by Sen, Amartya
On the other hand, the success of the support-led process as a route does indicate that a country need not wait until it is much richer (through what may be a long period of economic growth) before embarking on rapid expansion of basic education and health care. The quality of life can be vastly raised, despite low incomes, through an adequate program of social services. The fact that education and health care are also productive in raising economic growth adds to the argument for putting major emphasis on these social arrangements in poor economies, without having to wait for “getting rich” first.15 The support-led process is a recipe for rapid achievement of higher quality of life, and this has great policy importance, but there remains an excellent case for moving on from there to broader achievements that include economic growth as well as the raising of the standard features of quality of life.
MORTALITY REDUCTION IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY BRITAIN
In this context, it is also instructive to reexamine the time pattern of mortality reduction and of the increase in life expectancy in the advanced industrial economies. The role of public provision of health care and nutrition, and generally of social arrangements, in mortality reduction in Europe and the United States over the last few centuries has been well analyzed by Robert Fogel, Samuel Preston and others.16 The time pattern of the expansion of life expectancy in this century itself is of particular interest, bearing in mind that at the turn of the last century, even Britain—then the leading capitalist market economy—still had a life expectancy at birth that was lower than the average life expectancy for low-income countries today. However, longevity in Britain did rise rapidly over the century, influenced partly by strategies of social programs, and the time pattern of this increase is of some interest.
The expansion of programs of support for nutrition, health care and so on in Britain was not uniformly fast over the decades. There were two periods of remarkably fast expansion of support-oriented policies in this century; they occurred during the two world wars. Each war situation produced much greater sharing of means of survival, including sharing of health care and the limited food supply (through rationing and subsidized nutrition). During the First World War, there were remarkable developments in social attitudes about “sharing” and public policies aimed at achieving that sharing, as has been well analyzed by Jay Winter.17 During the Second World War also, unusually supportive and shared social arrangements developed, related to the psychology of sharing in beleaguered Britain, which made these radical public arrangements for the distribution of food and health care acceptable and effective.18 Even the National Health Service was born during those war years.
FIGURE 2.2: Improvements in Life Expectancy in England and Wales, 1901–1960
Sources: S. Preston, N. Keyfitz, and R. Schoen, Causes of Death: Life Tables for National Population (New York: Seminar Press, 1992).
Did this make any real difference to health and survival? Was there, in fact, a correspondingly faster mortality reduction in these periods of support-led policies in Britain? It is, in fact, confirmed by detailed nutritional studies that during the Second World War, even though the per capita availability of food fell significantly in Britain, cases of undernourishment also declined sharply, and extreme undernourishment almost entirely disappeared.19 Mortality rates also went down sharply (except of course for war mortality itself). A similar thing had happened during the First World War.20
Indeed, it is remarkable that interdecade comparisons, based on decadal censuses, show that by a very wide margin the most speedy expansion of life expectancy occurred precisely during those two “war decades” (as shown in figure 2.2, which presents the increase in life expectancy in years during each of the first six decades of this century).21 While in the other decades life expectancy rose rather moderately (between one year and four years), in each of the two war decades it jumped up by nearly seven years.
We must also ask whether the much sharper increase in life expectancy during the war decades can be explained alternatively, by faster economic growth over those decades. The answer seems to be in the negative. In fact, the decades of fast expansion of life expectancy happened to be periods of slow growth of gross domestic product per head, as shown in figure 2.3. It is, of course, possible to hypothesize that the GDP growth had its effects on life expectancy with a time lag of a decade, and while this is not contradicted by figure 2.3 itself, it does not stand up much to other scrutiny, including the analysis of possible causal processes. A much more plausible explanation of the rapid increase in British life expectancy is provided by the changes in the extent of social sharing during the war decades, and the sharp increases in public support for social services (including nutritional support and health care) that went with this. Much light is thrown on these contrasts by studies of health and other living conditions of the population through the war periods, and their connection with social attitudes and public arrangements.22
DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL INCENTIVES
Illustrations of linkages can come from a great many other connections. Let me briefly comment on one more: that between political liberty and civil rights, on the one hand, and the freedom to avoid economic disasters, on the other. The most elementary vindication of this connection can be seen in the fact, on which I commented earlier (in chapter 1, and indirectly—in discussing the China-India contrast—in the present chapter) that famines do not occur in democracies. Indeed, no substantial famine has ever occurred in a democratic country—no matter how poor.23 This is because famines are extremely easy to prevent if the government tries to prevent them, and a government in a multiparty democracy with elections and free media has strong political incentives to undertake famine prevention. This would indicate that political freedom in the form of democratic arrangements helps to safeguard economic freedom (especially freedom from extreme starvation) and the freedom to survive (against famine mortality).
FIGURE 2.3: Growth of GDP (U.K.) and Decadal Increases in Life Expectancy at Birth (England and Wales), 1901–1960
Decadal Improvement in Life Expectancy, England and Wales (Left Scale)
Percentage Decadal Growth of GDP per Capita in U.K., 1901–1960 (Right Scale)
Sources: A. Madison, Phases of Capitalist Development (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982); S. Preston et al., Causes of Death (New York: Seminar Press, 1972).
The security provided by democracy may not be much missed when a country is lucky enough to be facing no serious calamity, when everything is running along smoothly. But the danger of insecurity, arising from changes in the economic or other circumstances or from uncorrected mistakes of policy, can lurk behind what looks like a healthy state. When this connection is discussed more fully (in chapters 6 and 7), the political aspects of the recent “Asian economic crisis” will need to be addressed.
A CONCLUDING REMARK
The analysis presented in this chapter develops the basic idea that enhancement of human freedom is both the main object and the primary means of development. The objective of development relates to the valuation of the actual freedoms enjoyed by the people involved. Individual capabilities crucially depend on, among other things, economic, social, and political arrangements. In making appropriate institutional arrangements, the instrumental roles of distinct types of freedom have to be considered, going well beyond the foundational importance of the overall freedom of individuals.
The instrumental roles of freedom include several distinct but interrelated components, such as economic facilities, political freedoms, social opportunities, transparency guarantees and protective security. These instrumental rights, opportunities and entitlements have strong interlinkages, which can go in different directions. The process of development is crucially influenced by these interconnections. Corresponding to multiple interconnected freedoms, there is a need to develop and support a plurality of institutions, including democratic systems, legal mechanisms, market structures, educational and health provisions, media and other communication facilities and so on
. The institutions can incorporate private initiatives as well as public arrangements and also more mixed structures, such as nongovernmental organizations and cooperative entities.
The ends and means of development call for placing the perspective of freedom at the center of the stage. The people have to be seen, in this perspective, as being actively involved—given the opportunity—in shaping their own destiny, and not just as passive recipients of the fruits of cunning development programs. The state and the society have extensive roles in strengthening and safeguarding human capabilities. This is a supporting role, rather than one of ready-made delivery. The freedom-centered perspective on the ends and the means of development has some claim to our attention.
CHAPTER 3
FREEDOM AND THE FOUNDATIONS OF JUSTICE
Let me begin with a parable. Annapurna wants someone to clear up the garden, which has suffered from past neglect, and three unemployed laborers—Dinu, Bishanno and Rogini—all very much want the job. She can hire any one of them, but the work is indivisible and she cannot distribute it among the three. Annapurna would get much the same work done for much the same payment from any of them, but being a reflective person, she wonders who would be the right person to employ.
She gathers that while all of them are poor, Dinu is the poorest of the three; everyone agrees on that fact. This makes Annapurna rather inclined to hire him (“What can be more important,” she asks herself, “than helping the poorest?”).
However, she also gathers that Bishanno has recently been impoverished and is psychologically most depressed about his predicament. Dinu and Rogini are, in contrast, experienced in being poor and are used to it. Everyone agrees that Bishanno is the unhappiest of the three and would certainly gain more in happiness than the other two. This makes Annapurna rather favorable to the idea of giving the job to Bishanno (“Surely removing unhappiness has to be,” she tells herself, “the first priority”).
But Annapurna is also told that Rogini is debilitated from a chronic ailment—borne stoically—and could use the money to be earned to rid herself of that terrible disease. It is not denied that Rogini is less poor than the others (though certainly poor) and also not the unhappiest since she bears her deprivation rather cheerfully, used—as she has been—to being deprived all her life (coming from a poor family, and having been trained to reconcile herself to the general belief that, as a young woman, she must neither grumble nor entertain much ambition). Annapurna wonders whether, nevertheless, it might not be right to give the job to Rogini (“It would make the biggest difference,” she surmises, “to the quality of life and freedom from illness”).
Annapurna wonders what she really should do. She recognizes that if she knew only the fact that Dinu is the poorest (and knew nothing else), she would have definitely opted for giving the work to Dinu. She also reflects that had she known only the fact that Bishanno is the unhappiest and would get the most pleasure from the opportunity (and knew nothing else), she would have had excellent reasons to hire Bishanno. And she can also see that if she was apprised only of the fact that Rogini’s debilitating ailment could be cured with the money she would earn (and knew nothing else), she would have had a simple and definitive reason for giving the job to her. But she knows all the three relevant facts, and has to choose among the three arguments, each of which has some pertinence.
There are a number of interesting issues of practical reason in this simple example, but the point I want to emphasize here is that the differences in the principles involved relate to the particular information that is taken to be decisive. If all the three facts are known, the decision rests on which information is given the most weight. The principles thus can best be seen in terms of their respective “informational bases.” Dinu’s income-egalitarian case focuses on income-poverty; Bishanno’s classical utilitarian case concentrates on the metric of pleasure and happiness; Rogini’s quality-of-life case centers on the kinds of life the three respectively can lead. The first two arguments are among the most discussed and most used in the economic and ethical literatures. I shall present some arguments for the third. But for the moment my intention is very modest: only to illustrate the critical importance of the informational bases of competing principles.
In the discussion that follows, I comment on both (1) the general question of the importance of the informational base for evaluative judgments and (2) the particular issues of the adequacy of the respective informational bases of some standard theories of social ethics and justice, in particular utilitarianism, libertarianism and Rawlsian theory of justice. While there is clearly much to be learned from the way the informational issue is dealt with in these major approaches in political philosophy, it is also argued that each of the informational bases respectively used—explicitly or implicity—by utilitarianism, libertarianism and Rawlsian justice has serious flaws, if substantive individual freedoms are taken to be important. This diagnosis motivates the discussion of an alternative approach to evaluation that focuses directly on freedom, seen in the form of individual capabilities to do things that a person has reason to value.
It is this last, constructive part of the analysis that is extensively utilized in the rest of the book. If the reader is not much interested in the critiques of other approaches (and the respective advantages and difficulties of utilitarianism, libertarianism or Rawlsian justice), there would be no particular problem in skipping these critical discussions and proceeding directly to the latter part of the chapter.
INCLUDED AND EXCLUDED INFORMATION
Each evaluative approach can, to a great extent, be characterized by its informational basis: the information that is needed for making judgments using that approach and—no less important—the information that is “excluded” from a direct evaluative role in that approach.1 Informational exclusions are important constituents of an evaluative approach. The excluded information is not permitted to have any direct influence on evaluative judgments, and while this is usually done in an implicit way, the character of the approach may be strongly influenced by insensitivity to the excluded information.
For example, utilitarian principles rest ultimately on utilities only, and even though much instrumental account may be taken of incentives, it is utility information that is seen, eventually, as the only proper basis for evaluation of states of affairs, or for the assessment of actions or rules. In utilitarianism’s classical form, as developed particularly by Jeremy Bentham, utility is defined as pleasure, or happiness, or satisfaction, and everything thus turns on these mental achievements.2 Such potentially momentous matters as individual freedom, the fulfillment or violation of recognized rights, aspects of quality of life not adequately reflected in the statistics of pleasure, cannot directly swing a normative evaluation in this utilitarian structure. They can have an indirect role only through their effects on utility numbers (that is, only to the extent that they may have an impact on mental satisfaction, pleasure or happiness). Furthermore, the aggregative framework of utilitarianism has no interest in—or sensitivity to—the actual distribution of utilities, since the concentration is entirely on the total utility of everyone taken together. All this produces a very limited informational base, and this pervasive insensitivity is a significant limitation of utilitarian ethics.3
In modern forms of utilitarianism, the content of “utility” is often seen differently: not as pleasure, satisfaction or happiness, but as the fulfillment of desire, or as some kind of representation of a person’s choice behavior.4 I shall consider these distinctions presently, but it is not hard to see that this redefinition of utility does not in itself eliminate the indifference to freedoms, rights and liberties that is a characteristic feature of utilitarianism in general.
Turning now to libertarianism, it has, in contrast with utilitarian theory, no direct interest either in happiness or in desire fulfillment, and its informational base consists entirely of liberties and rights of various kinds. Even without going into the exact formulas that are used by uti
litarianism or by libertarianism respectively to characterize justice, it is clear from the mere contrast of their informational bases that they must take very different—and typically incompatible—views of justice.
In fact, the real “bite” of a theory of justice can, to a great extent, be understood from its informational base: what information is—or is not—taken to be directly relevant.5 For example, classical utilitarianism tries to make use of the information of different persons’ respective happiness or pleasures (seen in a comparative framework), whereas libertarianism demands compliance with certain rules of liberty and propriety, assessing the situation through information on this compliance. They go in different directions, largely driven by what information they respectively take as being central to judging the justice or acceptability of different social scenarios. The informational basis of normative theories in general, and of theories of justice in particular, is of decisive significance, and can be the crucial point of focus in many debates on practical policies (as will be seen in arguments to be taken up later).
In the next few pages, the informational bases of some distinguished approaches to justice will be examined, beginning with utilitarianism. The merits and limitations of each approach can, to a great extent, be understood by examining the reach and limits of its informational base. On the basis of the problems encountered in the different approaches that are commonly used in the context of evaluation and policy making, an alternative approach to justice will be briefly outlined. It concentrates on the informational base of individual freedoms (not utilities), but incorporates sensitivity to consequences which, I would argue, is an appreciable asset of the utilitarian perspective. I shall examine this “capability approach” to justice more fully later on in the present chapter and in the next one.