Review of Amartya Sen's "The Idea of Justice"

From "Economist" August 6, 2009, review of Amartya Sen's The Idea of Justice (Harvard University Press, 2009): How to do it better Excerpt: "Rawls held that social justice depended on having just institutions, whereas Mr Sen thinks that good social outcomes are what matter. Strictly both could be right. The practical brunt of Mr Sen’s criticism, however, is that just institutions do not ensure social justice. You can, in addition, recognise social injustices without knowing how a perfectly fair society would arrange or justify itself. Rawlsianism, though laudable in spirit, is too theoretical, and has distracted political philosophers...

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