In Sanskrit, 'theory' would be मतम्- a doctrine- which might be a conceptual scheme but which could produce nothing of informative on an a priori basis. Indeed, having the theory might prevent one from understanding it and vice versa. As the Kena Upanishad says-
Truth is the doctrine known to whom it is not known. Who know it well are ignorant of it.
Practice, as opposed to theory, was विज्ञानम्- the word we now use for Science. However, the 'Tarskian primitives' of Science are unknown or undefined otherwise there would be an infinite regress.
Hindus felt they had too many 'Muths' with too many complicated ontological and epistemological theories which however cashed out as the same individualized intuition (pratibodha viditam) - i.e. there was a universal property. True, they were individuated and thus 'essentially unique'. But this uniqueness arose from equal non-informativity which meant India had too much theory and too little praxis- i.e. paths out of observational equivalence into what might become science and technology.
There was a vicious circle here. Science costs money. Indians wanted degrees to get government jobs because cash was in short supply. The cheapest type of education was 'theoretical' only in the sense that it involved some particularly bigoted or obtuse doctrine of zero practical value. Still, maybe Kant or some other clever White guy had discovered a way to extract something useful from 'Matam'. It was in this hope that Sen-tentious Babus approached Sen-ility.
The truth is, the ancients were right about 'matam' as being non-informative- unlike Kant's purported transcendental object- though this only became obvious with the Wu experiment and maybe Sen's generation didn't get the memo. Briefly, Kant thought that deterministic 'judgment' is required for us to experience anything at all. The Hindus held that experience is unmediated (aparoksha). Intuition isn't judgment. Experience isn't judgment. Decisions aren't judgments. Even judgments aren't judgments save by some 'samskar'- e.g. serving on a Panchayat to decide a case in which case the judgment is from God not you as an individual. This is also what Lord Jesus was getting at when he said 'Ye are as Gods'. The reference is to service on a Jury. 'Aham Brahmasmi' however is not juristic. In the Bible, first there were Judges and then Kings. For the Hindus, if you yearn for Jurisprudence wait till after you are dead. The first King went to Hell to do his judging there. We prefer Yamuna- the turbid but life giving river- to Yama, the Lord of the Dead, with his bright-line judgments.
Sadly, lack of Godliness has never been India's pressing problem. Cash is what is in short supply. But the solution to penury was blindingly obvious. Impart basic scientific education and then get young people into the private sector to improve existing techniques and raise productivity. Commerce is all about 'practice' not theory. As it burgeons, Science more than pays for itself. But this is also true of other learned professions. Justice is a service industry. So is prostitution. If the laws are bad, lawyers are like prostitutes. If they are good, they can help strengthen the bonds of decency and morality which hold Society together and enable Commerce and Liberty to flourish.
How do we get to good Laws? The answer is empirical and ideographic. We have to look at what works in practice and then figure out piece-meal reform to make those things work better and more cheaply and more ubiquitously. Cancel that. We don't have to do shit. Let those who make a living providing services make a better living providing a better service by doing smarter mechanism design.
What leads to bad Laws? The answer is theoretical or nomothetic approaches. Consider the following extract from Amartya Sen's 'the idea of Justice' -
What is presented here is a theory of justice in a very broad sense. Its aim is to clarify how we can proceed to address questions of enhancing justice and removing injustice, rather than to offer resolutions of questions about the nature of perfect justice.
This sounds reasonable enough. Theorists ponder perfection. Practical people look at how to enhance good outcomes.
The problem is that a theory does not become better or worse if it invokes perfection. It remains merely a theory. To hold that God is perfect does not mean that one's creed becomes less attractive. The reverse is the case. The artist who says he aims for perfection does not lose thereby. Science has no problem with theories with 'least action' principles or notions of perfect equilibrium. The plain fact is that no practice is adversely affected by theories of perfect or ideal outcomes or principles like that of optimality.
In this there are clear differences with the pre-eminent theories of justice in contemporary moral and political philosophy.
Those theories have the virtue of being 'operationalizable' in some context- i.e. they can guide judicial decisions. Sen's idea however is wholly vacuous. Why? it focuses on
three differences in particular demand specific attention.
First, a theory of justice that can serve as the basis of practical reasoning must include ways of judging how to reduce injustice and advance justice, rather than aiming only at the characterization of perfectly just societies – an exercise that is such a dominant feature of many theories of justice in political philosophy today.
This is not true. A theory of Gravity that can serve engineers doesn't have to show how to reduce or increase gravitation . Practical reasoning can proceed more expeditiously if it can picture the perfect outcome.
In the Social sphere, Reality may fall short of what is aimed at, but having that aim can improve reality. It is good that young people get married because they think they will enjoy perfect felicity. People saying 'but would you really be happy if you had a happy marriage?' may prevent desirable outcomes by disparaging a feasible alternative without putting anything in its place save wanking. The truth is imperfect felicity is itself more desirable than never getting around to committing to anything and expending your days in idle Sen-tentious chatter.
The two exercises for identifying perfectly just arrangements, and for determining whether a particular social change would enhance justice, do have motivational links but they are nevertheless analytically disjoined.
So what? Everything is 'analytically disjointed' because we don't have a Theory of Everything. What is important is that the same motivation drives both social change and a change in how the ideal society is envisaged. This in turn drives the mutual adjustment of 'matam' and 'vigyan'- theory and praxis such that both become more useful and productive.
The latter question, on which this work concentrates,
does it though? There isn't a single example in it of how we can enhance justice by making a particular social change. Instead, it is obvious that justice would become a nuisance if we implemented Sen's proposal- which is that we consult with everybody and then try to find some impartial observer in a distant galaxy and then still do nothing because we need to agree on what agreeing means and what agreeing to agree to agree means and so on and so forth till the Universe ends.
is central to making decisions about institutions, behaviour and other determinants of justice, and how these decisions are derived cannot but be crucial to a theory of justice that aims at guiding practical reasoning about what should be done.
Sen thinks decision theory is crucial to a theory of justice. But decisions are not judgments. Some decisions can be put off. But, by the time a dispute reaches the courts a speedy resolution is desirable. Judgments are protocol bound and buck stopped in a particular way. They are limited by jurisdictional and constitutional and treaty based constraints. Thus only such considerations as arise in jurisprudence, not decision theory, can be crucial to a theory of Justice.
The assumption that this comparative exercise
which comparative exercise? Is Sen going to compare outcomes in countries with different Judicial systems? No. He knows nothing of that field. The fact is that, if jurisdictions compete, there are strong mimetic, competitive, and treaty based reasons for convergence.
cannot be undertaken without identifying, first, the demands of perfect justice,
Jurisdictions which don't claim to pursue 'perfect justice' are like Religions which say 'pray to our God. True, he's a shitty God but nothing is perfect'. People will shun such jurisdictions or religions.
There are canons of judgment which are non-arbitrary or 'natural' in that all jurisdictions come to affirm them- e.g. 'no man can be a judge in his own cause'. This is not to say that individuals can't make decisions where they possess a Hohfeldian immunity. But decisions aren't judgments.
can be shown to be entirely incorrect
No it can't. You'd have to show that there's some Jurisdiction where the motto is 'our Justice is shitty. If you want perfect Justice, fuck off.' No such Justice system exists.
Second, while many comparative questions of justice can be successfully
resolved – and agreed upon in reasoned arguments – there could well be other comparisons in which conflicting considerations are not fully resolved.
This is true about any subject under the Sun. Is Amartya Sen taller than me? No, by any physicalist metric. But there are an infinite number of other comparisons in which conflicting considerations- e.g. is my writing more pornographically exciting to lesbian penguins than Sen's shite?- which are not fully resolved.
It is argued here that there can exist several distinct reasons of justice, each of which survives critical scrutiny, but yields divergent conclusions.
But that critical scrutiny does not survive itself. It is stupid. Sen is assuming that perfect 'critical scrutiny' can exist. But, if so, why not a perfect theory of justice or anything else? It may be that 'at the End of Time', such a theory of Everything exists. That it is not 'accessible' doesn't mean it can't give us a 'Schelling focal' direction in which to move.
Reasonable arguments in competing directions can emanate from people with diverse experiences and traditions, but they can also come from within a given society, or for that matter, even from the very same person.
But the 'ratio' of a judgment must pick out only one argument as applying.
There is a need for reasoned argument, with oneself and with others, in dealing with conflicting claims,
No there isn't. Only if the matter is justiciable or required by the terms of a contract or professional code of conduct is one required to put forward a 'reasoned argument'. But you can outsource this to a lawyer or Union rep or whatever.
rather than for what can be called ‘disengaged toleration’, with the comfort of such a lazy resolution as: ‘you are right in your community and I am right in mine’.
A better resolution is 'fuck off you verbose cunt.'
Reasoning and impartial scrutiny are essential.
No. They may be required in some circumstances but then you are compensated for it in some way or else you try to exit the jurisdiction.
It may be that, as School, teachers can demand 'reasoning' and 'impartial scrutiny' but you can either knife them or drop out and get a proper job.
However, even the most vigorous of critical examination can still leave conflicting and competing arguments that are not eliminated by impartial scrutiny.
How does Sen know? Lots of 'competing arguments' have been eliminated during my lifetime. Impartial scrutiny will soon be able to pronounce judgment on Putin's Urkraine invasion. If the Ukrainians regain all their territory even the most partial Putin fan will have to admit he fucked up.
It is true, that there are questions- e.g. will tomorrow be a happy day for me- which only time will answer. But that's no reason for me not to try to have a perfect day tomorrow.
I shall have more to say on this in what follows, but I emphasize here that the necessity of reasoning and scrutiny is not compromised in any way by the possibility that some competing priorities may survive despite the confrontation of reason.
Reasoning and scrutiny are not 'necessities' at all. We are welcome to do a lot of wholly spontaneous things without having any reason whatsoever to do them.
The plurality with which we will then end up will be the result of reasoning, not of abstention from it.
Why should we end up with anything? Will we get paid to do it? If so, how much? Would Elon Musk really give up his business empire to do what Sen is doing?
Third, the presence of remediable injustice may well be connected with behavioural transgressions rather than with institutional shortcomings (Pip’s recollection, in Great Expectations, of his coercive sister was just that, not an indictment of the family as an institution).
But behavioral transgression's of Pip's sister's type are not justiciable. They can't be corrected.
Justice is ultimately connected with the way people’s lives go,
No. It is ultimately connected only to what is justiciable. If I'm having a shitty day there may be nobody I can sue.
and not merely with the nature of the institutions surrounding them. In contrast, many of the principal theories of justice concentrate over-whelmingly on how to establish ‘just institutions’,
No they don't. They assume that existing institutions can implement their theory. Provided that theory is 'operationalizable'- e.g. Rawls's maximin principle- then you have a rule which judges can follow. Sadly, Rawls was a cretin. The way to deal with risk is having a market for insurance (and, maybe, a Social Security safety net paid for through taxes) not some crackpot scheme to deliver 'basic goods' to everybody.
and give some derivative and subsidiary role to behavioural features. For example, John Rawls’s rightly celebrated approach of ‘justice as fairness’ yields a unique set of ‘principles of justice’ that are exclusively concerned with setting up ‘just institutions’ (to constitute the basic structure of the society), while requiring that people’s behaviour complies entirely with the demands of proper functioning of these institutions.
Rawls thought existing institutions could implement his rule. Contra Sen, every existing Institution requires its employee's behavior to comply with what is required for its proper functioning. Judges are meant to be judicious. If they get drunk and take off all their clothes and have sex with the defendant in open court, they are likely to face censure.
In the approach to justice presented in this work, it is argued that there are some crucial inadequacies in this overpowering concentration on institutions
Though the thing does not exist at all. On the other hand, in each country there are lawyers and economists and social scientists and community leaders who advise governments on how to improve the working of the Justice system. But this has nothing to do with Philosophy.
(where behaviour is assumed to be appropriately compliant),
all Institutions assume that non-compliance will be swiftly punished or else some reward for participation will be withheld.
rather than on the lives that people are able to lead.
Which has nothing whatever to do with Justice almost all the time.
The focus on actual lives in the assessment of justice has many far-reaching implications for the nature and reach of the idea of justice.
No. Looking at actual lives shows that Justice is merely a Service industry. If it is shitty, it is disintermediated. If it is good, enterprise is attracted to the jurisdiction.
The departure in the theory of justice that is explored in this work has a direct bearing, I argue, on political and moral philosophy.
Both were and are shit. Sen made them yet more tediously shit.
But I have also tried to discuss the relevance of the arguments presented here with some of the ongoing engagements in law, economics and politics, and it might, if one were ready to be optimistic, even have some pertinence to debates and decisions on practical policies and programmes.
So Sen admits his shite has no fucking pertinence to 'practical policies and programs'.
The use of a comparative perspective, going well beyond the limited – and limiting – framework of social contract, can make a useful contribution here.
If by 'useful' you mean utterly useless- sure.
We are engaged in making comparisons in terms of the advancement of justice whether we fight oppression (like slavery, or the subjugation of women),
Sen goes around rescuing women forced into prostitution. This is because he is actually Batman.
or protest against systematic medical neglect (through the absence of medical facilities in parts of Africa or Asia, or a lack of universal health coverage in most countries in the world, including the United States),
Why not protest against old age? How about campaigning to outlaw death? If one is going to virtue signal, why not virtue signal about the right of elderly Tambrams to earn big money as Beyonce impersonators?
or repudiate the permissibility of torture (which continues to be used with remarkable frequency in the contemporary world – sometimes by pillars of the global establishment),
Sen demanded that the US end the use of waterboarding. I'm kidding. He was as quiet as a mouse.
or reject the quiet tolerance of chronic hunger (for example in India, despite the successful abolition of famines).
Sen was so intolerant of chronic hunger that he ran away, with his best friend's wife, from India. The fellow predicted a famine under Thatcher. Maybe that's why he moved to America.
We may often enough agree that some changes contemplated (like the abolition of apartheid, to give an example of a different kind) will reduce injustice, but even if all such agreed changes are successfully implemented, we will not have anything that we can call perfect justice.
How does Sen know? One change we could agree on is that everybody should live as long and as happily as they want with their own private paradisal planet to call home. Implement that and few will find fault with the outcome.
Practical concerns, no less than theoretical reasoning, seem to demand a fairly radical departure in the analysis of justice.
No. Both demand that we build on what exists and is known to work. 'Radical departures' from common sense lead to catastrophic outcomes.
Economics should be 'Vigyan'- Science- and deal with practical, measurable, things, e.g. raising GNP, not imaginary things- e.g. 'Capabilities'- which can only be guessed at after the event. At the beginning of this year, I thought Putin was smart and Zelenskyy was a clown. I was wrong. Putin is incapable of doing anything but enrich a corrupt cabal. Zelenskyy is capable of pulling his nation together- or representing that nation which had already pulled together- in an exemplary manner. I may be wrong. But what can't be gainsaid is that nobody knows even their own capabilities. But we do know how much money we have in the bank. Science must concentrate on what is observable. It doesn't matter whether Scientists spend a lot of time chatting to each other or if they keep to themselves. What matters is which Scientist does stuff which can be embodied in productivity raising tech.
Democracy, ultimately, is about not having to talk or listen to bollocks. You vote or if you can't vote, you exit the jurisdiction or disintermediate its institutions.
Sen believes there was ' an understanding of democracy as ‘government by discussion’ (an idea that John Stuart Mill did much to advance).
Sen didn't get that this meant 'Parliamentary sovereignty'. Westminster has protocols about discussion. But voters don't have to join or listen to that discussion. They can give windbags the order of the boot.
But democracy must also be seen more generally in terms of the capacity to enrich reasoned engagement through enhancing informational availability and the feasibility of interactive discussions.
The internet can be seen in that way. Why? It is a communications technology. Democracy isn't any such thing. When India became independent there was precious little capacity, in the villages, to enrich reasoned engagement or informational ability. Now, for the first time, more rural than urban people in India are connected to the world wide web. This is changing the nature of Indian democracy.
Democracy has to be judged
No it doesn't. If you don't like it, you can leave. There's no point judging it unless that's what you are getting paid to do. But other people get paid more for doing useful stuff.
not just by the institutions that formally exist but by the extent to which different voices from diverse sections of the people can actually be heard.
Nonsense! Nobody wants to listen to lunatics and pedophiles. What matters is whether smart voices are listened to. But that means telling Sen-tentious fools to fuck off.
If democracy is not seen simply in terms of the setting up of some specific institutions (like a democratic global government or global elections),
Then there will never be a democratic World Federation.
but in terms of the possibility and reach of public reasoning,
Sen is doing 'public reasoning'. But Sen is shit. Nobody wants more of this nuisance.
the task of advancing – rather than perfecting – both global democracy and global justice can be seen as eminently understandable ideas that can plausibly inspire and influence practical actions across borders.
Has anything of the sort happened in the dozen years since Sen published his worthless screed? No. We don't want to give equal time to Lavrov- who says Zelenskyy is Hitler coz Hitler was a Jew- and the one great hero of European democracy the last fifty years has thrown up. Zelenskyy may have started out as a comedian but his stature is now that of a Churchill in his nation's finest hour.
Democracy doesn't mean listening to fools. It means killing the knaves who try to take what is yours. But that is the essence of Justice. Sadly, Democracy may be theocratic. It may, as in England, have an Established Religion and a hereditary Monarch.
Sen can't actually point to any Democracy which fulfils his ideal. Instead he points to an Oriental despot who enforced 'sajda' (worshipful prostration) to the throne and who founded his own religion, or at the least, a sort of court religion ( ain-i-iradat gazinan) of an absolutist type.
Akbar engaged in a far-reaching scrutiny of social and political values and legal and cultural practice.
No. He slaughtered those who opposed him. On the other hand, he established the precedent of the Emperor choosing which Islamic 'madhab' or juristic school to follow in a given case so as to suit his own convenience. Essentially, Akbar was prepared to take any ruling from any religion which increased his own power. This was because he was powerful enough to declare himself Caliph- i.e. superior to any judge.
He paid particular attention to the challenges of inter-community relations and the abiding need for communal peace and fruitful collaboration in the already multicultural India of the sixteenth century.
No. He paid particular attention to those who might challenge him. He didn't always kill them but they got the message after he kept throwing his foster brother off a terrace till he died. Akbar realized that those closest to him were the most dangerous. Thus he converted enemies into friends and, more importantly, conciliated the Hindus.
We have to recognize how unusual Akbar’s policies were for the time.
There were several similar royal courts in India. Akbar defeated them in battle and secured himself against his own brother and cousins by allying with the Rajputs.
The Inquisitions were in full swing
but Catholicism was on the back foot. Holland's Golden age began in 1588. Britain too was rising up.
and Giordano Bruno was burnt at the stake for heresy in Rome in 1600 even as Akbar was making his pronouncements on religious tolerance in India.
But Akbar killed divines and jurists like Mullah Muhammad Yazdi and Muiz-ul-Mulk if they criticized him.
Not only did Akbar insist that the duty of the state included making sure that ‘no man should be interfered with on account of his religion, and any one was to be allowed to go over to any religion he pleased’,
unless this threatened his own position in which case he killed the offender.
he also arranged systematic dialogues in his capital city of Agra between Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Jains, Parsees, Jews and others, even including agnostics and atheists.
This proved a mistake and Akbar discontinued the practice. The Jesuits had gone too far and in Goa there was an Inquisition.
Taking note of the religious diversity of his people, Akbar laid the foundations of secularism and religious neutrality of the state in a variety of ways;
Nonsense! He curbed the power of the Hanafi Jurists. The State was not 'neutral in religion'. He himself was the Divinely appointed Khalifa to whom 'sajda' was compulsory.
the secular constitution that India adopted in 1949,
made no mention of 'secularism'. Indira added that word later.
after independence from British rule, has many features already championed by Akbar in the 1590s.
Nonsense! India became a Republic. It had no Emperor or Caliph.
The shared elements include interpreting secularism as the requirement that the state be equidistant from different religions and must not treat any religion with special favour.
There was no secularism in Akbar's day- he was God's Viceregent on Earth- and there was none in the Constitution save such as already existed in the 1935 Act. However, Muslims were stripped of any special status they may previously have had.
Sen says Akbar was attached to reason. But Akbar, for his own reasons, wanted absolute power. He didn't want Democracy. The question is whether Sen, like Akbar, really wants reason or just to get his own way? Akbar may have believed he was God's anointed. What does Sen believe?
Sen asks-why should we accept that reason has to be the ultimate arbitrator of ethical beliefs?
We don't. Like Akbar we kill those whose ethical beliefs are causing them to try to kill us. We may reason with those we are fond off and who are still some distance away from having the capacity to harm us. Others we slaughter or run away from.
Is there some special role for reasoning – perhaps reasoning of a particular kind – that must be seen as overarching and crucial for ethical judgements?
Yes. A type of reasoning which shows you are being very very silly and that you are likely to get beaten or killed and everybody will laugh heartily at you is 'overarching'. Thus if people are constantly calling you a wanker and beating you and chasing you away, then you stop making ethical judgments and devote yourself to masturbation.
Since reasoned support can hardly be in itself a value-giving quality,
Why not? Anything at all can be 'value giving' it is the sort of thing you are into.
we have to ask: why, precisely, is reasoned support so critical?
By stipulation. We like the thing and say it is critical for us to have it otherwise we won't do what is required. Sen may claim that this is arbitrary. But so is his claim.
Can it be claimed that reasoned scrutiny provides some kind of a guarantee of reaching the truth?
Sure. God or Intuition or Evolution or Humanity or some other such abstraction provides the guarantee.
This would be hard to maintain, not only because the nature of truth in moral and political beliefs is such a difficult subject
not more so than any STEM subject. The difference is ordinary people are better than savants at divining the truth in moral and political beliefs- at least, after the fact.
, but mainly because the most rigorous of searches, in ethics or in any other discipline, could still fail.
we don't know that. Maybe yes, maybe no. We'll have to wait and see.
Indeed, sometimes a very dubious procedure could end up, accidentally, yielding a more correct answer than extremely rigorous reasoning.
Only if verification is cheap and certain.
This is obvious enough in epistemology: even though a scientific procedure may have a better probability of success among alternative procedures, even a crazy procedure could happen to produce the correct answer in a particular case (more correct, in such a case, than more reasoned procedures).
Only if verification is easy. But verification isn't always easy. We may have to wait a long time or sift vast quantities of data before we can decide one way or another. The good thing about stare decisis judgments is they give quick and cheap, albeit defeasible, verification for a wide class of agents.
For example, a person who relies on a stopped watch to check the time will get the time exactly right twice a day,
no he won't. He will stop relying on, or consulting, the watch within a minute or two.
and if he happened to be looking for the time precisely at one of those moments,
but this is impossible to verify.
his unmoving watch might beat all other moving clocks to which he had access.
but he wouldn't be looking at it to tell the time.
However, as a procedure to be chosen, relying on the motionless timepiece rather than on a clock that moves approximately close to the actual time does not have much to commend it, despite the fact that the moving clock would be beaten twice a day by the stationary timepiece.
This is foolish. Clocks may stop and start again. They may run fast or slow. Procedures for telling time involve verification protocols of various types.
It is plausible to think that a similar argument exists for choosing the best reasoned procedure,
There is. But it is based on verification, nothing else.
even though there is no guarantee that it would be invariably right,
so long as it has superior verification with respect to relevant criteria, it is the best procedure.
and not even any guarantee that it would be always more right than some other, less reasoned, procedure (even if we could judge the correctness of judgements with any degree of confidence). The case for reasoned scrutiny lies not in any sure-fire way of getting things exactly right (no such way may exist), but on being as objective as we reasonably can.
This is nonsense. The only thing which matters, when it comes to reasoning, is verification. A person may be very subjective and partial but if their reasoning leads them to predict what will happen or to tinker with a mechanism to improve outcomes, then reasonable people follow their lead. On the other hand, such reasoning would be concerned with things which are outside ourselves or which are measurable or which interact with other things.
Since objectivity is itself a rather difficult issue in moral and political philosophy, the subject demands some discussion here. Does the pursuit of ethical objectivity take the form of the search for some ethical
objects?
While a good deal of complex discussion on the objectivity of ethics has tended to proceed in terms of ontology (in particular, the metaphysics of ‘what ethical objects exist’), it is difficult to understand what these ethical objects might be like.
Why? Indic religions have a plain and simple 'aashrav' theory in that respect. So does Islam and Christianity. Good ethical objects benefit the soul. Bad one's fuck it up something rotten.
Instead, I would go along with Hilary Putnam’s argument that this line of investigation is largely unhelpful and misguided.
Also it isn't investigation, it is masturbation.
When we debate the demands of ethical objectivity, we are not crossing swords on the nature and content of some alleged ethical ‘objects’.
We are wanking. Ethical objectivity is a predicate. Predicates either apply or they don't. They make no 'demands'. We may say, 'objectively, the Humanists were right to say that burning heretics was unethical. The Church turned to shit once it took that road. Compare countries which had the Inquisition with those, similarly situated, which didn't. Holland rose. Spain and Portugal fell. Case closed.' Objectivity has to do with verification.
There are, of course, ethical statements that presume the existence of some identifiable objects that can be observed (this would be a part of the exercise, for example, in looking for observable evidence to decide whether a person is courageous or compassionate), whereas the subject matter of other ethical statements may not have that association (for example, a judgement that a person is altogether immoral or unjust).
This is a foolish distinction. Clearly there is an identifiable object- a person- who has or lacks a particular trait which can itself be verified.
But despite some overlap between description and evaluation, ethics cannot be simply a matter of truthful description of specific objects.
It can be mental masturbation. That is why ethical people don't go in for it.
Rather, as Putnam argues, ‘real ethical questions are a species of practical question, and practical questions don’t only involve valuings, they involve a complex mixture of philosophical beliefs, religious beliefs, and factual beliefs as well’.
Practical questions involve verification not some complex mixture of gobbledygook.
The actual procedures used in pursuit of objectivity may not be always clear, nor
spelt out, but as Putnam argues, this can be done with clarity if the
underlying issues are adequately scrutinized.
No. There is no substitute for verification. The problem is that we have to act now and the outcome may only be verifiable at high cost in a later time period. Thus we follow some regret minimizing course. We could also have protocol bound, 'buck stopped', juristic and administrative mechanisms to improve coordination.
The reasoning that is sought in analysing the requirements of justice
will incorporate some basic demands of impartiality, which are integral
parts of the idea of justice and injustice.
That 'impartiality' is merely a matter of protocol. It is not an integral part of any idea. Justice requires judges. It is not the case that the defendant should get a chance to pass judgment on the Judge. There are 'uncorrelated asymmetries' here.
At this point there is some merit in summoning the ideas of John Rawls
Nonsense! The fellow was a cretin.
and his analysis of moral and political objectivity, which he presented in his defence of the
objectivity of ‘justice as fairness’.
It wasn't objective. It was stupid. Knightian uncertainty is ubiquitous. We pursue a regret minimizing course. We buy insurance and hedge in other ways. We aren't stupid enough to maximize the utility of the worst off just in case we ourselves find ourselves in that position. Why? We understand 'moral hazard'. Anyway, Rawls's system could justify slavery or any type of price, wage, or service provision discrimination required by a 'natural monopoly' providing essential public goods.
Rawls argues: ‘The first essential is that a conception of objectivity must establish
is verification by observable, preferably measurable, things.
a public framework of thought
could feature unicorns and mermaids and Angels and Devils
sufficient for the concept of judgement
Angel is causing unicorn to have sex with mermaid so as to defeat Devil's evil plan.
to apply and for conclusions to be reached on the basis of reasons and evidence
fuck reasons. Evidence is all that matters. This is a video of me shitting in the street at the time when the police say I was murdering my wife in a forest. That's it. Case closed. No further discussion or reflection is required.
after discussion and due reflection.’ He goes on to argue: ‘To say that a political conviction
is objective is to say that
it is associated with a particular bunch of policy proposals. A subjective political conviction may have no preference as between different proposals. Thus a guy who votes for Trump without any idea what Trump stands for has a subjective political conviction. He just likes Trump is all. Another guy who hates Trump but votes for him because he will lower taxes has an objective political conviction- viz. taxes should be lower.
there are reasons, specified by a reasonable and mutually recognizable political conception (satisfying those essentials), sufficient to convince all reasonable persons that it is
reasonable.’
No reasonable person thinks guys shouldn't vote for whom they like regardless of what their policies are. Why? Personalities matter in politics. A guy with a particular personality may be more likely to do things consistent with his personality. The existing political menu is not exhaustive. We live in a world of Knightian uncertainty. Who knows what the future might bring?
There can be an interesting discussion as to whether this criterion
of objectivity, which has some clearly normative elements (particularly
in the identification of ‘reasonable persons’),
No. 'Reasonable persons' is objective and justiciable. It is not 'normative', it is descriptive. True, the word 'reasonable' can be used in an imperative manner. But so can any descriptive word. I can say 'Be reasonable!' but I can also say 'Be thin!'
would tend to coincide with what is likely to survive open and informed public discussion.
But these worthless shitheads never engaged in open and informed public discussion. If people found out how useless tossers they were, they'd be out of a job. They had to pretend to be wise but this involved never taking a stand on any 'wedge issue'- e.g. abortion, Gitmo etc.
There is another, a Kantian, sense to 'reasonableness' which has to do with an autonomous subject imposing laws upon himself because Kant was German and them guys love having lots and lots of laws. However, in Anglo-Saxon jurisdictions it is never reasonable to accept any constraint upon action save for consideration. No passing of consideration, no fucking contract.
Sen, obviously, doesn't get this. He writes
Rawls’s presumption that once the social contract has been arrived at,
on the basis of self-interest
people would abandon any narrow pursuit of self-interest and follow instead
the rules of behaviour that would be needed to make the social contract
work.
This is true of any contract- though 'incomplete contracts' leave scope for re-negotiation- with penalty clauses. Self-interest is pursued subject to contractual constraints.
Rawls’s idea of ‘reasonable’ behaviour extends to the
actual conduct that can be presumed once those chosen institutions –
unanimously chosen in the original position – have been put in place.
Because Contracts stipulate penalties for their breach or else the Judge can read in such penalties.
Quite demanding assumptions are made by Rawls on the nature of
post-contract behaviour. He puts the issue thus in Political Liberalism:
Reasonable persons . . . desire for its own sake a social world in which they,
as free and equal,
No they don't. It is perfectly reasonable for smart people not to want to be as free as me to waste time on this blog. Also they don't want to be considered my equals in the one thing which truly matters. Flatulence. Few seek to rival my pre-eminence in that field.
can cooperate with others on terms all can accept.
This is foolish. Antagonomia is a thing. Indeed, it is regret minimizing to have at least one nutter who objects to everything. The Sanhedrin, as Robert Aumann reminds us, had a rule against unanimity.
They insist that reciprocity should hold within that world so that each benefits
along with others.
Why? Must everybody enjoy smelling each others farts? It is a different matter to say that contracts should be fair and equitable. But this does not rule out deeds which are not reciprocal at all.
By contrast, people are unreasonable in the same basic
aspect when they plan to engage in cooperative schemes but are unwilling to
honour, or even to propose, except as a necessary public pretense, any general
principles or standards for specifying fair terms of cooperation. They are
ready to violate such terms as suits their interests when circumstances allow.
Rawls is saying that there is a penalty for not being reasonable enough to embrace his crackpot scheme. He might just as well have said 'you'll burn in hell if you don't put your underpants over your head and prance around with a radish up your bum'.
The fact is that 'free riders' and 'moral hazard' exist. That is why the real world features 'separating equilibria' based on 'costly signals'. 'Pooling equilibria' reliant on 'cheap talk' can get invaded by parasites. Nobody told Rawls about stuff like that. He was basically a secular version of a Bible basher. Be nice to the poor! There but for the Grace of God & c.
By assuming that actual behaviour in the post-social contract world
would incorporate the demands of reasonable behaviour in line with
the contract, Rawls makes the choice of institutions that much simpler,
He says nothing about institutions. Still, we can assume that there are institutional sanctions against those who breach the social contract.
since we are told what to expect in the behaviour of individuals once
the institutions are set in place.
We assume people enter contracts in good faith or that sanctions are strong enough for there to be confidence in them.
Rawls cannot, then, be accused in any way of either inconsistency or
incompleteness in presenting his theories.
Yes he can. If you are worried about ending up in horrible circumstances buy insurance and support a tax funded social minimum with protection against free-riders and moral hazard- i.e. keep out work-shy immigrants and don't harm work incentives. Don't subscribe to Rawls's crackpot scheme.
The question that remains, however, is how this consistent and coherent political model will
translate into guidance about judgements of justice in the world in
which we live,
Easy. In every case, judges should side with the weaker party. Only those departures from equal outcomes should be allowed which are demonstrably of benefit to the poorer man. Fortunately, lawyers can use Econ 101 to prove that any arrangement whatsoever has this property. Rawls was wasting his time. Still, he was breaking with the traditional non-discretionary American anti-Trust tradition. In that sense, he was on the side of Mammon.
rather than in the imagined world with which Rawls
is here primarily concerned.
Nothing wrong with gedanken involving imagined worlds provided agents get to use the right real world decision rule, not some stupid shit Rawls pulled out of his ass.
There is a real similarity here between Rawlsian presumptions about
reasonable behaviour following the presumed agreements in the original
position, and Ashoka’s vision of a society led by right behaviour
(or dharma),
Because Rawls was basically a Christian pastor in mufti. Ashoka was an out and out Buddhist who believed he'd be reborn as a God or a Pratyeka Buddha or something of that sort.
except that in Rawls’s critical hands we get a much fuller
picture of how things are supposed to work out in a world that we can
try to get to, taking note of the dual role of institutions and behaviour.
Or just coz our souls are saved and our hearts are turned towards Righteousness.
This can be seen as an important contribution to thinking about transcendental
justice seen on its own.
It could be a contribution to soteriology. Identifying an optimal world is not 'transcendental'. Rawls, poor fool, thought that the Econ 101 which agents behind the veil of ignorance were provided with gave them an objective reason to choose an egalitarian income distribution. But this wasn't the case. Econ says hedge against bad outcomes through insurance. Don't offer to work for the same wage as the janitor, if you are CEO, just in case there's a Freaky Friday type event and you end up swapping bodies with him.
Rawls outlines his idealized transcendental vision for institutions and behaviours with force and clarity:Thus very briefly: i) besides a capacity for a conception of the good, citizens have a capacity to acquire conceptions of justice and fairness and a desire to
act as these conceptions require;
But, if they also have a capacity to gain conceptions of incomplete contract theory and mechanism design, then they will be able to explain why Rawls's proposals were stupid.
ii) when they believe that institutions and social practices are just, or fair (as these conceptions specify), they are ready and willing to do their part in those arrangements provided they have reasonable assurance that others will also do their part;
This is 'incentive compatibility'. However, experience shows that people will participate in institutions and social practices even if they think they aren't just or fair provided they have reasonable assurance that outcomes are predictably unjust and unfair because others also do their part in the accustomed manner. Reality is a 'concrete model'. What works in reality is what you have recourse to. What other alternative do you have?
iii) if other persons with evident intention strive to do their part in just or fair arrangements, citizens tend to develop trust and confidence in them
This happens anyway. The fact is 'costly signals' will evolve to support numerous 'separating equilibria'. We could equally speak of hedging and arbitrage on discoordination games. Throw in Hannan Consistency and you have a description of the world as it is.
; iv) this trust and confidence becomes stronger and more complete as the success of cooperative arrangements is sustained over a longer time;
which is why a useful 'idea of justice' can only be given by jurists who have a deep understanding of the Justice system as it exists and has evolved over time. Sen-tentious shite is worthless.
v) the same is true as the basic institutions framed to secure our fundamental interests (the basic rights and liberties) are more firmly and willingly recognized.
Those basic institutions are the Army and the Police and the Courts. Anything else may get pared down when the fitness landscape changes for the worse. Trust and Confidence can still flourish when there is an entitlements collapse for parasites.
This vision is both illuminating and in many ways hugely inspiring.
It is stupid and based on a misunderstanding of reality. Because Knightian uncertainty exists, Social contracts are incomplete. One might say, Rawls is a limit case just as Arrow Debreu is a limit case. But, behind the veil of ignorance, we are more likely to choose a Borgesian 'lottery in Babylon' than a boring and featureless social landscape. I'd like to wake up a beggar one morning, the Caliph the next, and so on. 'Antidosis'- exchange of estates- is one type of fairness but so is tossing a coin.
And yet if we are trying to wrestle with injustices in the world
We actually need to go find some such injustice and put it in a headlock.
in which we live, with a combination of institutional lacunae and behavioural inadequacies,
we've got to be out there suggesting fixes for the lacunae and trying to improve behavior
we also have to think about how institutions should be set up here and now,
Like Nalanda International University? That was an institution set up with Sen as Chancellor. It was an abject failure.
It is costly to set up institutions. Work with what exists and if you do a good job maybe you'll get to set one up of your own.
to advance justice through enhancing the liberties and freedoms and well-being of people who live today and will be gone tomorrow.
You need to work in a Law Clinic or take up Social Work or just make lots of money and give it to poor folk.
And this is exactly where a realistic reading of behavioural norms and regularities becomesimportant for the choice of institutions and the pursuit of justice.
Only if you are actually tasked with choosing institutions or have the power to 'pursue justice'. Sen wasn't so tasked. He was a little brown dude who was expected to say 'Democracy is totes cool!' at a time when the US thought it could export it profitably to countries with a lot of petroleum under their sands.
Demanding more from behaviour today than could be expected to be fulfilled would not be a good way of advancing the cause of justice.
But demanding more from the Government is cool because virtue signallers need to pretend that Governments are all powerful and can make everybody rich.
This basic realization must play a part in the way we think about justice and injustice today, and it will figure in the constructive work that follows in the rest of the book.
There is no constructive work in the book. It doesn't say how the resources needed to do nice things are to be produced or procured. Thus the book is about how to commence discussion on how to properly divide up a cake which will cater to everybody's tastes without ever doing any baking. Sadly, it turns out that we need to consult impartial observers in distant galaxies before we can get round to saying anything about cake.
Sen is crap at Econ and Philosophy. Did he do any minimal reading up on Jurisprudence before writing a book titled 'The Idea of Justice' ? Apparently not. He says
The question, ‘Are there really such things as human rights?’ is thus comparable
to asking, ‘Is happiness really important?’ or ‘Does autonomy or liberty really matter?’
A right exists if a remedy exists under a bond of law. Some human rights exist in some jurisdictions at some times. We know this because Courts order obligation holders to make good the damage caused by a human rights violation. Thus the question, 'do rights exist?' is not comparable to a question re. happiness. Why? A 'right' is a term of art. 'Happiness' isn't.
These are eminently discussable ethical questions,
No. They may be semantic questions or they may be questions about preferences and attitudes or psychological traits. They are not ethical in themselves though there may be a meta-ethical reason why they might arise in an ethical debate.
and the viability of the particular claims made depends on the scrutiny of what is being asserted (the discipline of investigation and assessment of viability are subjects to which I shall presently return).
What great scrutiny is needed? Either human rights are justiciable in such and such place or they are not. This is an empirical matter which can be settled with a phone call to a lawyer.
The ‘proof of existence’ that is often demanded from human rights activists is
foolish if the guy has got a court order which compensates a victim of a human rights violation.
comparable to asking for the validation of ethical claims of other types – from the utilitarian to the Rawlsian or Nozickian.
If jurisdictions of such types existed, after a long enough period and with enough data, we could say that claims about them had been validated or disproven.
This is one way in which the subject of human rights relates closely to the focus of this book, since public scrutiny is central to the approach that is being taken here.
But public scrutiny can do nothing till the verdict is in. Either the Bench says 'this right has this remedy' or it doesn't. The same is true of the verdict of history. Scrutiny is not a magic crystal ball.
Bentham simply postulated that for a claim to count as a right, it must have legal force,
i.e. a remedy would be provided by the Judiciary.
and any other use of the term ‘right’ – no matter how common – is simply mistaken.
Unless it is backed by a demand that the thing be enshrined in law
However, in so far as human rights are meant to be significant ethical claims, the pointer to the fact that they do not necessarily have legal force is as obvious as it is
irrelevant to the nature of these claims.
But significant ethical claims- 'be nice!' or 'it's nice to be nice!'- can't be put into any terms enforceable by law. They are wholly disconnected with the idea of Justice which has to do with Judges deciding cases.
The appropriate comparison is, surely, between a utility-based ethics (as championed by Bentham himself), which sees fundamental ethical importance in utilities but none – at least directly – in freedoms and liberties, and a human rights ethics that makes room for the basic importance of rights seen in terms of freedoms and corresponding obligations (as the advocates of ‘rights of man’ did).
If Courts decided all cases using a Benthamite rule the outcome would be very different from ones where Courts looked at rights as Hohfeldian incidents and added in equitable and other ethical considerations. There is a Utilitarian theory of jurisprudence and there is a Deontological theory. The two are comparable.
Just as utilitarian ethical reasoning takes the form of insisting that the utilities of the relevant persons must be taken into account in deciding what should be done,
only if it is then actually done. There is no utility to be gained by deciding what should be done and then not doing it.
the human rights approach demands that the acknowledged rights of everyone, in the form of respecting freedoms and corresponding obligations, must be given ethical recognition.
No. Nobody wants human rights to be given ethical recognition along with Nazi rights and pedo rights and the rights of stars to shine brightly. They want human beings not to suffer privation and indignity. If this could be done by Law courts- well and good. Incorporate human rights into the legal code. But if there is an entitlement collapse- i.e. Courts can't enforce their judgments- then we're back to charity and moral suasion.
The relevant comparison lies in this important contrast, not in differentiating the legal force of legislated rights (for which Bentham’s phrase ‘the child of law’ is an appropriate description) from the obvious absence of any legal standing generated by the ethical recognition of rights without any legislation or legal reinterpretation.
Legal recognition can alter outcomes provided mechanisms are incentive compatible. Ethical recognition may do so if the guy doing the recognizing is a billionaire or the Emperor of a vast realm.
The child of law has muscles. The child of virtue signalling is a 'wind-egg'- or queef.
Does Sen actually have a theory of Justice? No. He may have a 'Matham' of something else which he is trying to pass off as being about Justice. But this means there can be no 'Vijnanam' for Jurisprudence in his oeuvre. There is merely the contention that Judgments must not be made on the basis of any protocol bound juristic process more especially if its buck-stopped. In other words, no Justice which serves any useful end fits his 'idea of Justice'. I suppose, he senses his own eminence arises from intellectual affirmative action. He is a perpetual specter at the feast reminding affluent White folk of the starving Bangladeshi widow who, sadly, under Sheikh Hasina, is no longer starving but increasingly able to rise in the world through her own hard work and enterprise.
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