Kim Blog Post 12

  In chapter three of Development As Freedom, Sen makes an argument for a freedom based development of nations. The substantive freedoms that he argues for are interconnected in that together they allow for a direction vector given various inputs and weights to point towards the direction that individuals in the nation should have. In particular, his account of development as freedom is distinct from Rawls in that he does not espouse for the absolute priority of liberty that Rawls does. He notes the weaknesses in other theories and then presents his own. Utilitarianism: focuses on the outcomes and therefore ignores intrinsic values of rights and liberties. Libertarianism: focuses on procedural rights but has flaws in that it completely ignores outcomes. Interconnected freedoms Vs. Rawls: liberty should not be given a priority but merely one of the substantive or instrumental freedoms to be taken into consideration. 

He argues that the flaw of "priority of liberty" does not take into account these other substantive freedoms. "Why should the status of intense economic needs, which can be matter of life and death, be lower than that of personal liberties?" (John Rawls and the Priority of Liberty paragraph 3) Sen makes the argument that liberty should be given equal weight that all the other types of personal advantages have like income, utilities, etc. He notes the asymmetry that exists between personal liberties and other sources of individual advantage like income; political rights and liberties would have procedural priority but not an absolute priority and that they would not be determined by what an individual would determine to be the importance of political rights but how such rights increase people's overall personal advantage.

While I was reading this, I had to question Sen’s value or idea of what a democracy would be. How much weight or to what extent would a procedural priority give political rights? In cases where economic and personal liberties conflict what would be the appropriate weights? Once the balance tips from personal liberties to economic ones is it possible to have political rights remain a procedural priority? For example, once the weights tip in favor of economic liberties as China has now, would it be possible to have political rights remain a procedural priority or to even bring the weights back to an increased personal liberty? 

Comments

Paul Hurley said…
It is also interesting to speculate about what Rawls would say about the priority of liberty for a country in extreme poverty. At the outset of T of J Rawls makes the assumption that the country has achieved "moderate scarcity" in resources, and proceeds to argue for the priority of liberty within the context of moderate scarcity. But what would Rawls say about societies and states, e.g. Sudan, that fail to achieve moderate scarcity?
April 22, 2021 at 12:04 PM
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