Eric Falkenstein is reading Amartya Sen’s The Idea of Justice and pulls out this example from the book:
Take three kids and a flute. Anne says the flute should be given to her because she is the only one who knows how to play it. Bob says the flute should be handed to him as he is so poor he has no toys to play with. Carla says the flute is hers because she made it.
Sen argues that who gets the flute depends on your philosophy of justice. Bob, the poorest, will have the support of the economic egalitarian. The libertarian would opt for Carla. The utilitarian will argue for Anne because she will get the maximum pleasure, as she can actually play the instrument. Sen states there are no institutional arrangements that can help us resolve this dispute in a universally accepted just manner.
This supposedly shows that there is no single theory of justice, rather one should look at enhancing the redistribution of life-saving goods and removing ‘injustice’.
I haven’t read Sen’s book (and have no immediate intention to do so), so perhaps I’m getting the wrong notion from the example here, but let me rephrase it a tiny bit to clarify why the example didn’t work for me:
Clara makes a flute, which is then taken from her because it might be “awarded” to someone who knows how to play it, or to someone who has no toys. Clara might, under some notions of “justice” be given back the flute she made.
I don’t see this as an example of “justice” so much as a form of theft.
I don’t see this as an example of “justice” so much as a form of theft.
As a result of which, Carla will never again make a flute (or anything for that matter….)
Comment by Lord of the Fleas — July 25, 2011 @ 22:50