Sen’s evaluation is all the more powerful for its clarity: 'The freedom-centered perspective has a generic similarity to the common concern with 'quality of life. In many ways, measuring income does not account for various “unfreedoms” (manmade or natural bars to wellbeing) that hinder development. He concludes that an evaluation of true freedom must necessarily include the freedom to access social services such as healthcare, sanitation and nutrition, just as much as it must acknowledge economic and political freedoms.Įvaluating the relevance of the current thinking behind development, Sen concludes that the term ‘freedom’ cannot simply be about income.

He says people tend to think of freedoms as economic (the freedom to enter into market exchanges) or political (the freedom to vote and be an active citizen), and tries to understand why the definition has been so narrow hitherto. Having come to the conclusion that development is best summed up as the expansion of freedom, Sen examines traditional definitions and understandings of the term. Type Chapter Information Amartya Sen, pp. It can be employed in both narrower and broader ways. A MARTYA SENS extensive writings on welfare. Scholars and policy makers use the capability approach in a wide range of fields, most prominently in development studies and policymaking, welfare economics, social policy, and social and political philosophy. Amartya Sen uses his 1999 work Development as Freedom to evaluate the processes and outcomes of economic development. Amartya Sen Development as Freedom Alfred A.

Amartya sen freedom