The idea of justice is to enhance it, Amartya Sen writes in the book that is the culmination of his life-long philosophical explorations, The Idea of Justice. Despite the simplicity of the idea, Sen has a task on his hands. He has to trace its lineage in the history of ideas, particularly moral philosophy; he has to set it in contrast to one of the most comprehensive treatises on political philosophy ever written (and immediately a university textbook around the world), John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice; and he has to defend it against all possible attacks that can be anticipated from the next few generations of political and moral philosophers. Thus, it is a necessarily technical book, perhaps not as inaccessible as Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason but also not as dry as Rawls’s is; it is difficult nonetheless, and it is not a book for everyone. But if you have the endurance, it is exciting to read a fresh and new major philosophical text written in your own lifetime; it is exhilarating to see an intellectual giant push farther the boundaries of human knowledge.
In order to speak of justice, Sen has to speak of the world and how it is; for ethics, as the 18th-century British philosopher David Hume wrote, was a problem of transforming the “ought” into the “is”. Most philosophers and mathematicians have been heavily influenced by Plato’s ideals; that separate from the physical world there is a world of perfect abstractions, like the ideal triangle, or the perfect society. Kant pretty much pushed this forward when during the Enlightenment he tried to marry the two streams of philosophy, rationalism (in which knowledge laid emphasis on the mind’s interpretation of perceptions, much in the way of the Buddhists) and empiricism (in which experience was given primacy over concepts). In this, Kant came up with “transcendental idealism”: we see things as they appear to us, and not as they-are-in-themselves, perhaps implying a platonic existence for all objects and ideas.
An intellectual inquiry
Rawls applied this further to his path-breaking idea of “justice as fairness”; Rawls project was a methodology for humans to set up perfect institutions of rule and justice, taking into account that citizens act the way that they do, and setting a goal of benefitting the least advantaged in society, so that the institutions would deliver justice. He perhaps meant it as a platonic ideal that even if approximated in the real world, would deliver benefits to humans who, as the first modern political philosopher Thomas Hobbes said, suffered a life that was “brutish, nasty and short”. Rawls book, published in 1971, was instantly recognised as a landmark, for he had undertaken the intellectually rigorous journey only suggested by Kautilya in Arthashastra back in the 4th century BC, which was to build political and social institutions for effective rule.
While heaping praise for Rawls’s masterly achievement, Sen disagrees. Sen did not begin his life as an academic philosopher, and perhaps that’s how it ought to be: true philosophising comes as the culmination of the deepest inquiry, regardless of the subject matter. The single incident which shaped his mind and has delivered this tour de force is the Great Bengal Famine of 1943, which Sen experienced as a boy. This was the focus of Sen’s work as an economist, wherein he proved that famines are not caused by shortages, but by the poorest citizens’ inability to pay higher food prices; his deduction that functioning democracies do not suffer famines has not been disproved. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1998, but he was already deep into taking further his intellectual inquiry about famines, deprivation and inequality; he was wondering about the innermost core of democracy (itself “government by discussion”), justice.
‘Right’ need not be the ‘best’
Sen’s disagreement with Rawls and Kautilya is an agreement with the Mauryan emperor Ashoka (who, along with the Mughal emperor Akbar, Sen has long admired). Ashoka, who famously converted to Buddhism, was more concerned with human behaviour than with perfect institutions. As human behaviour is nearly impossible to quantify, a formal study of it for justice is not an easy task (though as an economist, Sen would have spent his life trying). Nonetheless Sen is clear that he is less concerned with devising ideal institutions (he calls Rawls’s approach “transcendental institutionalism”) than he is with advancing the cause of justice, no matter how incrementally. And he shows the futility of transcendental institutionalism, both conceptually (a “right” institution need not be the “best” institution), as well as practically (there are many issues that require global justice, but that would require global government, an unlikely development). So Sen distances himself from the “contractarian” approach to justice propounded by Hobbes, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Rawls.
Central to advancing justice is giving humans more choice. And though Sen draws from Utilitarians like John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham in giving primacy to human behaviour, he differs from them in that he is not looking to increase the sum-total of “happiness” of a society as they did; he prefers to increase the capabilities of the citizens of a society. Capabilities rather than the Rawlsian “primary goods” or even wealth, for the problem with transcendental institutionalism, as Sen sees it, is that it assumes that the human condition can be reduced to a single variable, whereas in every aspect of human behaviour and choice — such as freedom and liberty — there are multiple aspects and a plurality of possibilities. As an example early in the book, Sen speaks of a quarrel between Anne, Bob and Carla over a flute. Anne knows how to play it, Bob is so poor he has no toys and could do with a flute, and Carla made the flute. Different points of view could reasonably defend each claim (Utilitarians for Anne, Socialists for Bob, Libertarians for Carla), which is why, as Sen says, justice should not depend on a single framework but on a public scrutiny and discourse. The simple reason being that apples are unlike oranges; in another example early in the book he says that judging the Mona Lisa to be the best painting does not help you in choosing between a Picasso and a Van Gogh.
Plurality of choice also highlights the problem of giving primacy to niti over nyaya; niti is too concerned with rules and institutions, and not the actual realisation of the process as nyaya does. In expounding on the importance of nyaya, which like The Idea of Justice concerns both processes and outcomes of justice, Sen provides another important and hopefully enduring intellectual achievement: he firmly injects the concepts and traditions of Indian political philosophy into the mainstream of Western moral and political philosophy (something that Mahatma Gandhi had paved the way for through his actions and deeds).
Thus, we also get to read Sen’s critique of the Bhagavad Gita, in which our society has traditionally laid emphasis on Krishna’s exhortation to Arjuna to fulfill his duty, and not focus on the emotionally-disturbing consequences of killing your kin. This is niti-centric, and sounds too much like transcendental institutionalism to Sen’s ears; he has a lot of sympathy for Arjuna’s dismay over the processes and consequences of his duty-bound action. However, Sen probably appreciates the fact that they had a discussion; the whole idea of the The Idea of Justice is public scrutiny and discourse.
The Idea of Justice has two additionally important philosophical implications. Sen’s emphasis on pluralism is a refreshing change from the dominant physicalism of the 20th century. For too long have Westerners believed that all of reality can be reduced to a single physical state. Sen has given all monists food for thought. The other good thing is the reaffirmation of
Ludwig Wittgenstein, the 20th century’s outstanding philosopher. Sen conceptually draws from later Wittgenstein, accessible in his Philosophical Investigations, which includes an exploration of knowledge as context-based. This means choices and this means discussion, and the implications of this are apparently still sinking into our intellectual discourse.
The plurality of choices
What Sen has to say has a lot of implications for the world in which we live (indeed, that is one of his main points: contractarians take little note of our actual world). A democracy encourages public discourse and does not suppress information, which is why famines are prevented in democracies; as evidenced by the barbaric treatment of women in Afghanistan, one country’s institutions have to take account of discourse across the borders to add to the plurality of choices its citizens can ultimately select from; and that it is not enough to look for platonic ideals of justice, but to actively attack injustice. Reducing injustice is advancing justice. As modest as Sen makes this sound, his book provides the foundation for ambitious implementation of this aim for future generations. Make no mistake: this is a book that will be quoted and referenced centuries into the future. It’s that big.
— editorchief@epmltd.com
