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Economists have moved away from thinking of development in terms of growth of per capita GNP. The most influential alternative conception of development -- due to Amartya Sen -- involves judging the quality of life in terms of capabilities and viewing development as a 'capability expansion'. This article argues that Sen's approach is an inadequate account of development. It is further argued that other versions of the approach -- involving the work of Nussbaum and Frankfurt -- also fail. The most promising foundation for an account of human development derives from James Griffin's recent writings on well-being.
INTRODUCTION
Development economists have moved away from thinking of economic development in terms of growth in per capita GNP. The chief reason for this is that such growth may fail to translate into increases in human well-being for the majority of the population. It may fail to do so because it may be inequitable (intra and inter-generationally) and consistent with constant or rising levels of absolute poverty and relative deprivation, as well as with the violation of human rights. Taking these difficulties into account, some have
tried to develop new conceptions of human development which insist on human beings as the ends rather than the means of development. Development is conceived of, roughly, in terms of an improvement in the quality of human lives which is equitable (within and across generations) and consistent with the non-violation of rights.
In this article, my concern is with the improvements in the quality of life (or well-being) that must ground such an account of human development. I look at the leading approach to rethinking development in this way -- Amartya Sen's capability approach -- which conceives of development as an expansion in positive freedoms.1 I suggest that this and other capability approaches, including that of Martha Nussbaum and one which is inspired by Harry Frankfurt's account of autonomy, fail to provide an adequate account of development. This is chiefly because each approach fails to provide an appropriate account of the improvements in the quality of life which must ground a view of human development. In the writings of Sen and Nussbaum this failing is linked with the problem of pluralism: the notion that we each have different views of the...