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A review by nwhyte
The Idea of Justice by Amartya Sen
3.0
https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3345733.html
I've never been hugely attracted to philosophy, not even political philosophy, and this book reminded me why not; the essential argument is that justice and fairness are crucially intertwined concepts, which I accept without feeling strongly about; and it is largely in reaction to Rawls' classic work, which I have not read and am not really persuaded to read.
There are some interesting insights. For Sen, "democracy" is not just about voting, but about having a plural political system where governments are under scrutiny (see my recent posts about Season 12 of Doctor Who). This also means that we should not get too hung up on developing perfect institutions, as the process is more important than the form of government.
Two bits did grab me. Chapter 7, "Position, Relevance and Illusion", starts with King Lear and ends with the Good Samaritan, and insists that to get a better understanding of justice (or indeed anything at all) we need to look beyond our social and cultural comfort zone and bring in insights from viewpoints that we do not ourselves know. It brief and well argued.
And the final four chapters, on Public Reasoning and Democracy, really spoke to me - a challenge to put principles into practice (including a nice section on "Wrath and Reasoning", why anger is an important part of discussions of rights), with plenty of references to India and the Middle East, and the failings of the so-called West.
So I got more out of it than I thought I would get from the opening chapters - a case where it was very much worth reading to the end.
I've never been hugely attracted to philosophy, not even political philosophy, and this book reminded me why not; the essential argument is that justice and fairness are crucially intertwined concepts, which I accept without feeling strongly about; and it is largely in reaction to Rawls' classic work, which I have not read and am not really persuaded to read.
There are some interesting insights. For Sen, "democracy" is not just about voting, but about having a plural political system where governments are under scrutiny (see my recent posts about Season 12 of Doctor Who). This also means that we should not get too hung up on developing perfect institutions, as the process is more important than the form of government.
Two bits did grab me. Chapter 7, "Position, Relevance and Illusion", starts with King Lear and ends with the Good Samaritan, and insists that to get a better understanding of justice (or indeed anything at all) we need to look beyond our social and cultural comfort zone and bring in insights from viewpoints that we do not ourselves know. It brief and well argued.
And the final four chapters, on Public Reasoning and Democracy, really spoke to me - a challenge to put principles into practice (including a nice section on "Wrath and Reasoning", why anger is an important part of discussions of rights), with plenty of references to India and the Middle East, and the failings of the so-called West.
So I got more out of it than I thought I would get from the opening chapters - a case where it was very much worth reading to the end.