Dignity, Freedom and Justice

This is an open access book.

Modern society is characterized by the fact of contingency, uncertainty, and ambiguity. The purpose of this book is to transform this phenomenal fact into a hopeful norm. As a clue, the book examines the concept of dignity and looks forward to a new definition. 

So far, the concept of dignity has been peripheral to the concerns of liberal social sciences. This book uses the concept of dignity as a source of light to illuminate the fundamental critique of liberal social sciences and philosophy. Can the theory of justice or discourse ethics truly realize the well-defined society it envisions in a fundamentally contingent, uncertain, and ambiguous situation? Can societies be inclusive of minorities relegated to the periphery with their dignity undermined? Can we resist the temptation to construct huge hierarchical stairs, forcing individuals to place themselves on one of its steps, and thus lining up different and diverse entities in along sequence, and eventually bringing about totalitarianism?

This book has a three-level telescopic structure. At the very front, there is a scope of reexaming the political liberalism in the light of dignity. Behind it is a scope of reconstructing a theory of justice in modern society. Further behind it, there is a scope encompassing reflection on the methodology of liberal social sciences and philosophy. We leave it to the reader's imagination as to which scope to read this book through, and what image will emerge from the three scopes taken together. It is our hope that this book helps readers envision as a "realistic utopia" a society in which "no one is left behind," including wounded little birds.

Reiko Gotoh is Professor of Philosophy in Economics and Institute for Advance Academic Research at Teikyo University and Professor Emeritus of Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo. She holds a Ph.D. from Hitotsubashi University. Her research field is Philosophy in Economics, Normative Economics, Reconstruction of Welfare States. Her recent English publications are The Ethics and Economics of the Capability Approach, 2021, Springer; “What the Welfare State Left Behind--Securing the Capability to Move for the Vulnerable--,” Asian Economic Policy Review, 18-1, 2022 (with R. Kambayashi) “Securing Basic Well-being for All,” Review of Social Economy, 76, 4 (with N. Yoshihara); Against Injustice: The New Economics of Amartya Sen, Cambridge University Press, 2009 (co-edited), Social Bonds as Freedom, Berghahn Books (co-edited). She has several Japanese books including The Capability Approach, Iwanami-shoten. Economic Philosophy of Well-being, Minerva Shobo, Economic Philosophy of Justice: Rawls and Sen, Toyo-keizai Inc., 2002. Amartya Sen: Economics & Ethics, Jikkyo Shuppan, 2001 (co-authored).