essay on freedom as development

“Development as Freedom” by Amartya Sen Essay

According to Amartya Sen, the author of Development as Freedom , development is the appropriate metric for evaluating a country’s freedom, for it is impossible to make the right decisions regarding the subject without autonomy. He defines freedom as a co-dependent bunch of factors, which include human rights, social arrangements, political and economic freedom, protective security, and transparency guarantees (Sen 2).

Sen bypasses the value of judgment, which is conventionally used to define a developed country, and puts much emphasis on a country’s level of development, for this takes local decisions into consideration. This is a huge statement, and to put it into readers’ perspective, he provides a case where a local community contemplates abolishing its standard way of life for purposes of enhancing living standards.

The author emphasizes that regardless of the decision that the community comes up with, it will be a completely developed country as long as such determinations were arrived at the environment full of freedom. This demonstrates the interconnectivity of the five categories of freedom, as aforementioned. Political freedom is necessary when issues are to be weighed to come up with a determination that will be considered legitimate, with edification and social opportunities for parties engaging in such discussions (Sen 7).

Sen insists that the five categories of freedom are interrelated and should be implemented simultaneously, and he uses “Lee Thesis” to expound. In the case study, he argues that it is possible for a country to secure development before guaranteeing human, civil and political rights. Therefore, it is critical that countries that perceive Singapore as a model reevaluate their stand. A subject that requires critical analysis is whether dictatorship regimes have the ability to realize massive economic growth.

However, studies have shown the welfare of any society can be well addressed through democratic institutions, with security, healthcare, and education being the requisites. With such structures, members will willingly submit their views, whereby accountability and democracy will give leaders the necessary incentives to tackle issues. Sen believes that it is impossible for an accountable and democratic government to encounter issues such as famine because leaders always have the incentive to tackle such matters.

Further, he notes that a correlation exists between leadership and economic growth. Sen indicates that democratic regimes protect transparency and security, the mechanisms that are used in averting crisis. It is impossible to find an ideal democracy, and those that exist still face obstacles with respect to transparency. This demonstrates that democracy is indispensable in making the right decisions, although they may not be the perfect determinations (Sen 16).

Sen, in the Development as Freedom , addresses the issue of freedom, and opines that freedom cannot be deprived through community consensus for the tradition of curtaining communication between individual is non-existent.

He believes that it is not possible for the citizens of any state to deny the right to vote through democratic means. Although this issue is not dealt with explicitly in the text, it seems to be what drove people from the idea of communism since many believed that communists planned to set up a dictatorial communistic regime. The Development as Freedom does not in any way mention Islam religion, nor does it tackle issues in the context of development in the Middle East. Therefore, Sen does not wrestle with concerns regarding Islamic dynamics, such as the emergence of Sharia Law in Islamic countries, such as Somalia.

In the text, the author has failed to tackle the issue of the Internet, although technology is proving instrumental in the adoption of some of the five categories of freedom. Most importantly, the Internet is turning to be the mechanism for political liberty and freedom of speech, which some deep-rooted governments used to restrict. With the Internet, such rights can be guaranteed, and it indirectly engenders constructive improvements, such as accountability, transparency, and education.

Therefore, it is possible to raise issues affecting society, and these voices can certainly be heard and acted upon by concerned parties. To optimize the degree of freedom, Sen scrutinizes his preferred path to development throughout the Development as Freedom . However, he fails to tackle the subject regarding metrics of freedom and its progress. According to Sen, access to education and health care, as well as longevity, are some of the pertinent factors that call for consideration, although it is imperative that other factors, such as security, transparency, accountability, and freedom of speech are included.

One thing that was notable is the measurement of factors, such as corruption and transparency are massively difficult to determine, although Sen strongly opposes the notion that tradition can permit the deprival of some of the aforementioned rights. He recommends two approaches of perceiving democracy: economic aid always goes to submissive recipients, and that wealth accumulation is among the key drivers of developments. He seems to have huge respect for subjective valuation, for it concerns the decision-making process that is characterized by personal responsibility and autonomy (Sen 21).

Scholars consider the text as a step towards a humane society providing the benchmark for economics and ethics with regards to development. The thesis of the text is quite straightforward. Freedom is not only a fundamental end but also a key means of development. Economists have keenly analyzed metrics of development, such as the GDP, household incomes, advances in technology, social modernization, or industrialization, and yet disregard freedom.

The text presents some troubling thoughts through Sen’s basic assumption regarding human nature and the lack of premeditated strategies in arriving at a targeted goal. He believes that freedom is the principal element of growth, human progress can solely be evaluated through the enhancement of freedom, and that development correlates with the free agency of citizens. Many are in agreement with these affirmations as long as the designation of freedom is broadened to include both religious and material desires. However, agency freedom of the citizen is a subject that continues to attract controversy within the economic circles.

To tackle this issue, Sen provides proof that higher income does not necessarily improve welfare with respect to life expectancy. He points out that welfare expenditure can be the means of spurring economic growth, considering that they are labor-intensive (Sen 11)..

Sen is utterly opposed to the “Lee Thesis” that argues that it is correct to deprive civil rights as long as they espouse growth and wealth accumulation. Sen’s thoughts are that civil rights and political freedom should not be approached via means of ultimately attaining them and goes further to say that freedom is similarly good for the promotion of economic growth. He argues that freedom is the primary determinant of social effectiveness and personal initiative.

Further, Sen is opposed to market regulations, which are purposely designed to curtail the freedom of what to buy and sell. To support his argument regarding economic freedom, he uses the term “free labor,” popularly associated with Karl Marx. He believes that Marx was a true agitator of capitalist freedom, while his idea of democracy was restricted to pluralism (Sen 24).

The capability approach is the central vision of Sen’s ideologies, which dictates that human capability takes preference to factors, such as economic growth. He puts his focus on judgment and agency of individuals, as well as their responsibly, capability, and opportunities. The most recommendable way of fostering growth is raising human capability, and this is because it streamlines decision making and improves wellbeing, as well as production.

Sen scrupulously makes a distinction between human capital and capability. Human capital is a key in realizing economic possibilities, and on the other hand, human capability enhances the possibility of people to lead lives they consider valuable with the freedom to make choices. For instance, education is a key beyond its traditional role in the production, for it equally increases human capability, and thus, enhances the freedom of choice (Sen 25).

In Sen’s thesis, the progressive facets are overshadowed by a number of problems, such as eccentricity and localism. Adam Smith is apparently the key source of Sen’s inspiration and motivation. On the subject of freedom of engaging in the transaction and exchange as a fundamental liberty, Adams thought is highlighted. Aristotle, a strong supporter of freedom, is also quoted for his works in capacity and flourishing. The text depicts Sen as a champion of a capitalist economy with exceptional values, such as accountability and transparency, which promote trust and ethical behavior. Sen’s capability and entitlement approaches are individualistic in the context of methodology and results from microeconomic theories (Sen 19).

It is rational to think that in spite of a country’s economic state of affairs, a democratic regime should be able to avert suffering on its populace. Although Sen remains skeptical with regard to the ability of poverty-stricken nations, such as India, in improving the welfare of its people, he appreciates their efforts. In Sen’s writings on famines and poverty, he sees democracy as the most appropriate means of addressing problems, for it involves a free press in articulating concerns to the concerned leaders.

He asserts that India can confirm this since it had used these avenues in the past to address the issues of poverty and famine, and their outcomes have been commendable. Partially, his points of view are from experiential studies and, in one way or another, rely on suppositions on the subject of human motivation. The economist believes that a free press is one of the reasons why leaders are able to make sound decisions, which ultimately get rid of suffering and anguish.

However, the freedom of speech has not been successful in spurring development in many developed countries. On the contrary, it is the material means, such as healthcare services, education and land redistribution, which have proved instrumental in boosting economic growth. Despite the freedom of speech being important for instrumental values, care should be taken while drawing conclusion regarding factor that is key in spurring economic development (Sen 23).

Works Cited

Sen, Amartya. Development as freedom . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Print.

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“Development as Freedom” by Amartya Sen Essay

1. introduction.

This essay is a critical analysis of Amartya Sen's "Development as Freedom." Sen was the master of Trinity College in Cambridge and won the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economics. He is the creator of the 'ability approach,' and its commitment to freedom, human diversity, and democratic participation. Sen argues in "Development as Freedom" that assessing development in terms of an increase in income is both partial and creates 'enormous deception.' He argues that income deprivation is an indication of unfreedom because it leads to an inability to pursue the life one has reason to value. In his argument, Sen contrasts two different types of freedoms; substantive freedoms are the freedoms to do something, while so-called formal freedoms, like the freedom of speech, are simply something that can be traded in for something else. In reality, these two types of freedom cannot be separated because if someone does not have the capabilities in their substantive freedom then they certainly cannot take part in the formal freedoms that are on offer. Sen's attempt in "Development as Freedom" to relate freedom and development is a significant shift away from traditional approaches that measure development in terms of economic growth. It is also these attempts to work out how theory can be put into practice that has meant that the 'ability approach' has appealed to many non-governmental organizations and development planners. All city policy in the United Kingdom, which provides care and support to people with autism, dementia, and physical and mental disabilities, is guided by the approach as the health and social care professionals draw upon the key principles of sensitivity, respect, and enhancement. In short, "Development as Freedom" in its critical analysis and evaluation on theory provides an enriching and invaluable knowledge on how theory and concepts can be constructed in relation to practice and development.

1.1. Background of Amartya Sen

Amartya Sen was born in Santiniketan, India in 1933. His family was relatively well off and Sen grew up in a cultured, academic environment. One interesting thing about Sen's childhood is that he was heavily influenced by "The Visva-Bharati Quarterly" so much so that when he went to university as an undergraduate he studied at the same university where it was published, Visva-Bharati University. At the end of his undergraduate degree, Sen made the somewhat controversial decision to leave India and travel to Cambridge, United Kingdom to complete his PhD in Economics. In 1959 his paper "Choice of Techniques" was published; it tackles the problem of the relationship between different rates of growth and income distribution. This work gained significant attention and marked the beginning of the academic recognition and success that Sen would experience. Amartya Sen has often been held to be one of the greatest modern-day thinkers.

1.2. Overview of "Development as Freedom"

In the book "Development as Freedom," Amartya Sen explains his plan for a new outlook for the development of society. What Amartya Sen asks is, "What is the relationship between our wealth and the ability to live freely and as we wish?" He argues that development isn't just about the growth of our economy or outputs such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP), but rather the freedom to live in a particular kind of way. The argument that a person's freedom is the central feature of development is an extremely thought-provoking angle. He recognizes that these individual freedoms will always be quite different amongst each other. The basic principle of freedom is the option to do what one may desire to do, not the influence to carry out our desire. Amartya Sen describes development as a process of increasing the real freedoms that people enjoy. He argues that freedom is both the end and a means to development because freedom enables people to make the most of their life. In other words, he proposes freedom of different kinds: the freedom to avoid (e.g. illness, despair, etc.), the freedom to choose (e.g. different ways of life, value, etc.), and the freedom to develop (e.g. what a person is capable of doing, etc.). Development, therefore, can be contrasted with unequal societies, emphasizing to provide better chances for each citizen to establish their potential and worth and to have their fair access to the resources they need to do so. Sen used famine in democratic India as an example. People blame the democratic system for the course of famine because not much the others can offer. This creates a bad social well as an uneven society, in which people cannot see hope and future. But he found that in India, the press did translate the idea of famine into the government and there have been programs such as public work schemes to help most of the worse situation. The famine was properly presented as a failure of the public's advertive, which were indeed going on around the world. He later agrees that "an early warning system" is essential for a democracy and has the ability to provide the sufficient there with the freedoms. He provided the freedom and well-being that everybody needed.

2. Key Concepts in "Development as Freedom"

The second chapter of "Development as Freedom" doesn't miss the critical analysis made by its author about this holistic concept. Sen tries to show us his own perspective about freedom and how to get to it. That's why he chooses this chapter to start listing the key concepts that, in his opinion, are really important to reach the desirable situation that people need to overcome poverty and exercise their most valuable right: the freedom. First of all, Sen explains his idea about a comprehensive manner of freedom. According to his point of view, freedom cannot be only observed by its indicators; moreover, it must be analyzed on its own from every perspective in society. Here, the reader can find a clear contention in opposition to the fames "trickle down" theories where the trend is to observe the increase of income in a general manner as the route to reach "progress" or "freedom" as well. However, he also concedes that it is very difficult to define such kind of freedom. Every possible alternative in the way he explains must be understand as a complete approach of freedom. Secondly, Sen suggests a method to measure freedom inside nations. The concept of social opportunities is introduced as a vital mechanism that allow us to analyze freedom in terms of its roots in every society. This can be defined as the set of guarantees that the society provides for every single individual to make their own choices and decide what's the best life for them, taking into consideration the real possibility of achieve that goals during the lifetime. And, these guarantees do not come true spontaneously, he says. Every single generation must have the capability to create their own opportunities without being limited by the previous ones. This concept brings to the contemporary politics a discussion about the welfare state. Although this concept could imply in some way the idea of a state with a very protective character, Sen argues by using a historical prospective. He explains that the creation of opportunities has to replace the phenomenon called social inertia, the tendency to keep similar opportunities for a long time. In this explanation, it is easy to see an attack to the liberalist ideas where the pervasive state negative influence in people's lives is seen as a problem. From this point of view, state would avoid people creativity and also their genuine innovative minds by create a kind of bottleneck solution imposed by the centralised creation of chances. Well, an idea which involves a critical analysis of the welfare state can raise never-ending debates. All in all, "Development as Freedom," provides a rich and informative investigation in the field of development, particularly for those who want to understand freedom from an interdisciplinary prospective. Starting from the day when Sen's voice, as a guest speaker at Cambridge, raised the excitement of learning in the school, until "Development as Freedom" saw the light of publication in 1999. In his famous book "The Idea of Justice", Sen stated that he has been changed his mind over the core argument about the principles of social justice posed by a hypothetical state in the works from a certain period of time. For those who interested in the field of global justice and moral philosophy it will be a fruitful task to compare his change of thought with Nussbaum's pursuit of providing a base for international valid lists of human capabilities based on her Aristotle's functionings. Well, a never-ending critical discussion that Sen would certainly be very pleased to participate.

2.1. Freedom as the Primary Goal

The idea that freedom is the main goal of development is the central theme underpinning Sen's work "Development as Freedom". In the opening chapter of the book, Sen presents and argues for a particular account of freedom - what he calls the 'capability' theory of freedom - and explains why he believes this should be the primary goal of development. This theme is present throughout the book and the first few chapters in which Sen discusses various aspects of this freedom - political freedoms, economic facilities, social opportunities, transparency guarantees and protective security. Sen's argument is that each of these different types of freedom are important, but that they are all directly or indirectly dependent on the degree to which people have effective power to make choices in the kind of lives that they have reason to value - that is, the precise formulation of the capability theory. This is contrasted with many other accounts of what is to be valued in the field of development - for instance, utility-based approaches which focus on maximizing income. Sen argues that this is not only normatively indistinct - that is, we cannot tell out of people get more utility or that they have more effective freedom - but also that it is overly narrowly focused. By centering on income as the primary goal of development, Sen argues there is a real risk of losing sight of what is actually valuable about increases in income, namely the improvement in people's lives that it can bring about - in the sense of valuable freedom to choice and opportunity. This argument provides a crucial link between the conceptual discussions at the beginning of the book and the practical arguments that Sen goes on to make about the social arrangements that characterize most contemporary societies as well as the analysis of the positive and negative effects of economic growth. Political and economic freedoms are a very common topic when it comes to a discussion of development. Sen maintains that both are important forms of freedom, whereby each is constitutive of the others. But he also makes it clear that the case for making either or both of these the primary goal of development is not as strong as making what he calls 'comprehensive' or 'transcendental' freedoms the primary goal. He takes comprehensive freedoms to be requires a tolerable level of each of the species of freedom. So, in effect, Sen argues that having real power to make choices and transform lives will provide a strong tendency towards satisfying both political and economic freedom. On the other hand, attempts to make either a primary goal will not necessarily strongly tend towards comprehensive freedom. Instead, by making comprehensive freedom the primary goal, Sen argues that a more flexible response to the peculiarities of different societies and different freedoms can be justified. This is important to understand given that Sen goes on to argue that no social arrangements and no form of government is guaranteed to preclude major famines. This might be a reference to his well-known work on the socialist administration of the Bengal famine.

2.2. Role of Economic Development

While Sen argues that economic development is important, he challenges the traditional view that it is primarily a means to income. Instead, he suggests that real income is only one means to expanding people's freedom. There are at least two dimensions to the relationship between economic development and freedom. The first relates to the value of economic growth itself in promoting human freedom. Clearly, economic growth and the spread of political freedoms contribute to each other. But such growth can also be an important means of enlarging the range of human freedoms. Poverty and lack of income can deprive people of the freedom to lead lives as they would like, and any policies to reduce poverty must surely be of central importance to our understanding of development. As we shall see, whilst economic growth is important for creating conditions in which people can live healthier lives, many people in the world still remain in poverty. But in a much more fundamental sense, health is a measure of human freedom. Illness or premature mortality sharply limits what a person can achieve, what they can be and how they can live. Of course, in order to take advantage of these opportunities, good health also depends, in part, on the possession of other valuable functionings.

2.3. Importance of Political Freedoms

The importance of political freedoms is very often underestimated in the great display of the discussion of development. It is a very common place to pay attention to different types of economic factors. However, when we have a lively discussion about the concept of freedom in the context of development, it appears that many discussions focus knowingly or much on economic aspects of the freedom. It is true that economic facilities and political freedom do not conflict with each other but reinforce each other and makes that reality sure. It is also noteworthy that economic development, which is often associated with prosremaining there until the end of the natural life of the ruler. In that case, nobody has got any right to expedite the death of the ruler by force in order to satisfy one's personal desire for having power because there is no guarantee that the successor of the present ruler would secure all these political benefits. It is further imaginable that, when people face a situation that the ruler becomes extremely unpopular and majority of the people want a change, it is absolutely immoral and unjustifiable for the ruler clings to power by using force because people's political freedom has been violated in a serious and radical way. On the other hand, if a person may argue, from the ground of utilitarianism, that the ruler's remaining in power could maintain the political stability and avoid possible riots and mayhem, we should reply that government is responsible to maintain the realization of freedom by legal reform, negotiations and public policies but not by means of repression. The use of repression, no matter how efficient it looks, could never make a society harmonious because it is a direct violation of the principle of individual freedom and mount to a grave and deliberate injustice to the governed.

2.4. Social Opportunities and Capabilities

The term "social opportunities" refers to the different life prospects that individuals have in terms of their access to different social goods. These include the availability of health care, education, and economic resources, as well as the structures within society that determine how fairly these goods are distributed. Social opportunity theorists argue that what is important in assessing the value of a given state of affairs, such as social or economic policy, is the effect that has on the opportunities available to individuals. This focus on opportunities is in part a reaction to more traditional views which focus only on the question as to whether individuals are able to function at some level. The emphasis on functionings comes from debates over how we are to understand well-being and what we should aim to promote through social and economic policy. A functioning, in the sense relevant to development, is a being or doing in a particular kind. It is part of our being well or badly - part of what it is to fare well or ill. To function is to engage in some kind of activity or be in some state or other. Capabilities are the alternative combinations of functionings that are feasible for a given person to achieve. They refer to the various alternative 'substantive' ways that a person could live, or the different kinds of lives she could choose to lead. The emphasis on functionings is essentially oriented towards the value of certain objects or states, for example happiness or education. By contrast, the approach that Sen has developed is that the focus should be on the capabilities of persons and not simply on the kinds of things that they are able to do or to be. This shift in focus from functionings to capabilities leads to a very different set of questions and a far more radical critique of traditional economic welfare theory than do the social opportunity theorists who also focus on capabilities.

3. Critiques and Debates on "Development as Freedom"

One major critique of Sen's work on freedom is that rather than offering a clear definition, or working with existing definitions, he makes the concept of freedom so broad it becomes infinite and therefore becomes a highly subjective opinion. For instance, in a practical situation, is it freedom to be given the choice between three different jobs, but die at 45, as to no choice of employment and die at 90. This suggests that Sen's freedom becomes interchangeable with ideas of quality of life, and far from being an objective approach with scientific applications, starts to equate with simply happiness. Further, commentators have observed that Sen's work concentrates on the developments of freedoms by the expansion of the state system through social opportunities. However critics suggest that this could be seen to raise questions about the acceptance of Sen's theoretical approach to how a social opportunities ranking system might actually work. For instance, Sinha suggests that if we adopt completely Sen's top-down approach to enhance functioning through increased government policy in developing, then the act of doing so effectively cancels personal development and growth, thus rendering Sen's purpose obsolete. On the other hand, in reality and certainly in places like India, Pande explains what happens is there is more chance for government manipulation through such system for its own gains, or, a complete upheaval and ignoring of results based on status quo in a presumed knowledge of what's best for society. That is to say, the inhibitor to the top-down theory placed on the functional development and freedom of the individual i.e. the freedom to do as we choose - is only going to be limited, and Sen's primary 'freedom' is never actually fulfilled. He discusses how social opportunity can 'facilitate emergence of a more plural and humane social development', however completely different systems - as different as liberal representative democracy and a totalitarian dictatorship - could be seen to fit this description. Such vague ideals have been critiqued as Sen providing invalid and incorrect frameworks for actual societal development; in the case of freedom to do as we choose, a liberal society might well accept the opportunities provided. However, critics propose, there would always be a natural resistance among free citizens to be conditioned in this way. Therefore the limitations of the social opportunity approach have prompted suggestions for an alternative system called "freedom based development". Seneviratne maintains this is an alternative approach to understanding a controversial concept such as freedom for developing people and links closely with Sen's critique on economic growth where freedom of choice is actually provoked and how development can be measured not only by the use of commodities but by the nature of individual and social freedoms.

3.1. Criticisms of Sen's Concept of Freedom

Many theorists and political philosophers, such as Robert Nozick in "Anarchy, State, and Utopia," have criticized Sen's idea of freedom for being too analytical. Nozick refers to historical accounts of justice and argues for a mathematical model of distributive justice in contrast to Sen's capabilitarian approach. Sen only briefly mentions Nozick in a footnote responding to his historical analysis, arguing that it would be difficult to justify the endowments of a historical entitlement theory in practical political decision-making. However, another criticism might be that Sen's focus on expanding 'real' freedoms ultimately restricts what people can choose. Sen's account is based on the idea that 'process goes with the function' – that the best way to improve someone's capability of doing something is direct facilitation which helps them to achieve that function rather than passive income transfers, even if these improve their realized preference. This might imply that the goal of governments is to expand people's capabilities in order for them to have freedom and could therefore justify what one commentator described as 'a nudge' totalitarianism in contemporary China, with its focus on improving citizens' lives through paternalistic measures. On the other hand, one of the most unique aspects of Sen's capability approach is its ability to be applied globally. His rejection of the idea of a 'certain minimum' level of goods to be fully human means that we can critique the West using the language of freedom that Sen provides and demand change through global justice theory. Sen sees freedom in the development leads to the expansion of people's capabilities and also their overall lives. He also argues that human freedom does not come at particular levels of economic well-being; it is both the principal means and the end of development. Nonetheless, many contemporary critics argue that the idea of freedom that he explains in the book does not accurately reflect modern-day society; freedom is often taken away by the government and also people do not commonly pay attention to the freedom of others when pursuing their own individual liberty. This makes Sen's argument, that freedom allows development and human well-being, less effective when considering a modern audience.

3.2. Challenges to the Role of Economic Development

In "Development as Freedom," Sen emphasizes the importance of "substantive freedoms," by which he means the freedom to lead lives that we have reason to value. To achieve this goal, Sen argues that political freedoms are indispensable, but also that economic development in itself is an essential component of the process of translating political freedoms into substantive freedoms. Although normatively attractive, Sen's argument is subject to various practical and theoretical challenges. On an empirical level, we might begin by asking how far Sen's argument is supported by experience. It is clear that there are various cases in which the institutions of political democracy, such as elections and the existence of alternative parties, are either absent or highly limited. Such institutions themselves are not much operative. In contrast, there is some evidence for Sen's empirical claim that famines are largely the product of failures in the public distribution of food and entitlements and that democratically accountable governments are less likely to allow famines to occur. However, the fact that the occurrence of famines in non-democratic states has sometimes been politically manipulated, to make it appear that food shortages arise as much from the vagaries of nature as from governments mistakes, is suggestive of the limitations of even apparently clear empirical causal links. Also, the conditions within developed, democratic states are frequently invoked as exemplifying the ways in which political freedoms can operate to ensure substantive freedoms. It is often pointed out, for example, that the provision of goods and services such as education, health care and a social security net are an expression of the political commitment to the betterment of the citizen's lives and a reflection of the fact that those in authority, being both elected and subject to the rule of law, are responsive to their needs. However, such arguments might be subject to the sorts of theoretical objections. The conclusion of this paragraph is quite similar to Hayek's overall concept of freedom, the non-interference with individuals including freedom of speech and association, and "positive" freedoms which refer to the provision of opportunities and facilities by the state, or by whomever else might be in a position to do so. Sen's argument on freedom and development is confront with a challenge, if we classify his argument as a "positive" meaning of freedom. He illustrates his opinion in his speech "Democracy as a Universal Value" and explains the relationship between freedom and development and how far freedom plays a part in the development. Nevertheless, Sen rejects this classification. He believes that democracy, as a political system, does not have a predefined aim, no matter it is classed as "positive" or "negative" freedom. He also thinks that freedom is centered within development itself, not just the case of development in a modern society, but also the case of the freedom in a person or a voule. His argument is that freedom itself can be a kind of method in the developing process.

3.3. Critique of the Emphasis on Political Freedoms

The idea behind having a critical analysis is to evaluate the development process and its outcomes with the help of concepts of freedom. But the main area of concern is that Sen has overlooked the economic importance and has given exclusive attention to the political liberty. This is a negation of all the stages of development that a country usually goes through. If we look at the developed countries, we find that the initial phases of economic development have not been at all compatible with political liberalization. Such countries have been through a series of one-party rule or military rule. Turkey, South Korea, India, Britain, and many other modern states are examples where economies have grown substantially without following the norms of political freedoms from the very inception. Democratic freedom can be understood as a society cannot be considered completely free if it does not guarantee certain individual rights, such as liberty of speech, religion, property, and so on. Sen also favors 'multi-party democracy'. But the most impressive aspect of Sen's argument is that he tries to establish ends and means. He admits at a point when he says that "something might have to be sacrificed for the rapid improvement in economic well-being of the worst-off people". He applies a concept of positive freedom and that is to be achieved first, and then we should settle down for the negative type. It is a criticism of Sen that he cannot make a reasonable link between freedom and development. That liberty, i.e., negative freedom, can be spread in general by increasing income, but this, in turn, does not necessarily mean that economic growth will result in substantial freedom, but it may well be a precondition for political and civil rights. It is understood from his dislike of the implemented theory of development which emphasizes on the material gain in priority to the democratic type of decision making. But he fails to give a fully satisfactory reason as to why preferred means are not in accordance with a preferred end. He gives a very typical example to support positive freedom of an old woman who might need medicines, which means her capability except being cured is also increased. He did not focus on the type of regime prevailing in the country from where these medicines are supplied. Can we really say that a country is free where after every four or five years a poll takes place and people suddenly get the perception that they are the controller of their destiny? This is a major weakness in Sen's argument that he overplays the political liberties. He never distinguishes between different types of freedom, e.g., between individual and collective freedom. He did not clarify the degrees of freedom. He hopes that his capability approach will offer a more sensitive measure of the quality of life than traditional indicators.

3.4. Limitations of the Social Opportunities Approach

When it comes to expanding freedom through promoting social opportunities, Sen's approach has two main limitations. First, Sen argues that the expansion of social services has instrumental value, that providing good social arrangements is a means to the expansion of real freedoms. In particular, focused on public action in expanding social services, namely education and healthcare, support for children and old people, and sometimes support for various capability enhancing encouragements such as financial aid to the disabled, well-targeted food programs, etc. But sometimes providing social services to people may not help to expand their freedom if people are not at all involved in the process of providing. Active involvement is important because it can help to build people's capacity, which can be defined as the real opportunity of people to achieve valuable doings and beings. By contrast, if social services are provided by someone else entirely and people do not have to work towards obtaining them, then the fact that they are provided will not contribute to their well-being. This may make people worse off because they have lost a chance of building up their own abilities. But it does not imply that providing social services is not a valuable process. It is a valuable means to achieve the expansion of real freedoms, but just the provision of social services is not always enough. The second limitation comes from the social opportunities approach itself. Sen argues that an increase in real income would make some contribution to the expansion of the poor's freedom rather than as an end in its own right. He explains that income expansion both directly extends the effective opportunities enjoyed by the people and also builds their capacity to achieve valuable doings and beings. However, the definition of real income may vary. It often refers to the Gross National Product (GNP) per capita, that is, the value of all final goods and services produced within a nation in a given year, plus income received from investments abroad. This economic method focuses purely on economic determinants of the people's well-being and its policy conclusions could be very different from other conceptions of well-being. For example, in an economic understanding, if a country has high value on GNP, it is seen as a country with high development. However, if only when considering income expansion, neglecting any other social arrangements, high development does not necessarily imply a high level of freedom enjoyed by the people. Wealthy nations should not only focus on the maintenance of high income level; instead, they should also put more effort into promoting the process of expanding people's capability through, for example, providing more educational chances, better healthcare services, and protecting social securities. This is consistent with the claim that freedom is the principal measurement of development. Cris Revon, in the monograph "Political Theory and the Right to Work," explains the Swedish social democracy by saying that "a person could be guaranteed a certain level of recourse to participate in an adequate range of valuable activities." Such provision is crucial in the understanding of achieving real freedom. As an example, an increase in real income may not result in an expansion in the poor's freedom if what they get are just provisions of some basic goods. However, other scholars such as Martha Nussbaum argue that rights should not be "interpreted to cover such quality of treatment.

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Amartya Sen on development as freedom

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Book review: Development as Freedom by Amartya Sen

Amartya Sen is an important author, economist, and philosopher for anyone in human rights work to know, and his book Development as Freedom (1999) is a perfect example of his expertise and deep understanding of human development and the importance of human rights. Sen argues that human freedom should be both the means and the end of development, rather than a casualty of it, as is often the case. He advocates for an integrated approach to development that involves multiple institutions and creates freedoms such as economic opportunities, political freedom, social supports, transparency from authorities, and security for society. Stating that development often forsakes freedoms and opportunities in the name of economic and human development, Sen argues that freedom must be central to development in order to create sustainable and effective change. He also addresses concerns and critiques surrounding the universal human rights discussion, including arguments about legality of human rights, duties involved in fulfilling rights, and questions about cultural relativism. In particular, Sen uses his own experiences from and expertise in Asian culture to argue that human rights and freedoms are not dependent upon cultural values or morality. He writes, “The case for basic freedoms and for the associated formulations in terms of rights rests on: 1) their intrinsic importance; 2) their consequential role in providing political incentives for economic security; 3) their constructive role in the genesis of values and priorities” (p. 246). Even through the extensive sidebar on Asian values, Sen tries to make this book accessible to a broad audience by avoiding jargon and technical terms, even encouraging readers to skip through certain theories and arguments, particularly those that contain major flaws. Development as Freedom is an important theoretical text for anyone studying or working in human rights, especially for those in the development field.

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Development as freedom: the alternative discourse of Amartya Sen’s book

2022, Academia Letters

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This paper is an attempt to understand how Amartya Sen's thinking on development and freedom has evolved from his critique of welfare economics and his concern with underdevelopment and poverty. It is argued that Sen has done a great deal to rescue welfare economics from the consequences of methodological individualism by seeking an objective basis for comparisons of well‐being, by insisting on the need for interpersonal comparability and by creating a space for normative evaluations. Sen's contribution to the human development approach with its emphasis on positive freedom has also helped to provide a valuable counterweight to the dominant free market approach. However, some concerns are expressed that the approach does not give sufficient attention to long‐run dynamics and that the conception of capability employed is not helpful for the understanding of development

A review of Amartya Sen's seminal "Development as Freedom". Composed for the Fall 2019 class "Economics of Developing Areas" and taught by economics professor Luai AlSadiq. This paper begins by sketching a brief biography of the author before analyzing the book in depth, documenting important findings and concentrating on the ethical system that grounds Sen’s normative claims. The reading is then critically compared/contrasted with Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu & James Robinson and The Tyranny of Experts by William Easterley.

The arguments of this paper revolve around the notion of development in Amartya Sen’s Development as Freedom and Jeffrey Sachs’s The End of Poverty. This paper examines both the divergence and convergence of the two views of development in addressing issues such as, but not limited to, poverty, freedom, injustice, and interference. In so doing, the writer begins by (1) presenting the arguments in Sen’s Development as Freedom; then followed by (2) discussing the basic tenets of Sachs’s The End of Poverty. Lastly, (3) the writer makes an attempt for a comparative study between the two so as to make sense of the term “development” from the lens of the aforementioned philosophers/economists.

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To what extent can Amartya Sen’s ideas on freedom, especially his conceptualization of development as freedom, enrich feminist economics? Sen’s notion of freedom (as the capability to achieve valued ends) has many attractions and provides important opportunities to analyze gender inequalities. At the same time, Sen’s recent emphasis on freedom as the dominant value in judging individual well-being and societal development also contains risks, not least for feminist analysis. We characterize the risks as an under-elaboration and overextension of the concept of freedom. Drawing on Sen’s earlier work and various feminist theorists, we suggest instead a more emphatically pluralist characterization of capability, well-being, and value, highlighting the distinct and substantive aspects of freedom, as well as of values besides freedom, in the lives of women and men. We illustrate this with reference to women’s economic role as caregivers. KEYWORDS - Amartya Sen, development, freedom, well-being, values, capability approach

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In The Idea of Justice1 Amartya Sen revisits many of the topics to which he has contributed during his rich 60-year-long career, mainly those topics that lie at the intersection between philosophy and economics and that are connected, as this book’s title suggests, to Sen’s interest in justice. The usefulness of social choice theory, the limitations of utilitarianism, the power and bounds of reason and rationality, the role of freedom in human lives and of public reason in politics: these are some of the recurrent themes of The Idea of Justice. The book brings them together with the aim of making a case for a practically relevant way of studying justice—one on which, as John Gray has put it, we ‘do not need an ideal of a perfectly just society, only a view about what would make the world a more just place’.2 Central to Sen’s idea of what would make the world a more just place is the need to ensure for people substantive freedoms or, in Sen’s language, capabilities to obtain valuable things. Sen’s ‘capability approach’ is arguably his most distinctive contribution to contemporary discussions about justice and is the subject of four of the 18 chapters of The Idea of Justice, namely those that make up ‘The Materials of Justice’ (Part III of the book). In what follows, I identify the central claims Sen makes in this part of the book. I then raise a set of questions regarding his renewed case for the importance of taking capabilities or substantive freedoms, rather than people’s achieved functionings, as the relevant standard for assessing people’s just claims.

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Amartya Sen Shares His Theory of Development As Freedom

In this brief paper, Professor Sen articulates the themes of the lecture he delivered at the Center on Tuesday, April 3, 2001. These issues have been more fully discussed in Development as Freedom (Oxford University Press, 1999). Dr. Sen is Lamont University Professor, and Professor of Economics and Philosophy, at Harvard University. In 1998, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences.

The relationship between freedom and development has been debated — explicitly or by implication — for a very long time. While some see freedom as a great ally of progress, others are fearful of individual freedom as a spoiler of development and as a source of adversity. The latter group can entertain disparate beliefs, held by different (and often conflicting) schools of thought, with very different diagnoses of the alleged poison: democratic rights, civil liberties, freedom of market transactions, or basic social opportunities (such as emancipation involved in women’s being schooled). Their common suspicion of freedom leads to the advocacy — and imposition — of “unfreedom” of one kind or another, in political, economic, or social fields.

It is important to counter, in a comprehensive and congruous way, the diverse manifestations of this skepticism about freedom, which can be found plentifully across the contemporary world. In contrast with each of these distinct views, a good starting point for the analysis of development can be the basic recognition that freedom is both (1) the primary objective, and (2) the principal means of development. The former is an evaluative claim and includes appreciation of the principle that the assessment of development cannot be divorced from the lives that people can lead and the real freedoms that they enjoy. Development can scarcely be seen merely in terms of enhancement of inert objectives of convenience, such as a rise in the GNP (or in personal incomes), or industrialization, or technological advance, or social modernization. These are, of course, valuable — often crucially important — accomplishments, but their value must depend on what they do to the lives and freedoms of the people involved.

Freedom is not only the ultimate end of development; it is also a crucially effective means.The relation between freedom and development goes, however, well beyond this constitutive connection. Freedom is not only the ultimate end of development; it is also a crucially effective means. This acknowledgement can be based on empirical analysis of the consequences of — and interconnections between — freedoms of distinct kinds, and on the evidence that freedoms of different types typically help to sustain each other. What a person has the actual capability to achieve is influenced by economic opportunities, political liberties, social facilities, and the enabling conditions of good health, basic education, and the encouragement and cultivation of initiatives. These opportunities are, to a great extent, mutually complementary, and tend to reinforce the reach and use of one another.

A freedom-centered view of development has several advantages over more conventional views. First, it provides a deeper basis of evaluation of development, allowing us to concentrate on the objective of individual freedom rather than merely on proximate means such as the growth of GNP or industrialization or technological progress. The enhancement of lives and liberties has intrinsic relevance that distinguishes it from, say, the enlargement of commodity production or of other material of convenience.

Second, since freedoms of different kinds contribute to enhancing freedoms of other kinds, a freedom-centered view also offers instrumental insights. By focusing on the interconnections between freedoms of different types, it takes us well beyond the narrow perspective of seeing each freedoms in isolation. We live in a world of many institutions (involving the market, the government, the judiciary, the political parties, the media, and son on), and we have to see how they can supplement and strengthen each other, rather than getting in each other’s way.

Third, this broad perspective also allows us to distinguish between (1) repressive interventions of the state in stifling liberty, initiative and enterprise, and in crippling the working of individual agency and cooperative action, and (2) the supportive role of the state in enhancing the effective freedoms of individuals (for example, in providing public education, health care, social safety nets, good macroeconomic policies, and in safeguarding industrial competition and epidemiological and ecological sustainability).

Finally, the freedom-centered view captures the constructive role of free human agency as an engine of change. It differs radically from seeing people as passive beneficiaries of cunning development programs. The need to overcome that misleading image of development is as strong today as it has ever been.

About the Author

Amartya Sen

Harvard University's Amartya Sen won the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences "for his contributions to welfare economics." Click to learn more.

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