Amartya Sen Quotes on Justice
Amartya Sen is an Indian philosopher and economist, Nobel laureate in economic sciences, and one of the most influential thinkers on famines, social choice, and the foundations of justice. This page collects quotes attributed to Amartya Sen on the topic of justice, drawn from across the philosopher's works.
Quotes
-
Attributed to Amartya Sen:
“Famines are caused by failures of entitlement, not by failures of food production alone.”
-
Attributed to Amartya Sen:
“The pursuit of justice begins with attention to clear and remediable injustices.”
-
Attributed to Amartya Sen:
“What people are actually able to do and to be is the proper space for justice.”
-
“I personally have great skepticism about the theories extolling the wonders of " Asian values ." They are often based on badly researched generalizations and frequently uttered by governmental spokesmen countering accusations of authoritarianism and violations of human rights (as happened spectacularly at the World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna in 1993).”
Amartya Sen, Foreword to The Passions and the Interests by Albert O. Hirschman (1996) -
“Amartya Sen, "Human Rights and Asian Values" Sixteenth Annual Morgenthau Memorial Lecture on Ethics and Foreign Policy, May 25, 1997; Republished in: Tibor R. Machan (2013), Business Ethics in the Global Market. p. 69”
Since the conception of human rights transcends local legislation and the citizenship of the person affected, it is not surprising that support for human rights can also come from anyone—whether or not she is a citizen of the same country as the person whose rights are threatened. A foreigner does not need the permission of a repressive government to try to help a person whose liberties are being