# Quote — Amartya Sen, The Idea of Justice

> When we try to determine how justice can be advanced, there is a basic need for public reasoning, involving arguments coming from different quarters and divergent perspectives. An engagement with contrary arguments does not, however, imply that we must expect to be able to settle the conflicting reasons in all cases and arrive at agreed position on all issues. Complete resolution is neither a requirement of a person’s own rationality, nor is it a condition of reasonable social choice, including a reason-based theory of justice.

- Author: [Amartya Sen](https://www.leafyquotes.com/amartya-sen.md)
- Book: [The Idea of Justice](https://www.leafyquotes.com/amartya-sen/the-idea-of-justice.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Amartya_Sen#The_Idea_of_Justice_(2009)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/amartya-sen/the-idea-of-justice/when-we-try

## More from this book

> Rather, it is the firmly ‘open’ outlook, which Smith’s ‘impartial spec tator’ invokes, that may be in some need of reassertion today. It can make a substantial difference to our understanding of the demands of impartiality in moral and political philosophy in the interconnected world in which we live.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/amartya-sen/the-idea-of-justice/rather-it-is-the.md)

> To ask how things are going and whether they can be improved is a constant and inescapable part of the pursuit of justice.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/amartya-sen/the-idea-of-justice/to-ask-how.md)

> Even though in the approach presented here principles of justice will not be defined in terms of institutions, but rather in terms of the lives and freedoms of the people involved, institutions cannot but play a significant instrumental role in the pursuit of justice.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/amartya-sen/the-idea-of-justice/even-though-in-the.md)