Contrasting Models to Community Welfare: Plato and Maimonides


 

Publication Date: September 1974

Publisher: Jewish Communal Service Association of North America

Author(s): Jacob Kellner

Research Area: Social conditions

Keywords: Jewish Organizations; Social Services; Values

Type: Report

Abstract:

The author asserts that the solution of social problems can be approached from two angles: the political or the humanitarian. The author compares the political model to the philosophy of Plato and the humanitarian model to the philosophy of Maimonides. In the Platonic State, social services are a planned, bureaucratic function, whereas in the Maimonidean conception help for social problems is bound up in interpersonal relations, a personal response to the need of one's fellow. Social work, argues the author, is a combination of the values of both models.