The most important contribution to the subject since John Rawls' A Theory of Justice . Sen argues that what we urgently need in our troubled world is not a theory of an ideally just state, but a theory that can yield judgments as to comparative justice, judgments that tell us when and why we are moving closer to or farther away from realizing justice in the present globalized world.
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Publisher:
Cambridge, Mass. : Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009
ISBN:
9780674036130
0674036131
0674036131
Branch Call Number:
320.011 Se
Description:
xxviii, 467 pages ; 24 cm
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Add a CommentA. Sen presents an alternative approach to mainstream theories of justice which, despite their many conceptual and clarifactory achievements have taken us, he argues, in the wrong direction in general.
At the heart of Sen's argument is his insistence on the role of public reason in establishing what can make societies less unjust. But it is in the nature of reasoning about justice, argues Sen, that it doesn't allow all questions to be settled even in theory; there are choices to be faced between alternative assessments of what is reasonable and there can be well-defined arguments in favor of different an competing positions.
This book is of 'high' calibre. It is only for 'highbrows.' Still one can glean at it and learn something of ancient India and the then-prevailing thoughts on justice.