
The agency has received over two-dozen calls from people reporting they were not receiving the monthly checks from their reverse mortgages, and the director of the ombudsman program asked Teresa to investigate the situation from a macro level.
Where should Teresa begin?

6. Human Rights and Justice
The three case vignettes demonstrate the uniqueness and broadness of social work.
Although working with different population groups in different practice settings, and at different levels of practice, all three social workers in the case vignettes share a commitment to advancing human rights and social and economic justice.

7. Human Rights, Justice, and Well-Being
Social work’s primary purpose is to enhance or restore well-being for individuals, groups, and communities.
Social workers believe all people have basic human rights such as safety, privacy, adequate standard of living, and education .
Social workers believe that well-being is a basic human right of all people, regardless of their position in society.

8. Human Rights, Justice, and Well-Being cont.
Social workers recognize that forms and mechanisms of oppression and discrimination prevent some people from exercising their rights.
Social workers must be aware of oppressive and discriminatory practices and be prepared to do something about it in their work with individuals, groups, and communities.

9. Difficult but Important Questions
All social workers should explore these two questions:
What is well-being?
What is social justice?
These two questions are deeply personal and difficult to answer.
How a social worker answers these two questions directly influences and informs his/her practice.

10. What is Well-Being? There are three perspectives on well-being:
The Hedonist Perspective
The Desires Perspective
The Objective List Perspective
All three perspectives are similar in that they view well-being as describing what is fundamentally good for a person.
All three perspectives are also flawed and far from being the “right” answer.

11. What is Well-Being? The Hedonist Perspective
The Hedonist Perspective describes well-being as consisting of the greatest balance of pleasure over pain.
The Hedonist Perspective was first expressed by Socrates.
There are two forms of Hedonism to describe well-being:
Simple Hedonism
Evaluative Hedonism

12. The Simple Hedonist View
The simple hedonist view of well-being is the more pleasure people can pack into their lives, the better, while the more painfulness in their lives, the worse their lives will be.
According to this viewpoint, the only aspects of experience that matter are duration and intensity of experiences.

13. The Evaluative Hedonism Perspective
In addition to the duration and intensity of experiences, evaluative hedonism considers the quality of experiences (i.e. higher vs. lower pleasures), claiming that some pleasures are more valuable than others.
Evaluative hedonism posits that people experiencing both types of pleasures are normally capable judges who will usually choose higher pleasures whenever they are accessible and possible.

14. What is Well-Being? The Desires Perspective
The Desires Perspective holds that well-being occurs as a consequence of experiencing satisfaction in obtaining or fulfilling one’s desires.
The Desires Perspective emerged from economists, who recognized that pleasure and pain are inside people’s heads and are difficult to measure.
In viewing well-being as consisting of the satisfaction of fulfilling one’s desires, it made it possible to rank order preferences and develop methods for assessing the value of obtaining preference satisfaction.

15. The Desires Perspective cont.
There are two primary forms of the Desires Perspective:
Present Desire Theory
Informed Comprehensive Desire Theory
Present Desire Theory assumes a short-term view of well-being, where people are better off when their current or immediate desires are fulfilled.

16. The Desires Perspective: Informed Comprehensive view
Informed Comprehensive Desire Theory assumes that well-being results from the level of desire-satisfaction experienced through an entire life span.
Informed Comprehensive Desire Theory considers people capable of prioritizing their desires and choosing options that will benefit their lives as a whole.
Well-being results when people experience desire-satisfaction from preferences chosen after being fully informed about all the facts available used to prioritize their desires.

17. What is Well-Being? The Objective List Perspective
This perspective assumes that people can agree upon a list of items that if experienced or achieved constitutes well-being.
Unlike the other two perspectives, this perspective moves the concept of well-being away from experiencing pleasure and avoiding pain and instead holds it is the result of figuring out and obtaining what is good for people.

18. The Objective List Perspective cont.
There are two primary approaches to what should go on the list:
Aristotle suggests that the list must include every possible good. In this view, people experience well-being when they experience or obtain every possible thing listed as good.
In perfectionism, the list should include items that contribute to perfecting human nature. Well-being is experienced when people experience or obtain things listed that help people realize their true nature as human beings.

19. What is Social Justice?
There are three central theories of social justice:
Utilitarianism
Social Justice as Fairness
Libertarianism
The first two theories emphasize a societal or communal approach, while the latter theory emphasizes individual freedom of choice.

20. What is Social Justice? Utilitarianism
According to this theory, a just society exists to the extent that laws and institutions of society are such as to promote the greatest overall happiness of its members.
19th Century Utilitarian philosopher John Stuart Mill considered freedom to be a basic human need necessary for overall happiness.
Mill believed that political liberties (e.g. freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, etc.) were essential to the happiness of every person.

21. Utilitarianism cont.
20th Century Utilitarian philosopher James P. Sterba suggested there are certain basic needs that must be satisfied for overall happiness to be even be possible.
These basic needs include food, shelter, medical care, protection, companionship, and self-development.
Social justice exists when the institutions of society create an environment where as many people as possible have the means and opportunity to achieve their chosen conception of a desirable life.
Advocating for social justice in this view involves efforts to reform the institutions of society toward the above goal.

22. What is Social Justice? Social Justice as Fairness
This theory was developed by John Rawls, who suggested that elements of social justice be determined by a hypothetical situation called the Original Position (OP).
In the OP, people look out for everyone in society.
In the OP, discrimination and oppression do not exist, and fairness alone guides decisions about social justice.

23. Social Justice as Fairness cont.
According to Rawls, if people could start from the OP and choose basic societal principles, two principles of social justice would be chosen:
The Equal Liberties Principle
The Difference Principle

24. Social Justice as Fairness cont.
The Equal Liberties Principle is that each person is to have the maximum civil liberties compatible with the same liberty for all.
The Difference Principle is that inequalities are only permissible when they can be expected to work to the advantage of everyone and when the positions, offices, and roles to which the inequalities attach are open to all.

25. Social Justice as Fairness cont.
Social justice exists when the institutions of society ensure that people have the maximum civil liberties compatible with the same liberty for all and that when differences are necessary, they work to the advantage of everyone.
Advocating for social justice in this view involves efforts to reform the institutions of society toward functioning in such a way as to emphasize these two principles.

26. What is Social Justice? Libertarianism
According to this view, a just society must grant and protect the liberty of each individual to pursue his or her desired ends without interference from others.
This view emphasizes the safeguarding of property rights, which includes anything people can call their own property.
To be truly free, people should have the right to acquire ownership, the right to own the means of production, and the right of bequeathal of property.

27. Libertarianism cont.
Social justice exists when the institutions of society remain as unregulated as possible.
Advocating for social justice in this view involves efforts to deregulate the institutions of society to minimize the amount of intrusion into the lives of individuals.

28. Summary
Advancing human rights and social and economic justice is central to competent social work practice and distinguishes social work from other professions.
It is important to develop self-awareness regarding your own views of well-being and social justice and how this influences your practice.
It is also important to recognize that there are different views of well-being and social justice and to respect how other people may view these concepts.