The Idea of Justice

US: Penguin Books Ltd, 2010. Paperback. Good. Social justice: an ideal, forever beyond our grasp; or one of many practica l possibilities? More than a matter of intellectual discourse, the idea of justice plays a real role in how--and how well--people live. And in this bo ok the distinguished scholar 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 transcendental theory o f justice, the subject of Sen's analysis, flourished in the Enlightenment a nd has proponents among some of the most distinguished philosophers of our day; it is concerned with identifying perfectly just social arrangements, d efining the nature of the perfectly just society. The approach Sen favors, on the other hand, focuses on the comparative judgments of what is "more" o r "less" just, and on the comparative merits of the different societies tha t actually emerge from certain institutions and social interactions. At the heart of Sen's argument is a respect for reasoned differences in our under standing of what a "just society" really is. People of different persuasion s--for example, utilitarians, economic egalitarians, labor right theorists, no-nonsense libertarians--might each reasonably see a clear and straightfo rward resolution to questions of justice; and yet, these clear and straight forward resolutions would be completely different. In light of this, Sen ar gues for a comparative perspective on justice that can guide us in the choi ce between alternatives that we inevitably face.