A song that influenced this reviewer's musical tastes when she was quite young, by Laurie Anderson, has the lyric: "'Cause when love is gone / There's always justice / And when justice is gone / There's always force / . . . ". Thinking about this often led her to ponder if that ranking--which she supposed was one of ability to prevail--was correct. And it further made her tend to view various approaches to justice as intellectual efforts to out-compete the other two modes of social arrangement mentioned in that lyrical excerpt, which she regarded as a worthy goal, because (per Faithless in 2001) there is "Not Enuff Love", and because force hurts.
Something of the same consideration seems to strike Amartya Sen. In particular he eschews what he calls "trancendentally institutional" approaches to justice--which are those that search for perfectly just institutions. Rawlsian egalitarianism, Kantian justice, and (Nozickian) libertarianism all come under fire for this, even though Sen reserves most gratitude and respect for Rawls' thinking. These approaches are misguided, as they fail to land in the real world of actual behaviours, and of making reasoned, actual changes in the direction of increased justice. Apparently an image of nirvana is insufficient in identifying relative distance of points from it (in much the same way as an acceptance that the Mona Lisa is the world's finest painting is no help in assessing whether a Picasso is better than a Rembrandt). And it is also unnecessary. So Sen prefers "realization-focussed comparative" approaches, which lend themselves to relative comparison of prevailing states of justice, and--bluntly--have more relevance to incremental adjustment than grand design.
This sounds less adequate in respect of outcompeting injustice, right? And almost at the end of the book (page 401 of 415) is an encapsulating sentence: "We go as far as we reasonably can". This would sound like an apologetic admission were it near the start. Thankfully, that far into the journey through Sen's wisdom, the actual impact on this reviewer was nothing of the sort.
This book is not the author's first work on the matter of justice, there are many. It is easier to get through than the others, though still highly demanding. Maybe that impression comes from this reviewer having read others first, but she found herself left with a great deal more clarity and understanding of Sen's approach (which she thought she knew already, but evidently not so fully).
Here are some cornerstones: Objective reasoning is paramount in thinking about justice and injustice. Because the subject demands fairness. Because bias (unfairness) would be challenged by an impartial spectator. In other words, the primary element of fairness is a demand for impartiality (even though it may still not be resolvable into a single universally agreed outcome--more later). And why use reason? Well because even to reject it, you need to evince good reasons to (ha).
Reason becomes "public reason", also known perhaps as justice (and rule) by discussion. This relates to the right thing being seen to be done, as opposed to simply being done. It also relates directly to Sen's unique yet not-so-well understood capability approach to ethical social arrangement. Capability to achieve is--according to Sen--a metric of freedom and justice that is broadly superior to all others (such as legislated rights, or entitlements to primary goods, or means). This comes from differential abilities to convert the bracketed aspects into valuable experiences or acts--the objectives a person attaches to her living.
And co-incidental freedom of capability (such as preferring to stay at home in a curfewed authoritarian state) is naturally inferior to process-driven freedom (being able to choose against one's preference as well).
Sen develops as robust a thesis as this reviewer has encountered for reason that produces decisions which go contrary to self-interest maximization. In doing so he takes this past the idea of sympathy (like, assisting someone else because that will also make you feel better) to commitment (doing the same because you have reasoned that it is within your ability to increase ethical justice--an example of this is closing the window blind on a flight so that your neighbour can play a computer game, even if you consider that it actually harms her best interests to do that). Your reviewer has always tended to abstract all actions--even these agency actions Sen focusses on here--in the direction of some measure of personal interest, even if that interest is reciprocal justice. But she is now re-examining her thoughts.
Maybe the most powerful argument for primacy of public reasoning is its implications for the relevance of who is eligible to be at the (public) discussion table. Someone directly affected has a membership entitlement, but also someone who can bring impartiality and reasoned argument is also eligible--she has an enlightenment entitlement. If the merit of this is not obvious, Sen asks the reader to consider famine. Famines tend to only affect the minority of a population: so even if the impacted segment were able to vote democratically to expel the central authority on whose watch the catastrophe had occurred, the authority would be secure. What makes a famine a disaster for a ruling government is the reach of public reasoning, which energises a very large part of the population to protest, not in sympathy but in commitment. Hence the result that such tragedies have never happened in a system where public reason (for which you can proxy free speech, media and fundamentally impartial arbitration) is dominant. This result is compellingly robust, by the way.
Finally, there is a spirited treatment of the validity of human ("universal" / "inalienable") rights, which were referred to as nonsense-on-stilts by Bentham and inferior to codified, legislated rights, and this general idea is shared by many, including your reviewer. Here also she has cause to re-assess as overly simplistic. Non-violability as a qualification would render all rights as abridgable. Requirement of imposed obligation would also offend many theories, depending of the imposition. But requirement to reason objectively and impartially seems to unavoidably impose obligations--again notwithstanding disagreement over what those are. And that is most eloquently explained.
Fabulous book from a fabulous mind, which possibly skewers more than a few sacred cows for those open minded to relinquish assumed certitude. But that--trancendental institutionalism in Sen's lexicon--is an illusory endpoint born of arrested (premature) enlightenment and reason. And back to the Anderson song: "And when force is gone /There's always Mom".
Something of the same consideration seems to strike Amartya Sen. In particular he eschews what he calls "trancendentally institutional" approaches to justice--which are those that search for perfectly just institutions. Rawlsian egalitarianism, Kantian justice, and (Nozickian) libertarianism all come under fire for this, even though Sen reserves most gratitude and respect for Rawls' thinking. These approaches are misguided, as they fail to land in the real world of actual behaviours, and of making reasoned, actual changes in the direction of increased justice. Apparently an image of nirvana is insufficient in identifying relative distance of points from it (in much the same way as an acceptance that the Mona Lisa is the world's finest painting is no help in assessing whether a Picasso is better than a Rembrandt). And it is also unnecessary. So Sen prefers "realization-focussed comparative" approaches, which lend themselves to relative comparison of prevailing states of justice, and--bluntly--have more relevance to incremental adjustment than grand design.
This sounds less adequate in respect of outcompeting injustice, right? And almost at the end of the book (page 401 of 415) is an encapsulating sentence: "We go as far as we reasonably can". This would sound like an apologetic admission were it near the start. Thankfully, that far into the journey through Sen's wisdom, the actual impact on this reviewer was nothing of the sort.
This book is not the author's first work on the matter of justice, there are many. It is easier to get through than the others, though still highly demanding. Maybe that impression comes from this reviewer having read others first, but she found herself left with a great deal more clarity and understanding of Sen's approach (which she thought she knew already, but evidently not so fully).
Here are some cornerstones: Objective reasoning is paramount in thinking about justice and injustice. Because the subject demands fairness. Because bias (unfairness) would be challenged by an impartial spectator. In other words, the primary element of fairness is a demand for impartiality (even though it may still not be resolvable into a single universally agreed outcome--more later). And why use reason? Well because even to reject it, you need to evince good reasons to (ha).
Reason becomes "public reason", also known perhaps as justice (and rule) by discussion. This relates to the right thing being seen to be done, as opposed to simply being done. It also relates directly to Sen's unique yet not-so-well understood capability approach to ethical social arrangement. Capability to achieve is--according to Sen--a metric of freedom and justice that is broadly superior to all others (such as legislated rights, or entitlements to primary goods, or means). This comes from differential abilities to convert the bracketed aspects into valuable experiences or acts--the objectives a person attaches to her living.
And co-incidental freedom of capability (such as preferring to stay at home in a curfewed authoritarian state) is naturally inferior to process-driven freedom (being able to choose against one's preference as well).
Sen develops as robust a thesis as this reviewer has encountered for reason that produces decisions which go contrary to self-interest maximization. In doing so he takes this past the idea of sympathy (like, assisting someone else because that will also make you feel better) to commitment (doing the same because you have reasoned that it is within your ability to increase ethical justice--an example of this is closing the window blind on a flight so that your neighbour can play a computer game, even if you consider that it actually harms her best interests to do that). Your reviewer has always tended to abstract all actions--even these agency actions Sen focusses on here--in the direction of some measure of personal interest, even if that interest is reciprocal justice. But she is now re-examining her thoughts.
Maybe the most powerful argument for primacy of public reasoning is its implications for the relevance of who is eligible to be at the (public) discussion table. Someone directly affected has a membership entitlement, but also someone who can bring impartiality and reasoned argument is also eligible--she has an enlightenment entitlement. If the merit of this is not obvious, Sen asks the reader to consider famine. Famines tend to only affect the minority of a population: so even if the impacted segment were able to vote democratically to expel the central authority on whose watch the catastrophe had occurred, the authority would be secure. What makes a famine a disaster for a ruling government is the reach of public reasoning, which energises a very large part of the population to protest, not in sympathy but in commitment. Hence the result that such tragedies have never happened in a system where public reason (for which you can proxy free speech, media and fundamentally impartial arbitration) is dominant. This result is compellingly robust, by the way.
Finally, there is a spirited treatment of the validity of human ("universal" / "inalienable") rights, which were referred to as nonsense-on-stilts by Bentham and inferior to codified, legislated rights, and this general idea is shared by many, including your reviewer. Here also she has cause to re-assess as overly simplistic. Non-violability as a qualification would render all rights as abridgable. Requirement of imposed obligation would also offend many theories, depending of the imposition. But requirement to reason objectively and impartially seems to unavoidably impose obligations--again notwithstanding disagreement over what those are. And that is most eloquently explained.
Fabulous book from a fabulous mind, which possibly skewers more than a few sacred cows for those open minded to relinquish assumed certitude. But that--trancendental institutionalism in Sen's lexicon--is an illusory endpoint born of arrested (premature) enlightenment and reason. And back to the Anderson song: "And when force is gone /There's always Mom".
via JREF Forum http://ift.tt/TqSOOJ
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire