Justice

When we want to know whether a society is just or whether a life is going well, what should we measure? Income? Wealth? Reported happiness? The capability approach, developed by the Indian economist and philosopher Amartya Sen (b. 1933) and the American philosopher Martha Nussbaum (b. 1947), answers differently: what matters is what people are actually able to be and to do — the real freedoms they have to live the life they have reason to value. It is one of the most influential contributions to political philosophy and normative economics in recent decades, at the frontier between the two disciplines. ...

The Encounter That Defined an Era In 1971, John Rawls (1921–2002) published A Theory of Justice — a work that revived normative political philosophy after decades of positivist dominance. Three years later, in 1974, Robert Nozick (1938–2002) responded with Anarchy, State, and Utopia, which became the most rigorous libertarian critique of the Rawlsian program. Both were professors at Harvard. The debate they conducted — personally amicable, philosophically radical — remains the most productive confrontation in twentieth-century Anglo-American political philosophy. ...

Few concepts have persisted across the entire history of philosophy with as much tenacity as justice. From fifth-century Athens to twentieth-century lecture halls, the question has remained essentially the same: what is just? The answers, however, vary dramatically — and it is precisely in that variation that the philosophical interest lies. This article traces the major landmarks in Western reflection on justice, from Socrates’ confrontation with Thrasymachus to the contemporary theories of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum. ...

Amartya Sen Amartya Sen (b. 1933, Santiniketan, Bengal) is an Indian economist and philosopher whose work has dissolved the border between economics and ethics. He received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1998 for his contributions to social choice theory and welfare economics. A professor at Harvard, Sen studied in Calcutta and Cambridge and served as master of Trinity College. Marked in his youth by the Bengal famine of 1943 — which killed millions and in which he lost a relative — he devoted himself to understanding the causes of poverty and deprivation and to rebuilding the normative foundations of economics. In intellectual partnership with the philosopher Martha Nussbaum, he developed the capability approach. He received the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian honour, in 1999. ...

John Rawls American political philosopher; A Theory of Justice (1971) relaunched normative political philosophy after decades of dominance by positivism and utilitarianism. The most influential work of 20th-century political philosophy. Key Concepts Veil of ignorance (veil of ignorance): to determine principles of justice, imagine an “original position” where the parties do not know their place in society (class, race, gender, talents) — the veil ensures impartiality Original position: hypothetical contractualist thought experiment — what principles would rational agents choose behind the veil? An update of Kant and Rousseau against utilitarianism Two principles of justice: Principle of liberty: each person has an equal right to basic liberties compatible with the same liberties for all Difference principle: socioeconomic inequalities are just only if: a) connected to offices open to all and b) benefit the least advantaged members of society Lexical priority: the principle of liberty takes precedence over the difference principle — liberty is not sacrificed for economic gain Justice as fairness (Justice as Fairness): society as a system of fair cooperation among free and equal persons Political liberalism (Political Liberalism, 1993): revision — the principles of justice need not rest on a comprehensive philosophical foundation, but on “overlapping consensus” among different reasonable doctrines in a pluralistic democracy Influenced by Kant — practical reason, autonomy, categorical imperative Rousseau — social contract and general will Locke — natural rights and limited government John Stuart Mill — liberalism (but criticizes utilitarianism) Influenced The whole of contemporary political philosophy (mandatory point of reference) Robert Nozick — Anarchy, State, and Utopia (libertarian critique of Rawls) Habermas — Rawls-Habermas debate on public reason Theory of international law and global justice Works A Theory of Justice (1971); Political Liberalism (1993); The Law of Peoples (1999); Justice as Fairness: A Restatement (2001). ...

Michael Sandel Michael Sandel (b. 1953, Minneapolis) is an American political philosopher and professor of government at Harvard since 1980, known both for the rigour of his philosophical critique of Rawlsian liberalism and for the enormous public reach of his course “Justice”, one of the most popular classes in Harvard’s history. Sandel is a central figure in the so-called liberal–communitarian debate of the 1980s, although he himself resists the label. His doctoral thesis, published as Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (1982), offered one of the sharpest philosophical critiques of John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice. In the following decades he broadened his scope to the critique of the commodification of social life and of meritocratic ideology. ...