Why does justice matter? The simple answer is that people can trust each other and even trust themselves more when they live in a just society. This means many more mutually beneficial transactions and relationships exist while there is less 'free riding' when it comes to public goods. Econ theory deals with this under the rubric of the theory of externalities, preference revelation, incomplete contract theory, mechanism design, fair division, concurrency etc.
Another answer is that justice in cuddly and sweet. Injustice is repugnant and yucky. This lines up notions of merit goods and demerit goods and not saying mean things about fat people. Also, as the Bible says, if you kids make fun of a baldie like me, bears will come and eat you.
A theory of Justice does not have to define Justice but it does have to have a clear idea of what constitutes injustice. This can't just be stuff which is deplorable in itself like the fact that people get old and then they die. It has to be the case that some one did something bad to someone else or failed to do something good for them which they were obliged to do. You could certainly say, 'it's unfair that Rich peeps got money and us poor people don't got none.' But your proposal to kill the rich and take their money isn't a theory of Justice. It may be a part of an ideology or a political strategy or an economic plan. The problem is, that sort of plan can get you killed.
Suppose there are laws which say the Government must prevent people from getting old or dying, though the law would be involved, Justice would not. I don't dispute that the State has a duty to chop our heads off and shove them up our poopers while chanting Satanic incantations so that we call get resurrected as immortal beings but this is a religious matter with political overtones. Justice however requires that everybody else gets their head chopped off before me because I had asthma as a kid and still suffer from dandruff.
Substantive outcomes are one thing- e.g. everybody getting their head chopped off so as to be resurrected- but procedures to achieve those outcomes may be just or unjust. Consider Djikstra's dining philosophers. They have agreed where to sit and what they will have to eat and drink. However, there is a shortage of spoons and so they need to devise a rule for cutlery sharing. It turns out there is no 'canonical' rule which everybody would agree to. It is a mathematical fact that they will starve to death- even if they each live for one trillion years- if they first try to find an equitable rule for cutlery sharing. This is known as the 'concurrency' or 'race hazard' problem.
Around the same time as Djikstra's work was becoming known, Kuhn propounded the 'no neutral algorithm' thesis. Essentially, if you have more than one policy objective then there is no 'neutral' or 'canonical' or 'natural' way to settle on a algorithm (i.e. rule or deterministic decision procedure) to choose the policy instrument. McKelvey's Chaos theorem makes essentially the same point. In a multi-dimensional decision space 'agenda control' can settle on any outcome however bad. But all this is obvious. The number of policy instruments should be at least equal to the number of policy objectives. You may get lucky and kill two birds with one stone. But you can't do environmental protection with that stone. You can only kill a bird for your dinner. True, you can decide to kill older birds or ones which are 'invasive' or something of that sort. But that involves restricting stone throwing. It is a separate problem which has to be dealt with separately.
The above considerations are all blindingly obvious. They don't bother us much in real life because two types of 'uncorrelated symmetries' obtain-
1) what went before in our own society which we know works up to a point, and
2) what is working well in a society which used to be like ours but is now better off because of some institutional change they have made. We can't choose between abstract conceptions which have no 'concrete model' because of 'value plurality'- i.e. absent any empirical evidence, we can't say which value matters more in that it must be lexically preferenced before any value can be realized- e.g. if we have nothing to eat we won't value Beauty- but we can choose between concrete models which we know are feasible because at least we know making the choice won't prevent us from being alive.
Obviously, if you are really itching to kill some particular group of peeps and to grab their cool stuff, you could have a revolutionary theory of justice. Sen admits this-
To be sure, members of any polity can imagine how a gigantic and totally comprehensive reorganization might be brought about, moving them at one go to the ideal of a fully just society.
In Sen's ancestral East Bengal, this involved killing or chasing away Hindus like himself. Whatever happens in Mamta's Bengal, Sen should be safe enough in Amrika.
A no-nonsense transcendental theory can serve, in this sense, as something like the grand revolutionary’s ‘one-shot handbook’. But that marvellously radical handbook would not be much invoked in the actual debates on justice in which we are ever engaged.
Why not? Soviet Jurisprudence was based on such a handbook. The rule was simple. Look at the class origin of the two people involved in a dispute. Kill the more bourgeois one.
Anglo Saxon jurisprudence tended to go the other way. The guy with deeper pockets and better lawyers wins. But nobody gets killed. Sad.
Questions on how to reduce the manifold injustices that characterize the world tend to define the domain of application of the analysis of justice;
Nope. The domain of application of justice begins where that of policy leaves off. There is a doctrine of 'political question' or 'executive privilege'. Policy may tackle injustice in diverse ways one of which is passing laws on the basis of which people can approach the courts.
the jump to transcendental perfection does not belong there.
But it can do in policy. There have been Revolutionary regimes which applied 'one-shot handbooks'. They may also have had 'Revolutionary Courts' to supplement the activities of the apparatchiks.
It is also worth noting here the general analytical point, already noted in the Introduction, that the diagnosis of injustice does not demand a unique identification of ‘the just society’,
nor does it involve anything else. I'm going bald. That's unjust! You may say 'it is your karmic punishment for making fun of baldies in a previous life.' My reply is 'karma is unjust! Fuck you karma! Fucky you very much!'
On the other hand, there is always some unique identification of 'the just society' which can be assigned to any particular 'diagnosis of injustice'. Clearly, a just society would do genetic engineering and perform interventions such that people like myself would be spared the dreadful fate of male pattern baldness. Also our dicks would be bigger.
since a univocal diagnosis of the deficiency of a society with, say, large-scale hunger, or widespread illiteracy, or rampant medical neglect, can go with very different identifications of perfectly just social arrangements in other respects.
But this is the same type of injustice as arises when some men go bald. Only if there is an easily available remedy which is being callously or maliciously withheld does an 'injustice' arise. A society where everybody is starving may have perfectly just social arrangements. Indeed, that might be the problem. Less Justice, more food should be their motto.
The fact is Sen has no 'transcendental' - i.e. a priori- reason for saying things which he doesn't like (e.g. widespread illiteracy) are unjust. There was a time when everybody was illiterate because writing hadn't been invented. How could there be an a priori reason for concluding the thing was a 'manifest injustice'? The day may come when we have rocket ships which can take us to other Galaxies. Do we really suffer a 'manifest injustice' because they are not currently available?
Saying 'I wish we had x' does not mean x is required for Justice to prevail.
Even if we think of transcendence not in the gradeless terms of ‘right’ social arrangements, but in the graded terms of the ‘best’ social arrangements,
We would have done nothing meaningful. Right means best means optimal means totes cool in this context.
the identification of the best does not, in itself, tell us much about the full grading, such as how to compare two non-best alternatives,
Only if we don't want it to. The thing is easy enough in practice. We agree I should marry Beyonce coz she be hot and has lots of money. Sadly, my choice is between an elderly Russian hooker who wants a British passport because she does not like Putin and an equally elderly Japanese hooker who believes she is the reincarnation of Sada Abe. She too wants a British passport but only because she thinks she can become the Leader of the Conservative Party by killing me and slicing off my penis and carrying it around with her till the Daily Mail backs her Prime Ministerial ambitions. In this case, it is obvious that I should plump for the Russian hooker. Fuck. I left it too late. The lady has set her cap on Rahul Baba.
nor does it specify a unique ranking with respect to which the best stands at the pinnacle; indeed, the same best may go with a great many different rankings at the same pinnacle.
Or not, if that's how we want things. Pareto's revolution was to show utility was immeasurable. He proposed to replace it with ophelimity which means the same thing in Greek. One may simply speak of 'profit' or the Von Neumann 'payoff' vector.
Pareto's point is that there is no pinnacle. There are merely rankings for specific purposes. If you have more than one purpose, there is no non-arbitrary ranking. But, that's cool coz uncorrelated asymmetries obtain and so the bourgeois strategy- which is eusocial in a certain sense- will always have some arbitrary element e.g. who owns what or which 'value' must be lexically preferenced for survival. Thus, at times, discourse on justice must be interrupted because it is vital to survival to quit the room because I just farted. At other times, it may be vital to discourse on justice because the alternative is listening to me talk about my love life.
To consider an analogy used earlier, the fact that a person regards the Mona Lisa as the best picture in the world does not reveal how she would rank a Picasso against a Van Gogh.
Yes it does. She may say different but fuck should we listen to her for? My point is that mathematical considerations of 'uniqueness' or 'canonicity' or 'naturality' etc. are themselves arbitrary. There is no Archimedian point from which category theory can itself become categorical. A person may say 'this choice sequence' is mine but our choice sequence can assign a different choice sequence to them. That person may choose to adopt the one we propose. Only if we are considering a bunch of overlapping law-less choice sequences could we even dream of saying any ranking is 'informative'. But who is to say what is or isn't a law-less choice sequence? If the thing is 'law-like' then it is defeasible- i.e. could be improved in some non-deterministic way.
It is quite possible that when I become a gazillionaire, I get the best Art expert to buy me a bunch of pictures. I like Moaning Liza and mention Pickarso. The expert says 'No. You want Van Gogh and Klimt. Also you iz Gay. Stop pretending. ' I discover soon enough that the dude is right.
The search for transcendental justice can be an engaging intellectual exercise in itself,
if you find wanking too cognitively challenging- sure.
but –irrespective of whether we think of transcendence in terms of the gradeless ‘right’
Which is what we do when we think our Mummy is the bestest Mumsy-Wumsy in the World.
or in the framework of the graded ‘best’ – it does not tell us much about the comparative merits of different societal arrangements.
Because nothing tells us much save by arbitrary stipulation or by reason of a pre-existing 'uncorrelated asymmetry'.
Consider the following. It was published 13 years ago as the description of a book titled 'Against Injustice- the new Economics of Amartya Sen.' Has that new Economics actually achieved any victory 'against injustice'? Did it end the unjust aspects of the 'war on terror'? Did it combat the unjust aspects of Obama or Europe's or Japan's plan of recovery from the financial crash? Was it worthwhile in any way whatsoever?
Traditional theories of justice as formulated by political philosophers, jurists and economists have all tended to see injustice as simply a breach of justice, a breakdown of the normal order.the international dimension of justice, which for Rawls cannot involve redistributive social justice, (is) a conclusion his critics regard as perverse. If inequalities within societies need to be justified,
they don't, if is obvious that without those inequalities there would be mass emigration of the talented or mass immigration of the parasitic or criminal
surely the far greater inequalities that exist between societies cannot be ignored.
Those inequalities are not ignored. You look around and see a country doing better than your own and try to emulate it. You may hire a stupid Bengali but only so as to laugh at the little man when he tries to teach you economics as if it weren't common knowledge that his people are all starving to death or getting ethnically cleansed by better fed Muslims.
Rawls responded to such criticisms in an important partial revision to his theory, The Law of Peoples. His definition of a "people'' requires that it have a moral nature and political institutions; he argues that there is no "global people'' and therefore no basis for global redistributive justice. His critics have not been convinced.
But those critics did not split their pay-check with the custodial staff or even their own teaching assistants. They only pretended to be into 'redistributive justice' so as to get paid.
Sen is also much engaged by the problem of global justice,
He was secretly robbing the rich countries so as to feed his own starving people. Batman caught him but let him go after Superman intervened with an impassioned speech about the true meaning of 'Truth, Justice, and the American Way.'
but he sees this as symptomatic of much wider problems with Rawls's project, and The Idea of Justice can be understood as an attempt to respond to these wider problems. Indeed, the book almost takes the form of an implicit dialogue with Rawls and the Rawlsians, and it is worth noting that Sen has dedicated this work to John Rawls.
Rawls was White and came from a rich country to which Sen eagerly immigrated to so as to earn more money.
To follow Sen's argument it is necessary to spend a little time setting out the shape of the Rawlsian project. The starting point is that whereas much political philosophy in the mid-twentieth century was concerned with language and the meaning and use of words, Rawls harked back to an older tradition by focusing on substance.
That older tradition was Racist. It said that Indians and Africans were savages. No crime is committed when a more advanced people exterminate or enslave savages. Even Bertrand Russell believed that a war against less developed people was always just. However, by the mid-Fifties- when Sen was at Cambridge- he said the following on the BBC-
The acquisition of the Western hemisphere by white men was one of the causes of the supremacy in world affairs which they enjoyed for some centuries. They can hardly recover this supremacy by new colonizing efforts after the old pattern, because there are no longer large regions that are empty or nearly empty awaiting the coming of vigorous and enterprising men. In quite recent times the words “colonial” and “colonialism” have acquired new meanings. They are now habitually used to denote regions where the governing class is white but not Russian, and the bulk of the population is of some non-white race. Western ideals of freedom have been propagated throughout the world by Western instructors and have produced an unwillingness to submit to alien domination which in former times was either non-existent or very much weaker.
Naughty, naughty Mr. Nehru. If only your Daddy hadn't sent you to Harrow, India wouldn't have turned into such a shithole.
Although only military conquest compelled Gaul to become part of the Roman Empire, its population, after conquest, acquiesced completely and did not welcome the separation from Rome that came in the fifth century.
What is the sub-text here? Gauls were Celts. They were White. Whites naturally emulate the superior culture. Darkies get a bit of education and then get rid of their White masters with the result that they soon revert to cannibalism.
National independence, which has become an obstacle to colonization, seems to modern men a natural human aspiration, but it is, in fact, very modern and largely a product of education.
In darkies. Whites naturally get civilized when they come in contact with a more developed type of White. Darkies may get a bit of education which turns them against their White masters but the result is horrible.
If the human race is to survive, nationalism will have to come to terms with a new ideal—namely, internationalism. I do not see how this new ideal, which will concede to each nation internal autonomy, but not freedom for external aggression, can be reconciled with the formation of new colonies, because empty regions can no longer be found. Perhaps the Antarctic continent will be made habitable, and this might prove an exception, but I think it is the only one
Russell was clearly bat-shit crazy. But he did represent the grand Whig enlightenment tradition.
Throughout history colonies have been among the most powerful agents for the spread of the arts and science and ways of life that constitute civilization.
Ivy League Universities must take over that role. Otherwise them darkies will eat us.
For the future, it seems that mankind will have to learn to do without this ancient and well-tried method.
Coz darkies got a bit of education and turned on their just and proper masters.
I think mankind will have to depend, not upon force or domination, but upon the inherent attractiveness of a civilized way of life.
As opposed to sex, drugs and rock and roll.
The Romans when they overcame the Greeks were at a much lower level of civilization than those whom they defeated,
not really. The Greeks had a more ornate literary culture and, thanks to Alexander, had created a big Empire which however had disintegrated. Still, there were some very luxurious Hellenistic courts where Kings married their sisters and then the sisters fucked any virile invader who would kill off their hubby-brother or Uncle-Daddy.
but they found Greek civilization so attractive that, from a cultural standpoint, it was the Greeks who were the victors.
In Byzantium- sure. Then the fucking Muslims turned up. Sad. Still, the Teutonic races did well out of the Western Empire.
Those among us who value culture and a humane way of life must school ourselves to learn from the Greeks rather than from the Romans.
More pederasty, less of this business of building aqueducts.
If this is to be done successfully, we shall have to eliminate those harsher features of our way of life which have repelled many alien nations with whom we have had contact.
Stop lynching uppity niggers. They are too stupid to understand it is for their own good. Why not make them teach Social Choice theory instead? Since they are too stupid to understand Russel's paradox, they will waste their lives while we have a good laugh at them.
Missionary and soldier have hitherto played equal parts in the diffusion of civilization. For the future, it must be the missionary—taking this term in a large sense—who will alone be able to carry on the work.
This is how Sen was seen. He had been taken to Cambridge and converted into a model nigger. Hopefully, he would return to preach the faith. That way, Whitey would remain in charge though, no doubt, the darkies would be too stupid to notice. Justice must blind those whom it can not otherwise serve.
Returning to the Carnegie Council article we find that whereas the analytical philosophy of the Fifties was about Russel's type of justice- except it couldn't say so in so many words lest the wogs take umbrage- Rawls had a more moralistic, or Christian, end in view. His critique of Utilitarianism is similar to Aristotle's objection to Plato's understanding of all types of association being alike and only being different in degree. Instead, the Koinonia Politike- or political community- of its essence must concern what is incommensurable or essentially diverse. However, 'distinctiveness of persons' does not matter provided there is 'transferable utility'- i.e. you can pay off or threaten distinct persons to stop being so fucking distinct and just get with the program already.
Thus, while most philosophers asked how the word "justice'' is generally used, Rawls is much more ambitious: he wants to be able to say that such-and-such a social arrangement is or is not "just.''
Rawls thinks there is a 'basic structure' to Human Life. There isn't. Aristotle was wrong. Darwin was right. Only the fitness landscape matters. But it is radically uncertain. Public deliberation can't reduce Knightian uncertainty. However the market can provide hedges and mechanisms of various sorts one of which is the 'Stationary Bandit' that is the State.
His aim is to
shit higher than his arsehole. The poor fool thought he understood maths stuff. He didn't.
create "ideal theory,'' a standard against which actual policy choices, when they arise, can be judged. He begins by defining justice as "fairness''
but was ignorant of mathsy 'fair division' under Knightian uncertainty. The answer is 'get insurance against calamities. Don't agree that everybody should get the same cake slice. Think of the moral hazard.'
and then, in A Theory of Justice, describes a procedure for cashing out this notion. Employing the well-worn concept of a "social contract,'' but with some twists of his own, he generates the principles for establishing just institutions in a society: equal liberty for all,
In which case, there is a 'hold-out' problem. Why sign on to a contract without maximizing consideration received? Rawls might say 'as a reasonable person you should want to do this' but we reply 'you eat dog turds. That's totes unreasonable dude. Fuck is the matter with you?'
fair equality of opportunity,
which only an omniscient God could ensure. I could have had the opportunity to be Prime Minister of India if only Rajiv had married me instead of Sonia.
and material differences to be justified only on the basis that they benefit the least advantaged.
a movable feast. Rawls forgot about disutility. At the margin, there is someone in work who will quit her job if the entitlement of the 'least advantaged' rises. The problem here is that whereas monetary reward is easily verifiable, disutility isn't.
These are quite radical principles (although socialists object that they still allow for substantial differentials) and they are taken to be of universal relevance.
Did Rawls divide up his pay packet with the least advantaged on his campus? Did anybody? If not, the thing had no fucking relevance whatsoever.
In his earlier work, Rawls holds that only liberal societies organized on these lines can be described as just, although later, in The Law of Peoples, he does acknowledge that some non-liberal societies could be, if not actually just, at least "well ordered'' and "decent.''
Very kind of him I'm sure. To be fair, some non-liberal societies have acknowledged that Rawls would make a decent punching bag in a well ordered world.
Sen accepts the general proposition that justice should be understood as fairness,
Though that is not how it is understood. A thing may be fair but unjust and vice versa. Two strangers on a train may decide to kill each other's wives so both have an alibi. It would be unfair if one reneged after the other killed his spouse. But it would be contrary to justice for a Court to compel him to complete his side of the bargain.
but finds many features of Rawls's model troubling
As an economist he should have simply said 'behind the veil of ignorance, we choose collective insurance same as we do in real life. That way, if the worst happens, we are covered.'
—and troubling for reasons that students of international ethics will have no difficulty in recognizing and sympathizing with. First, there is the contractarian nature of Rawls's work, which requires us to see justice as the product of an agreement among members of a clearly defined society; Sen agrees with those critics of Rawls who find this problematic under modern conditions.
It is crazy shit. Firstly, such a contract would be 'incomplete' because of Knightian uncertainty and thus 'anything goes'. Secondly, there would be a hold-out problem. Anyway, absent consideration passing, no contract is binding. I agree that we must all suck off homeless dudes. But after laughing heartily at your face which is dripping with cum, I refuse to do any such thing. There is no actual contract. No consideration passed. Any way, the thing was repugnant.
Rawls assumes for the purpose of his model that societies are discrete, self-sufficient, self-contained entities into which people are born and which they leave by death. This is clearly not the case in reality, and, even if it were, decisions made within one society can have serious consequences for others—one only has to consider the issue of environmental degradation to see that this is so. The point is that if justice is defined as the product of a contract, the interests of non-contractors—foreigners, future generations, perhaps nature itself—may well be neglected.
This is why justice is not defined as the result of a contract. Positive law is law as command. Either the thing is enforced coercively or it is a dead letter.
This is actually a common criticism of Rawls and Rawlsians, and Charles Beitz and Thomas Pogge have suggested that perhaps the whole world should be regarded as a "society'' for the purposes of this social contract.
International law does exist for some purposes but it grants legal personality to a variety of entities while denying it in an arbitrary manner to certain other similar entities.
As Sen points out, however, this will not do—the idea of society presumes a degree of global unity that simply does not exist.
For some purposes it may do to a superior degree than national unity in specific cases.
It is the very idea of basing justice on a contract that is problematic, not the details of the contract.
So, embrace Legal Positivism. That's the sensible course.
Rawlsian critics of Rawls are generally much less concerned with the second feature of A Theory of Justice that exercises Sen—namely, Rawls's emphasis on the importance of "ideal theory,'' or what Sen calls a "transcendental'' approach to justice, the desire to create an account of justice that is universal and necessary, that applies everywhere, and at all times.
Individuals are welcome to have or lack this. The thing makes no difference to anybody- except a few pedants swindling their students by pretending to teach them something useful or valuable.
Sen doubts that a single account of this kind is either possible or necessary. There are many possible theories of justice. In the beginning of the book he tells the engaging story of three children, Ann, Bob, and Carla, who are quarreling over the fate of a flute (p. 12). Ann claims the flute on the basis that she is the only one who can play it, Bob claims it because he has no other toys to play with whereas the others do, and Carla's claim is based on the fact that she made the flute in the first place. All of these statements are taken to be true,
Why? Only one is objectively verifiable and represents an 'uncorrelated asymmetry'. We can get evidence that Carla made the flute. We can't be sure, given enough practice, that Ann is the only one who can play it or that Bob will always remain poor and deprived of toys. Thus only one claim can be taken to be true. The 'bourgeois strategy' prevails.
and Sen's point is that one can produce intuitively plausible reasons for giving the flute to any one of the children. Utilitarians—and for different reasons, Aristotelians—would favor Ann,
No. They would favor Carla. The disutility of making the flute must be balanced by the utility of getting to dispose of it. Aristotelians have no reason to favor the idle. If Ann wants the flute let her pay for it.
10 egalitarians Bob,
till Carla complains that now she has no toys and so Bob must be deprived of the flute though Carla is then forced to give it back and so on and so forth.
libertarians Carla, but the real point here is that there is no reason to assume, as Rawls and most of his followers do, that we have to decide which of these answers is the right one. Sometimes there is simply a plurality of "right'' answers.
Not in this case. There was only one 'uncorrelated asymmetry' of a verifiable, common knowledge, type because of 'Knightian Uncertainty'. Carla, unable to sell her flute, may become a sublime flute player. Bob may inherit vast wealth from his Uncle, who unbeknownst to us, had just dropped dead. Ann may already be infected with a deadly virus.
The idea that there is only one kind of just society—a liberal society defined by principles set out in Rawls's model—and that all others represent a falling off from this ideal does not seem a plausible response to the pluralism that undoubtedly exists in the modern world.
But that pluralism ceases to be a problem if 'transferable utility' exists- i.e. people can be paid off or threatened till they get with the program.
Staying with the critique of "ideal theory,'' Sen also contests the practical value of establishing an ideal in this way.
Actually, in the absence of any agreement to the contrary, a Court would award equal shares. This could be changed in a Rawlsian direction- i.e. more for the worst off- so the 'ideal' has cash value.
Sen's shite has none.
In defense of ideal theory it is generally argued that an account of what a just world would look like gives us a yardstick against which to measure particular policies, but Sen observes that this is much less helpful than it might seem at first sight. In practice, we measure one possible policy against another possible policy, and not against an ideal.
No we don't. We do what is in our interest. True, if we are paid to do some measuring then we pretend to do some measuring. But we would do the same if we were paid to do grok some supposed ideal.
Sen uses another simple analogy to make the point: if asked to say whether a van Gogh or a Picasso is the better painting, it hardly helps to be told that da Vinci's Mona Lisa is the best painting of all time (p. 101).
Nonsense! We have a simple rule. Art peaked in da Vinci's time. Van Gogh is closer to that peak than Pickarso.
This is not a particularly good analogy, since what constitutes a "better'' painting is unclear, but the point Sen is trying to get across is clear enough—namely, that pursuing justice is actually about making comparisons; we ask ourselves whether this policy will make the world a somewhat better place as opposed to that policy, and an ideal world contributes very little, if anything, to this process of comparison.
Rubbish! If we are being paid to do comparisons and we know the guy paying us has a fetish for one type of shite then we use that information strategically.
The third point Sen raises against Rawls and the Rawlsians concerns the importance they place on establishing just institutions.
Why establish institutions? Why not just sit under a tree talking? Whitey should stop establishing things. Just sit under tree listening to nice Bengali babus till you starve to death.
The basic idea here is that if you can get the institutions right you do not need to worry about actual human behavior;
Very true. If the institution where you teach is properly conducted, your students won't stab you. Sen left India for the UK just when students in India were getting to be a little too stabby stabby.
essentially, the assumption is that, as Kant put it, even a "race of devils'' could, if intelligent, produce just institutions and a just society.
Kant was German. His idea of a just society would still be a fucking nightmare to everybody else.
This position is, of course, particularly problematic at the international level, where the institutional structure is weak by comparison with the sovereign state.
People in sovereign states still get stabbed. It is doubtful that Rawls went around insulting Mafiosi or Hell's Angels.
This has led some Rawlsians to propose highly implausible, and probably undesirable, shifts toward global government (consider, for example, Thomas Pogge's notion of a "democracy panel,'' which would determine whether particular regimes were democratic and thus deserve to be treated as sovereign and entitled to dispose of their natural resources),
Pogge has now been condemned by hundreds of fellow ethicists for sexual harassment. Apparently, he was trying to achieve Global Justice by getting his dick into the vagina's of people from poor countries in return for career advancement.
This is perfectly consistent with earlier views of how civilization is spread by White dicks. The women who objected to it were, as Pogge said, 'petit bourgeois' 'feminists'.
while other political philosophers, most notably Thomas Nagel, have recently declared that global justice is simply impossible to achieve given the implausibility of such schemes.
Nagel may feel he is too old to achieve global justice with his dick.
Here Sen is particularly innovative and illuminating. Drawing on the Sanskrit literature on ethics and jurisprudence, he outlines a distinction between niti and nyaya; both of these terms can be translated as "justice,''
Niti is policy. Changes in sentencing policy may be decided by legislatures. However, justice is separate and independent.
but they summarize rather different notions (pp. 20ff.). Niti refers to correct procedures, formal rules, and institutions;
Not in Indian or Anglo-American jurisdictions. The Judiciary must decide for itself what is or isn't 'due process' or in conformity with the 'basic structure' of the constitution.
nyaya is a broader, more inclusive concept that looks to the world that emerges from the institutions we create, rather than focusing directly on the institutions themselves.
Policy focuses on outcomes. Justice does not. It resolves conflicting claims- e.g. of guilt or innocence- but without caring what the real world would be. Thus a surgeon may be sent to the gallows for killing a criminal to harvest his organs to save the lives of good people.
Sen sees this distinction as visible in European thought. Such theorists as Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Kant, and, most recently, Rawls look to the establishment of correct institutions,
because these guys were doing political philosophy. They weren't economists.
while such writers as Adam Smith, Wollstonecraft, Bentham, Marx, and Mill take a more comparative approach, looking holistically at social realizations that are certainly the product of institutions, but also of other factors, including human behavior.
An absolute monarchy can pursue laissez faire or feminist policies just as a democracy could be Marxist or employ a Benthamite Social Planner.
There was a small market for books of a certain type and some pedants or pamphleteers made a little money of it. Sadly, Rawls and Sen and Pogge and Habermas had little understanding of the world in which they lived in. They were merely pedants who were part of a credentialized Ponzi scheme which has now collapsed.
Smith's work in The Theory of Moral Sentiments is particularly important to Sen because, from within this second Enlightenment tradition that Sen values, it offers an approach to the notion of "fairness'' that is highly attractive.
It was certainly highly attractive to the good folk who conquered Bengal and traded in black slaves.
Whereas Rawls employs an elaborate fiction in order to arrive at his notion of fairness (contractors are supposed to choose principles under a hypothetical "veil of ignorance'' wherein they are ignorant of certain key facts about their own position), Smith asks instead, what would an "impartial spectator,'' someone (or several someones, because there could actually be numerous impartial spectators surveying the scene from different vantage points) observing from the outside, make of a particular state of affairs?
Nothing of interest precisely because they have no skin in the game. Obviously, if what they say is not to our liking then we accuse them of being highly partial. Why would they want to stand around to dispute our accusations? When Sen was accused of misconduct did he really want all sorts of 'impartial observers' turning up to testify? No. He stood on his rights.
This is much less cumbersome and complicated a notion than that of the original position, and it has the added advantage of not pretending to be a precise exercise.
Actually, the 'original position' yields a precise outcome which is the same as the fundamental principle of all contract law- not just Social Contract theory- viz. there is no contract without passing of consideration. In other words, everybody says 'either pay me immediately or fuck off. I'm not signing shit'.
It invites us to trust our capacity to identify injustice, if we can but project ourselves out of our natural partiality for our own interests.
This is Shantideva's 'paratman parivartana'- or 'swopping selves'. If you aint a Yogi of some very advanced type, you can't do it & you also can't know anyone who can. In other words, like Rawls's proposal, Sen's proposal falls at the first hurdle.
Throughout The Idea of Justice, Sen invites us to engage in public reasoning in pursuit of justice,
this is done by lawyers in courts- not shitheads teaching shite.
not by reference to some kind of ideal, but in very practical terms,
which lawyers are briefed about by their clients. Confidentiality means they have access to the truth in a manner the rest of us do not.
comparing the impact of particular policies, and reflecting on the way things are done in the name of impartiality and fairness. He invites us to consider social arrangements as wholes, to assess their impact in broad comprehensive terms without becoming obsessed with procedures or formal rules—in short, to embrace nyaya rather than niti,
Nyaya means 'Justice'. Niti means 'policy'- i.e. stuff which political leaders decide. Replace the Executive with the Judiciary & the result would be as disastrous as substituting advocates for surgeon in hospital theatres.
Smith rather than Kant.
Fuck Kant. He was a kretin.
This kind of public reasoning can no longer be confined to particular societies but must now be global in scope and range. Fortunately, the very interdependence that demands that we take into account the interests of others also helps us to see things from their perspective. Sen recognizes that this will not be easy. There is no ideal to guide our discussions, and the comparisons he invites us to make will cause us to question our own interests, which is never comfortable. Still, in his own work, and indeed in his own life, he offers us a paradigm of what it means to be a global impartial spectator.
Sen, like Arrow-Debreu, makes crazy assumptions such that nobody would need to learn human language or get an education. Everything that can be known or done is already coded into the vector of future prices. I don't need to DM threatening to beat you up for getting my fiancee to elope with Rahul Baba. There would be some sort of instantaneous emoji denoting this which would be beamed directly into your brain in return for my collecting some dog poop for Amartya Sen to eat.
Arrow-Debreu world is anything goes. The real world isn't because information asymmetries are uncorrelated. This enables us to say that proposals for 'different societal arrangements' are mischievous. It would be unjust to pursue them in the same way that it would be unjust to bite our own heads off so as to protest Uranus. This does not mean that the feasible trajectories for our Society can't be graded. They can- but not now, never now. The Owl of Minerva takes wing only after dusk has fallen.
