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LIT-290: A Paradigm Shift in Theorizing about Justice? A Critique of Sen

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StatusActive — read in full 2026-09-28 (NOTE-262); worth reading as a compact, well-sourced Rawlsian rebuttal of *The Idea of Justice*'s methodological thesis, with page-referenced reconstructions of Sen's claims. It is explicitly one-sided ("negative"). It does not engage the capability approach itself.
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Tagsethics, society-and-governance
Cited as “paper” byNOTE-262 — A Paradigm Shift in Theorizing about Justice? A Critique of Sen
Cited as “source” byTHEORY-434 — Rawls's theory of justice is transcendental only in the formal sense that its principles state when a society is perfectly just; it already yields comparative judgements, prescribes no single set of institutions and sits inside a revisable reflective equilibrium, so Sen's case against 'transcendental institutionalism' misses Rawls, and what it shows is that the theory is incomplete, not that a new paradigm is needed

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Valentini (2010), Economics & Philosophy 27(3), 297–315 (Cambridge UP, Nov 2011); read as Oxford CSSJ Working Paper SJ011 (Nov 2010) — DOI-10.1017/s0266267111000228

Standing in the record

Filed on 2026-09-28 at the owner’s request, as one of nine texts assembled to represent Amartya Sen’s capability approach without a full reading of The Idea of Justice. published: is the first appearance (ADR-002).

It was filed Deferred, unread. NOTE-262 is the close reading of 2026-09-28, and it placed the work: Active — worth reading as a compact, well-sourced Rawlsian rebuttal of The Idea of Justice’s methodological thesis, with page-referenced reconstructions of Sen’s claims. It is explicitly one-sided (“negative”). It does not engage the capability approach itself.

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