Development: "A Misconceived Theory can Kill"

Sabina Alkire

No 11, OPHI Working Papers from Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford

Abstract: Human capabilities are partly created or undermined by development policies, markets, and other social arrangements. Put differently, human freedom is partly 'human'-made. Sen's philosophical writings propose the expansion of human capabilities and freedoms as an objective for social arrangements, and argue that this objective satisfies certain considerations better than Rawlsian primary goods or utility measures. In approaching development, the chain of exploration can also be reversed. The policies, practices, analyses, and measures that guide development institutions can be scrutinized to uncover which truly aim at human freedoms, and how true their aim might be. Much of Sen's development writings engage or draw on investigations of this form. By such inspection the oversights of development theories might be uncovered and corrected. Such work is terribly salient, for lives are at stake. In development, Sen observes, "a misconceived theory can kill" (Sen 1999a: 209). The first section of this paper orients the reader to the relationship between development and freedoms. The second section demonstrates how Sen uses aspects of the capability approach in relation to poverty measurement, the market, education, gender, population and reason, health, and hunger.

Date: 2008-04
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