Cet article présente deux arguments qui remettent en question le bien-fondé de la distinction entre les approches transcendantale et comparative proposée par Sen dans son dernier ouvrage, L’Idée de Justice [2009]. Notre premier argument s’attache à discuter l’emploi que fait Sen du concept de spectateur impartial smithien, tandis que notre second argument porte sur le concept de capabilité et le débat ayant cours entre Sen et Nussbaum sur cette question. Nous montrons que des éléments relevant de l’approche transcendantale sont indispensables pour une bonne appréhension de ces deux concepts, ce qui fragilise la position de Sen selon laquelle ces derniers relèvent exclusivement de la tradition comparative et remet donc en cause la distinction elle-même.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the status that the concept of merit goods (as first stated by Musgrave in The Theory of Public Finance) has/should have in Rawls's theory. We first examine Rawls's position regarding this issue in A Theory of Justice. Next, we claim that the attitude of the 'second' Rawls about it is rather ambiguous and vacillates between exclusion and inclusion. We attempt to prove that thanks to the concepts Rawls has developed from 1985 onwards (especially the concept of public reason), he could have resorted to the concept of merit goods to cope better with his new objectives.Philosophical theories of justice, Rawls, public reason, merit goods, public goods,

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In The Idea of Justice, Sen describes two competing approaches to theorizing about justice: "transcendental institutionalism," in which he includes Rawls, and "realization-focused comparison," in which he includes Condorcet and himself. This paper questions the robustness of his dichotomy through an examination of the works of Condorcet, Rawls, and Sen himself.We show that none belongs exclusively to either tradition. Further, we claim that an appeal to the concept of metaranking, developed by Sen in the 1970s, enables us to overcome the distinction between the transcendental and the comparative traditions and in the last instance to reconcile the two approaches.