[applause] we'll come. my name is sylvia and i am a journalist and i am known days i have known him longer than i should tell you and he is one of one of the most remarkable men and exciting fingers i have ever known and the idiot of justice is one of the most remarkable books that any of us will ever read. i would like to thank jackson and booksellers and the harvard university press for organizing this event and all of you for coming out and enjoying us and to

retain so patiently. i hate it when someone says so and so needs no introduction. of course, most of you know, a great many things about the professor but i always felt that ideas are so much easier to appreciate and to enjoy if we can picture a little of the circumstances and experiences which help to animate them and that is what i would like to do in my introduction. most of you know, that professor sen holds a chair at harvard nobel prize in economics, master of trinity college, he writes a great deal for the new york review of books, but you may not know that he lately has been

called by a colleague of mine a brilliant writer and he is, i think, the world's best conversational list. . . . .

and amartya sen is very much a part of that tradition. the idea of justice, this wonderful book, the majestic vote is literally the work of a lifetime. it draws on a lifetime of reading, talking, listening, reasoning, writing. but the premise of the book in the air for justice is rooted in childhood, that the idea of justice is a generalization, a kind of rationalization and the personal experience of injustice. in other words, we recognize injustice to our south long before we formed this general and more abstract notion. in the book opens in a wonderful

way from charles dickens, great expert patient. in a little world in which children of their existence, there is nothing so plainly perceived and finally felt as injustice says pip, the narrator. and he's referring to the capricious and violent coercion that he suffered at the hands of the dreadful sister who raised him. so the notion, the most immediate notion of justice is not some abstract standard, but simply that of stopping injustice. since there are many competing

standards of abstract standards of what ideal justice is, professor sen argues that trying to construct a society based on only one of the standard is pointless and off entire project is. but there are so many injustices about which at any given point in time a consensus exists among people who have many different ideas of what ideal justice is, a consensus exists that they are unjust and should be done away with whether slavery for the subjugation of women with the treatment of mentally ill people and the best way of approaching

for media full injustices is by comparing our standards of justice and taking into account all the different ones. the key is talking, talking and engaging. i don't know of anyone who persecuted or frustrated defense of amartya sen persecutions, the way she persecuted him. indeed, professor sen growth as a princeling in a very poorly land. he was a much loved child of a very privileged family who was constantly assured that he was

destined for great things. in fact, amartya means destined for immortality. but, as i'm sure you know, even the most, even the luckiest, most privileged of a gym experience injustice. amartya sen was born in the worst year of the great depression, 1933. the drop in duck off, about 240 kilometers from calcutta. today it's the capital of muslim bangladesh. he was born into that class of english-speaking hindu academics said bill service who helped run india. but at a time and that class was written from many sides.

as the japanese advance, so did i-india in 1941. a year old had to be sent out to the countryside to live with his maternal grandparents to keep them safe from the bombs. now shares maquette and, where his maternal grandparents lived as special associations for all indians because of kaikoura, the poets who wished to merge eastern spirituality with western science. sen, maternal grandfather was on the top of google for school in china cat. at his grandfather, sen recalls are for unaffordable, it while the stars come attacks to be about connections between greek and scan script.

and little amartya was the favorite grandchild, the only one who was drawn to his grandfather scholarship. i was going to be the one who carried the mantle. this was a tranquil oasis, but that didn't mean that shanta mccain escaped the peoples of the time. at the time as the death in 1941 come into court as deeply disenchanted the west and professed to see no difference between the allies and the axis between hitler and churchill. the war accelerated the final break with britain after gandhi launched the quit india movement over 1000 people were killed in anti-british riots and hundreds and hundreds of nationalist among them, many uncles and relations of amartya sen were

arrested and kept in preventive detention. i grew up, he said, feeling injustice of this. as a child, amartya sen was an eyewitness to the 1943 bengal famine, the consequence of wartime in imperial difference, not the product failures. a steady flow of starving villagers from the rural areas trying desperately to reach calcutta flow-through shanta mccartin. and his grandfather allowed him to hand out rice to these desperate families, but only as much as would fill a cigarette in and only one per family. later on when he was a teenager, he reflect did on how awfully

the very poor and the memories of despise cat had actually starved while he and his family, in fact their whole class, were utterly on the fact day. and that experience in that sense ultimately led to his work many years later on this theory of say a man as man made rather than natural disaster. even more to to my decorous eruption at communal violence on the eve of independence. traditionally, muslims and hindus have achieved a fairly high degree of assimilation and then call, more so than in other parts of india, a little like and christians in the germany.

but neighbor turned against neighbor and like millions of other hinders the fans were forced to leave their home in 1945 by the threat of muslim violence. but outrage over this at exile, this new injustice, was enabled with the hindus were not exactly innocent themselves. before his family left, the 12-year-old sen witnessed the death of a muslim laborer who had been attacked by hindu rioters. the man shouldn't have been out at all, but he was so desperately poor that he had to come to the hindu neighborhood in search of work. the experience was devastating to me.

recalled sen. extreme poverty can make a person helpless prey was to aspire a philosophical inquiry into the conflict between necessity and freedom. another respect, however, was his strongest case for all forms of religious fanaticism and cultural right up into the more demand dogmatic form some multiculturalism. later on, he said that if i look back at the fields of academic work in which i have felt most involved throughout my life and it certainly encompasses everything that is in the idea of justice. they were already among the concerns. they were agitating the me most in my undergraduate days in calcutta. amartya sen went to the very

elite presidency college at a time when the imperialist west was being reviled and the soviet union was being embraced as a model for all poor countries to follow. he was elected head of a communist dominated radical student organizations he read voraciously skipped lectures, spent most of his time dates with his friends. but again, the political suddenly turned very personal. cancer of the mass is a very common -- was a very common tradition among indian man and in the early 1950's, dairy stigmatized and almost always fatal, took months of intervention by relatives and family friends merely to arrange a biased he and much longer to

finally find a new state radiologist who would provide a treatment that had been standard in the united states and europe for 50 years. it was a terrible ordeal and, you know, this very privileged young man suffered and took away what missouri it was possible for people to experience and a sense of charm and his empathy. but being a survivor was also empowering. psychologically he said i was in

the drivers seat, i was aggressive, i was the one asking whether i would live. what was that? what could i do? and since the array. when he returned to his classes, he came back and was full of renewed purpose. he properly got up first and won all kinds of prices including a debate price, a very useful thing for a future philosopher and he applied to the college of newton and nehru, trinity college in cambridge. and though he was initially reject it, he was ultimately admitted and his father had to vote about half of the family savings not to send his son on the boa c. flight from india to guess that was far too expensive, but to send him there by boat.

and of course arriving in cambridge england in the fall, when it starts to get dark at 330 clock in the afternoon presented another season and another new kind of misery. a landlord in israel also a debate them not to send her a colored, busted him about drawing the curtains at night and talk to him like he was a little idiot child. you can't see out, but they can see you. at trinity, he encountered other kinds of stereotyping because they were certain executions from young man from the third world, executions about what they were to believe and he fell under the spell of the brilliant and in. joe robinson, the only woman who

was ever, until last year, every serious contender for a nobel prize in economics. and he was at that time and saturated with stalin and nehru and he would soon be replaced by her devotion to knocking the most on. it amartya sen had stopped writing in the late 1960's, we would know him as one generation of indian developed economies to favored the neighbors formula that didn't work out very well in the hands, but around the team 70 amartya sen turned back to see what we can see now where his roots. and proceeded to produce a series of very startling philosophical papers that have culminated in the book that we

are here tonight to talk about. you know that amartya sen is an economist as well as a philosopher and i should say that for a very long time his philosophical approach to economics and his use of economic reasoning in his philosophical work was considered decidedly suspect by the left as well as the right, by economists as well as philosophers. at one point the then chairman of the nobel prize committee told me sen will never get the price. well, amartya sen did get the prize, that's even better he has

not been diverted from his lifelong quest to use his extraordinary powers of thought, scholarship and conversation in the pursuit of justice. ladies and gentlemen, it is my great pleasure to introduce amartya sen. [applause] >> well, it's really wonderful for me to be here today and i thank you all for coming and sylvia in particular for very, very kind introduction. she is more kind of an object did, but i wouldn't protest

about that. i'm very grateful for allowing the event less depressed. the ideas have been explored across the world over thousands of years. there's nothing exclusively quotes, unquote western and the thought people have attached to justice and injustice in the world. nevertheless, there can be little doubt that the discipline of reasoning about political philosophy in general and about justice in particular received an especially strong boost viewing the european enlightenment in the 18th and 19th centuries. in time, by the political climate of change and also by the social and economic transformation taking place than in europe and in america of

which the french revolution and the american revolution were perhaps preeminent examples. the leaders of the enlightenment did not ever speak in one voice. they raised the dichotomy which does not receive sufficient attention, but in two different lines of reading about justice that can be seen among two groups of living philosophers associated with the radical thought of the european enlightenment. one approach concentrated on identifying perfectly just social arrangement and took the characterization of quote, unquote just institutions to be the principal and often the only identified material of justice.

this justice is woven in different ways around the idea of the hypothetical quote, unquote social contract. a contract which has had potential but the population of the sovereign state would be a pocket to any story -- but that's a metaphor. major contributions were made in this line of thinking by thomas hobbes in the 17th century and later by john locke and the manual can't and do not test. the principal. of justice in contemporary political philosophy, including pml lady john rawls theory, what he called. in one way or another on the social contract approach and

concentrate on the set of ideals social institutions. this approach to the pursuit of justice has produced into the chairs. and since i'm critical of that approach, i should try to outline them as clearly as i can before i discuss why i have disagreements. but this concentrated attention on what could be accepted as perfect justice rather than on relative comparison of justice and injustice and on the ways and means of removing recognized cases of injustice in the world. second, and perfection and this approach concentrates primarily on getting the institution of arraignment right. and it's not directly focused on the actual society that would

ultimately emerge. the nature of the society that would result from any given set of institutions must of course depend also on non-institutional features, such as the actual behavior of people and their social interaction. the third feature relates not to the subject matter of reasoning about justice, but to the voices that should come in this reasoning. in the social contract tradition, the view that must receive attention has to come from those who can be seen as parties to the social contract. given the country by country and nation by nation structure of social contract, thoughtfully identified by thomas hobbes and

pursued in mainstream contentedly solus, the contract terry and tradition tends to define, tends to define tradition to their members have given policy, in particular, the citizens of each country taken separately who are engaged in deciding on the deal institutions and corresponding values for that particular sovereign state. the need for impartiality is the treatment of different citizens within the country are accepted and celebrated, but they found a secure place in this formulation of deliberations of justice to go beyond the citizens of the political estate. if this can be called close impartiality as indeed i do call it in my book, where in partial

consideration is confined to the citizens only of a given state. we can contrast this -- an imperial sentiment, the book published in 1779, 250 years ago of which there is a new addition, by the way published by penguin with a long introduction by myself. the sentiment and also the wealth of nations and in his lecture which was put together posthumously later on. in contrast with to the contract today and tradition, the insistence on the necessity to pay attention to the views of people from far as well as near. this can be called open impartiality in contrast.

smith saw the impartial consideration, which was essential for a grounded morality and understanding the demands of justice because as we go beyond the boundaries of each state and beyond the narrow and possibly parochial statements of its membership. the contrast with the social contract addition however is not confined only to adam smith. i-india, a number of enlightenment theorists, including in addition to smith, the marquis conversation in france and mae wilson craft, the english radical thinker and often remembered by the mothers

of their all so frankenstein and also had celebration -- but a great thinker in their own right. and later karl marx and john stuart mill among others took an idea of approaches that tend to contrast this with the social contract tradition developed by hobbes, locke, rousseau khan and now most famously by our leader and political philosophy. these non-contrary and materials are widely different from each other, but share a common interest in making comparisons between different ways in which people's lives may go. jointly influenced by the

working of institutions, by people's actual behavior, their social interaction and other factors that significantly impact on what's actually happened in the world, how our lives go and what freedoms and capabilities we respectively enjoy. ..

the rules of idea behavior that everyone should follow. quite different from saying what would happen if the behavior does not correspond to the behavior. also and never of other contemporary terrorists of justice have broadly speaking taken in this transcendental social contract route to -- many others. the kind of approach i'm arguing for developing from smith and in differ from these features of the dominance of the contact approach which is so central to to contemplate the velocity.

in this alternative approach, we do not begin by asking what would in the prickly just society look like. even though that question is sometimes interesting to ask and have a use will role in helping to clarify our mind, that is not essential engagement. nor do we support there would be agreement on that. we begin instead by asking what would be be able to identify on a the removal of which there could be a agreement by people committed to reason. also the alternative approach presented here and looks at how the lives of people are going, not merely and what institutions exist and does not exist. in understanding the contrast between this focus and a realization focused view of justice is the contrast between

them, it is useful to invoke an old distinction from the sanskrit literature on jewish students, a distinction that is quite central, in fact, too early indian legal thinking. consider to different wines, both of which stand for justice in classical sanskrit. among the principal users of the term, organizational propriety and behavioral correctness. in contrast with this, the term stands for a comprehensive idea of realizing justice. in that line the roles of institutions, rules and organization, important as they are, have to be ultimately assessed in the broader and more inclusive perspective in in this

deeply linked to what the world that actually emerges and the lives that people actually lead, not just the institutions that have been to be enforced. to consider the political application it early in illegal -- early indian legal lists have something which is a sanskrit word or fish, just as in the world of fish. where is characterized as a world in which a big fish can't really devour a small wished one ever did wanted. we are worn that it must be an essential part of justice in the world and it is crucial to make sure that the justice of fish is not allowed to invade the world of human beings. the central recognition here is

that the realization of justice in the sense of this is not just a matter of judging institutions and rolls, but of judging the societies themselves. we've now matter how proper and established the organizations might be, it is a bigger fish that can still devour a small dish that will, then that must be in violation of human justice now no matter what institutions we have enforced. considering an example to make the distinction between these, let me make it clearer. ferdinand the first, the holy roman emperor, famously claimed in the 16th century a translation of let justice be

done, though the world of paris. the severe maxima could figure as a very austere advocation of some, indeed, ferdinand did just that. but it would be hard to accommodate total catastrophe. the world perished as an example of a just world when we understand justice in the broader sense. if, indeed, the world does paris there's been nothing much to celebrate in that accomplishment. even though the stern and severe extreme result would be simply defended with a very sophisticated arguments of the unkind. realization also makes it easier to understand the importance of the prevention of manifest injustice in the world rather then it seeking the perfect

results. as the example made clear, the subject of justice is not merely about trying to achieve by dreaming about achieving some perfectly just society of arraignment but about some conditions like preventing many leslie severe injustice such as avoiding been dreadfully on a free life of the underdogs in a state of this kind. it for example, when people agitated for the abolition of slavery -- slavery in the 18th and 19th centuries, they were not laboring and the aleutian that the abolition of slavery would make the world publicly just. it was their claim rather that the society with slavery was totally unjust and has also mentioned earlier adam smith and gary wilson were very involved with presenting this

perspective. in it was a diagnosis of an intolerable in justice in slavery that made abolition an overwhelming society and this did not require of research for a content on what it perfectly just society would look like. those who think reasonably and half of that the american civil war which led to the abolition of slavery was a huge strike for justice in america. a raft that had not taken place at the time of the war of independence, indeed, at the time of the declaration of independence, would have to be recognizing the rights that nothing adequately distinctive can be saved -- said about justice to the abolition of slavery if we use the perspective of social contact theory. when the only distinction is that between the prickly just end the rest.

still there would be no room for slavery in perfectly just society if you can identify the societies, but there would not be any room for a million other violations either big or small. in a framework of comparative justice that concentrated on their freedoms and capabilities of people, the abolition of slavery did not wait for a comprehensive transformation involving the removal of all the large multitude of transgressions. the same applies to the manifest injustice today that unnecessarily limits human life and human capabilities. thanks to the plurality of surviving principles, we may not be able to resolve on a guns of justice alone all the questions that may be asked. for example, whether 40 percent tax rate is more just or less

just then 25% tax rate. and yet we have every reason to try to see whether we can get their recent agreement on removing what can be identified as clear injustice in the world. in such as slavery or the subjugation of women or extreme exploitation of an involuntary labor which so engaged conversation, augusta medical neglect of the population today, to the absent medical facilities and parts of africa and asia and parts of latin america, or a lack of universal health coverage in most countries in the world including the united states of america. for the prevalence of torture which continues to be used with arar coble frequency in the

contemporary world sometimes practiced by pillars of the global establishment. or the quiet tolerance of chronic conover for example in india despite the entirely successful abolition of famine with plague in india under the rule of britain. one of the limitations of social contacts everts to justice is the unjustified conviction that there could be -- could only be one precise combination of a acceptable principles and despite its improbability that assumption is necessary for the social contact approach. to justice which takes his job as identifying uniquely a combination of ideas of social institutions that are to be set up, that's the sought -- that's the point of contact there. in contrast with this insistence

in most contemporary theories of justice, the alternative and that i'm trying to and france in the lines as they mentioned following smith and others broadly speaking what i call the social choice approach, there's actually if formal discipline of social choice also, but the mathematical discipline which i've been involved in over decades, but really the general approach not particularly that mathematical theorem are involved in this. in contrast with this it allows the possibility of the plurality of completing -- competing principles each of which is given a status of this subject to critical examination. in -- it's important to emphasize necessary scrutinizing all principles that are presented for our attention and some may well get rejected after

asserting critical reasoning have end hugely important role in the theory of justice. but more than one competing principle may actually survive on the basis of their recent justification and still this is not prevent us from agreeing on many steps that can be taken here and now to prevent serious cases of manifest injustice on which agreement can be reached between people who disagree on their vision of these ideally just world. and people would not have the same view of ideally just institutions. in addition to the problem already discussed, the problems already discussed with the dominance of social contract tradition from which i'm arguing we have to break loose, there is a further major difficulty with that tradition. namely its comprehensive

inability to address problems of global justice and injustice. in the social contract approach seeks the enforcement of justice by solvent state as thomas hawks made clear in the 17th century and so have others who have followed that truth. and it does not allow us to invoke the idea of justice when the people involved do not have it insolvent state. this implies the reflections on quote on quote global justice in the contemporary world without a global stage cannot but to be entirely elusive. even when john walsh turned to international relations he invokes not the demand of justice, but those of you military and ism and civility.

similarly, other great philosophers of our time describing the pursuit of global justice as a suggestion that the global relations should not try to invoke the idea of justice and must be raised instead on minimal what we call minimum humanitarianism. this is in contention with the sense of injustice and sharply and roused by the reflections on the state of the world, not just within our borders but across the borders as well. if the theory of justice is so parasitic on the existence of the solvent state for the people through which justice we can talk, then it matter is undoubtedly a huge limitation of that approach to justice. we live in entirely independent

world. lake with economic social, political and cultural relations and connected by our interests in each other. i do not, of course, have any particular claim to religiosity i should make clear giving this lecture in part of the st. patrick's cathedral, though i'm grateful for the accommodation we have received from the church, but i have no claim to religiosity myself, but nevertheless i have taken the liberty to argue that the question that jesus asked in the good samaritan story in the gospel of luke, it is entirely central to justice, namely who is our neighbor. the, indeed, our global neighborhood constructed by a our relations with other people is a pervasive element to the idea of justice. in there is a deep fragility, indeed, on an intellectual basis

of thinking of people in terms of mixed communities of neighbors combine together and separated solvents dates to whom it the idea of justice applies. but it is meant not to applies to others across the world. jesus is questioning six neighborhoods has sometimes been ignored in seeing the good samaritan story as a moral or universal concern. which is also fair and half, but the main point of the story as told by jesus as i read it is not directly at the appointed. it presents the rejection of the idea of a new mixed neighborhood based on geography proximity. at this point in it luke jesus

is now going local lawyer and the lawyers limited conception of those to whom we all have a duty to look only to article neighbors. in jesus tells of the lawyer, the story of the wounded man lying on one side of the street who has held essentially by the good samaritan and it was an event that was preceded by the refusal of a priest and amy right to do anything for him. indeed, the instance of helping out the priest and the levites just crossed to the other side of the streets without raising the wounded man. jesus raises what is primarily a question regarding the definition of one's neighbor. he asked the lawyer with whom he is arguing who was the wounded man's neighbor. in the lawyer cannot avoid

answering, the man who helped him. and that was, of course, jesus' point exactly. the duty to neighbors is not confined only to those who live next door. in order to understand that argument do this behalf remember that we not only live some distance away but also particularly disliked, indeed, this applies by the israelites. the samaritan is linked to the wounded israelite whom he helped through the evidence itself. they found the stricken out and about the need to help provide the help and was now in a relationship with the injured person. it does not matter whether the samaritan was moved by charity or by a sense of justice or by some a deeper sense of fairness of treating others as equals.

once a round themselves in this situation he is in a new neighborhood. in the very early days of globalization, nearly a quarter of the millennium go in the 18th century, david hume our -- 1751 david hume argued in an essay called upon justice, again i am quoting from david hume, suppose that several distinct societies maintained a kind of intercourse of mutual convenience and advantage. the boundaries of justice still grow larger. in proportion to the largeness of men's views and the course of their mutual connection. unquote. we are now aligned with each other across the globe, through

trade commerce, literature, language, music, art, entertainment, religion, medicine, health care, politics, news reports, media communications, and other ties. and the regional view of justice two separately conclude that national social contact is peculiarly limited. it is on the largeness of men's views as david hume put it that an understanding of justice today has to draw. to think the idea of justice is immune to being influenced by our sense of solidarity with the rest of the world would be a huge mistake. this is, of course, not to say there is no distinction between our duties to others in the same community or the same state and peace to the others in the

world. these distinctions can be hugely important issues for public reasoning, but to wipe the slate clean of the idea of justice when we look beyond our borders as and when no question of justice could arise there cannot be making the idea of just as deeply fragile and weak. as a marvelous their king stated in a letter from birmingham jail in april 1963, and i quote from kenya: injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. that kenya was right was hard to dispute in the world today. in beleaguered by cross border epidemics, such as aids or cross border terrorism or environmental crisis such as global warming or global news of a global catastrophe, catastrophic disaster such as

currently in haiti. which cannot leave us quietly self centered within our regional cells. we are increasingly linked not only by our mutual economic and social and political relations, but also by far reaching concerns about injustice and inhumanity that challenges our world and the violence of terrorism that threatens it. even our shared a fascination and shared thoughts on a global helplessness can unite rather than divide it. there are, in fact, very few non neighbors left in the world today. in the new presentation of justice i'm trying to present with all humility drawing i

think on very old ideas both from the west including smith, wilson and other traditions which i discussed in the book from india, japan, china and elsewhere at least, it is consciously alive to that basic reality as a test in the argument in construction with -- constructing the theories has explored and developed or attempted to be developed in my book. that seems to be -- it seems to me to be at stake not merely a clear understanding of the demands of the idea of justice whether used within the confines of a country or a state or community were applied in a way that it analogies are extensive interdependence across our local barriers but also with the need

to rise to the challenges of global justice in the contemporary world. in what is at one level it is methodical engagement and my book is ultimately a contribution, it's time to contribution to political velocity. it is also a response at another level to the political needs of living in the world today in which we find ourselves. one of the main ambitions of the book is to show that there is no tension and all between clear headed political philosophy, on the one hand, and the demands of political understanding in an entirely interdependent world on the other. this is in bad with the book is about. thank you.

[applause] >> professor sen would be happy to answer the question and the only thing is that to stand up and make your questions a one liner with a question mark at the end. >> person who you are. >> i'm from india, and in my youth. my question is with the growing indian neighbors with changes

with policy and justice lay here? >> i should, first of all, make absolutely clear that my book offers no hint of the subject whatsoever. in is not a book on contemporary political policy on which were asking the very limited question, but to answer your question i should try to answer it, i think the answer is a question of justice is very much involved. it is involved with in the neighboring countries, it's involved between that the relation between people in different countries, between pakistan and india and bangladesh and sri lanka and so forth. and it's important to recognize how the book is mainly about topical reasoning how important that is even in countries as india you mentioned are threatened by major in --

neighboring countries like pakistan. but it's also important to recognize how much the pakistan public is concerned with these issues of justice in their own thinking about it. in just to give an example that there was a great deal of debate going on about whether the pakistan army should intervene in the valley when the taliban established and initially it was quite reluctant to come in and the civil population, a civil society did not want pressure on that. that actually change to my reading of that, it is correct, i read pakistan papers regularly and i think i have got it right, it's the part of the human rights movement in pakistan

which actually -- i should explain that the human rights commission in india has a legal status recognized by law. it can do things and in pakistan the human rights commission is an ngo. on the other hand, because of its u.s. a public reasoning -- use of public reasoning a can bring a human justice to the public an attractive way but in this case a very daring, very active movements took a video of a young woman being caned for having violated some religious taboo. in this could have lost his life, he pretended he was making a long call while and attract the camera was in the video camera inside the temple actually photographed in that. it was only one that was placed

in the public domain to the pakistan television media which also cooperated that the pakistan's civilian population came quite sharply in wanted it intervention. on humanity but also that of justice. so i think the presence of justice in consideration and debate not only in india of which you ask and you are familiar but also pakistan. ..

>> my name is that clement a senior at unlike you and my question is on your first critique talking about how social contract theory demands only a single assistant competitor. and just have been brought concent of like the fact erasable pluralism allows for multiple conception of justice. so could one of those conceptions be a more than four mineta and jeff at first i quite

if that's what the political passion demand. >> it does indeed do that. and no, that broad and far-reaching ideas about completing concepts concept of justice in his book and 50 even with the outgoing that in the original restoration though would be in agreement a set of principles of justice setting up the justice society as he sees it. he feels that maybe there could be other things to survive. but even though he gave these county cannot entertain them because of the precipitate of the contract approach because at the end of adel, we have to set up one set of institutions and acknowledge the cloudy, then you

have more than one tradition. you can go that way. so i think the findings were making brings out exactly what i'm trying to say, that even as great in and as broad and as inclusive as a social political thinker of have the to go contrary to what he says that they could surviving by seen a whole theory based on the ip will be one that a principal. so glad you asked the question because i have nothing other than the great system. the book is dedicated to john rawls. even the greatest mind have it

reduced by the discipline of a very narrow way of thinking about the world and that's really what i'm trying to argue there. now oddly enough, as you might've guessed by now that i'm a bit of a smithian in this effect is interesting that when he does. the one person he completely neglects -- i give example of that. in his mind it is completely. i think rawls could have deteriorate moral sentiment and something to offer that rawls would've found engaging, but i don't think he went that way. so i'm delighted to answer the question because it shows how the breadth of the rule gets

sunk by the narrowness of the social contract approach. >> hello, i wanted to ask you if the new u.n. doctrine of the responsibilities to protect what she regarded -- the >> responsibility to what? >> to protect, which he regarded as not a concept in the social concept approach or would you find ways to reunite it with your new suggestion of looking at just this? >> well, my new old conception because on earlier thoughts i think the responsibility to protect the state is part of the

understanding of justice on which public reasoning has not stopped. but on top of that, it should take responsibility to protect probably the human rights issue to comment mainly of the issues that we all have and protect in our extent that we can when they are in the kind of danger after the violation of our rights and social justice. i think my book is much confound with the chapter on that. it falls in the capillary the responsibility to protect and default in the category of what imagines a time and again countries to which the same thing and we understand so much of it. and yet, they're modeling now

what is the entrapment of the approach. but when he's talking about distinguishes between will end of anyone. but it doesn't particularly say it's how we get them to do this and that perfect like the legalization. it's publication, your obligation, not anyone else's. that is generally to have to protect. that i think is fairly much his subject matter of justice one of the? from the city heard for today

her in the sight of 16 people who did not actually come and help. and if you say what went wrong with it? most importantly they generated human life to survive. the perfect obligation on the part of the attacker not to attack or kill anyone with violet did. but that press observation and i was violated to. now as god makes clear, you cannot discuss in perfect obligation. i could see the light of their house, so why should i do it? it happens. but they're not acting rightly in this context.

that they're the failure on the part of everyone in doing what they can do to help protect the fashion. so i think that's a very central issue. so again i'm getting wonderful questions and i'm really delighted to relay that question. >> my name is taking i work at the u.n. development service. my question is just in relation to have you discussed the issue of power in your book and how do you see the contact of power as the debates to -- and i use it to influence your ideas? >> well, power is quite central to the vote if you look at the index you will see how many times it comes out. but we have to make a distinction between two different kinds of way that the idea has been brought in

sometimes in the critique of material justice. times it i believe, if we are now having, save attacking roles , that what happens in the world depends on their power that is completely unfair accusation. use asking and deciding what would a perfectly just world look like? and because of the inequality of power, we end up somewhere else. you're contrasted with what would've been a just state. so there's really no conflict between them. you're saying it's a different state from the just world because the involvement of power and there's nothing involved as widely that denies the practical role of power. i mentioned the critique several

is in this case the finish is the question, what we can do our capabilities are are enormously important parts of town lives of people, what i would call to do this. and that is tension between that and are in good are not quite the same thing and it's an example, it could be -- is that? nine to him and should for you to dedicate me the most

importantand most of the leading factor in setting the environmental debate. however, if the formula of the 350 people per should need of a living thing, had given him a people, people who believe that he the standards are not always good. that is certainly possible, but that's not the only thing. we have creatures also want to have the capability and do not have a very special type of power to do things with really guarded value even if it does not affect my life and i need for my living standard in any way. for example, when you're looking at the possibility of extinction of species, if i take the view as i do and many others do that we are to preserve that species,

let's start with towels of an example i used in the book. so if i want to say that we want to environmental world in which the owls do not get distinct, i do not have to fall short that i have needs for this on my living standards would be affected by the absence of the owl. i think by living standard would be completely on effect it by the actions of owls. in fact, i've never seen one in my life. and yet, i think human beings need to take the view that they would be a timesaver for that to happen and i would like to wager that it doesn't go extinct. i would like to have the power to prevent. so there's a demand foreseeing human being not just does a nation, but also to bring that

old medieval distinction which is again what i said in the book. the third sense in which it comes into the discussion is that at first i didn't discuss that among the country, but i will discuss in the book are the social contract of the book is basically moved by the idea that our relationship with others having determined mutual advantage. i do something for you, you do something for me and because of the reciprocity of interest in the neutrality of concern that we can see that way. but that's not the only way of thinking about justice. there is also another way of thinking about the justice that if you have the power over the situation, then that power becomes subjugation. the discussion is clearly coming also follow and not to pursue

that in one of the reasons, the founder of buddhism, that is pronounced in such a way that i normally don't succeed in what they're talking about. he asked us to reflect why the mother has an obligation to a distant child is not just because they produced by child that had the relevance of fire. nor is it because they need the benefit to be obtained, but that doesn't go to the economy state that either something for my

children there's an infinite contract. it's a very articulate way of thinking about it. the direct way of thinking about it because there's something i can do or whether i will for the child cannot power over the child gets the needed obligation. it is likely to protect, which i have not because of mutuality on the social contract, but it's a non-contractual litigation coming from my power. so power and capability are not only part of what makes life worth living and valuable, but also something with gift about negotiation which they have to consider the responsibility. so they center the ideal responsibility. so power, and the.

justice five example for others. is the basic. does this without taking note of inequality that they're missing something because they want to convert a terrible life with division of a just world that rules another. i think that critique, but far otherwise is basically quite central to the idea of justice. yes, scheuer. >> one more. [inaudible] >> i think you have to wait for that. >> i just want to follow up directly to what you're saying on this discussion of power. how would they claim such as we should preserve the spotted owl delegitimized indica was legitimized on what basis would

that claim than compete with one claimed that it appeals to human need to be request is to say is preserving the spotted owl of the clashed with more mental claims and typically power tends to rue the day. so how would you respond to an organization for legitimizing things like saving the spotted owl? >> you have a very good question. i would value that what's happening here has been in the integration of just this into public domain and public reasoning. you know, i think one of the questions that's often asked and i discussed that same is the role because a lot of people who won't do it kind of reasoning.

my claim is that it's not -- i never said i don't believe in reason. so i think what we live in a world was there's a lot of bad reasoning. and to confront bad reasoning with good reasoning. so it's not people that they say don't give sense. i may someday run into such a human being, but i haven't so far. i think basically you have to debate on that. now there's a lot of well reasoning here and one of them i was just discussing, namely that to say about how the lies be a fact good of the spotted owl. you've never seen one, you don't know what they look like. you never do anything that involves the spotted owl your life, so you have no room to say

anything on this. i think that's not quite the case i and i think the world in which we allow spotted i stood there is a terrible world. it takes hundreds of millions here for the species to evolve and buyer warned an action they are eliminated. there's something going wrong in my judgment. now that's the reasoning which i can prevent. there is not a complete argument that you pointed out that question of what has to be sacrificed in tragic spotted owl for life. i'm not denying. on the question of the team what i'm arguing you turned here is you shouldn't try to argue the spotted owl innovation with

remote face you have a complete -- it is the question whether the ammunition of the spotted owl has claimed our attention and to offending adverts and a sacrifice for weather that has claimed the attention which we can reasonably commit to each other. that is not to say that people never actually end up having any reasoning at all. that might not be the case. but to say that by reason you couldn't prevent anyone, that that is the case, then i would tend to say there isn't an agreement of the kind that the front of justice could embrace the front. but the hope is and that's why the environmentalists are so active that it needs only to

case and that happens in europe that even 30 years ago it looked very unlikely that a green movement would affect government and right now within my own country, india, where the environmental issues have been conveyed very recently over the past five or ten years have been quite strong and powerful and they also innovate about whether the indians and the chinese and the copenhagen was rightly thought out on that. the question being raised by the civil society, a part of the engagement of public reasoning, so the book is ongoing and it's quite centralized into understanding what the demands of justice actually are. so thank you again for that question. >> and taking back and if you'd like the professor to sign a book come out please join us

next door at the store. thank you very much. [applause] >> mr. speaker, mr. store data house of representatives opened this proceeding to televised coverage. >> thirty-one years ago america's cable companies created c-span is a public service. today we've expanded your access to politics and public affairs, nonfiction books and american history three multiple

platforms, television, radio and online and cable television slated at inexpensive, free video archive. c-span's video library. >> anthony pitch author of seven books including a new one called "the have killed papa dead!," the road to ford's theatre abraham lincolnof murder and the rate for vengeance. what are information have you found out about the assassination of lincoln? >> i spent nine years researching. the biggest thing i found was lincoln was going from the old senate chamber and the capital having witnessed the inauguration with vice president. he went to the red tender, in an burst from the crowd a few feet behind him and the commissioner of public welding c-span. the man insisted on his right to be there and the man seizing him said maybe the new i don't know she released him. lincoln was inoculated unaware

of that. six weeks later, lincoln was shot. and this man who sees tamburro to a relative. i found a letter and he said that was the face of the man i restrained, it was john wilkes booth. >> you can find that photo on my now? >> of booth, yes. >> you talk also in this book about very early threat of lincoln during his presidency. can you talk about that? >> yes, and very great detail. on the very first chapter of his way from springfield, illinois to washington for his first migration in 1861 they were about to assassinate him at the pastor baltimore and he was smuggled into washington added this family and that i found new sources to cooperate that. >> now come you talk about the beginning, you talk about the middle and the execution of the assassination of the talk about the conviction of these men. can you talk a little bit about their imprisonment and the

result of the verdict? >> i found the great granddaughter of the prison governor and we became friendly. and she shared with me his original daily journal and private letters written to him and by him. and the torture as much of what i write about is brand-new. the torture of the conspirators. they were shackled, ironed and sells three feet wide, seven feet long, three and a half feet wide, individual cells. and they were held like this before they were charged, two months before the verdicts came down. very, very vivid. >> a lot of new information in this book. anthony pitch is the author. the book you "the have killed papa dead!." >> thank you, very much. >> here's a look at the upcoming

book fairs and festivals over the next few months. the tennessee williams literary festival welcomes james carville >> gregory zuckerman, senior writer at "the wall street journal" talks about john paulson whose hedge fund may may $20 billion by betting against the housing market in

2007 and 2008. mit sloan school of management cambridge massachusetts holds the 50 minute event. aflac >> thanks very much. i appreciate the opportunity to come speak about my book, a passion of mine, it's is my baby and i love talking about it and still find it interesting so i hope you do too. i'm going to talk a little bit about the lessons from the research behind my book and i'll also talk a little bit about what's going on now on wall street and some of the daytraders that i cover date today, what they're betting on, what they are betting against. and i will be some time for q&a. i also find in these kind of settings people have an interest in discussing journalism, financial journalism per se. perhaps, wall street journal and what we're focused on, those types of things. so feel free to kind of ask about the book or any of those kinds of questions as well. my book is called "the greatest

trade ever." it's about the winners in the whole crisis and just taken a step back him up later little about myself and sort of how i found this project. i'd i've been at "the wall street journal" about 13 years and i've covered different things, third on the street, i pretend and i wrote about hedge funds. and i've always been very interested and fascinated by big trade and strikeouts and big home runs as it were on wall street. i guess it's my -- i'm a sports guy so i like the big strike in home runs so i guess as a writer there's a lot of drama and lessons to be learned from people that make really big decisions and do really well as well as those kind of making mistake and you can learn from those as well. so i learned from the most strong and the most interest to