O debate entre John Rawls e Amartya Sen sobre a justiça distributiva

Abstract

It was through Rawls that the revival of interest in a normative approach to political philosophy took place most emphatically. But, unlike Rawls, who focused on primary goods, to which everyone should have access, for Sen what matters are not the ends, but the means to achieve these ends. For Sen, interpersonal comparisons should focus on capabilities. These, in turn, presuppose a range of interrelated freedoms. Furthermore, a fair situation presupposes compen-sation in cases where inequality derives solely from different circumstances at birth, for exam-ple, because these are morally arbitrary. Formal equality is refuted. For Sen there is no need to pursue, in a contractualist bias, fair institutional arrangements. On the contrary, the focus is on verifying the realization of justice in real societies. Not endorsing a transcendental institution-alism, what matters is the removal of injustices in their various forms. Because these manifest themselves in different ways, a unifocal vision of justice is refuted. Justice materials are more important, so the prevention and mitigation of disabilities cannot fail to be quite central to the task of promoting justice. Far beyond representational models of society, what really matters are real social achievements, to see what actually happens, in order to reach development. And if the objective of this becomes the lives of individuals and the freedom of them to choose, for Sen justice and development are confused, because development only occurs if society was in search of justice.