Can one dispense with the idea of social contract as parameter for a relevant theory of justice? Some disadvantages of Amartya Sen's Comparative Approach
| Autor | Fábio Creder |
| Páginas | 2685-2693 |
Working Group: eories of Justice • 2685
Can one dispense with the idea of social contract
as parameter for a relevant theory of justice?
Some disadvantages of Amartya Sen’s Comparative Approach
Fábio Creder
Abstract: In The idea of justice, his 2009 work, Sen sets out a biting critique of
modern political theories grounded on the idea of social contract, especially that
of John Rawls, whose approach to distributive justice is among the most notable
examples of this trend. In this paper, I intend to examine the merits of Sen’s
critique to the Rawlsian contractarianism, to which he opposes an approach
supposedlyfocusednotonthetranscendentalidenticationoftheidealjustice
butincomparingtheempiricalresultsoftheaemptstoghtthephenomenaof
remediable injustice we face on a daily basis.
Sen’s critique clearly has several merits, but one needs to question the
possibility of a political theory to conceive the basic structure of a society with-
out a minimal conception of social contract. Sen’s theory of justice, marked
by the characteristic dynamism of the economic thought, with his comparative
method, focused on the achievements actually viable in actual societies, probably
lacks elements that enable the design of a minimum institutional structure for
a state in constitutional stage. It seems, moreover, that the Rawlsian doctrine is
essentially a theory of constitutional law, and as such is to be interpreted.
Thus, the hypothesis I would like to come up with in this paper, sug-
gests that Sen’s approach, despite its laudable pragmatism, rather than being an
alternativetotheRawlsiantheoryofjusticewouldbebeerconsidereditsim-
portant, and even indispensable complement. I intend to show that contractari-
anismespeciallytheRawlsianversionsatisfactorilyfulllsthetaskofbeinga
kind of regulative principle of social justice in a given society. But its claims to
perfectioninSenswordsmustbeosetbyanimpartialandobjectiveanal-
ysis of concrete situations of the concerned societies, and of the viable accom-
plishmentstowardsaneectiveadvanceofjusticealthoughprecariousbecause
reality always imposes limits on our most noble aspirations. The method best
suited to such an analysis seems to be, in fact, as Sen wants, the comparative;
but its application does not exempt the adoption of a more abstract theoretical
framework, as proposed by Rawls. Rather, I think that, in fact, it presupposes it.
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