Citizenship and cordiality: notes on the relationship between justice and friendship
| Autor | Maria Cecília Pedreira de Almeida |
| Ocupação do Autor | Professor of PoliticalPhilosophyat Universidade de Brasília, UnB, Brazil |
| Páginas | 613-625 |
Special Workshop: Citizenship and access to justice in the democratic order • 613
Citizenship and cordiality
Notes on the relationship between justice and friendship
Maria Cecília Pedreira de Almeida1
Abstract: It has become a cliché to say that Brazilians do not fully exercise
their citizenship. The problems are well known: the diculty of puing basic
civil rights into practice, as well as violations or even simple ignorance of these
rights. Within this framework, there remains the additional diculty of access
to justice, with a judiciary often oblivious to the social reality which cries out
for its intervention. The unique history of the construction of citizenship in
Brazil may be an important factor not only for research, but for helping to over-
come these diculties. To this end it may be useful to investigate an emblem-
atic feature of Brazilian culture: cordiality, which, according to Sérgio Buarque
de Holanda, characterizes the Brazilian people. This notion, which in general
evokes benevolence and kindness, carries with it a pernicious component, which
hinders the clear separation of public and private and maintains an aectivity
that pervades social relations. Furthermore, it is interesting to note that cordial-
ity diers from yet resembles true friendship, philia, which according to Aristo-
tle, is essential to political society, “the greatest good of states.” If it is true as
Aristotle maintains that in every community there is some form of justice and
friendship, then cordiality, this signicant feature of Brazilian society, oers a
rich topic of investigation, with regard to both its virtues and its harmful con-
sequences for politics and law.
Keywords: citizenship; justice; friendship.
A lot of historians, sociologists and lawyers investigate the gap
between state and citizen, why it goes often beyond mere negligence,
and the fact that the state even threatens and violates certain rights of
citizens. The examples are many. The lack of certain essential services
such as health and education, poor living conditions, bad public trans-
port, continuing insecurity and the constant violation of human rights
1
Professor ofPoliticalPhilosophyat Universidade de Brasília, UnB, Brazil. Researchsup-
portwasprovidedbythe Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Distrito Federal (FAP/DF).
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