《THE IDEA OF JUSTICE》(AMARTYA SEN):The most important contribution to the subject since John Rawls'A Theory of Justice. Sen argues that what we urgently need in ourtroubled world is not a theory of an ideally just state, but a theorythat can yield judgments as to comparative justice, judgments thattell us when and why we are moving closer to or farther away fromrealizing justice in the present globalized world.

《THE IDEA OF JUSTICE》(AMARTYA SEN):IS JUSTICE AN IDEAL, forever beyond our grasp, or something that may actually guide our practical decisions and enhance our lives?In this wide-ranging book, Amartya Sen presents an alternative approach to mainstream theories of justice which, despite their many conceptual and clarificatory achievements have taken us. he argues, in the wrong direction in general.

《THE IDEA OF JUSTICE》：One of the principal differences between Sen ,and the dominant contemporary theorists of lustice is that they have been concerned primarily, sometimes wholly, with identifying what perfectly just social arrangements might be. rather than clarifying how different realizations ofiustice might be compared and evaluated. While most of the mainstream theorists follow one of the two major traditions Of Enlightenment thinking that of a hypothetical 'social contract' pursued by Hobbes, Locke,Rousseau, Kant and in our own time by the leading contemporary political philosopher John Rawls Sen's analysis significantly advances the other Enlightenment tradition of reducing injustice pursued in different ways by Smith. Condorcet, Wollstonecraft, Bentham,Mill and Marx.

At the heart of Sen's argument is his insistence on the role of public reason in estab-lishing what can make societies less unjust. But it is in the nature of reasoning about justice,argues Sen, that it does not allow all questions to be settled even in theory; there are choices to be faced between alternative assessments of what is reasonable, and there can be well-defended arguments in favor of different and competing positions. Far from rejecting such pluralities or trying to reduce them beyond the limits of reasoning,we shouht make use of them to construct a theory of justice that can absorb divergent points of view. Sen also shows how concern about the principles of justice in tile modern world must awoid parochialism,and further, address questions of global injustice.

The breadth of vision, intellectual acuity, and striking humanity of one of the world's leading thinkers have never been more clearly shown than in this remarkable book.

Preface

Acknowledgements

Introduction An Approach to Justice

PART Ⅰ

The Demands of Justice

1 Reason and Objectivity

2 Rawls and Beyond

3 Institutions and Persons

4 Voice and Social Choice

5 Impartiality and Objectivity

6 Closed and Open Impartiality

PART Ⅱ

Forms of Reasoning

7 Position, Relevance and Illusion

8 Rationality and Other People

9 Plurality of Impartial Reasons

10 Realizations, Consequences and Agency

PART Ⅲ                

The Materials of Justice

11　 Lives, Freedoms and Capabilities

12 Capabilities and Resources

13 Happiness, Well-being and Capabilities

14 Equality and Liberty

PART Ⅳ

Public Reasoning and Democracy

15 Democracy as Public Reason

16 The Practice of Democracy

17 Human Rights and Global Imperatives

18 Justice and the World

Notes

Name Index

Subject Index