Sambhav: Sen's conflation of well-being and agency

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In Chapter 8 of Development as Freedom titled "Women's Agency and Social Change," Amartya Sen highlights the importance of women's agency in the context of development and social transformation. Sen writes, "The most immediate argument for focusing on women's agency may be precisely the role that such an agency can play in removing the inequities that depress the well-being of women" (Sen, 191). I argue that while Sen states that the agency role of women “goes well beyond” (Sen, 202) its direct bearing on women's well-being, his arguments throughout the chapter suggest that he views women's agency primarily as an instrumental freedom (justified by its ends).

By focusing only on the instrumental value of women's agency, Sen seems to adopt a welfarist approach himself, emphasizing the effects of agency on various aspects of well-being, such as fertility rates, child mortality, and women's overall welfare. He argues that women's agency and well-being have a substantial intersection, and therefore, improving women's agency can lead to improvements in their well-being. However, in doing so, he appears to neglect the intrinsic value of agency, which he earlier argues is valuable in and of itself, regardless of its consequences on well-being. He seems to break down the causal effects of agency to their instrumental outcomes, and while I think this is a plausible approach in evaluating interventions, Sen while doing this neglects his focus on the intrinsic value of freedoms. By Sens's earlier argument, agency, as the capacity to make choices and decisions, is inherently valuable because it is an essential aspect of human dignity and autonomy. 

I would argue that a more comprehensive account of women's rights by Sen would recognize the intrinsic value of agency by providing a more robust foundation for advocating for women's empowerment and gender equality, as it would not rely exclusively on the potential benefits that increased agency could bring to society or individual well-being.

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