Introduction

Abstract

This introduction outlines the core debates in the 8-piece symposium dedicated to critically engaging Amartya Sen’s The Idea of Justice. Among these is whether the establishment communities that are Sen’s primary interlocutors could ever be allies in the projects of freedom and social transformation that he so powerfully elucidated and the relationship of general theories of justice to the choice of some empirical examples over those that emerge from the places in the global South where conditions of self-determination for citizens are most lacking. While asking whether we need a political ideal beyond justice, the richness of the articles and Sen’s very substantive reply are testament to his profound contribution both to scholarship and as a model alternative to the often unjust and ungenerous character of the contemporary academy.