by Amartya Sen
While there are differences between the distinct approaches to objectivity considered here, the overarching similarity among them lies in the shared recognition of the need for reasoned encounter on an impartial basis (the approaches differ largely on the domain of the required impartiality, as will be discussed further in Chapter 6).
Reason can, of course, take distinct forms which have many different uses.* But to the extent that we look for ethical objectivity, the reasoning that is necessary has to satisfy what can be seen as the requirements of impartiality. Reasons of justice may differ from, to use one of Smith’s expressions, reasons of ‘self-love’, and also from reasons of prudence, but reasons of justice still constitute a large expanse. A lot of what follows in this work will be concerned with exploring that huge territory.
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Reasoning is a robust source of hope and confidence in a world darkened by murky deeds – past and present. It is not hard to see why this is so. Even when we find something immediately upsetting, we can question that response and ask whether it is an appropriate reaction and whether we should really be guided by it. Reasoning can be concerned with the right way of viewing and treating other people, other cultures, other claims, and with examining different grounds
* I shall consider some of these differences in Chapters 8, ‘Rationality and Other People’, and 9, ‘Plurality of Impartial Reasons’.
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r e a s o n a n d o b j e c t i v i t y for respect and tolerance. We can also reason about our own mistakes and try to learn not to repeat them, in the way Kenzaburo Oe, the great Japanese writer, hopes the Japanese nation will remain committed to
‘the idea of democracy and the determination never to wage a war again’, aided by an understanding of its own ‘history of territorial invasion’.*
No less importantly, intellectual probing is needed to identify deeds that are not intended to be injurious, but which have that effect; for example, horrors like terrible famines can remain unchecked on the mistaken presumption that they cannot be averted without increasing the total availability of food, which can be hard to organize rapidly enough. Hundreds of thousands, indeed, millions, can die from calamitous inaction resulting from unreasoned fatalism masquerading as composure based on realism and common sense.† As it happens, famines are easy to prevent, partly because they affect only a small proportion of the population (rarely more than 5 per cent and hardly ever more than 10 per cent), and redistribution of existing food can be arranged through immediate means such as emergency employment creation, thereby giving the indigent an immediate income for purchasing food. Obviously, having more food would make things easier (it can help the public distribution of food and also more food available in markets can help to keep prices lower than they would otherwise be), but having more food is not an absolute necessity for successful famine relief (as is often taken for granted and seen as a
* Kenzaburo Oe, Japan, the Ambiguous, and Myself (Tokyo and New York: Kodansha International, 1995), pp. 118–19. See also Onuma Yasuaki, ‘Japanese War Guilt and Postwar Responsibilities of Japan’, Berkeley Journal of International Law, 20 (2002).
Similarly, in post-war Germany, learning from past mistakes, particularly from the Nazi period, has been an important issue in contemporary German priorities.
† I have discussed the causes of famines and the policy requirement for famine prevention in Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), and jointly with Jean Drèze, in Hunger and Public Action (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989). This is one illustration of the general problem that a mistaken theory can have fatal consequences. On this, see my Development as Freedom (New York: Knopf and Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999) and Sabina Alkire,
‘Development: A Misconceived Theory Can Kill’, in Christopher W. Morris (ed.), Amartya Sen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming, 2009). See also Cormac O
´ Gra´da, Famine: A Short History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009).
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t h e i d e a o f j u s t i c e justification for inaction in arranging immediate relief). The relatively small redistribution of the food supply that is needed to avoid starvation can be brought about through the creation of purchasing power for those deprived of all incomes, through one calamity or another, which is typically the primary cause of starvation.*
Consider another subject, which is beginning, at long last, to receive the attention it deserves, that is, the neglect and deterioration of the natural environment. It is, as is increasingly clear, a hugely serious problem and one that is closely linked with the negative effects of human behaviour, but the problem does not arise from any desire of people today to hurt those yet to be born, or even to be deliberately callous about the future generations’ interests. And yet, through lack of reasoned engagement and action, we do still fail to take adequate care of the environment around us and the sustainability of the requirements of good life. To prevent catastrophes caused by human negligence or callous obduracy, we need critical scrutiny, not just goodwill towards others.21
Reasoning is our ally in this, not a threat that endangers us. So why does it look so different to those who find reliance on reasoning to be deeply problematic? One of the issues to consider is the possibility that the critics of relying on reason are influenced by the fact that some people are easily over-convinced by their own reasoning, and ignore counter-arguments and other grounds that may yield the opposite conclusion. This is perhaps what Glover is really worried about, and it can indeed be a legitimate worry. But the difficulty here surely comes from precipitate and badly reasoned certitude, rather than from
* Further, since most famine victims suffer from and often die from standard diseases (helped by debilitation and the spread of infection caused by a growing famine), much can be done through healthcare and medical facilities. More than four-fifths of the death toll resulting from the Great Bengal famine of 1943 was directly connected with diseases common to the region, with pure starvation death accounting for no more than a fifth of the total (see Appendix D in my Poverty and Famines (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981)). A similar picture emerges from many other famines. See particularly Alex de Waal, Famine that Kills: Darfur, Sudan, 1984–1985 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989); also his Famine Crimes: Politics and the Disaster Relief Industry in Africa (London: African Rights and the International African Institute, 1997). This issue is assessed in my entry on ‘Human Disasters’ in The Oxford Text-book of Medicine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).
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r e a s o n a n d o b j e c t i v i t y making use of reason. The remedy for bad reasoning lies in better reasoning, and it is indeed the job of reasoned scrutiny to move from the former to the latter. It is also possible that in some statements of
‘Enlightenment authors’ the need for reassessment and caution was not sufficiently emphasized, but it would be hard to derive from that any general indictment of the Enlightenment outlook, and even more, an arraignment of the general role of reason in just behaviour or good social policy.
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There is, however, the further issue of the relative importance of instinctive sentiments and cool calculation, on which several Enlightenment authors themselves had much to say. Jonathan Glover’s arguments for the need for a ‘new human psychology’ draws on his recognition that politics and psychology are interwoven. It is hard to think that reasoning, based on the available evidence about human behaviour, would not lead to the acceptance of this interconnection. In avoiding atrocities, there is surely a huge preventive role that can be played by instinctive revulsion to cruelty and to insensitive behaviour, and Glover rightly emphasizes the importance, among other things, of
‘the tendency to respond to people with certain kinds of respect’ and
‘sympathy: caring about the miseries and the happin
ess of others’.
However, there need be no conflict here with reason, which can endorse precisely those priorities. Good reasoning has clearly played that role in Glover’s own investigation of the dangers of one-sided and overconfident belief (Akbar’s point that even to dispute reason one has to give a reason for that disputation is surely relevant here).
Nor need reasoning withhold the understanding, if justified, that a total reliance only on cool calculation may not be a good – or reasonable – way of ensuring human security.
Indeed, in celebrating reason, there is no particular ground for denying the far-reaching role of instinctive psychology and spontaneous responses.22 They can supplement each other, and in many cases an understanding of the broadening and liberating role of our 49
t h e i d e a o f j u s t i c e feelings can constitute good subject matter for reasoning itself. Adam Smith, a central figure in Scottish Enlightenment (and very influential in the French Enlightenment as well), discussed extensively the central role of emotions and psychological response in his The Theory of Moral Sentiments.* Smith may not have gone as far as David Hume in asserting that ‘reason and sentiment concur in almost all moral determinations and conclusions’,23 but both saw reasoning and feeling as deeply interrelated activities. Both Hume and Smith were, of course, quintessential ‘Enlightenment authors’, no less so than Diderot or Kant.
However, the need for reasoned scrutiny of psychological attitudes does not disappear even after the power of emotions is recognized and the positive role of many instinctive reactions (such as a sense of revulsion about cruelty) is celebrated. Smith in particular – perhaps even more than Hume – gave reason a huge role in assessing our sentiments and psychological concerns. In fact, Hume often seems to take passion to be more powerful than reason. As Thomas Nagel puts it in his strong defence of reason in his book The Last Word, ‘Hume famously believed that because a ‘‘passion’’ immune to rational assessment must underlie every motive, there can be no such thing as specifically practical reason, nor specifically moral reason either.’† Smith did not take that view, even though he, like Hume, took emotions to be both important and influential, and argued that our ‘first perceptions’ of right and wrong ‘cannot be the object of reason, but of immediate sense and feeling’. But Smith also argued that even these instinctive reactions to particular conduct cannot but rely – if only implicitly – on our reasoned understanding of causal connections between conduct and consequences in ‘a vast variety of instances’.
Furthermore, first perceptions may also change in response to critical
* See also Martha Nussbaum, Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
† Thomas Nagel, The Last Word (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 102.
However, Hume seems to vary on the priority issue. While he does give passion an elevated standing that seems to be more dominant than the role of reason, Hume also argues: ‘The moment we perceive the falsehood of any supposition, or the insufficiency of any means our passions yield to our reason without any opposition’ (David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, edited by L. A. Selby-Bigge (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1888; 2nd edn 1978) p. 416).
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r e a s o n a n d o b j e c t i v i t y examination, for example on the basis of causal empirical investigation that may show, Smith notes, that a certain ‘object is the means of obtaining some other’.24
Adam Smith’s argument for recognizing the abiding need for reasoned scrutiny is well illustrated by his discussion about how to assess our attitudes to prevailing practices. This is obviously important for Smith’s powerful advocacy of reform, for example the case for abolishing slavery, or for lessening the burden of arbitrary bureau-cratic restrictions on the commerce between different countries, or for relaxing the punitive restrictions imposed on the indigent as a condition for the economic support provided through the Poor Laws.*
While it is certainly true that ideology and dogmatic belief can emerge from sources other than religion and custom, and have frequently done so, that does not deny the role of reason in assessing the rationale behind instinctive attitudes, any less than in the appraisal of arguments presented to justify deliberate policies. What Akbar called the ‘path of reason’ does not exclude taking note of the value of instinctive reactions, nor ignore the informative role that our mental reactions often play. And all this is quite consistent with not giving our unscrutinized instincts an unconditional final say.
* In his well-argued essay, ‘Why Economies Need Ethical Theory’, John Broome argues: ‘Economists do not like to impose their ethical opinion on people, but there is no question of that. Very few economists are in a position to impose their opinion on anyone . . . The solution is for them to get themselves good arguments, and work out the theory. It is not to hide behind the preferences of other people when those preferences may not be well founded, when the people themselves may be looking for help from economists in forming better preferences.’ ( Arguments for a Better World: Essays in Honor of Amartya Sen, edited by Kaushik Basu and Ravi Kanbur, Vol.1
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 14). This is, of course, exactly what Smith tried to do.
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2
Rawls and Beyond
This chapter is mainly a critique of the theory of justice presented by the leading political philosopher of our time, John Rawls. I will discuss where I have to differ from Rawls, but I cannot begin this critique without acknowledging, first, how my own understanding of justice
– and of political philosophy in general – has been influenced by what I have learned from him, and without mentioning also the very large debt that we all owe to Rawls for reviving philosophical interest in the subject of justice. Indeed, Rawls has made the subject what it is today, and I start this critique by recollecting, first, the thrill of seeing him transform contemporary political philosophy in a truly radical way. In addition to benefiting from Rawls’s writings, I had the privilege of having this wonderful person as a friend and a colleague – his kindness was astonishing, and his insightful comments, criticisms and suggestions have constantly enlightened me and radically influenced my own thinking.
I was lucky in terms of timing. Moral and political philosophy took huge steps, under Rawls’s leadership, just when I was beginning to become interested in the subject, as an observer from other disciplines (first from mathematics and physics, and then from economics). His 1958 paper, ‘Justice as Fairness’, threw a shaft of light of a kind that would be hard for me to describe adequately today, just as his earlier papers in the 1950s on the nature of ‘decision procedures’ and on different concepts of ‘rules’, which I read as an undergraduate, illuminated my thinking in a way that was quite thrilling.1
And then, in 1971, came Rawls’s path-breaking book, A Theory of Justice.2 Rawls, Kenneth Arrow and I had in fact used an earlier draft of the book in a joint class we taught on political philosophy while I 52
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was visiting Harvard for the academic year 1968–9 (from my then home base at Delhi University). I was writing my own book on social choice (including its treatment of justice), Collective Choice and Social Welfare (1970), and I benefited immensely from Rawls’s incisive comments and suggestions. Slightly later I had the privilege of commenting formally on the final text of A Theory of Justice for Harvard University Press. It may sound a little ‘over the top’, but I did think that I could grasp the feeling to which Wordsworth gave expression: ‘Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,/ But to be young was very heaven!’
That sense of excitement has not dimmed over the years merely because I now think that some of the main planks of the Rawlsian theory of justice are seriously defective. I will discuss my dissensions presently, but first I must take the opportunity to acknowledge the firm footing on which Rawls placed the whole subject of the theory of justice.3 Some of the basic concepts that Rawls identified as es
sential continue to inform my own understanding of justice, despite the different direction and conclusions of my own work.
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Perhaps the most far-reaching example of what is essential for an adequate understanding of justice is Rawls’s foundational idea that justice has to be seen in terms of the demands of fairness. Even though every summary is ultimately an act of barbarism, it is still useful to describe briefly (at the risk of some oversimplification) Rawls’s theory of ‘justice as fairness’, in order to focus on some basic features that are helpful in understanding Rawls’s approach, and also for attempting further work on justice.* In this approach, the notion of fairness is
* I should note here that the idea of justice figures in Rawls’s works in at least three different contexts. First, there is the derivation of his ‘principles of justice’ based on the idea of fairness, and this in turn identifies the institutions needed, on grounds of justice, for the basic structure of the society. This theory, which Rawls elaborates in considerable detail, proceeds step by step from there to the legislation and implementation of what Rawls sees as the demands of ‘justice as fairness’. There is a second sphere – that of reflection and the development of a ‘reflective equilibrium’ – in which 53
t h e i d e a o f j u s t i c e taken to be foundational, and is meant to be, in some sense, ‘prior’ to the development of the principles of justice. I would argue that we have good reason to be persuaded by Rawls that the pursuit of justice has to be linked to – and in some sense derived from – the idea of fairness. This central understanding is not only important for Rawls’s own theory, it is also deeply relevant to most analyses of justice, including what I am trying to present in this book.*