Sunday Worship
What is Justice?
May 4th 2025
Justice is something we all say we want, but do we know what it is? Philosophers through the ages have tried to imagine what perfect justice would look like. In this talk, I’ll lean on the thought of the Nobel Prize winning economist and moral philosopher Amartya Sen. Sen’s overarching idea is that attempts to define perfect justice, much less achieve it, are doomed to disappointment. He points out, with a parable about three children squabbling over a toy flute, that reasonable people may have very different ideas about what is just. Rather than striving toward an ideal, he advocates fighting against specific instances of manifest injustice even if this never results in perfect justice. We’ll look at some situations where well-intentioned striving for perfection backfired and did more harm than good.
Speaker: John Andrews
Worship Leader: Sue Penny
Musician: Steven Skoldberg
