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Single Idea 20978

[filed under theme 25. Social Practice / D. Justice / 1. Basis of justice ]

Full Idea

A theory of justice that can serve as the basis of practical reason must include ways of judging how to reduce injustice and advance justice, rather than aiming only at the characterisation of perfectly just societies.

Gist of Idea

Practical justice concerns not only ideals, but ways to achieve them

Source

Amartya Sen (The Idea of Justice [2009], Pref 'What')

Book Ref

Sen, Amartya: 'The Idea of Justice' [Penguin 2010], p.-20

A Reaction

Sounds simple, but this is Amartya Sen's revolutionary new idea - that justice is not just ideals and opportunities, but what sort of life people actually end up with.

The 42 ideas with the same theme [grounds for correcting unfairness in society]:

259 Justice is granting the equality which unequals deserve [Plato]
21044 For Aristotle, debates about justice are debates about the good life [Aristotle, by Sandel]
23916 The best cure for mutual injustice is friendship [Aristotle]
22527 Justice is the order in a political community [Aristotle]
22547 Justice is equality for equals, and inequality for unequals [Aristotle]
2825 The good is obviously justice, which benefits the whole community, and involves equality in some sense [Aristotle]
22573 The virtue of justice may be relative to a particular constitution [Aristotle]
21392 People change laws for advantage; either there is no justice, or it is a form of self-injury [Carneades, by Lactantius]
23179 People differ in their social degrees, and a particular type of right applies to each [Aquinas]
21087 Human life is pointless without justice [Kant]
21057 The highest ideal of social progress is a universal cosmopolitan existence [Kant]
2911 True justice is equality for equals and inequality for unequals [Nietzsche]
23164 Modern justice is seen as equality, apart from modest extra rewards for exceptional desert [Russell]
23757 The spirit of justice needs the full attention of truth, and that attention is love [Weil]
23761 Justice (concerning harm) is distinct from rights (concerning inequality) [Weil]
23813 Only people who understand force, and don't respect it, are capable of justice [Weil]
20543 'Social justice' is a confused idea, and inequalities need no justification [Hayek, by Swift]
21229 If everyone is treated with equal injustice, at least that is fair [Morgenbesser]
21018 The social contract has problems with future generations, national boundaries, disabilities and animals [Rawls, by Nussbaum]
21041 Justice concerns not natural distributions, or our born location, but what we do about them [Rawls]
21009 Capabilities: Life, Health, Safety, Mental life, Love, Planning, Joining in, Nature, Play, Control [Nussbaum, by PG]
21010 Justice requires that the ten main capabilities of people are reasonably enabled [Nussbaum]
21013 Capabilities are grounded in bare humanity and agency; qualifying as rational is not needed [Nussbaum]
21014 Rights are not just barriers against state interference; governments must affirm capabilities of citizens [Nussbaum]
23411 Communitarians see justice as primarily a community matter, rather than a principle [Kymlicka]
23412 Justice resolves conflicts, but may also provoke them [Kymlicka]
18655 Justice corrects social faults, but also expresses respect to individuals as ends [Kymlicka]
23108 Justice combines consistency and desert; treat likes alike, judging likeness by desert [Kekes]
21027 Justice concerns how a society distributes what it prizes - wealth, rights, power and honours [Sandel]
21028 We can approach justice through welfare, or freedom, or virtue [Sandel]
21043 Distributive justice concern deserts, as well as who gets what [Sandel]
21042 Should we redress wrongs done by a previous generation? [Sandel]
21048 Work is not fair if it is negotiated, even in a fair situation, but if it suits the nature of the worker [Sandel]
21052 Justice is about how we value things, and not just about distributions [Sandel]
23258 The very concept of democracy entails a need for justice [Grayling]
20534 Rights and justice are only the last resorts of a society, something to fall back on [Wolff,J]
20980 You don't need a complete theory of justice to see that slavery is wrong [Sen]
20978 Practical justice concerns not only ideals, but ways to achieve them [Sen]
20985 Our institutions should promote justice, rather than embodying it [Sen]
20994 We must focus on removing manifest injustice, not just try to design a perfect society [Sen]
21000 If justice needs public reasoning, which needs democracy, then justice and democracy are linked [Sen]
20533 Justice can be seen as fairness or entitlement or desert [Swift]