The Idea of JUSTICE
“My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct contact with other human beings and human communities.
I regard class differences as contrary to justice and, in the last resort, based on force.”
ALBERT EINSTEIN
Amartya Sen…the nobel laureate says:
“... At the heart of the particular problem of a unique impartial resolution of the perfectly just society is the possible sustainability of plural and competing reasons for justice...”
To quote an article on his book called THE IDEA OF JUSTICE….
“Sen's belief is that ideas of justice based on reasoning are universal, and are not just drawn primarily from the Western tradition of liberal democracy. In his book he refers to two Sanskrit words for justice: niti – "organisational propriety and behavioural correctness" and nyaya – "a comprehensive concept of realised justice". It is this latter concept, he says, on which we should focus. And this pragmatic view runs deep within him.”
What is the learned man saying ???
(http://www.hup.harvard.edu/ and other articles on the internet)
Amartya Sen offers a powerful critique of the theory of social justice that, in its grip on social and political thinking, has long left practical realities far behind.
The approach Sen favors, focuses on the comparative judgments of what is “more” or “less” just, and on the comparative merits of the different societies that actually emerge from certain institutions and social interactions.
At the heart of Sen’s argument is a respect for reasoned differences in our understanding of what a “just society” really is. People of different persuasions—for example, utilitarians, economic egalitarians, labor right theorists, no¬-nonsense libertarians—might each reasonably see a clear and straightforward resolution to questions of justice; and yet, these clear and straightforward resolutions would be completely different. In light of this, Sen argues for a comparative perspective on justice that can guide us in the choice between alternatives that we inevitably face.
What we think ….is the central argument….
JUSTICE…like all other things in life…IS A RELATIVE TERM and …
‘absolute dogmas’ on the concept of WHAT IS JUST…universally….is a definite symptom of academic myopia !!!.
What do you think ???
