The Idea of Justice * By AMARTYA SEN

Amartya Sen, who was awarded the Nobel prize in economics in 1998 for his work on welfare economics, has had a major impact on moral and political philosophy. Although trained as an economist, he has had ‘a love affair with philosophy’ and made significant contributions to our understanding of poverty, wellbeing, rights, liberty and equality. Along with Martha Nussbaum, he has developed and defended the view that justice is centred on the development of capabilities, rather than happiness, primary goods, or resources. The present book brings together many of the grand themes of his work. Although the book focuses on justice, Sen briefly addresses the issue of rationality. He rightly argues that rationality does not require an exclusive focus on the advancement of one’s own wellbeing (even after factoring in the effect of sympathy for others on one’s wellbeing). Agents typically have goals other than advancing their own wellbeing. Moreover – but much more controversially – rationality, he argues, also allows sacrificing one’s goals in order to respect one’s ‘commitments’ (e.g. to respect other people’s goals), even if they are not part of one’s goals. These issues are explored in much more depth in his Rationality and Freedom.