Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
submittedVersion
Publication Date
4-2013
Abstract
Against scepticism from thinkers including John Rawls and Thomas Nagel about the appropriateness of justice as the concept through which global ethical concerns should be approached, Amartya Sen argues that the problem lies not with the idea of justice, but with a particular approach to thinking of justice, namely a transcendental approach. In its stead Sen is determined to offer an alternative systematic theory of justice, namely a comparative approach, as a more promising foundation for a theory of ‘global justice.’ But in the end Sen offers no such thing. He does not develop a theory of justice and this is all to the good; for if values are plural in the way Sen suggests, then justice is not a master idea but one value among many, and it should be neither the first virtue of social institutions, nor the notion that frames all our reflections on ethical and political life.
Keywords
Global justice, Comparative justice, Transcendental, Distribution, Universalism
Discipline
Comparative Politics
Research Areas
Political Science
Publication
Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy
Volume
16
Issue
2
First Page
196
Last Page
204
ISSN
1369-8230
Identifier
10.1080/13698230.2012.757911
Publisher
Taylor & Francis (Routledge): SSH Titles
Citation
KUKATHAS, Chandran.(2013). On sen on comparative justice. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 16(2), 196-204.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/2927
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1080/13698230.2012.757911