Love, justice and forgiveness in the work of Paul Ricoeur: international relations

Abstract

The paper deals with the concepts of love, justice and forgiveness in the work of the leading twentieth-century philosopher Paul Ricoeur, and with his view of conflict resolution in International Relations. A decisive feature of his trajectory was his early association with Gabriel Marcel, another philosopher who values the human person, love and respect, a primary influence on Ricoeur's later work in Amour et Justice. Even after suffering many losses at an early age, he always went on with hope and with the idea of acting ensemble, together, not merely commanding but taking part. This is a current view of the international context and setting, chiefly in the line of the Idealist Theory of International Relations, in which cooperation is the main form of action. In Amour et Justice, Ricoeur addresses the overcoming of conflicts through the dialectic of love and justice, which ceases to answer only to the ideas of punishment and reparation and widens so as to involve the requirement of a socialised management of risk, bound to the idea of solidarity towards humanity as a whole. It also assigns to the present generation responsibility for maintaining human life on earth.