Valuing Freedoms: Sen's Capability Approach and Poverty Reduction Book

This is a book about Amartya Sen's capability approach - his proposition that the objective of development should be that of "expanding the real freedoms that people enjoy." The book is written for academics and practitioners in economic development who consider using the tools of their trade - whether these be econometric modelling techniques or small non-governmental organization activities or monitoring and evaluation procedures - in order to expand people's real freedoms. They wish to think through, systematically, such questions as "what are valuable capabilities in my areas?", "how do I think through trade-offs" and "who should decide what?". In short, they wish to consider how to operationalize Sen's approach - to put it into practice in uncomfortable, messy, compromised practical work at the microeconomic level. It is also written for skeptics (philosophical and economic) who claim there to be nothing value-added in the capability approach because it leaves too many values issues unresolved so is impractical.

These pages address, in a number of ways, the question: "how do we identify 'valuable' capabilities". This question contains a number of sub-questions, such as "valuable to whom?" and "how valuable" and "who are the 'we'?"

This book is intended to be an accessible contribution to the academic debate. Each chapter synthesises Sen's position on one issue, the criticisms he has received, and shapes a way to operationalize the capabilities approach on these issues. It refers to the corpus of Sen's writing but is by no means complete in its treatment of the discussions he has led others to undertake. It sketches the shape that further work in these areas may helpfully pursue.

Anyone who undertakes to publish a sketch is bound to feel self-conscious, as it exposes so many roughnesses of knowledge and mind. However there may be significant value in offering up a sketch to the public space, that others may adapt it, contribute to it, and above all improve it. It is to that end that this book has been devoted.