Sen Chapter 8

By Anonymous

I view Chapter 8 as an interesting example of non ideal theory. Sen takes real world problems–infant mortality and high fertility–and looks at how they can be solved, then takes away the philosophical implications of that. Seeing that infant mortality and fertility rates both decrease when women have higher education and rights, leads him to the conclusion that agency is an important aspect of development and is instrumental in well-being.


In response to Sambhav’s criticism that Sen fails to make an argument for the intrinsic value of freedom, I’d suggest reading Chapter 3. Chapter 3 makes the more normative philosophical (not just descriptive) argument for freedom. He uses conceptions of justice and good, like utilitarian and Rawlsian theory to show why the freedom approach is the best way to actually guarantee people freedoms. Though, it seems to still rely on the idea that freedom is inherently good. Perhaps Sen mentions it somewhere, but I’d be interested in hearing why he thinks that. 


An issue I take with Chapter 8 is Sen’s use of a few examples to prove a point that is extremely wide in scope. Sen noted two ways that agency can improve the ability for women to secure their well being. I had no problem with the premises he laid out. But the conclusion he draws from that is ambitious. (this is a pattern I see in the rest of the book). Because agency helped women achieve higher well being in two instances, that doesn’t necessarily mean agency will always help. Perhaps political agency won’t help with freedom for happiness. This is just a hypothetical, but there could be thousands of other potential ways that agency doesn’t guarantee other freedoms. There would have to be empirical evidence to back it up. But Sen only produces two positive outcomes, he doesn’t even try to produce negative ones.


It seems Sen, in this book, repeatedly shows how certain types of freedoms are deeply intertwined with others. Political freedoms, for example, can help people secure their basic capabilities. He makes descriptive arguments for this, and much less often does he give normative arguments for the intrinsic importance of freedom. This is okay, but it leads to a lot of his book being based on empirical examples, not just philosophy. If he is going to do that, he has to do it correctly and comprehensively. He can’t make sweeping arguments based on two examples. You can do that if you are philosophizing in the way Rawls or Locke does. But Sen is trying to do more. Thus, while he makes a great attempt at non-idealism, I think it is still too sweeping and generalizing.

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