Amartya SenI set the alarm to remind me book a ticket for the event. However, 800 tickets were snapped up in 5 minutes as soon as they went live. I didn't get a ticket to see him but I am still glad I could listen to him speak.
Sen's presentation was thought provoking. He first outlined the concept and difference of justice, fairness and equality. Then he flipped to the antonyms and went on to explain his thoughts about the idea of injustice, inequity and unfairness.
However, he warned people to avoid being too focused on semantics for the sake of argument. This is simply because many languages do not distinguish the difference between justice and fairness. Justice came from the Latin word "aequitas". However, "aequitas" itself means justice, fairness or equity. We are fortunate there are words to distinguish between them in English. Nevertheless he acknowledges that these three words carry different kinds of weight and meanings individually.
He presented his argument that there are reasons for inequitable and inequality in the context of productivity e.g in the marketing theory. He continued, "If people say life’s unfair, well, life’s unfair anyway".
But if we say that life is unjust or is counted towards natural justice, then this will have a very strong traction and high persuasiveness to the inter-relationship of the trinitarian word. "The theory of equity", he added, "will have elements of justice and fairness".
Fairness brings a certain connotation. Fairness is a primitive idea of justice. Sen described fairness as "the way to treat people in the same way seen fairly by others".
"Fairness" he distinguished "is foundational but justice is institutional". He used the same example and said that "it’s really not true that life is unfair because life is unfair in a needless way where we humans can change it".
He moved on to explain the theory of penalty and economics. He drew a parallel with people who break the speed limit in the motorway.
"One way of stopping people from speeding is by fining them. There are arbitrariness and unfairness in it too. Someone driving 50mph gets a fine, someone doing 60mph gets away. There’s an element of unfairness here, yes, but we have to live with it because we can’t expect to catch someone committing an offense all the time. There are unfairness in everything but to which degree is the question."
Gary Vacheron renowned for his paper on economics of crime and punishment argued that actual punishment on offences comes in a natural way with the economic theory of externalities that justifies the theory of proportionality where retribution stops people from committing offences. Therefore, the more costly and damaging an offence is, the greater the retribution should be.
Sen went on to explain about the enhancement of capability in terms of wealth and income. Enhancement of capability is not a zero sum game. More power to some is not necessarily less power to others. Likewise, the utility derived from income is skewed. For example, it's a fact that someone with a disability on average earns less than an able-bodied person. However, it doesn't mean that a higher income would necessarily provide a higher utility. The utility of a prosthetic limb for example, is certainly much higher than a high income if it could not provide the much needed mobility to a disabled person. This is what enhancement of capability is.
Sen underlined the importance of enhancement of capability and empowerment. Capability and empowerment are an aspect of freedom. Sen gave example of someone starving and someone fasting. One is an act of volition and the other, compulsion of poverty. Everyone doesn’t have the same capability as others but people can be empowered with skills to make a difference in their lives.
That's so true. Sen's words were really profound. Truly he's a great social economist and a philosopher. To me, he's also a great teacher!
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