Rethinking human well-being: A dialogue with Amartya Sen

Abstract

The paper undertakes a critical dialogue with the perspective of human well-being offered by Amartya Sen. Sen’s notions of functioning and capability of individuals lack emphasis on self-development and how individuals can themselves advance their functioning and capability. Further, his notion of well-being as distinct from the agency aspect of the human person and his dualism of negative and positive freedom are not helpful for what Sen himself calls a comprehensive redefinition of human development as a quest for freedom. Finally, freedom is not sufficient, and development as freedom needs to be supplemented by a quest for development as responsibility. To overcome all this is difficult within Sen’s frame of reference because of its lack of an ontological striving or a deep conceptualization of self and self-preparation. This prevents realization of the full potential of his quest for a wider supportive environment for human well-being, consisting of internal criticism of traditions, a pluralist framework of secular toleration and an epistemology of positional objectivity. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.