The Ends and Means of Sustainability

Amartya Sen

Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 2013, vol. 14, issue 1, 6-20

Abstract: The idea of ‘sustainability’ received serious attention in the so-called Brundtland Commission Report that has many attractive features. In particular, it highlighted the importance of intergenerational justice while maintaining a concern for the poor of each generation and shifted the focus away from resources to human beings. I argue that this way of understanding sustainability, while a great improvement, is still incomplete. There are important grounds for favouring a freedom-oriented view, focusing on crucial freedoms that people have reason to value. Human freedoms include the fulfilment of needs, but also the liberty to define and pursue our own goals, objectives and commitments, no matter how they link with our own particular needs. Human beings are reflective creatures and are able to reason about and decide what they would like to happen, rather than being compellingly led by their own needs—biological or social. A fuller concept of sustainability has to aim at sustaining human freedoms, rather than only at our ability to fulfil our felt needs. Some empirical examples are given to illustrate the distinctive nature and the reasoned importance of seeing sustainability in terms of sustaining human freedoms and capabilities.

Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (57)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/19452829.2012.747492 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:jhudca:v:14:y:2013:i:1:p:6-20

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/CJHD20

DOI: 10.1080/19452829.2012.747492

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Human Development and Capabilities is currently edited by Kathryn Rosenblum

More articles in Journal of Human Development and Capabilities from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().