The idea of justice / Amartya Sen

Book Description
Synopsis Is justice an ideal, forever beyond our grasp, or something that may actually guide our practical decisions and enhance our lives? In this wide-ranging book, Amartya Sen presents an alternative approach to mainstream theories of justice which, despite their many specific 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 does not allow all questions to be settled even in theory; there are choices to be faced

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgements

Introduction An Approach to Justice

PART ONE

The Demands of Justice

1 Reason and Objectivity

2 Rawls and Beyond

3 Institutions and Persons

4 Voice and Social Choice

5 Impartiality and Objectivity

6 Closed and Open Impartiality

PART TWO

Forms of Reasoning

7 Position, Relevance and Illusion

8 Rationality and Other People

9 Plurality of Impartial Reasons

10 Realizations, Consequences and Agency
PART THREE

The Materials of Justice

11 Lives, Freedoms and Capabilities

12 Capabilities and Resources

13 Happiness, Well-being and Capabilities

14 Equality and Liberty

PART FOUR

Public Reasoning and Democracy

15 Democracy as Public Reason

16 The Practice of Democracy

17 Human Rights and Global Imperatives

18 Justice and the World

Notes

Name Index

Subject Index