Wesson Lecture 2000-2001
On
January 15 and 17, 2001, Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen (http://www.nd.edu/~kmukhopa/cal300/calcutta/amartya.htm)
delivered the Wesson Lectures in Problems of Democracy to an
overflow audience of more than 600 people. Among various contributions
to the field of economics, Amartya Sen is particularly lauded
for his efforts in economic issues pertaining to development.
The
Lectures Trinity College, Cambridge University Professor Amartya
Sen delivered were:
"Limits of Contractual Reasoning"
January 15, 2001
And
"Democracy
and Human Rights"
January 16, 2001
Commentating
on Professor Sen's lectures were Discussants Barbara Fried (http://lawschool.stanford.edu/faculty/fried/),
Professor of Law, Stanford University and Kenneth Arrow (http://www-econ.stanford.edu/faculty/arrow.html),
Professor of Economics, Emeritus, Stanford University
His
lectures, "Democracy and Social Justice" centered around a contrast
he drew between two ways of justifying our obligations to others.
The first, exemplified by Immanuel Kant asks: what principles
would free and equal members of a society choose to govern their
basic social institutions? The second, associated with the thought
of Adam Smith and David Hume, asks: what principles would an
"impartial spectator" choose to govern the distributions of
burdens and benefits between persons?
Sen
marked out several contrasts between these varying approaches.
Social contract theories, he claimed, depend on a prior identification
of the members of a society, the people to whom the institutions
shaped by the chosen principles are actually going to apply.
They therefore demarcate sharply between members and non-members:
the universalism of this approach, he contended, is "inescapably
restricted and separatist." Moroever, not only do social contract
theories apply to a single entity (such as a society) but they
assume that citizenship is our most important group membership
and is decisive for specifying our primary obligations to others.
But what about the solidarities that exist between individuals
in different nations, such as those based on class, gender,
social or political conviction or professional obligation?
By
contrast, Sen advocated for a form of moral reasoning based
on the ideal of the impartial spectator. This spectator attempts
to fairly arbitrate between all the different concerns that
people have - and his judgements, although admittedly incomplete,
are not restricted in the ways that plague social contract theories.
The spectator can consider the problems posed by global gender
inequality or by massive malnutrition in developing countries
to take first priority from the standpoint of justice. This
flexibility, Sen argued, makes the Smithean approach more useful
for thinking about global justice -about the extent of obligation
we have, one stranger to another.
The
lectures were followed by a seminar led by Professor Ken Arrow
(emeritus, Economics) and Professor Barbara Fried (Law) in which
faculty and students could discuss Sen's ideas further. The
seminar ranged over many topics, but kept coming back to the
central contrast Sen drew between the two types of moral reasoning.
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Information
on Past Wesson Lectures
Wesson
Lecture 2005-2006
Wesson
Lecture 2004-2005
Wesson
Lecture 2003-2004
Wesson
Lecture 2002-2003
Wesson
Lecture 2001-2002
