There are just institutions
22
May
The corrosion of most Western institutions, but also most of the Eastern ones,
is the ferment in which fanaticism and fundamentalism grow. What is seen is a large number of opportunist candidates in elections in so-called “central” countries.
In his work, Amartya Sen shows that thinking about institutions is already very old, and separates them into two main currents of thought: “transcendental institutionalism” (Hobbes, Rousseau, Kant and Rawls) and “comparison-based realization” ( Karl Marx, Jeremy Bentham, Mary Wollstonecraft and John Stuart Mill).
As we have already pointed out here on a number of topics, the basis of idealistic thought, which is assumed in transcendental institutionalists, unfortunately includes much of contemporary religious thought, and as Sen emphasizes two characteristics are common: it is the focus on a perfect society and To look upon perfect and just institutions, in this ideal sense, an almost Platonic ideal and which supposes, if not just, the least evil.
Another eminent author who makes inroads into the Theory of Empowerment is Martha Nussbaum, who makes the following distinction about Sen’s work: “Amartya Sen is concerned with comparisons about the standard of living of individuals, whether it would be connected to the debate about” how “… can provide a basis for central constitutional principles in which citizens have the right to make demands on their governments,” so one can see that it does not separate from idealistic institutionalism, although its work The “empowerment” of Sen’s work.
Amartya Sen’s work, more than 30 years ago, has sketched what is a true Theory of Justice, in a very broad sense, with the objective of clarifying what we can think of in terms of overcoming injustices, instead of offering resolutions of How to deal with perfect justice, “as Sen writes in a recent paper.
The approach we want, should respect each person as a purpose and a source of agency and value in their own right, if we can say so, an ontological justice.
It is not by chance that Paul Ricoeur’s work on the Just (2008) begins with a critique of Rawls, although in a different sense from that of Nussbaum and Amarthya Sem, he also defines it as
In upholding the importance of bringing happiness to people, Amarthya Sen’s sentence in Theory of Empowerment is deadly: “Empowerment is a kind of power. Happiness, no. “
Nussbaum, Martha. Non-Relative Virtues: An Aristotelian Approach, 1990. In NUSSBAUM, Martha and SEN, Amartya (Eds.), The quality of life. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993.
Ricoeur, Paul. Fair 1: justice as a moral rule and institution. BENEDETTI, Ivone G. [Trad.]. São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 2008, vol. I.
Sen, Amartya. The idea of justice. SP: Cia das Letras, 2011
