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Antonio Puggioni               Justice and Democracy in Amartaya Sen: another procedural approach? 

  

 

2 

 

Justice and Democracy in Amartya Sen: another procedural 

approach? 

 

Antonio PUGGIONI
1
, Institute for Advanced Studies, Italy  

 
Abstract 

he present paper aims at delivering a critical view of the links between justice and democracy as set by 
Amartya Sen’s paramount work on these themes, “The Idea of Justice”, by considering the 
constitutional and political experience of India. A central role will thus be given to the importance of 
public discussion and reasoning as the basis of democratic thought throughout the world, as Sen 
postulates. Nevertheless, an analysis of the Indian constitutional process shows how the mere reliance 

on reason and justice is not sufficient for a successful democratic tradition: the role of liberal values and of the 
underlying institutional developments is indeed capital for a wider understanding of the democratization process of 
India. The intertwining of these two aspects, the former socio-philosophical, the latter institutional, will help in 
reviewing the Indian experience as a demonstration of the maintenance of traditions within a clear framework, and 
in further expanding the notion to other contexts.  
 

 

 

                                                 
1
 Antonio Puggioni, 24, is a Ph.D. candidate in Institutions, Politics and Policies at the Institute 

for Advanced Studies in Lucca (Italy). He holds a BA in Political Sciences and International 
Relations (2009) and a MA in European Legal Studies (2011) from the University La Sapienza in 
Rome. He wrote both his BA and Master’s theses in Comparative Constitutional Law (the BA on 
the constitutional processes in Japan from the 1870s to the 1940s, the MA on linguistic rights in 
the Indian legal system). He is currently working on a research project on the legal and 
constitutional perspectives of the democratization processes in India and Burma, with a 
comparative approach. 

T 



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Introduction 

he theme of justice gained 

momentum again thanks to John 

Rawls’s paramount work A Theory of 
Justice and has so far been the object 

of investigation of several authors (as 

Nozick), who generally followed the 

“contractarian” approach, in line with the 
tradition started with Hobbes, Locke and 

Rousseau on the existence of a social 

contract. This new tendency towards studies 

on justice, and especially on the related 

concept of fairness,
2
 has found in Amartya 

Sen a major contribution, thanks to the 

elaboration of a complete theory on 

reasoning and the public sphere. Sen’s 
approach reached a capital point for a more 

comprehensive understanding of the theme 

of justice with the links created between the 

reason-based idea of justice and the 

relevance of democracy and of the 

democratic process. In fact, the concepts of 

justice and democracy are more deeply 

analyzed in The Idea of Justice, where Sen 

explores these two inherently intertwined 

notions with a view to a global 

understanding of the subject, deriving his 

arguments from both the Western and the 

Oriental historical experiences. 

 In order to investigate the 

connection between justice and democracy, 

a proper definition of both notions will be 

helpful for clarifying the limits of the 

analysis. Justice could be intended, as Rawls 

does, as the “first virtue of social 
institutions”, associated with fairness. 
Nevertheless, while maintaining the self-

evident link with fairness, Sen adds a more 

feasible argument: instead of framing justice 

within an institutional scheme, he derives the 

                                                 
2
 Justice as Fairness is in fact the title of the 

first article by John Rawls in 1958, and a key 
association developed in his work of 1973. 

notion from actual accomplishments, that 

could be eventually ranked. This notion of 

justice is linked to democracy by association 

with the method: as justice stems from an 

open and reason-based approach 

characterized by discussion, so is democracy 

defined in terms of public reasoning, with an 

emphasis on informational availability and 

possibility of choice. Although this 

framework is indisputably correct for a 

philosophical analysis of the two concepts, 

the institutional and procedural characters of 

democracy could not be neglected. From a 

minimal procedural perspective, democracy 

could be conceived as “the institutional 
arrangement for arriving at political decisions (…) 
in which individuals acquire the power to decide by 

means of a competitive struggle for the people’s vote”, 
as Schumpeter defined the notion 

(Schumpeter, 1942, 269). A broader 

explanation is given by Sartori, according to 

whom democracy is “a system fictitiously based 
on the will of the majority, which is in fact produced 

and safeguarded by the government of a minority”, 
thus presenting the elitist version of the 

notion (Sartori, 1957, 96). What Sen 

proposes seems to be a sort of procedural 

conception of democracy as a method 

characterized by open discussion that could 

eventually lead to just or fair outcomes 

thanks to the procedure itself. Despite the 

agreement on the relevance of the 

dimension of the public sphere, is this the 

correct path to understand the inherent link 

between justice and democracy, and the 

definition of democracy itself? 

 The present analysis will be initially 

devoted to the study of the question of 

justice in Amartya Sen’s thought, through a 
comparison with the contractarian tradition 

lately embodied by Rawls. Then, the focus 

will switch to the notion of democracy, from 

a general perspective to the links that Sen 

establishes with the concept of justice. 

Finally, the critical examination of the theory 

T 



Antonio Puggioni               Justice and Democracy in Amartaya Sen: another procedural approach? 

  

 

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of justice and democracy will concentrate on 

the role of institutions and of liberalism in 

the general framework of a democratic 

theory. 

 

The ideas of justice 

    In The Idea of Justice, Amartya Sen 

classifies the theories of justice according to 

two streams of philosophical reflection: the 

contractarian school and the comparative 

approach, both stemming from the 

Enlightenment tradition. The former 

category, including Rousseau and Rawls 

among others, deals with the identification 

of the just institutional agreements for a 

society, with the purpose of finding the right 

institutions that could ensure perfect justice; 

on the contrary, the latter concentrates on 

an accomplishment-based view of justice, 

taking into account the different possibilities 

of reaching the goal of less injustice and 

ranking the alternative choices (Sen, 2009, 

Introduction). 

 Despite its main concentration on 

the establishment of just institutions, Rawls’s 
theory is fundamental in the understanding 

of the entire question of justice. The 

reasoned conclusions drawn by Rawls are 

shared by Sen as well, acknowledging the 

“firm footing” (Sen, 2009, 53) set by Rawls for 
the theory of justice. The starting point of 

Rawls’s theory is the basic idea of justice 
seen as a demand of fairness, following the 

traditional theory of the social contract. The 

institutional question is thus at the core of 

Rawls’s investigation: from a social contract 
equally agreed by everyone, just institutions 

that satisfy shared principles of justice arise. 

The idea of social contract is here developed 

at a higher level: the aim of the act is a joint 

decision over “the principles which are to assign 
basic rights and duties and to determine the division 

of social benefits” (Rawls, 1973, 10). The 
theoretical stratagem invented by Rawls in 

order to pass from a state of nature to a just 

society is the well-known “veil of 
ignorance”: thanks to this original position 
of restriction of knowledge concerning his 

place in society or his social status and also 

his conception of the good (Rawls, 1973, 

112), a reasonable person could not but 

choose a fair social contract. This 

unanimous agreement will be based on two 

principles of justice: 

 First: each person is to have an equal right 

to the most extensive scheme of equal basic liberties 

compatible with a similar scheme of liberties for 

others. 

 Second: social and economic equalities are to 

be arranged so that they are both reasonably expected 

to be to everyone’s advantage, and attached to 
positions and offices open to all (Rawls, 1973, 52). 

Thus, two pillars constitute the concept of 

justice: a liberty principle and a difference 

principle, with the former having priority 

over the latter. After having selected these 

principles, two further stages are provided: a 

“constitutional” stage for choosing 
institutions, and a “legislative” stage to 
implement social decisions by means of 

laws. 

 As Sen notes, two elements in 

Rawls’s theory of justice are capital: the use 
of reason for the choice of the agreement 

and the importance of freedom. Both 

elements underlie the existence of a public 

sphere sufficient to reach conclusions by the 

use of reason and through discussion, which 

is a common point with the comparative 

approach (Rawls, 1973, 62-64). The 

difference lies in the content of the 

“programme” and in the role of institutions: 
while Rawls clearly states the content of the 

agreement in the “basic liberties” (political; 
of speech and assembly; of thought; of the 

person; personal property and freedom from 

arbitrary arrest), Sen develops his own 

reasoning according to the concept of 



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capabilities, which is more real but more 

vague as well. This same argument of 

capabilities, typical of Sen’s attention to 
actual achievements, leaves to the 

background the question of institutions. 

According to Sen, “just institutions” could 
not properly work if the actual behaviour is 

not in line with the expected reasonable 

behaviour.  

 In fact, the comparative approach 

neglects the role of institutions to focus on 

actual realizations. The theoretical device 

employed by Sen is the “impartial spectator” 
that Adam Smith used in his Theory of Moral 

Sentiments, according to whom a comparative 

assessment of different options becomes 

possible through a variety of viewpoints. 

This comparative view on justice is also 

developed from the traditional difference 

between two concepts of justice in Sanskrit, 

niti and nyaya: while the former term 

identifies a procedural concept of justice, the 

latter encompasses the actual achievements, 

the social realizations (Sen, 2009, 

Introduction).  Sen’s theory clearly aims at 
reaching nyaya by means of public reasoning 

and comparison of different possibilities. 

The typical example is delivered with the 

illustration of the competing reasons for the 

property of a flute. Three children, 

quarrelling for a flute, have good reasons for 

owning the instrument: the first one because 

he is so poor that he has no toys; the second 

because he produced the flute; the third one 

because he can play it (Sen, 2009, 12-15). 

The three alternatives are equally valid 

according to a contractarian view, but from a 

comparative approach they can be ranked 

through public reasoning: the prevention of 

manifest injustice will be the parameter used 

to assess the claims. Sen’s approach thus 
gives an open perspective convenient to 

impartially rank demands of justice. 

Moreover, this same concern for open 

discussion links the concept of justice to the 

broad understanding of democracy in his 

thought. 

 

The quest for a comprehensive notion of 

democracy 

 In Amartya Sen’s academic 
production, the relevance of open discussion 

in the achievement of freedom is essential. 

As in Rawls, the importance of freedom for 

the attainment of one’s objectives is at the 
basis of his philosophical investigation. 

Nevertheless, the emphasized aspect is the 

fulfillment of “comprehensive outcomes”, as 
in the Sanskrit notion of nyaya. In order to 

insert these considerations in the framework 

of a comprehensive theory of justice and of 

the link with democracy, the system 

presented by Sen relies on the capability 

approach. 

 What is meant by capability is a 

person’s “real opportunity (…) to do things he or 
she has reason to value” (Sen, 2009, 233): this 
calls for the necessity of judging and 

comparing several individual advantages 

(what Sen calls “combinations of 
functionings”) from an “informational 
focus”. So, the idea of capability guarantees 
the actual possibility for people to freely 

choose, according to a comprehensive range 

of opportunities. An important feature of 

this approach is the use of reason and public 

discussion, shared with the contractarian 

views of Rawls. Unlike him, though, Sen 

opens the possibility for different solutions: 

instead of a single social contract embodying 

unanimous principles of justice, the 

approach based on social choice theory, here 

proposed, aims at giving to each person the 

chance to find a way for reaching an actual 

position of less injustice by means of free 

and open discussion (Sen, 2009, 225-252).
3
 

                                                 
3
 This aspect is developed in Chapter XI of 

The Idea of Justice, Lives, Freedoms and 
Capabilities. 



Antonio Puggioni               Justice and Democracy in Amartaya Sen: another procedural approach? 

  

 

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 Despite the equal importance of 

public reasoning in Rawls’s and Sen’s 
theories, the results diverge not only in the 

absence of a social contract, but also in the 

relevance of equality. Indeed, Sen does not 

claim the necessity of equality of capabilities, 

because the concept itself is related to 

individual advantages, not to a general 

ordering (Sen, 2009, 295-298). Thus, the 

priority of freedom is repeatedly stated, the 

procedure of reaching freedom through 

public discussion is shared, but the 

outcomes are different for each person. This 

understanding of justice, equality and 

freedom leads to the comprehensive notion 

of democracy proposed by Amartya Sen.  

 Amartya Sen tries to elaborate a 

concept of democracy that is universally 

applicable to experiments of local 

government both in the Western and 

Eastern worlds. Indeed, the tendency for 

public reasoning for the decision-making 

process is not a Western monopoly that 

started in Athens in the 5
th
 century B.C., 

since ancient India testifies of several 

experiences of local governance. What Sen 

regularly stresses is the “intimate connection 
between justice and democracy, with shared discursive 

features” (Sen, 2009, 326). So, the character of 
open discussion is the capital element in 

democracy, in contraposition with 

Schumpeter’s idea of a method for reaching 
decisions by means of a majority vote, but 

also of Sartori’s view, which poses at the 
forefront the elitist idea of a government by 

a minority supported by an initial majority 

decision. 

 Sen’s view of democracy is said to be 
content-based: by means of open discussion, 

through which a plurality of reasons can be 

compared, a just solution is to be found. 

According to this view, the procedural and 

institutional features of democracy look 

secondary if compared with the inherently 

primary discursive element of the concept, 

that always leads to the establishment of free 

alternatives, to nyaya-based solutions. The 

institutional elements of democracy, from 

the Western tradition, and especially the 

practice of elections, are thus given minor 

attention, to leave space for the 

establishment of an open forum for dealing 

with tolerant values and priorities. Several 

examples are provided in order to support 

this claim, all derived from the Indian 

experience since 1947: the prevention of 

famines in democratic countries thanks to 

the attention of the media to natural and 

social disasters; the prevention of sectarian 

violence; the role of educational rights. 

 Notwithstanding the coherence of 

this approach and the evident results, the 

inference that derives the success of 

democracy only thanks to the discursive 

features seems overemphasized. In fact, 

what Sen proposes is another procedural 

notion of democracy, and not a content-

based approach: by means of the discursive 

method, that brings to the forefront 

reasoned claims for justice and reasoned 

solutions, just and democratic achievements 

can be reached, independently from the 

institutional features of a society. Thus, it is 

the discursive method, that in itself should 

completely guarantee the rise and acceptance 

of just decisions by impartially-reasoned 

ranking of the alternatives, that defines the 

concept of democracy. While the 

philosophical derivation of this conception 

is not questionable, is this view historically 

consistent? 

 

Comprehensive and traditional notions 

of democracy 

 If Amartya Sen’s view is correct, 
what about the fall of the Weimar Republic? 

Wasn’t it one of the best examples of the 
burgeoning of open discussion and of 



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cultural vitality ever achieved? This mere 

example should be sufficient for 

understanding that the role of institutions 

should not be neglected in the study of 

democracy. A democracy that does not 

defend itself
4
 by means of institutional 

devices is deemed to failure sooner or later, 

because the protection of minorities and of 

human rights and freedoms, which are at the 

basis of the concept itself, must be 

supported by some protective framework. 

Weimar Germany was an example of public 

discussion without public reasoning, 

especially towards the end of the democratic 

period, but the existence of public reasoning 

is not to be taken for granted, as Amartya 

Sen seems to do. Least of all should it be 

considered for building a complete system 

of thought, regardless of previous 

experiences. 

 Trust on human capacities and on 

the use of reason is certainly the ground for 

Sen’s understanding of the notion of 
democracy. Nobody denies that, and nobody 

could speculate about the supposed Western 

monopoly of reasoned discussion: the 

historical examples provided by Sen suffice 

to deny the conception of decision-making 

by open discussion as purely Western, and 

the experience of the Indian democracy after 

1947 is there as a proof of the universal 

relevance of the democratic values. But the 

confusion between values and the notion 

itself is misleading. Sen tries to defend the 

                                                 
4
 The concept of defence is introduced with 

a view to the parallel of the two democratic 
experiences of Germany: the Weimar 
Republic from 1919 to 1933 and the re-
democratization of 1949 with the new 
Grundgesetz. This new constitution 
established a system of institutional clauses 
aimed at preventing a return to 
authoritarianism that allows to define it as a 
wehrhafte Demokratie, a democracy that 
defends itself, a fortified democracy.   

new democratic experiences, in Asian 

countries especially, from the idea that Asian 

values are not compatible with democracy: 

an idea promoted in the 1990s by Mahatir 

Mohamad and Lee Kwan Yew, the Prime 

Ministers of Malaysia and Singapore, in 

order to justify the authoritarian regimes in 

South-East Asia. 

 The claim for the universality of the 

value and method of public reasoning and 

discussion is undisputable. Nevertheless, the 

historical experience shows that from the 

19
th
 century onward the only institutional 

system that could sustain the value of public 

discussion and at the same time guarantee 

peaceful coexistence has been the liberal-

democratic framework as designed by the 

Western tradition. What Sen correctly points 

out is the fact that the seeds of democracy, 

meant as government allowing discussion 

and just decisions, are present in each 

society and in each human context. 

However, the method of open discussion is 

not sufficient to define democracy, because 

it is only the prerequisite for the 

establishment of a democratic system: it is a 

procedural feature that is deprived of 

content. The issue is not about installing just 

institutions, as Rawls indicates in line with 

the contractarian theory: the real problem 

concerns the association of institutions that 

embody a certain idea of liberty and of 

protection of minorities, and that help 

guaranteeing it by the discursive method, 

with the eventual accomplishment of actual 

progress in justice.  

 The two aspects are strictly linked: 

the respect of democratic values does not 

arise by itself by means of discussion. The 

respect of individual rights and freedoms is 

the essence of a democracy: Sen 

acknowledges this view by giving priority to 

freedom, but then leaves to the “unknown” 
forces of human reason the task of 

supporting this priority. But a blind trust on 



Antonio Puggioni               Justice and Democracy in Amartaya Sen: another procedural approach? 

  

 

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human reason is not a reasonable point of 

departure: the framework for decisions is 

itself important. The idea of democracy is 

characterized by a plurality of elements, 

whose basis is the possibility of open 

discussion, as Sen emphasizes, but this is not 

an exhaustive definition. 

 Besides the precondition of public 

discussion, another procedural element lies 

in the participation in the government by an 

elected minority: government by the people 

is the characteristic of the concept, and the 

etymology of the word states this evidence. 

According to Hans Kelsen, this procedural 

component is the essence, “the liberal element 
being of secondary importance” (Kelsen, 1955, 4). 
But the rule of the majority, the procedural 

framework, must be supported by a content, 

and this content lies in an agreement (a 

social contract?) on the values to be 

protected, promoted and embodied by the 

institutional system. The values of freedom 

and of justice seem to gather a secure 

agreement from the representatives of both 

the contractarian and the comparative 

approaches. 

 The comprehensive notion of 

democracy thus encompasses three aspects: 

two procedural elements, the government by 

discussion and by majority rule; and a 

content-related feature, the protection of 

freedoms and the promotion of justice. The 

embodiment of these three elements has 

been so far guaranteed only by the 

institutional system derived by the liberal 

tradition: the successful implant of Western 

liberal institutions in contexts alien to the 

liberal experience shows how this type of 

institutions are able to universally serve 

societies in which the precondition of public 

discussion is already present, but miss the 

organizational structure necessary for dealing 

with today’s world challenges. 
 

 

Open conclusions: liberalism and 

traditional values 

 This short study on the concepts of 

justice and democracy has tried to present a 

critical view of the currently most acclaimed 

theory of justice as linked with universal 

democratic thought. By the analysis of 

Amartya Sen’s The Idea of Justice, some points 
of discussion arise about the necessity of 

eliminating the institutional element in the 

concept of democracy so as to universalize 

the notion. While a common ground seems 

to be found in the definition of justice and 

in the link of the philosophical notion with 

the concept of democracy, the definition of 

the latter is still a matter of dispute. The 

mere definition of democracy as public 

reasoning is clearly insufficient, because it 

lacks the empirical basis, which is given by 

the institutions derived by the Western 

tradition. Thus, a notion of democracy, to be 

considered sufficient to respond to the 

aspiration of people in both a demand for 

justice and freedom and a way to guarantee 

this demand, must be related to content and 

method. 

 The case of India is of high 

significance in showing this evidence. The 

Constitution of India was framed between 

1947 and 1949 by men who at the same time 

possessed both the lessons of liberalism and 

the awareness of the Indian tradition of 

discussion. Nevertheless, the result was a 

text that derives its features from the liberal 

thought, as Bhimrao Ambedkar, the Chair of 

the Drafting Committee, admitted in 

contrast with the ecumenical views 

purported by Gandhi and his “Republic of 
Panchayats” (villages). A traditional system, as 
supported by Gandhi, could never have 

come into being, because of the necessity of 

having a functioning state. But the seeds of 

democratic thought were present, and the 



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fact that the Indian democracy still survives 

today is an evidence of the success reached 

by allying public discussion with institutions 

protecting individual freedoms at a broader 

level, ensuring at the same time the 

participation of the popular will to the 

decisions. Social realizations, actual 

advancement of justice intended as nyaya, 

seem to be possible nowadays only through 

a democratic system in which institutions 

play a role.         

 

 

 

 

References 

 

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Morlino, L. (2008), Democracy and Changes: 
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Morlino, L. (2011), Changes for Democracy: 
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Rawls, J. (1973), A Theory of Justice. 
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Schumpeter, J.A. (1942), Capitalism, Socialism 
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Sen, A. (2009), The Idea of Justice. Cambridge: 
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