I am most grateful to Elizabeth Anderson (2000), Philip Pettit (2000) and Thomas Scanlon (2000) for making such insightful and penetrating comments on my work and the related literature. I have reason enough to be happy, having been powerfully defended in some respects and engagingly challenged in others. I must also take this opportunity of thanking Martha Nussbaum, for not only chairing the session in which these papers were presented followed by a splendid discussion (which she led), but also for (...) taking the initiative, in the first place, to arrange the session. (shrink)

Illustrations: 1 B/w Illustration Description: Pranab Kumar Sen, Professor Emeritus, Jadavpur University in whose honour this volume has been prepared was one of the leading philosophers of our country and a highly respected teacher. It carries thirty-five articles which deal with different branches of philosophy,viz., philosophical logic, philosophy of language, ontology, theory of knowledge, Kant exegesis, moral philosophy, social philosophy, philosophy of art. As Sen's philosophical interests and expertise were wide the authors had ample freedom in their choice of topics. (...) This volume will be of interest to those who are acquainted with sophisticated literature in analytic philosophy, scholars working in different branches of philosophy and also general readers of modern philosophy. (shrink)

And in this book the distinguished scholar Amartya Sen offers a powerful critique of the theory of social justice that, in its grip on social and political ...

This article focuses on the philosophical aspects of the Capability Approach and its foundations in the work of Amartya Sen. It discusses the development and structure of Sen’s account, how it relates to other ethical approaches, and its main contributions and criticisms. It also outlines various capability theories developed within the Capability Approach, with particular attention to that of Martha Nussbaum.

Based on the 1972 Radcliffe Lectures, this book presents a systematic treatment of the conceptual framework as well as the practical problems of measurement of inequality.

Amartya Sen was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 1998 'for his contributions in welfare economics'. Although his primary academic appointments have been mostly in economics, Sen is also an important and influential social theorist and philosopher. His work on social choice theory is seminal, and his writings on poverty, famine, and development, as well his contributions to moral and political philosophy, are important and influential. Sen's views about the nature and primacy of liberty also make him a (...) major contemporary liberal thinker. This volume of essays on aspects of Sen's work is aimed at a broad audience of readers interested in social theory, political philosophy, ethics, public policy, welfare economics, the theory of rational choice, poverty, and development. Written by a team of well-known experts, each chapter provides an overview of Sen's work in a particular area and a critical assessment of his contributions to the field. (shrink)

Amartya Sen has made a major contribution to the theory of social justice, and of gender justice, by arguing that capabilities are the relevant space of comparison when justice-related issues are considered. This article supports Sen's idea, arguing that capabilities supply guidance superior to that of utility and resources (the view's familiar opponents), but also to that of the social contract tradition, and at least some accounts of human rights. But I argue that capabilities can help us to construct a (...) normative conception of social justice, with critical potential for gender issues, only if we specify a definite set of capabilities as the most important ones to protect. Sen's "perspective of freedom" is too vague. Some freedoms limit others; some freedoms are important, some trivial, some good, and some positively bad. Before the approach can offer a valuable normative gender perspective, we must make commitments about substance. (shrink)

"Dans l'œuvre d'art ou dans la théorie comme dans la chose sensible, le sens est inséparable du signe. L'expression, donc, n'est jamais achevée. La plus haute raison voisine avec la déraison. "Cette tension essentielle ainsi formulée par l'auteur sous-tend l'ensemble des essais réunis ici sous trois grandes perspectives : celle de l'art, celle de la philosophie et celle de la politique. L'étude consacrée à Cézanne comme celle qui analyse le cinéma du point de vue de la psychologie moderne s'attachent l'une (...) et l'autre à montrer la démarche créatrice cherchant sans cesse, face à "l'énigme du monde", quelles réponses nouvelles apporter à l'interrogation humaine. L'examen de l'existentialisme permet de clarifier les positions adoptées, dès la fin de la Seconde Guerre, par rapport à Hegel et à Marx, ainsi que de maintenir une réflexion politique et critique, en dépit de la débâcle prévue du communisme, sans retomber dans les séductions d'une "fin de l'histoire". C'est pourquoi, très courageusement, l'auteur entreprend, sous le titre "La guerre a eu lieu", un bilan général des années de guerre et d'immédiate après-guerre qui fait aujourd'hui écho à la conférence de Camus, "La crise de l'homme". Outre sa valeur historique, qui permet d'établir une sorte d'état des lieux des années 1944-1948 en France, ce recueil confirme toute l'ampleur et la richesse des intérêts et des problématiques qui caractérisent la pensée d'un auteur qu'on peut ainsi redécouvrir. -- Back cover. (shrink)

A volume of studies of utilitarianism considered both as a theory of personal morality and a theory of public choice. All but two of the papers have been commissioned especially for the volume, and between them they represent not only a wide range of arguments for and against utilitarianism but also a first-class selection of the most interesting and influential work in this very active area. There is also a substantial introduction by the two editors. The volume will constitute an (...) important stimulus and point of reference for a wide range of philosophers, economists and social theorists. (shrink)

This book develops some of the most important themes of Sen's works over the last decade. He argues in a rich and subtle approach that we should be concerned with people's capabilities rather than their resources or welfare.

Amartya Sen has recently leveled a series of what he alleges to be quite serious very general objections against Rawls, Rawlsian fellow travelers, and other social contract accounts of justice. In The Idea of Justice, published in 2009, Sen specifically charges his target philosophical views with what calls transcendentalism, procedural parochialism, and with being mistakenly narrowly focused on institutions. He also thinks there is a basic incoherence—arising from a version of Derek Parfit’s Identity Problem—internal to the Rawslian theoretical apparatus. Sen (...) would have political philosophy pursue intersocietal comparisons of relative justice more directly and in the manner of social choice theory. Yet the positive argument he develops in support of this method is quite thin. That aside, Sen’s polemical strategy of inflicting death by a thousand cuts is ineffective against the Rawlsian paradigm. For, as I show herein, none of these criticisms have the force we might be led to expect. (shrink)

Capability approach pioneers Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum both recognize empowerment as an important aspect of human development. They seem to disagree, however, about how empowerment should be represented within the capability approach (CA). This essay is concerned with the analysis of the foundational concepts at work within Sen and Nussbaum’s CAs. Part One concerns the key concepts of empowerment at work in Sen’s CA and has three goals. 1) Clarify Sen’s various empowerment concepts. 2) Argue that Sen’s concept of (...) Realize Agency Success is flawed. 3) Make clear that empowerment in Sen’s approach can be helpfully understood in terms of agency and capability set expansion. Part Two considers Nussbaum’s CA and the debate over whether it can account for empowerment. I conclude that not only can Nussbaum’s CA account for empowerment, but that the role of empowerment in both Sen’s and Nussbaum’s CAs can be understood in terms of agency and capability set expansion. In other words, Sen and Nussbaum actually agree about empowerment at the foundational level. (shrink)

Amartya Sen argues that Rawls’s theory is not only unnecessary in the pursuit of justice, but it may even be an impediment to justice in so far as it has discouraged more useful work. Against what he considers the dominance of transcendental theory, Sen calls for a more realistic and practical ‘comparative’ theory of justice. Sen’s negative point has been widely discussed, but here I develop a reconstruction of Sen’s positive theory (a combination of Adam Smith’s Impartial Spectator, Social Choice (...) Theory, and the Capabilities Approach) in order to evaluate it on its own terms. I find that the theory is technocratic, despite Sen’s insistence to the contrary. (shrink)

Without denying the importance of the postmodernist approach to the narrative form and rhetorical strategies of historiography, the author, one of Germany's ...

In this volume, Peter Burke, a prominent "Western" historian, offers ten hypotheses that attempt to constitute specifically "Western Historical Thinking".

Née de l'inquiétude du coeur humain, la métaphysique est un entretien de longue durée sur le sens des choses. Son idée de fond est que leur cours est sensé et qu'il est sensé de le penser. Que signifie au juste ce sens des choses? S'agit-il d'une simple vue de l'esprit, d'une observation ou d'un pressentiment? Il est clair qu'il engage une herméneutique, c'est-à-dire une intelligence de l'être dans son ensemble et qu'il est le fait d'un être, l'homo sapiens que nous (...) sommes, qui n'a de cesse d'expérimenter et de pressentir le sens de choses. Afin de mieux saisir et même de renouveler le projet essentiel de la métaphysique, ce livre se penche sur cette présupposition herméneutique de toute métaphysique, mais aussi sur les implications métaphysiques de l'effort herméneutique lui-même. Il présente une herméneutique de la pensée métaphysique telle qu'elle s'est déployée depuis Platon et Aristote et qu'elle peut encore être défendue au lendemain des déconstructions de la métaphysique (Kant, Heidegger, Derrida), dont il est de plus en plus évident, avec le recul, qu'elles font partie de la métaphysique elle-même. Il apparaît alors que la métaphysique, entendue comme l'effort vigilant de l'intelligence humaine de comprendre le réel à partir de ses raisons, est un autre nom de la philosophie et la respiration même de la pensée. (shrink)

Description: Knowledge, Truth and Realism is a collection of essays written by Pranab Kumar Sen over a period of ten years (from 1989 to 1998). The essays deal mainly with issues in Philosophy of Language and Theory of Knowledge from the standpoint of analytical philosophy. They bring forth Sen's realist philosophical position and his attempt to weave together specific questions concerning meaning, reference, truth, knowledge and objectivity in this realistic framework. By responding to and by making use of the ideas (...) of Philosophers like, Gottlob Frege, Ludwig Wittgenstein, W.V. Quine, Donald Davidson, Peter Strawson, H.P. Grice, Michael Dummett, John McDowell, Sen develops his distinctive theory of meaning and understanding along with his theory of knowledge/knowing. In doing so he also addresses the larger issue regarding the nature of philosophical analysis. The essays are a testimony to the painstaking and lifelong engagement of the Philosopher with some of the central and contemporary debates in analytical philosophy. (shrink)

In The Idea of Justice, Amartya Sen, among other things, discusses certain qualities any adequate theory of justice ought to incorporate. Two important qualities a theory of justice should account for are impartiality/objectivity and sensitivity to consequences. In order to motivate his discussion of sensitivity to consequences, Sen discusses the debate between Krishna and Arjuna from the religio-philosophical Hindu text the Bhagavad Gita. According to Sen, Arjuna represents a sensitivity to consequences while Krishna is an archetypal deontologist. In this paper (...) it will be argued that Sen's interpretation of the Gita is inaccurate. Further, a more adequate interpretation will be presented. What will be of significance is that the more adequate interpretation actually demonstrates the importance of an impartial spectator in moral reasoning. Finally, there will be a discussion of some lessons that can be taken from the Gita regarding justice generally. (shrink)

Amartya Sen; XII*—Plural Utility, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 81, Issue 1, 1 June 1981, Pages 193–216, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristotelian/.

« On ne cesse de répéter que notre époque manque de sens, et qu’elle est en quête de sens. Ce livre essaie de dire que ce diagnostic n’est peut-être pas le bon. Nous avons perdu, en effet, le “sens” que les religions et les philosophies proposaient comme une “vision du monde”, avec ses valeurs et ses buts. Cette époque est révolue. Cela veut dire qu’il nous reste à découvrir comment le monde lui-même, en tant que l’espace de nos existences, et (...) selon la dimension mondiale qui devient la sienne, est le sens. Mais on ne peut le reconnaître comme tel qu’à la condition de reconnaître aussi qu’il n’y a pas à s’approprier ce sens comme une signification. Le sens de l’existence, c’est précisément qu’elle ne puisse pas maîtriser son sens. Ce qui, après tout, a peut-être toujours été le savoir fondamental de toute philosophie. ». (shrink)

Zygon®, Volume 56, Issue 4, Page 874-897, December 2021.

Comment savons-nous distinguer le bien du mal, reconnaître que telle action est bonne ou telle règle injuste ? Comme l'écrit Adam Smith, « selon certains, le principe de l'approbation est fondé sur un sentiment d'une nature originale, sur une faculté de perception particulière que l'esprit exerce au spectacle de certaines actions ou dispositions... lls lui donnent un nom particulier et l'appellent sens moral ». L'histoire moderne du sens moral, anglaise et surtout écossaise, commence par un dilemme. L'obligation suppose une règle (...) extérieure à la conscience qui est obligée. Comment juger, si nous ne disposons pas d'une règle de justice ? Mais les partisans du sens moral objectent : comment reconnaître et nous assurer que cette règle est bien juste, si nous n'avons pas d'abord la capacité de discerner ce qui est juste, indépendamment de l'obéissance à cette règle ? De deux choses l'une : soit nous sommes d'emblée et comme naturellement sensibles aux qualité morales, soit la moralité se réduit à la conformité à un univers de conventions. Cette notion est-elle autre chose qu'une chimère de moralistes ? Son étude permet de reconstituer une histoire de la philosophie morale et des polémiques qui l'animent au XVIIIe siècle - depuis Cudworth et Locke, en passant par Shaftesbury, Bayle, Hutcheson, Hume et Smith, jusqu'à Kant et Bentham. Textes de Jean-Pierre Cléro, Michèle Cohen-Halimi, Laurent Jaffro, Alain Petit, Jean-Michel Vienne. (shrink)

Commodities and Capabilities presents a set of inter-related theses concerning the foundations of welfare economics, and in particular about the assessment of personal well-being and advantage. The argument presented focuses on the capability to function, i.e. what a person can do or can be, questioning in the process the more standard emphasis on opulence or on utility. In fact, a person's motivation behind choice is treated here as a parametric variable which may or may not coincide with the pursuit of (...) self-interest. Given the large number of practical problems arising from the roles and limitations of different concepts of interest and the judgement of advantage and well-being, this scholarly investigation is both of theoretical interest and practical import. (shrink)

Amartya Sen; XII*—Plural Utility, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 81, Issue 1, 1 June 1981, Pages 193–216, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristotelian/.

This paper evaluates how Amartya Sen’s critique of revealed preference theory stands against the latter’s contemporary, ‘neo-Samuelsonian’ version. Neo- Samuelsonians have argued that Sen’s arguments against RPT are innocuous, in particular once it is acknowledged that RPT does not assume away the existence of motivations or other latent psychological or cognitive processes. Sen’s claims that preferences and choices need to be distinguished and that external factors need to be taken into account to analyze the act of choice then appear to (...) be irrelevant. However, while it is true that contemporary revealed preference theory partially evades Sen’s critique, I show that the latter is still relevant outside the restricted areas of consumer choice and market dynamics. In particular, Sen’s views regarding the importance of incomplete preferences and the multiplicity of levels of agency can hardly be integrated into the framework of CRPT. This is a significant limit, given the imperialistic claims of some of the proponents of the latter. (shrink)

Sen’s essay concerns the existence of extensive hunger amidst unprecedented global prosperity in the contemporary world, but he argues that the problem would be decisively solvable if our response were no longer shaped by Malthusian pessimism. Effective famine prevention does not turn on food supply per head and the automatic mechanism of the market: there can be plenty of food while large sections of the population lack the means to obtain it. Effective famine prevention thus requires “entitlements.” Economically, governments can (...) and should provide public employment programs so that those threatened by famine can be empowered to command food. Politically, democratic participation and a free press can work to ensure government accountability for famine prevention. The choice that Sen urges, however, is not for the state over the market—the experience of the Indian state of Kerala demonstrates that a voluntaristic approach can work as well or better than China’s compulsory “one child policy” in limiting the rapid population growth that contributes to world hunger. Rather, a reasoned solution to the problem of hunger must acknowledge the complementary importance of both well-functioning markets and open and democratic public action. (shrink)

This new Major Work from Routledge is a five-volume collection of the key critical assessments of Amartya Sen, probably best known for his work on famine, human development and welfare economics. Sen is one of the few modern academics who has commanded much respect and recognition from across the intellectual spectrum. His work—for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1998—simultaneously embraces social choice theory and economic development, thus breaking the barrier between mathematized ‘high theory’ and ‘real world’ economics. (...) With an introduction newly written by the editor that places the collected work in its intellectual and historical context, this collection is destined to be welcomed as an invaluable resource for both reference purposes and as a contribution to the study of Amartya Sen. (shrink)

Contributed articles presented in an international conference on self-knowledge and agency, organized and held at Centre for Philosophy, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi in January 2007.

Abstrak: Amartya Sen, penerima hadiah Nobel Ekonomi 1998, dikenal sebagai ekonom dengan kontribusi penting dalam pemikiran pembangunan. Ia pencipta Indeks Pembangunan Manusia, yang kini dipakai luas sebagai pengukur lebih lengkap kualitas pembangunan di seluruh dunia. Apa yang jarang diketahui adalah bahwa berbagai pemikirannya diajukan dalam dialog dengan filsafat moral dan epistemologi. Di jantung dialog Sen itu adalah kritiknya terhadap pengertian rasionalitas. Dengan mengkaji kritik Sen, tulisan ini menyimpulkan bahwa proposal Sen bagi konsepsi rasionalitas lebih merupakan pintu masuk bagi perluasannya daripada (...) sebuah alternatif. Kata-kata Kunci: rasionalitas, kepentingan-diri, simpati, komitmen, preferensi, pilihan. Abstract: Amartya Sen, recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in economics, is renowned for his seminal contribution in the area of development. He is the originator of the Human Development Index, a new policy device now adopted worldwide as a more adequate measure of the quality of development. What is rarely known is that his ideas are expounded as part of his dialogue with moral philosophy and epistemology. At the heart of this dialogue is his trenchant critique of the notion of rationality. By examining Sen’s critique of the notion of rationality, this article suggests that the conception of rationality proposed by Sen stands as an entry point for broadening the notion of rationality rather than an alternative to it. Keywords: rationality, self-interest, sympathy, commitment, preference, choice. (shrink)

Le néokantisme – souvent critiqué de façon polémique par Heidegger et ses disciples –, en particulier le néokantisme de son maître, Heinrich Rickert, présente une théorie de la compréhension humaine plus approfondie que celle de Heidegger. D’une part, Heidegger est replacé dans son temps, puis les principes de la théorie de Rickert sur le sens et les valeurs sont esquissés. D’autre part, un problème de base de la phénoménologie est analysé ; il apparaît en fin de compte que la validité (...) – notion fondamentale du néokantisme – fonctionne implicitement aussi comme le fondement du projet ontologique de Heidegger, bien que celui-ci, pour des raisons méthodologiques, ne parvient pas suffisamment à justifier l’usage de cette notion. (shrink)

Les résultats quantitatifs que la psychologie et la physiologie n'ont cessé d'accumuler depuis le début du siecle à propos du sens tactile laissent apparaître aujourd'hui une certaine ambiguïteé. D'un côté en effet, la préoccupation de connaître les sensibilities cutanées spécifiques telles qu'elles se présentent de manière isolée à l'analyse objective des récepteurs stimulés: les sensations de chaud et de froid, de pression et de contact, de douleur, de vibration. D'un autre côté, le désir de sauvegarder l'unité fonctionnelle du sens tactile (...) c.a.d. sa spécificité propre par rapport aux quatre autres sens traditionnels. Ainsi, par exemple, une analyse neurophysiologique des récepteurs tactiles5 ne manque pas de mentionner plusieurs catégories fonctionnelles de la sensibilité cutanée: la douleur, comme signal d'un danger qui peut menacer l'existence de l'organisme; la perception des qualités d'un objet, comme intégration du toucher et de la kinesthésie au cours d'une exploration active de la main; les expériences somatiques complexes telles que le chatouillement et les sensations sexuelles. Pour le phénoménologue, un tel compromis s'apparente à une confusion et provient des positions épistémologiques qui ont animé l'orientation méthodologique des recherches, depuis la psychophysiologie mécaniste jusqu'à la psychologie cybernétique de l'information sensorielle. En cela, la domaine de la sensation tactile reste l'apanage de la psychophysique, et nous tenterons de clarifier pourquoi cette position ne peut aboutir qu'à des résultats problématiques. A partir d'une psychologie anthropologique du sens tactile,14 nous défendrons l'idée d'une psychologie comparée qui permettrait une investigation empirique, objective des comportements animaux, sur la base de prolégomènes phénoménologiques. (shrink)

Amartya Sen’s ethical theorizing helps feminists resolve the tensions between the claims of women’s particular perspectives and moral objectivity. His concept of ‘‘positional objectivity’’ highlights the epistemological significance of value judgments made from particular social positions, while holding that certain values may become widely shared. He shows how acknowledging positionality is consistent with affirming the universal value of democracy. This article builds on Sen’s work by proposing an analysis of democracy as a set of institutions that aims to intelligently utilize (...) positional information for shared ends. This epistemological analysis of democracy offers a way to understand the rationale for reserving political offices for women. From a political point of view, gendered positions are better thought of as an epistemological resource than as a ground of identity politics – that is, of parochial identification and solidarity. (shrink)

Aphoristic work on the fundamentals of Nyaya philosophy with classical Sanskrit commentaries; critical edition with exhaustive introduction.

Rawls considers the sense of justice as one of the conditions essential for the stability of a well-ordered society. This book interrogates the nature of this moral sense and tests its capacity to found a "realistic utopia", drawing on philosophical critics and the social sciences.

Adaptive preferences are both a central justification and continuing problem for the use of the capability approach. They are illustrated here with reference to a project examining the choices of young people who had rejected higher education. Jon Elster, Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum have all criticised utilitarianism on the grounds that a focus on preference-satisfaction fails to acknowledge the human tendency to adapt preferences under unfavourable circumstances and that self-assessments of well-being are therefore likely to be distorted by deprivation. (...) Elster’s addresses preference deformation through the sour grapes phenomenon and retroactive rationalisation. Sen and Nussbaum are more concerned with adaptation as self-abnegation. The capability approach developed by Sen and Nussbaum seeks to address the problem of adaptive preferences by taking into account not only what individuals value but what they have reason to value. However, clear distinctions need to be made between adaptations to the means of achieving well-being and adaptations to its ends. If Elster’s formulations are to be used in capability assessments, they need to articulate with the relative weightings given to relevant functionings and freedoms. This enables a more nuanced understanding of adaptive preferences that can account for the subtleties of the constraints they place upon individual freedoms. (shrink)

Why does Sen maintain that people are capable of putting their own goals offline and deliberating and acting out of sheer commitment to others? How can he endorse such a rejection of the belief-desire model of agency? The paper canvasses three explanations and favors one that ascribes an unusual position to Sen: the belief that so far as agents remain in the belief-desire mould, they cannot deliberate on the basis of reasons other than those that derive from standing goals that (...) form an integrated system. What he thinks of as deliberation on the basis of commitment is just the sort of deliberation that involves the formation of a novel, perhaps occasion-specific goal in which the good of another is prioritised. (shrink)

bk. 1. Historical -- bk. 2. Metaphysical.

This paper is about three distinct but interrelated problems: (1) the role 0f rights in moral theory, (2) thc characterization 0f agent relative values and their admissibility in consequ<—:ncc—bascd evaluation, and ( 3) the nature 0f moral evaluation 0f states 0f aihirs.