Thank
you everybody who registered for the course On Justice: Sen and Nussbaum. Please
note that we begin our first session on 3
January 2012 (Tuesday) at 2:30 pm. We
will be meeting at the Library,
Department of Philosophy, Arts Faculty Building, University of Delhi.
The
lecture, followed by discussion — a two hours programme — will
be based on the first chapter of Amartya Sen's Inequality Reexamined, titled
'Equality of What?'. The speaker, Professor Jay Drydyk will presume a prior
reading on the part of all the participants.
Questions to be addressed in the lecture
1. What was the
context of debate in which Sen wrote this piece?
2. What are his
arguments for the claim that every significant theory of justice must answer
the ‘equality of what’ question? (Please consider this while reading Sen’s
chapter.)
3. What is the
significance of these arguments, in the wider context of debate?
Questions for the discussion period
1. Questions about
the lecture.
2. Concerning Sen’s
first, historical argument that every significant theory of social arrangements
calls for equality of something: are there further counter-examples? From Indian
traditions?
3. Concerning Sen’s
second, theoretical argument, from impartiality or equal consideration:
(a) Is it just a Western idea that equal
consideration matters?
(b) Is it just a modern idea that equal
consideration matters?
(c) Does justice
sometimes require that one is not impartial, but partial, for example towards
one’s own family? Towards one’s own country?
(d) Is there
also a question, ‘Equal consideration of what?’ For instance, libertarians
would call for equal consideration of everyone’s liberty, utilitarians would
call for equal consideration of everyone’s happiness, and so on. Would that
undermine Sen’s argument?
4. Other questions
arising from the reading or from the discussion.
