The Idea of Justice Page 2
There are powerful traditions of reasoned argument, rather than xiii
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reliance on faith and unreasoned convictions, in India’s intellectual past, as there are in the thoughts flourishing in a number of other non-Western societies. In confining attention almost exclusively to Western literature, the contemporary – and largely Western – pursuit of political philosophy in general and of the demands of justice in particular has been, I would argue, limited and to some extent parochial.*
It is not, however, my claim that there is some radical dissonance between ‘Western’ and ‘Eastern’ (or generally, non-Western) thinking on these subjects. There are many differences in reasoning within the West, and within the East, but it would be altogether fanciful to think of a united West confronting ‘quintessentially eastern’ priorities.†
Such views, which are not unknown in contemporary discussions, are quite distant from my understanding. It is my claim, rather, that similar – or closely linked – ideas of justice, fairness, responsibility, duty, goodness and rightness have been pursued in many different parts of the world, which can expand the reach of arguments that have been considered in Western literature and that the global presence of such reasoning is often overlooked or marginalized in the dominant traditions of contemporary Western discourse.
Some of the reasoning of, for example, Gautama Buddha (the agnostic champion of the ‘path of knowledge’), or of the writers in the
* Kautilya, the ancient Indian writer on political strategy and political economy, has sometimes been described in the modern literature, when he has been noticed at all, as ‘the Indian Machiavelli’. This is unsurprising in some respects, since there are some similarities in their ideas on strategies and tactics (despite profound differences in many other – often more important – areas), but it is amusing that an Indian political analyst from the fourth century bc has to be introduced as a local version of an European writer born in the fifteenth century. What this reflects is not, of course, any kind of crude assertion of a geographical pecking order, but simply the lack of familiarity with non-Western literature of Western intellectuals (and in fact intellectuals all across the modern world because of the global dominance of Western education today).
† Indeed, I have argued elsewhere that there are no quintessentially eastern priorities, not even quintessentially Indian ones, since arguments in many different directions can be seen in the intellectual history of these countries (see my The Argumentative Indian (London and Delhi: Penguin, and New York: FSG, 2005), and Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny (New York: Norton, and London and Delhi: Penguin, 2006).
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Lokayata school (committed to relentless scrutiny of every traditional belief) in India in sixth-century bc, may sound closely aligned, rather than adversarial, to many of the critical writings of the leading authors of the European Enlightenment. But we do not have to get all steamed up in trying to decide whether Gautama Buddha should be seen as an anticipating member of some European Enlightenment league (his acquired name does, after all, mean ‘enlightened’ in Sanskrit); nor do we have to consider the far-fetched thesis that the European Enlightenment may be traceable to long-distance influence of Asian thought.
There is nothing particularly odd in the recognition that similar intellectual engagements have taken place in different parts of the globe in distinct stages of history. Since somewhat different arguments have often been advanced in dealing with similar questions, we may miss out on possible leads in reasoning about justice if we keep our explorations regionally confined.
One example of some interest and relevance is an important distinction between two different concepts of justice in early Indian jurisprudence – between niti and nyaya. The former idea, that of niti, relates to organizational propriety as well as behavioural correctness, whereas the latter, nyaya, is concerned with what emerges and how, and in particular the lives that people are actually able to lead. The distinction, the relevance of which will be discussed in the Introduction, helps us to see clearly that there are two rather different, though not unrelated, kinds of justness for which the idea of justice has to cater.*
My second explanatory remarkrelates to the fact that the Enlightenment authors did not speakin one voice. As I will discuss in the Introduction, there is a substantial dichotomy between two different lines of reasoning about justice that can be seen among two groups of leading philosophers associated with the radical thought of the
* The distinction between nyaya and niti has significance not only within a polity, but also across the borders of states, as is discussed in my essay ‘Global Justice’, presented at the World Justice Forum in Vienna, July 2008, sponsored by the American Bar Association, along with the International Bar Association, Inter-American Bar Association, Inter-Pacific Bar Association, and Union Internationale des Avocats. This is part of the American Bar Association’s ‘World Justice Program’, and will be published in a volume entitled Global Perspectives on the Rule of Law.
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Enlightenment period. One approach concentrated on identifying perfectly just social arrangements, and tookthe characterization of
‘just institutions’ to be the principal – and often the only identified –
taskof the theory of justice. Woven in different ways around the idea of a hypothetical ‘social contract’, major contributions were made in this line of thinking by Thomas Hobbes in the seventeenth century, and later by John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant, among others. The contractarian approach has been the dominant influence in contemporary political philosophy, particularly since a pioneering paper (’Justice as Fairness’) in 1958 by John Rawls which preceded his definitive statement on that approach in his classic book, A Theory of Justice.4
In contrast, a number of other Enlightenment philosophers (Smith, Condorcet, Wollstonecraft, Bentham, Marx, John Stuart Mill, for example) tooka variety of approaches that shared a common interest in making comparisons between different ways in which people’s lives may be led, influenced by institutions but also by people’s actual behaviour, social interactions and other significant determinants. This bookdraws to a great extent on that alternative tradition.* The analytical – and rather mathematical – discipline of ‘social choice theory’, which can be traced to the works of Condorcet in the eighteenth century, but which has been developed in the present form by the pioneering contributions of Kenneth Arrow in the mid-twentieth century, belongs to this second line of investigation. That approach, suitably adapted, can make a substantial contribution, as I will discuss, to addressing questions about the enhancement of justice and the removal of injustice in the world.
* This will not, however, prevent me from drawing on insights from the first approach, from the enlightenment we get from the writings, for example, of Hobbes and Kant, and in our time, from John Rawls.
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T h e P l a c e o f R e a s o n
Despite the differences between the two traditions of the Enlightenment – the contractarian and the comparative – there are many points of similarity as well. The common features include reliance on reasoning and the invoking of the demands of public discussion. Even though this bookrelates mainly to the second approach, rather than to contractarian reasoning developed by Immanuel Kant and others, much of the bookis driven by the basic Kantian insight (as Christine Korsgaard puts it): ‘Bringing reason to the world becomes the enterprise of morality rather than metaphysics, and the workas well as the hope of humanity.’5
To what extent reasoning can provide a reliable basis for a theory of justice is, of course, itself an issue that has been subject to contro-versy. The first chapter of the bookis concerned with the role and reach of reasoning. I argue against the plausibility of seeing emotions or psychology or instincts as independent sources of valuation, without reasoned appraisal. Impulses and mental
attitudes remain important, however, since we have good reasons to take note of them in our assessment of justice and injustice in the world. There is no irreducible conflict here, I argue, between reason and emotion, and there are very good reasons for making room for the relevance of emotions.
There is, however, a different kind of critique of the reliance on reasoning that points to the prevalence of unreason in the world and to the unrealism involved in assuming that the world will go in the way reason dictates. In a kind but firm critique of my work in related fields, Kwame Anthony Appiah has argued, ‘however much you extend your understanding of reason in the sorts of ways Sen would like to do – and this is a project whose interest I celebrate – it isn’t going to take you the whole way. In adopting the perspective of the individual reasonable person, Sen has to turn his face from the pervasiveness of unreason.’6 As a description of the world, Appiah is clearly right, and his critique, which is not addressed to building a theory of justice, presents good grounds for scepticism about the practical effectiveness of reasoned discussion of confused social xvii
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subjects (such as the politics of identity). The prevalence and resilience of unreason may make reason-based answers to difficult questions far less effective.
This particular scepticism of the reach of reasoning does not yield
– nor (as Appiah makes clear) is it intended to yield – any ground for not using reason to the extent one can, in pursuing the idea of justice or any other notion of social relevance, such as identity.* Nor does it undermine the case for our trying to persuade each other to scrutinize our respective conclusions. It is also important to note that what may appear to others as clear examples of ‘unreason’ may not always be exactly that.† Reasoned discussion can accommodate conflicting positions that may appear to others to be ‘unreasoned’ prejudice, without this being quite the case. There is no compulsion, as is sometimes assumed, to eliminate every reasoned alternative except exactly one.
However, the central point in dealing with this question is that prejudices typically ride on the backof some kind of reasoning – weak and arbitrary though it might be. Indeed, even very dogmatic persons tend to have some kinds of reasons, possibly very crude ones, in support of their dogmas (racist, sexist, classist and caste-based prejudices belong there, among varieties of other kinds of bigotry based on coarse reasoning). Unreason is mostly not the practice of doing without reasoning altogether, but of relying on very primitive and very defective reasoning. There is hope in this, since bad reasoning can be confronted by better reasoning. So the scope for reasoned engagement does exist, even though many people may refuse, at least initially, to enter that engagement, despite being challenged.
What is important for the arguments in this bookis not anything
* There is, in fact, considerable evidence that interactive public discussions can help to weaken the refusal to reason. See the empirical material on this presented in Development as Freedom (New York: Knopf, and Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999), and Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny (New York: Norton, and London: Penguin, 2006).
† As James Thurber notes, while those who are superstitious may avoid walking under ladders, the scientific minds who ‘want to defy the superstition’ may choose to ‘look for ladders and delight in passing under them’. But ‘if you keep looking for and walking under the ladders long enough, something is going to happen to you’ (James Thurber, ‘Let Your Mind Alone!’ New Yorker, 1 May 1937).
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like the omnipresence of reason in everyone’s thinking right now. No such presumption can be made, and it is not needed. The claim that people would agree on a particular proposition if they were to reason in an open and impartial way does not, of course, assume that people are already so engaged, or even that they are eager to be so. What matters most is the examination of what reasoning would demand for the pursuit of justice – allowing for the possibility that there may exist several different reasonable positions. That exercise is quite compatible with the possibility, even the certainty, that at a particular time not everyone is willing to undertake such scrutiny. Reasoning is central to the understanding of justice even in a world which contains much ‘unreason’; indeed, it may be particularly important in such a world.
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Acknowledgements
In acknowledging the help I have received from others in the work presented here, I must begin by recording that my greatest debt is to John Rawls, who inspired me to workin this area. He was also a marvellous teacher over many decades and his ideas continue to influence me even when I disagree with some of his conclusions. This book is dedicated to his memory, not only for the education and affection I received from him, but also for his encouragement to pursue my doubts.
My first extensive contact with Rawls was in 1968–9, when I came from Delhi University to Harvard as a visiting professor and taught a joint graduate seminar with him and Kenneth Arrow. Arrow has been another powerful influence on this book, as on many of my past works. His influence has come not only through extensive discussions over many decades, but also through the use I make of the analytical frameworkof modern social choice theory that he initiated.
The workpresented here was done at Harvard where I have been mostly based since 1987, and at Trinity College, Cambridge, particularly during the six years between 1998 and 2004 when I went back there to serve as the Master of the great college where, fifty years ago, I had started thinking about philosophical issues. I was influenced in particular by Piero Sraffa and C. D. Broad, and encouraged by Maurice Dobb and Dennis Robertson to pursue my inclinations.
This bookhas been slow in coming, since my doubts and constructive thoughts have developed over a long period of time. During these decades, I have been privileged to receive comments, suggestions, questions, dismissals and encouragement from a large number of xxi
a c k n o w l e d g e m e n t s people, all of which have been very useful for me and my acknowledgement list is not going to be short.
I must first note the help and advice I have received from my wife, Emma Rothschild, whose influence is reflected throughout the book.
The influence of Bernard Williams on my thinking on philosophical issues will be apparent to readers familiar with his writings. This influence came over many years of ‘chatty friendship’ and also from a productive period of joint workin planning, editing and introducing a collection of essays on the utilitarian perspective and its limitations ( Utilitarianism and Beyond, 1982)
I have been very fortunate in having colleagues with whom I have had instructive conversations on political and moral philosophy.
I must acknowledge my extensive debt – in addition to Rawls – to Hilary Putnam and Thomas Scanlon for many illuminating conversations over the years. I also learned a great deal from talking with W. V. O. Quine and Robert Nozick, both of whom are now, alas, gone. Holding joint classes at Harvard has also been for me a steady source of dialectical education, coming both from my students and of course from my co-teachers. Robert Nozickand I taught joint courses every year for nearly a decade, on a number of occasions with Eric Maskin, and they have both influenced my thinking. At various times I have also taught courses with Joshua Cohen (from the not-so-distant Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Christine Jolls, Philippe Van Parijs, Michael Sandel, John Rawls, Thomas Scanlon and Richard Tuck, and with Kaushik Basu and James Foster when they visited Harvard. Aside from my sheer enjoyment of these joint classes, they were also tremendously useful for me in developing my ideas, often in arguments with my co-teachers.
In all my writings I benefit a lot from the critiques of my students, and this bookis no exception. Regarding the ideas in this particular book, I would like to acknowledge my interactions especially with Prasanta Pattanaik, Kaushik Basu, Siddiqur Osmani, Rajat Deb, Ravi Kanbur, David Kelsey and Andreas Papandreou, over many decades, and later with Stephan Klasen, Anthony L
aden, Sanjay Reddy, Jonathan Cohen, Felicia Knaul, Clemens Puppe, Bertil Tungodden, A. K. Shiva Kumar, Lawrence Hamilton, Douglas Hicks, Jennifer Prah Ruger, Sousan Abadian, among others.
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a c k n o w l e d g e m e n t s The joys and benefits of interactive teaching go backfor me to the 1970s and 1980s when I taught joint classes – ‘riotous’ ones, a student told me – at Oxford with Ronald Dworkin and Derek Parfit, later joined by G. A. Cohen. My warm memories of those argumentative discussions were recently revived by the kindness of Cohen who arranged a hugely engaging seminar at University College London in January 2009 on the main approach of this book. The gathering was agreeably full of dissenters, including Cohen (of course), but also Jonathan Wolff, Laura Valentis, Riz Mokal, George Letsas and Stephen Guest, whose different critiques have been very helpful for me (Laura Valentis kindly sent me further comments in communications after the seminar).
Even though a theory of justice must belong primarily to philosophy, the bookuses ideas presented in a number of other disciplines as well. A major field of workon which this bookdraws heavily is social choice theory. Although my interactions with others working in this broad area are too numerous to capture in a short statement here, I would like particularly to acknowledge the benefit I have received from working with Kenneth Arrow and Kotaro Suzumura, with whom I have been editing the Handbook of Social Choice Theory (the first volume is out, the second overdue), and also to note my appreciation of the leadership role that has been played in this field by Jerry Kelly, Wulf Gaertner, Prasanta Pattanaikand Maurice Salles, particularly through their visionary and tireless workfor the emergence and flourishing of the journal Social Choice and Welfare. I would also like to acknowledge the benefits I have had from my long association and extended discussions on social choice problems in one form or another with (in addition to the names already mentioned) PatrickSuppes, John Harsanyi, James Mirrlees, Anthony Atkinson, Peter Hammond, Charles Blackorby, Sudhir Anand, Tapas Majundar, Robert Pollak, Kevin Roberts, John Roemer, Anthony Shorrocks, Robert Sugden, John Weymark and James Foster.