Globe and mail review of "The Ideal of Justice"

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/books/review-the-idea-of-justice-by-amartya-sen/article1335538/
From Saturday's Books section
What is justice?

Amartya Sen
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Amartya Sen's opus is a plea for open-minded engagement and a real debate about the issues that matter most in this world
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Paula Newberg
Published on Friday, Oct. 23, 2009 3:15PM EDT Last updated on Saturday, Oct. 31, 2009 2:53AM EDT
Every so often, a philosophical work comes along that is perfect for its moment. In the mid-Cold War, mid-Vietnam War period, John Rawls published A Theory of Justice, which tried to steer an course between competing moral precepts and political uncertainties. A Theory of Justice spawned generations of philosophers, many of whom have brought even greater clarity to the complex political worlds in which we organize and practice our ethics.
Almost 40 years later, Amartya Sen has returned to the subject of justice with another broad look at political argument, civic engagement and human rights. The Idea of Justice – not a theory this time, but an exploration of the ample dimensions of the field – is grand in the best sense of the word, taking on difficult subjects, and respectfully following centuries of philosophical debate while imaginatively rethinking them.

The Idea of Justice, by Amartya Sen, Belknap Press/Harvard University Press, 468 pages, $35.95
Sen stands firmly within the traditions of Anglo-American philosophy, honouring the need for political debate and public reasoning and moving beyond tradition to consider new ways to understand the foundations of political life. His intellectual interlocutors are respected companions (and often, it seems, frequent dinner partners) in search of understanding the overlapping political, economic and philosophical worlds we all now inhabit.
The Idea of Justice incorporates many of the concerns that have defined Sen's career. From his early work on inequality to more recent writings on development, identity and social violence, he has rigorously redefined the ways that the disciplines of the social sciences intersect. This latest book refines his past writings in a new context – albeit one that he has developed over many years – and will undoubtedly set many future agendas for social research.
The meaning of justice and its relationship to social norms remains a fertile field for inquiry, in no small measure because the absence of justice, and the violation of rights that it entails, is often understood to be the rationale for political conflict. The fundamental questions that motivated Rawls's work continue to inform our politics: How do we understand what justice is, how do we share and communicate it across communities, and how can we secure it?
“ This is globalism in its best form, an implicit call to ground political action in common purpose ”
At the root of Sen's volume is a strikingly simple premise: “Open-minded engagement in public reasoning is quite central to the pursuit of justice.” This is an argument for political process as an essential element of human interaction. Even more, it is an argument for political pluralism, and for deep debate about issues of profound importance to public life.
Sen's concern for reasoned engagement is at once empirical and conceptual. A Nobel Prize-winning economist with deep knowledge of the causes and consequences of poverty on social and political life, he discusses the components of a theory of justice with unusual breadth and sensitivity. When he dissects the relationships of liberty to equality, he brings decades of economic research to bear on both sides of the equation.
The Idea of Justice marries economic and political analysis to moral reasoning, and this is among the most important elements of this volume. His colleagues and predecessors might seek clarity through hypothetical argument, but Sen brings to his subject the methods and knowledge gained from a long career teaching the methods of the social sciences. His work on the ways that a free press has prevented famine is but one example of the empiricism that sets his work apart from so many others. Throughout this volume, he consistently takes on questions of economic distribution, individual initiative and state responsibility as fundamental elements of political philosophy.
Like many others whose work he cites with generosity and occasional friendly disagreement – including Brian Barry, Steven Lukes, Thomas Nagel, Thomas Pogge and Martha Nussbaum – Sen is intrigued by the intersection of values and argument. His plea for public reasoning is an argument for encouraging differences of opinion and diversity of judgment.
This is not meant, however, to justify moral relativism, but to understand how rights and democracy can function across the globe. In this sense, Sen's thesis is essentially cosmopolitan and universalist: He writes from within a world that challenges, daily, prevailing concepts of state sovereignty and individual citizenship.
The Idea of Justice focuses on rights to underscore this compelling argument. “The notion of human rights builds on our shared humanity,” Sen writes. “These rights are not derived from the citizenship of any country, or the membership of any nation, but are presumed to be claims or entitlements of every human being.”
From this premise, Sen goes even further: He deciphers the concept and practice of democracy not in terms of the institutions of a democratic state, but in terms of its “capacity to enrich reasoned engagement.” Democracy “has to be judged not just by the institutions that formally exist, but by the extent to which different voices from diverse sections can actively be heard.”
These notions – that states are not the sole repositories of human rights, and the capacity to participate democratically is a necessary condition for satisfying claims to justice – are global in premise and reach. This is globalism in its best form, an implicit call to ground political action in common purpose. “The protective power of democracy” is, in Sen's concept, the basis for seeking and maintaining a shared sense of justice.
Surely this is an idea of justice meant for a political age facing profound challenges of climate change, health, resources and, yes, justice. No doubt a raft of politicians wedded to the traditions of sovereignty would approach Sen's arguments skeptically. But the global commons is the forum for our future security; recognizing this, The Idea of Justice transcends political convention, expansively and elegantly. Read it front to back as a logical rethinking of classical political theory; read it back to front as an agenda of pressing, shared concerns..
Either way, this is a volume worth its considerable weight and length. In an era typified by increasingly contentious politics, violent challenges to states and societies, and elusive (and often ignored) norms for global political engagement, The Idea of Justice is a call for civility in the best sense of the word, and a model of gracious intellectual engagement.
Paula Newberg is the Marshall B. Coyne Director of the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University.