Introduction to Dignity, Freedom and Justice

More than 50 years have passed since the publication of John Rawls's A Theory of Justice (1971) and Amartya Sen's Collective Choice and Social Welfare (1970). This chapter introduces the following three purposes of this book. First, this book seeks to obtain clues for the critical development of the theory of justice and the welfare state by capturing the overlaps and differences between Rawls's political philosophy and Sen's normative economics.  Second, this book examines the concept of dignity, which has not received much attention in liberalism. Neither a free competitive market system nor a wage-income redistribution system will be sufficient to protect and respect “dignity”. To protect and respect values stocked and sustained within an individual, it is necessary to pay attention to his/her capability for dignity and capability for utilizing the right to liberties. Third, this book cross-pollinates the methods of liberal social sciences and philosophy, working from existing connections between these two areas. Throughout this book, the reader will find that theories of liberal social science and philosophy contain clues of ideas and methods that critically develop themselves.