Full Idea
The demands of justice must give priority to the removal of manifest injustice, rather than concentrating on the long-distance search for the perfectly just society.
Gist of Idea
We must focus on removing manifest injustice, not just try to design a perfect society
Source
Amartya Sen (The Idea of Justice [2009], 12 'Disability')
Book Reference
Sen, Amartya: 'The Idea of Justice' [Penguin 2010], p.259
A Reaction
So the point is not to understand the world, but to change it? I'd want to put in a word for the theoretical and idealised project, which I see in terms of writing the perfect constitution. You can't just pick off injustices, perceived intuitively.