Sen-Reason, Freedom and Well-being

Reason, Freedom and Well-beingAMARTYA SEN

Harvard University

I am embarrassed at being placed in the dizzying company of one of the truly greatthinkers in the world. The similarities between Mill's ideas and mine partly reflect, ofcourse, his influence on my thinking. But I also discuss some difficulties in taking Mill'swhole theory without modification, since there are internal tensions within it. In a paperI published in 1967,1 tried to discuss how Mill's willingness to hold on to some contrarypositions depended on the nature of his empirical reading of the world. I draw on thatdiagnosis in commenting on some of the articles here. There are some serious issues ofmisinterpretation in one of the articles, which I try to clarify. I also comment on Arrow'sinterpretation of what is involved in the idea of autonomy and on his own way of assessingfreedom, and acknowledge the seriousness of the questions he raises about the value offreedom in normative political philosophy.

I

There is a short story of George Bernard Shaw's in which a hishoparrives in heaven and makes the grand announcement, 'Gentlemen,I am the Bishop of St Pancras'. One of the addressees, a youth ina dalmatic, confesses that he is St Pancras himself The hishop, ashuoyant as ever, says affahly that he was very pleased to meet theyoung man, adding, 'I take a personal interest in every memher of myflock'. ^ Well, I too take a tremendous personal interest in all memhersof 'my flock' and John Stuart Mill is one of the chief guiding spirits inmy understanding and thought. Indeed, if I could have overcome sometheological hindrances, I might well have applied for a suitahly activerole in propagating Millian catechism. This symposium on 'Mill andSen', therefore, generates two immediate thoughts.

The first reaction is one of serious emharrassment at heing placedin the dizzying company of one of the truly great thinkers in theworld — one whose ideas have persistently inspired me, along withcountless others. The Bishop of St Pancras had composure of a kind Icannot aspire to. Indeed, the massive contrast hetween the two authorsreminds me irresistihly of a puh I knew in London called 'Cahhage andKing's Head'.

The second thought is the need for me to make it clear that anysimilarity that emerges hetween Mill's ideas and mine is tremendouslypleasing to me, rather than the opposite (as seems to he presumedin some of the presentations in these essays). There is a general

1 George Bernard Shaw, 'Aerial Football: The New Game', The Black Girl in Search ofGod and Lesser Tales (London, 1934), p. 82.

© 2006 Cambridge University Press Utilitas Vol. 18, No. 1, March 2006doi:10.1017/S0953820805001846 Printed in the United Kingdom

Reason, Freedom and Well-being 81

issue of some importance here, since I take much pride (and I thinkthat is the right word) in the fact that my ideas are not 'rootless' -they are in the 'tradition' estahlished hy some very great people. Mylong list of intellectual instigators includes (to choose some names -relevantly for this symposium - from a list of many leading lights):Aristotle (especially for making us understand that the nature ofprecision sought, and amhiguities that need accommodation ratherthan rejection, would depend on the nature ofthe suhject matter understudy), Adam Smith (particularly for his investigation of rationalityand of capahility), Mary Wollstonecraft (in particular, for her expositionof human rights in general and ofthe importance of women's rights inparticular), John Stuart Mill (especially for showing us the importanceof liherty and the need to see utility in an adequately plural framework),Karl Marx (notahly for teaching us that the most terrihle inequalitiesmay he hidden hehind an illusion of normality and justice), and -coming to our own times - Kenneth Arrow (for, among other things,his pioneering development of axiomatic social choice theory whichserves as the methodological foundation for a suhstantial part of myown intellectual efforts).

Since I have not had the personal privilege of meeting anyonelisted here other than Ken Arrow, I must also confess that I wouldlove to encounter them in an imagined afterworld, though I wouldnot, I think, like to meet Mill and Marx together, given what theyevidently thought of each other (hut mayhe I could he persuaded to seethem together from hehind an old-fashioned air raid shelter that gavesufficient protection against collateral damage). But meeting Mill alonewould have heen great, and this wonderful symposium, with many fineexplorations of the reach of Mill's ideas, gives me at least the second-hest comfort of meeting his ideas closely - it also revives the memory ofmy undergraduate days in Presidency College, Calcutta, when I wentinto a personal 'Mill fest' that took me away from all else for nearly amonth.

The fact that many of Mill's analyses and insights have influenced mywork deeply is too ohvious to state, hut the fact that I am proud of thisinfluence and have acknowledged it repeatedly^ is worth emphasizingprecisely hecause the opposite impression is given in some of thepresentations in this fine collection of essays. My deht to John StuartMill is immense, even when I have not heen ahle to agree with him

^ To cite just a few examples of my own discussion of the way I have drawn onMill's ideas, see 'The Nature and Classes of Prescriptive Judgements', PhilosophicalQuarterly 17 (1967); 'Liberty, Unanimity and Rights', Economica 43 (1976); 'PluralUtility', Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 80 (1980-1); and 'Minimal Liberty',Economica 57 (1992).

82 Amartya Sen

entirely, for he has taught me, as he has taught thousands of others,how to think ahout these problems.

II

Mozaffar Qizilbash's article, 'Capability, Happiness and Adaptation inSen and J. S. Mill', is music to my ears. Among some ofthe connectionsbetween Mill's ideas and my contentions that Qizilbash brings out withremarkable perspicacity, there are some I did indeed know reasonablywell, including the basic recognition that Mill 'sees the capabilityto be happy as important'. Some other connections I was less clearabout, including - importantly for this symposium - the reach of Mill'sunderstanding of the role of adaptation to adverse circumstances thatdistorts the metric of utility of the chronic underdog. Aside from myown empirical observations, both from real life and from my researchstudies (for example, of women's perception of their health and well-being in rural and urban India),^ I was intellectually influenced, inpursuing this subject, primarily by my other heroes, in particularby Mary Wollstonecraft's analysis of women's evident contentmenteven in highly unequal circumstances and Karl Marx's analysis of'false consciousness' (a concept that he uses in his investigation of theunderdogs in the class hierarchy, but which is at least as relevant forunderstanding the state of apparent contentment ofthe disadvantagedin the gender hierarchy).

I am, however, fully persuaded by Qizilbash's evidence and reasoningthat John Stuart Mill had seen very clearly the difficulties caused byadaptation to adverse predicaments. I accept Qizilbash's point fully,even though I am tempted to add to my old grumble that, given hisevident clarity on this subject, I wished Mill had reassessed moreradically his allegiance to Bentham and to the utilitarian approachin general, since adaptation does massively distort the recordings ofdisadvantage in the scale of utilities and happiness.

Qizilbash is also right to point to the important issue that '[t]herelationship between capabilities, opportunities and happiness in Mill'swritings suggests that he held a substantive view of human flourishingwhich involves the development and exercise of certain capabilities'(p. 32). This may not be entirely surprising from a thinker whohad studied both Aristotle and Smith with such involvement. ButQizilbash also makes a very interesting point, which needs much moreintellectual engagement than it has received so far in writings on Mill,that '[i]n the absence of such a view, it is hard to make sense of the

^ See, for example, my Resources, Values and Development (Oxford and Cambridge,Mass., 1984), and Commodities and Capabilities (Amsterdam, 1985).


distinction between contentment and happiness' in Mill's 'discussion ofhigher and lower pleasures' (p. 32).

The informational reach of Mill's analysis is indeed extensive. Whatis particularly interesting to examine is how Mill retains his loyaltyto utilitarian calculus despite the range of concerns to which he paysserious - often pioneering - attention. I did, in fact, try to discuss thatdifficult issue in a youthful essay of mine published in 1967 in ThePhilosophical Quarterly, which has remained largely unread (perhapsjustly so), except for the illuminating critique it has recently receivedfrom Hilary Putnam.^ I tried there to defend Mill against RichardHare's claim that Mill was going heyond the boundaries of utilitycalculus in the way he tried to formulate issues of equity and justice inhis utilitarian formula.

I take the liberty of quoting from my 1967 attempt to adjudicate onthis issue, since it is relevant to the question being discussed here:

Mill's discussion on equity and justice vis-a-vis utilitarianism has certainambiguities, and at least two different interpretations are possible. One viewis that 'the principle of fairness is built into tbe meaning of utility', and in thisligbt Hare has observed tbat 'Mill's mistake was perhaps to try to incorporateideals into a utilitarian theory, which cannot really absorb them'. Tbere isundoubtedly this trend in Mill's reasoning; but tbere is also a second approachquite explicitly worked out in bis discussion of tbis conflict, wbere it is suggestedthat these two ideals, which have potentially different demands, do not infact conflict. While 'by no means' is 'the difference between the Just and tbeExpedient a merely imaginary distinction', 'objectively the dictates of justicecoincide with a part of tbe field of General Expediency'. Justice is, accordingto Mill, not independent of utility as sucb, and 'remains tbe appropriate namefor certain social utilities which are vastly more important, and therefore moreabsolute and imperative, than any others are as a class', but is distinguishedfrom 'tbe mere idea of promoting human pleasure or convenience', whichgenerates 'milder feeling'.^

Aside from suggesting that Mill's views on utility can be differentlyinterpreted in linking plural utilities of differential importance toquestions of equity and justice, I also had the ambitious plan, in that1967 essay, to get Mill's help in identifying a methodological pointI was, then, trying to pursue myself. This concerns the distinctionbetween a value judgement being 'basic' to a person in the sensethat 'no conceivable revision of factual assumptions' would lead tothat judgement being revised as opposed to the more typical class of'non-basic' judgements which depend - usually implicitly - on factual

•• Sen, 'The Nature and Classes of Prescriptive Judgements'; Hilary Putnam, TheCollapse ofthe Fact/Value Dichotomy and Other Essays (Cambridge, Mass., 2002).

^ Sen, 'The Nature and Classes of Prescriptive Judgements', pp. 57-8.

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presumptions.^ I coupled this distinction with another contrast - thatbetween 'compulsive' judgements that yielded definitive affirmationsabout what should be done, and 'non-compulsive' judgements thataffirmed the presence of grounds for doing something which wouldbe definitive in the absence of contrary considerations that wouldindicate the opposite (when non-compulsive judgements clashed, theircompeting claims would have to be comparatively assessed).

After discussing Mill's reading - and his factual understanding - ofthe nature of the world and the role that this plays in the form thathis utilitarianism takes, I tried to get Mill's support for the distinctionI was trying to promote between 'basic' and 'non-basic' judgements.

It is in this way that Mill can 'resolve' 'the only real difficulty in the utilitariantheory of morals', since 'all cases of justice are also cases of expediency'. In thisresolution there is, as has been widely noted, a definitional element, but thereis, as we have just seen, a factual element also. For this reason, it seems to me.Mill's utilitarianism is best regarded as non-basic It is even arguable thatMill's interest in 'the kind and degree of evidence which constitutes scientificproof in the field of ethics, was related to his recognition that those disputinghis ethical theory are likely to dispute the underlying factual assumptionsrather than his basic, non-compulsive utilitarian judgement, from which hederives his non-basic, compulsive utilitarian ethics.^

This way of understanding Mill also allowed me to be both generallysympathetic (and conditionally in agreement) with Mill's version ofutilitarianism, while still insisting that Mill's beliefs about observedintensities of pleasures are empirically fragile and cannot adequatelytake care, within the severely limited format of utilitarianism, of theconflicting ethical pulls that have to be addressed. My dual responseto Mill can be seen, for example, (1) in my invoking, repeatedly as ithappens,^ Mill's powerful arguments for personal liberty (such as 'thereis no parity between the feeling of a person for his own opinion, and thefeeling of another who is offended at his holding it'^), in my attempts toidentify certain demands of liberty in social choice, and (2) my inabilityto accept Mill's general conclusion that if the varying intensities of

" I was trying to bring out the extensive role of 'implicit facts' in value judgements,to complement the much-discussed category of 'implicit values' in allegedly factualstatements. Hilary Putnam has argued in his far-reaching 2002 book The Collapse ofthe Fact/Value Dichotomy and Other Essays that I needed a more radical departurefrom the fact-value dichotomy than that, and Putnam is entirely convincing on this.However, my own methodological position on this subject in 1967 is well reflected in myattempts to recruit Mill on the importance ofthe factual presumptions underlying valuejudgements, even for foundational ethical and political principles of the kind enunciatedby Mill himself.

' Sen, 'The Nature and Classes of Prescriptive Judgements', p. 58.^ See, for example, my Choice, Welfare and Measurement (Oxford, 1982; Cambridge,

Mass., 1997), pp. 292, 342, 344, 363, 365.^ John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (London, 1859), p. 140.


different kinds of utilities are taken into account, the square is nicelycircled to give us what might be seen as an unproblematic utilitarianmoral philosophy fully respecting libertarian priorities (including, ofcourse, utility-based Paretian demands).

The same can be said about Mill's celebration of the specificcapability of being happy and his emphasis on the constructive roleof capability fulfilment in generating happiness (issues on whichQizilbash comments with much clarity). Important aspects of capabilityanalysis are, thus, captured by Mill, and this fact certainly needsrecognition. And yet Mill's focus on capabilities is foundationallyderivative and contingent. In particular, (1) it concentrates on thefact that the capability to be happy is directly linked with happiness(ultimately, tbe only object of value), and (2) it takes note of tbe facttbat other capabilities can also be useful in generating utility indirectly.Tbis, I fear, is not an adequate basis for valuing capability in terms ofthe foundational importance of freedom itself (on wbich, we do knowfrom Mill's otber writings, be did bave quite a strong view). Mill'scontingent valuation of capability is not, tbus, very deeply grounded(even witbin bis own foundational priorities). It is not comparable to tbebasic importance tbat is given to freedoms and capabilities in tbe worksof Aristotle, Mary WoUstonecraft, or Adam Smitb, or, for tbat matter,in tbe early writings of Karl Marx. In tbis respect, I find myself more atbome in tbe world of tbese otber autbors, ratber tban in tbe celebrationof capabilities in a tborougbly contingent form - witb somewbat fragileempirical underpinnings - witbin a basically utilitarian world.

Il l

Tbe distinctions presented in tbe foregoing discussion bave, I believe,some relevance also for Jonathan Riley's article, 'Liberal Rigbts in aPareto-optimal Code'. Focusing on tbe tbeorem on 'tbe impossibility oftbe Paretian liberal', Riley asks tbe question, 'How migbt utilitarianliberals like Mill reasonably respond to Sen?' Obviously, tbe answer totbat question will be of great interest to me (I am not selfiess enougbto deny tbat), but I tbink tbere is a bigger issue to wbicb Mill bas torespond wbicb will subsume bis attitude to little tbeorems like Sen's.Tbis is tbe issue of tbe relation between tbe libertarian parts and tbeutilitarian wbole of Mill's substantive political pbilosopby.

As was discussed in tbe last section. Mill's ultimate ability toadbere to an exclusive reliance on utility calculus in general and totbe maximization of tbe sum-total of utilities in particular dependson some - largely but not exclusively empirical - presumptions bemakes. Tbese include in particular: (1) bis evident belief tbat tbesource-based distinction between types of utilities (for example, tbe

86 Amartya Sen

distinction between 'tbe feeling of a person for bis own opinion, and tbefeeling of anotber wbo is offended at bis bolding it') will be reflectedalso in tbe quantities of utility after all (tbrougb variations in utilityintensities), and (2) bis conviction tbat tbe maximization of utilityaggregates for tbe society would somebow be invariably bamperedif everyone's liberties were not fully respected. Armed witb tbeseempirical presumptions. Mill can bave tbe sense of accommodatingtbe libertarian parts of bis political pbilosopby witbin bis utilitarianformat. If tbese presumptions, witb large empirical contents, are indeedaccepted, problems of 'impossibility' of tbe kind identified in my workwill give no problem to Mill wbatever (formally, tbis will amount toconstraining tbe condition of 'unrestricted domain' tbat is used toestablisb tbe 'impossibility of tbe Paretian liberal').

Even tbougb tbe formalities used by Riley differ from myunderstanding of Mill, presented above, tbey are not, I believe, atodds witb eacb otber. Riley argues tbat Mill separates out 'an optimallegal and moral code of justice' wbicb incorporates tbe demands ofliberty, and tbe 'Pareto criteria do not apply to impermissible cboicesdisallowed by tbe rules' (p. 64). Tbis would, of course, immediatelyeliminate tbe conflicts between tbe Millian priority of liberty and tbeunrestricted Pareto criterion (tbe conflict witb wbicb I was concerned),since tbe latter would tben be narrowed and restricted in a way tbatwould precisely exclude any confiict witb tbe libertarian demandsincorporated in tbe 'legal and moral code'.

Tbe problem tbat remains is bow to reconcile tbe narrowing oftbe Pareto principle witbin a utilitarian system, since any cbange -wbetber or not in violation of any 'code' - tbat increases everybody'sutility must, by construction, increase tbe utility sum-total, wbicb is,of course, tbe utilitarian maximand. Riley comments on tbis pointexplicitly: 'tbe objection, it seems, boils down to an assertion tbatutilitarian liberalism is not a genuine Pareto-inclusive maximizingutilitarianism' (p. 78). It is in tbis context tbat it becomes particularlyimportant for Riley to invoke bis more general point tbat '[a] Millianutilitarian liberal argues tbat certain rules of equal justice are essentialfor maximizing tbe general welfare' (p. 77). Tbis is not, of course, ananalytical trutb, and reflects instead Mill's empirical reading of tbenature of tbe world, as was discussed earlier on in tbis essay. Mill'sutilitarianism involves, tbus, a 'non-basic' utilitarian principle, wbicbis conditional on substantive empirical presumptions, wbicb, in turn,remain open to disputation.

Seeing tbe controversy in tbis way allows us even to pinpoint wberetbe disagreement migbt lie between admirers of Mill's libertarianpriorities wbo see tbese demands as overriding tbe utilitarian calculus,including tbe utility-based Pareto principle in many cases (tbis autbor


falls in this category), and other admirers of Mill who pitch theirtent on the belief (I should really say, hope) that Mill's libertarianpriorities would not, in practice, conflict with the utilitarian calculusand the utility-based Pareto principle. If this is accepted, I see nodifficulty in agreeing completely with Riley that '[w]hile disagreementremains, the controversy cannot be settled merely by declaring againstthese sophisticated IMillian] liberal utilitarians' (p. 79). A non-basicjudgement would certainly demand that we examine and scrutinize theunderlying factual reading of the kind of world in whicb we live, andin this case tbis would involve assessing wbetber Mill's presumptionsabout the cause-effect relations about violations of liberty and theirconsequences in terms of utilities are actually correct. In my 1967essay I was trying to interpret the removal of tbe liberty-utility tensionsurrounding Mill's complex etbical system in terms of bis strong, ifimplicit, use of an empirical reading of tbe world, and I would interpretRiley's plausible conclusions in tbat general light as well.

IV

Turning now to Robert Sugden's article ('Wbat We Desire, Wbat WeHave Reason to Desire, Wbatever We Migbt Desire: Mill and Sen ontbe Value of Opportunity'), I fear I run into a problem bere tbat I donot encounter in any of tbe otber articles, to wit, being extensivelymisrepresented (no doubt inadvertently). Since Sugden and I baveargued about tbese issues over a very long time (and since I bavecontinued to enjoy and benefit greatly from Sugden's exposition ofSugden's beliefs, to be distinguisbed from Sugden's exposition of Sen'sbeliefs), I must confess to a sense of some frustration at tbis point.I shall come to tbose divisive issues presently, but I begin by notingtbat despite tbe illusory elements tbat clutter Sugden's exposition andcritique of my ideas, the glimpses tbat he gives of his own thought -whether presented in tbe guise of alleged comments on my statementsor on Mill's - are, as always, engaging and sometimes stimulating.

Sugden seems to think that I subscribe to tbe idea tbat '"we"as ethical theorists, can claim to know better tban some particularindividual wbat is good for her' (p. 34). Sugden does not give tbereader many clues about wbat led bim to arrive at tbis extraordinarydiagnosis. So I bave to speculate, since tbat general view attributed bySugden to me is absolutely - and empbatically - not mine.

Perbaps Sugden is referring to my pointer to tbe pbenomenon called'adaptation' mucb discussed in tbis symposium itself. Tbis deals witbtbe possibility tbat a cbronic underdog may become so used to berdeprivation and so bopeless about it, tbat sbe may bave an illusion of'normality' about ber state of deprivation and sbe may also respond by

88 Amartya Sen

cutting down ber desires and by learning to take some pleasure in verysmall mercies (wbicb would bave tbe effect of making tbe deprivationslook less awful in tbe scale of utilities). Tbat special problem can - andsometimes does - exist, but it does not, of course, yield a general case forbelieving (as Sugden seems to tbink) tbat 'etbical tbeorists can claimto know better tban some particular individual wbat is good for ber'.Any general - and ecumenical - belief of tbat kind would, of course,be absurd. And yet tbere are, in particular circumstances, observedoddities sucb as tbe persistent reporting of mucb lower self-perceivedmorbidity by, say, people from Bibar (wbere illiteracy is rampant andwbere bealtb care is very limited) compared witb tbe bigb perception ofill-bealtb of tbe people from Kerala (wbicb bappens to be best providedin terms of education and bealtb care in tbe country). Do we accept tbeself-reported morbidities to indicate tbat tbe Bibari population is morebealtby tban tbe people in Kerala, despite Bibar's baving tbe lowestlife expectancy wbile Kerala bas tbe bigbest in India?^*^

Tbe problem of adaptation is widely recognized, but to make it lookas if tbis gives me a general inclination to override an individual's ownassessment in favour of tbe assessment of otbers (as Sugden seems tosuggest) is bardly a fair description. In many different forms tbe issueof adaptation bas been discussed by Smitb, WoUstonecraft and Marx,among otbers, and we can see from contributions in tbis symposium(particularly by Qizilbasb) tbat it was appreciated by Mill as well. Tbisis a specific problem of some importance tbat bas to be addressed,^^witbout falling into tbe extraordinary ^e/ieraZ belief tbat otbers 'knowbetter tban some particular individual wbat is good for ber'.

Sugden accuses me of being too reliant on external, especiallycollective, assessment: I am supposed to allow 'collective judgementsabout rational desire to override individuals' actual desires' (p. 41).I take it be is objecting eitber to my use of tbe Smitbian deviceof introducing an imagined 'impartial observer' to assess one's ownunderstanding, or to my use of tbe Rawlsian device of insisting on'public reasoning' to assess our own unscrutinized assessments. Icannot claim any originality for eitber of tbese procedures, tbougb Ibave discussed tbeir respective merits elsewbere.^^ I am surprised bytbe extent to wbicb Sugden sees an odd picture of despotism in tbe

'" Different aspects of problems of illusory self-assessment are discussed in myResources, Values and Development (Oxford and Cambridge, Mass., 1984); 'PositionalObjectivity', Philosophy and Public Affairs 22 (1993); 'Health: Perception versusObservation', British Medical Journal 324 (April 2002).

" It is a central issue, for example, in gender studies; see particularly MarthaNussbaum, Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach (Cambridge2000).

'2 Particularly in 'Open and Closed Impartiality', Journal of Philosophy 99 (2002).


recognition of tbe need for critical assessment and public reasoning(wbat Rawls tbougbt was tbe basis of'objectivity' in etbical and politicalassessment), tbereby covering a widely recognized issue in somewbattbick fog. Nor does Sugden get Mill quite rigbt in bis insistence tbat, incontrast witb tbat despotic Sen, 'Mill links tbe individual's well-beingto ber freedom to act on ber own desires, wbatever tbey may be, andsees no need for political adjudication between alternative conceptionsof wbat is ultimately valuable in buman life' (pp. 49-50). Qizilbasb basdiscussed Mill's treatment of'adaptation' in some detail; it did take Millsomewbat beyond total tranquillity about tbe individual's 'own desires,wbatever tbey may be'.

Sugden gets into a mucb bigger misdescription wben be attributes tome an endorsement of collective tyranny over tbe individual, violatingbis or ber liberty (an odd diagnosis, particularly given tbe fact tbatSugden bimself bas written several papers on my use of conditions ofliberty tbat may require us to disavow even tbe Pareto principle in tbeligbt of tbe importance of individual liberty). Sugden puts tbe issuetbus (p. 40):

Suppose that I, as a citizen, ask what opportunities I am assured in a regimeof the kind proposed by Sen. The answer seems to be this: I am assuredopportunities to lead those kinds of hves that a majority of my fellow citizens,after reflective deliberation and open debate, judge to he valuable. I am alsoassured the opportunity to participate in this debate on equal terms witheveryone else. What I am not assured is the opportunity to live whatever kindof life / desire, within the constraints imposed by other people's having similaropportunities.

Wbat Sugden is describing is, of course, a general failing of majoritariandemocracy witb no guarantee of liberty. But far from tbis being asociety tbat I am 'proposing', it is particularly tbe t3T)e of society tbat Ibave presented as an example of wbat is unacceptable in unrestrainedmajoritarianism in social cboice. I bave used tbis type of concern, amongotbers, to demand specific conditions of liberty (including tbe rigbt 'tolive wbatever kind of life I desire'). I bave tried to discuss extensivelywby tbe need to guarantee liberties and minority rigbts bas to be partof an acceptable framework of democratic collective cboice (tbis figuredvery prominently even in my first book on tbe subject. Collective Choiceand Social Welfare).^^

How could Sugden end up witb sucb a total misinterpretation? Injustification of tbe monstrous political pbilosopby be attributes to me,Sugden gives us two references to my work (pp. 39-40). One is fromDevelopment as Freedom (p. 78), wbere I am discussing bow we may

13 See my Collective Choice and Social Welfare (San Francisco, 1970; Amsterdam, 1979),particularly in ch. 6, but also in chs. 7-10.

90 Amartya Sen

construct an index of capabilities, similarly to the Rawlsian index ofprimary goods (or the economist's index of real incomes). '̂* That is anexercise of some importance, but it does not of course tell us anj^hing atall about how minority rights, or for that matter minority tastes, maybe taken into account in a liberty-sensitive democratic social choice.What Sugden does here would be similar to coming to the conclusionthat Rawls has no interest in personal liberties since he bases hisindex of primary goods on social agreement of some kind, or that PaulSamuelson must be negligent of the value of individual lives since hisreal income index concentrates on a very different problem.

The second - and only other - reference that Sugden gives comesfrom a conversation that is reported in Feminist Economics, in whichthe complete quotation he cites consists of my saying, '[P]ure theorycannot "freeze" a list of capabilities for all societies for all time tocome, irrespective of what the citizens come to understand and value'(p. 40). I did indeed say that (and remain ready to repeat it again),but why on earth this might lead any reader to the conclusion that atyrannical society must be 'underlying this whole account' defies mycomprehension.

Similar misinterpretations occur at other places in Sugden'sexposition. Sugden asks the rhetorical question, apparently to showup the inanity of my alleged politics, 'What, in terms of my ownunderstanding of my own good, do I gain by allowing the judgements ofa majority to override my own desires about matters that are privateto me?' (p. 50). The answer to this question must be fairly obvious:to wit, I gain nothing whatever. But why ask it? I like the focuson domains of private choice of course, if only because of my sillysense of accomplishment in my having had a role in introducing theconsideration of a private and personal domain in social choice theory.We have to look for a social choice mechanism, I argued, such that ina matter of purely 'personal choice' the person's 'preference should beprecisely reflected by social preference'. ̂ ^ I suppose I should take somesatisfaction in the fact that Sugden seems to agree with me, if only witha 35-year lag. Things could certainly have been worse.

V

Among the several misattributions that Sugden makes, there is onethat is made also by L. W. Sumner in his otherwise very interestingarticle, 'Utility and Capability'. Sugden says: 'Sen proposes that thecapability set should be the informational base for the assessment of a

See my Development as Freedom (New York, 1999), pp. 76-80.Sen, Collective Choice and Social Welfare, p. 79.


person's well-being' (p. 37). Sumner, in a somewhat similar vein says,'Sen regards the capability view as an improvement over two traditionaltheories about the nature of well-being' (p. 4). Not quite. In fact, I wastrying to relate the idea of capability not with well-being as such, butwith freedoms of various kinds, and particularly with what I called'well-being freedom'. ̂ ^

What is more important than this distinction itself - in particularbetween 'well-being' and 'well-being freedom' - is the understandingof the four interrelated concepts I was investigating, combining twodifferent lines of categorization, based on the contrast between well-being and agency, on the one hand, and that between achievementand freedom, on the other. This yielded, as I discussed in my three1984 Dewey Lectures (published in The Journal of Philosophy, 1985)four categories, each with its own specific interest: (1) 'well-beingachievement'; (2) 'well-being freedom'; (3) 'agency achievement'; and(4) 'agency freedom'.^^ For example, well-being freedom concentrateson 'a person's capability to have various functioning vectors and toenjoy the corresponding well-being achievements', while, in contrast,agency freedom 'refers to what the person is free to do and achieve inpursuit of whatever goals and values he or she regards as important',which need not be confined to the person's own welfare. I was arguingthat moral and political philosophy as well as normative social choicehad use for each of these concepts, with their somewhat varying focuson things that a person has reason to value.

Sumner does not give the impression that he has taken note of thisfourfold categorization, which is fairly important for what I am trying tosay on the relevance of human capabilities. But Sumner does providea fine account of many of the issues on which my understanding issimilar to Mill's. I agree with these diagnoses, as I have discussed incommenting on Qizilbash's article. Sometimes the congruence (or near-congruence) reflects the direct influence of Mill's ideas on my thinking(as it is, for example, on the need to separate out personal libertyfrom general accounting of individual advantages). But in all cases,whether or not the similarity comes through Mill's direct infiuence onmy understanding, the congruence is particularly pleasing to me, givenmy sense of belonging to a tradition in which Mill is a towering figure.

In all this Sumner and I are on largely harmonious ground. Thereare, however, some points on which I do not quite agree with theway Sumner sees the issues in general and my views in particular.Though Sumner is absolutely right to distinguish between my criticism

'̂ See my Commodities and Capabilities; and also 'Well-being, Agency and Freedom:The Dewey Lectures 1984', Journal of Philosophy 82 (1985).

" "Well-being, Agency and Freedom'.

92 Amartya Sen

of 'generic welfarism' (relying only on well-being, but not necessarilyidentifying well-being with utility) and seeing well-being to be muchthe same as utility, which he calls 'welfare subjectivism', I do not thinkthat the central difficulty with identifying welfare with utility arisesfrom the fact that utility is defined in terms of mental magnitudes,making the exercise, in that very limited sense, 'subjective'. Sumnerseems to identify two descriptions: 'individual welfare is subjective'and it is 'identical to utility' (p. 3). If by 'subjectivism' it is meant thatutility, defined in terms of pleasure or desire, is a mental phenomenon,then that in itself is not a point of vulnerability (as the philosophicalconcept of being 'subjective' suggests). Indeed, this feature of beingrelated to our minds is also shared by our sense of values and ourmental evaluations.

The difficulties with the reliance on mental metrics of utility inparticular lie elsewhere. First, there is the problem that pleasure ordesire fulfilment is only one part of the achievements in which wehave reason to take interest (even though this could often be a bigpart). There are other achievements that can figure in our evaluation -even mental evaluation - of what we regard as important (for example,violation of people's personal liberties can be judged to be more terriblethan what is refiected in the calculus of pleasure or desire fulfilment).Utility, in the form of happiness or desire fulfilment, figures in only onepart of the story of valuation (including mental evaluation), and it iswith valuation in general, in all its breadth, that we have reason to beconcerned. For this purpose it is not an embarrassment that when wevalue things, we do use our mind: what else can we use?

Nor is it an embarrassment that the phenomenon of 'adaptation'to chronic adversity can infiuence people's impulsive valuation, justas it can muffle people's desires and can make people take pleasurein very small achievements, as a strategy for not entirely miserablesurvival. In doing a scrutinized valuation - central to the account I amconcentrating on - the need for scrutiny is built in, but scrutiny does notget its due when pleasures or desires are simply taken as the basis ofmoral or political calculation. The difference lies in the need for criticalassessment and scrutiny for reasoned valuation, which differs, in thisrespect, from just talljdng pleasures or desires (this also explains, bythe way, why I speak so much about 'reason to value', on which Sugdentoo comments). ̂ ^

'* I do not disagree, by the way, with Kenneth Arrow when he expresses his scepticismat 'the idea that values can be completely based on reasoning' (p. 53, n. 6). The centralissue here, it seems to me, is not whether valuation can be derived 'completely' fromreasoning, but whether reasoning is needed and can play a significant role in shapingscrutinized evaluation. The comment he makes concerns a related issue of misdescription


The neglect of this distinction is central to what Sumner sees as afatal objection to my approach. He notes, rightly, that '[i]f Sen is correctin thinking that desiring is not an inherently evaluative attitude thenhis account will not actually collapse into the desire-fulfilment theory'.But then he goes on to say (p. 8):

But in so far as individual or social valuing plays an indispensable constitutiverole in the account, it will be no less subjective. Since Sen began by rejectingutility accounts on the ground of their subjectivity, tbis result is puzzling.

The fact that scrutiny demands the exercise of the mind does notobliterate the distinction between pleasure and desire, on one side, andscrutinized valuation, on the other. Subjectivity, in the particular senseof being a matter of the mind, is not at all a central concern here, butthe distinction between 'feeling' and 'critical thinking' is certainly quitecrucial.

If the language of subjectivity is to be used, I would concentrateon the difficulty of trying to do without a probing critique and alsothe problems of avoiding any engagement with public reasoning. JohnRawls has argued, persuasively for many of us, that the demands of'objectivity' in substantive ethics and political philosophy involves justsuch critical scrutinies and exposure to public reasoning. ̂ ^ Sumner'scriticism, thus, seems to me to be misdirected, and misses thesignificant issue that is involved (p. 12):

Should valuations be understood subjectively, then Sen will need to respond tobis own malleability objection. On the otber hand, should tbey be understoodobjectively then personal (and social) rankings will play a merely evidentiaryrole in the theory and he will owe us an 'objective normative account of humanfunctioning" in order to complete it.

The demands of objectivity need not be seen as mind-independentnaturalism of some kind, but rather, as Rawls has argued: 'To saythat a political conviction is objective is to say that there are reasons,specified by a reasonable and mutually recognizable political conception(satisfying those essentials), sufficient to convince all reasonablepersons that it is reasonable'.^^

There is, thus, an issue of 'subjectivity' that is importantly involvedin distinguishing desire from valuation. It is not that utility is mentalwhereas valuation is not (they both involve the mind, I say with somerelief!). It is, rather, a question of the distinction between attaching

of real reasons ('reasons given for actions [in many cases, are] not the true causes'). Thatis, in fact, a different question, which could arise even if valuation were based entirelyon reason.

'" John Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York, 1993), p. 119.2° Ibid., p. 119.

94 Amartya Sen

importance only to feelings such as 'pleasures' or 'desires' as they stand('whatever they may be', as Sugden puts it), and seeing the importanceof valuation done with critical examination, with self-scrutiny, and,when relevant, involving the discipline of public reasoning. We stillhave to decide, of course, on the way public reasoning may he mostplausibly pursued, and there remains the further issue of whetherto go with John Rawls and Thomas Scanlon towards a 'contractarian'framework,^^ or to pursue the alternative line of invoking the disciplineof the 'impartial spectator', on which Adam Smith concentrated.Different ways of hringing in social considerations in personal scrutinyremain a further issue, on which I have tried to comment elsewhere.^^

To conclude, the uncriticality of a 'no-nonsense' reliance on mentalmetrics of feelings is the central issue here, not the fact that a mentalmetric is mental (a characteristic shared hy mental evaluation as wellas pleasures and desires). Mill's own work hrings out the importancehe attached to the need for assessment and reassessment of one'spleasures and desires.

VI

Kenneth Arrow's article takes the form of raising some centralquestions I must address. I agree on the central relevance of thesecritical questions.

In his first major line of criticism. Arrow argues that while he is'thoroughly in agreement' with my invoking of people's valuations (orpreferences) in ranking comprehensive outcomes (a combination ofthechosen outcome and the menu from which choice is made), I do not go farenough in dealing with 'the trade-off between [culminationl outcomesand menus' (p. 55). He is entirely right to say this. In fact, my primarymotivation in the exercises to which he refers was to identify partialorderings of a kind that would command very wide agreement, throughthe use of 'dominance' of one kind or another. I wanted to show, amongother things: (1) the importance ofthe menu from which choice is made(this is central to what I called 'opportunity freedom'); (2) the relevanceof valuations or 'preferences' for assessing the extent of freedom;(3) the possihility of entertaining different valuations and preferencesthat a person may bring into consideration; (4) the unacceptahility ofusing some proposed shortcuts in the form of counting the numberalternatives in a menu to assess the extent of opportunity freedomoffered hy that menu; and (5) the constitutive possihility of usingsome dominance conditions that would give us partial orderings of

Thomas Scanlon, What We Owe to Each Other (Cambridge, Mass., 1998).See my 'Open and Closed Impartiality', Journal of Philosophy 99 (2002).


opportunity freedoms that have very great plausihility, even for peoplewho may differ on the quantification of trade-offs.

Arrow wants, reasonahly enough, to go further, and explains thereasoning hehind one solution he had earlier offered based on 'expectedvalue' linked with multiple preferences.^^ This would certainly takeus beyond the dominance rankings I concentrate on. I had argued inan earlier critique that there are reasons to think that this way ofcompleting a partial ordering might not he universally appealing (forreasons that have some similarity with those which arise for people whowould question the summation formula used hy utilitarianism, evenwhen they accept that utilities constitute the correct informationalhasis for this evaluation). I will not repeat the arguments here, hutsince Arrow's fuller rankings are extensions of the partial orderings Ihave proposed (as Arrow rightly notes), there is in any case no assertivecontradiction between his position and mine (he is ready to articulatemore than I am confident to do).

However, I must comment on Arrow's critique of my 'view thatuncertainty ahout one's preferences would only he relevant if they weredetermined externally', p. 57). He points out that he sees 'no logical orother prohlem in the view that, at the time of choosing the underlyingmechanisms of choice, an individual does not feel that he or she knowshis or her preferences' and that '[t]he individual wants to retain hisor her autonomy for the future' (p. 58). It is certainly not my purposeto deny the plausibility of this way of reasoning when a person lacksenough knowledge ahout his or her own preferences (possibly dealingwith a point in the future), and Arrow's approach rightly goes intothis important issue. And yet, I argued, there is a further prohlem of'autonomy' which is not that of autonomy of 'choosing an alternativefrom a menu', hut that of deciding on how to value the alternatives.This, I helieve, is an important issue of freedom - of choosing not amongalternatives hut among valuations and preferences. If we attach somevalue to retaining the freedom to take one of several different views (orof changing one's mind), it is not just a question (as Arrow seems to seeit) of whether right now 'he or she knows his or her preference'. It isone of retaining some room also for volitional change of priorities andpreferences.

In being concerned with freedom, people can attach importance tothe liberty to change their minds on the hasis of conscious reflectionand decision (which is not quite the same as just of predicting whatone would end up valuing). One must not, of course, grumble ahoutwhatever can he sensibly said in this difficult field, and Arrow's solution

23 Kenneth Arrow, 'A Note on Freedom and Flexibility', Choice, Welfare andDevelopment, ed. K. Basu, P. Pattanaik and K. Suzumura (Oxford and New York, 1995).

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does address an important problem of uncertainty of tastes and valuesin a way that many would find extremely plausible. My suggestiondoes not go much beyond pointing to another aspect of freedom thatcan be quite important under the broad heading of autonomy, viz. thefreedom to change one's mind wilfully, which is not just a problem ofuncertainty.

Finally, Arrow raises the foundational question of whether 'freedomis a value'. He argues that this value is not universal, and gives varioustelling examples of people who had not accepted the plausibility ofthis value, including some who have regarded freedom to he, in fact, a'burden'. He replies to the possible argument - not mine - that somepeople seem willing to die for defending freedom, hy pointing to the factthat 'people are willing to die for all sorts of reasons', some of which donot go at all in the direction of enhancing freedom.

These are extremely interesting general thoughts raising deepquestions ahout the plausibility of a freedom-centred normativeapproach in social choice. Arrow makes clear that he does 'not drawany deep conclusions' from what he describes as his 'unorganized seriesof reflections' (p. 58). However, any approach that concentrates on thevalue of freedom would have to address these reasoned concerns. I havetried to defend elsewhere the case in favour of focusing on freedom inparticular, in pursuing normative political analysis (I will not repeathere the reasoning presented there, especially since Arrow does notshoot down my arguments).^'* As it happens, this is also among thesubject matters of a promised book, called Freedom and Justice, whichis a sequel to my already published volume. Rationality and Freedom.'^^

I would end only hy sa5dng that hy identifying these reasonedconcerns (no matter how 'unorganized' they may appear to Arrowhimself), he has put me, once again, greatly in his debt, since thesedoubts deserve extensive examination and engagement. My very finalthought is that in pursuing that exercise, I hope to benefit not only fromArrow's constructive contributions as well as cogently sceptical points,hut also from John Stuart Mill's pioneering arguments for liberty. Ican certainly promise that my efforts to derive insight and inspirationfrom those who have enlightened my own world of understanding willcontinue undiminished.

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'̂' See particularly my 'Well-being, Agency and Freedom'.^ Rationality and Freedom (Cambridge, Mass., 2002). The sequel will also be published

by Harvard University Press, like its predecessor.

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Sen-Reason, Freedom and Well-being