Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T16:01:40.881Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

6 - Sen on Sufficiency, Priority, and Equality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

By
Peter Vallentyne
Edited by
Christopher W. Morris
Christopher W. Morris
Affiliation:
University of Maryland, College Park
Get access

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Amartya Sen's contributions to moral philosophy have been enormous. He has made seminal contributions to the measurement of freedom, the measurement of equality, the measurement of poverty, the debate over the kind of equality that is relevant to justice, and the debate over the respective roles of liberty, efficiency, and equality in a theory of justice. I shall here focus on Sen's work on distribution-sensitive principles of justice, and more specifically on his work on (1) sufficientarian principles, which require promoting the adequacy of benefits (nonpoverty), (2) prioritarian principles, which require the promotion of individual benefits, but with some kind of priority for the worse off, and (3) egalitarian principles, which require the promotion of equality of benefits.

Sen's work in this area tends to focus on the development of a framework of investigation rather than an extended defense of any particular principles. My goal here will therefore be to present Sen's work, and related work by others, in an intuitively accessible manner that highlights its importance for existing philosophical debates on the topic. The presentation will mainly be a survey, with critical comments being only suggestive rather than fully defended.

BACKGROUND

Justice, as we shall understand it, is concerned with what benefits (net of specified burdens) we owe others. We shall leave open the nature of the relevant benefits (which might be income, wealth, well-being, or anything else).

Type
Chapter
Information
Amartya Sen , pp. 138 - 169
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Blackorby, C., Bossert, W., and Donaldson, D. (2002). “Utilitarianism and the Theory of Justice,” in Arrow, Sen, and Suzumura, (eds.), Handbook of Social Choice and Welfare, Vol. 1 (Amsterdam: North-Holland).Google Scholar
Broome, J. (2003). “Equality vs. Priority: A Useful Distinction,” in Wikler, and Murray, (eds.), ‘Goodness’ and ‘Fairness’: Ethical Issues in Health Resource Allocation (unpublished).
Dasgupta, P., Sen, A., and Starrett, D. (1973). “Notes on the Measurement of Inequality,” Journal of Economic Theory, 6, 180–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
d'Aspremont, C., and Gevers, L. (1977). “Equity and the Informational Basis of Collective Choice,” Review of Economic Studies, 44, 199–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deschamps, R., and Gevers, L. (1978). “Leximin and Totalism: A Joint Characterization,” Journal of Economic Theory, 17, 143–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fleurbaey, M. (2003). “Equality versus Priority: How Relevant is the Distinction?” in Wikler, and Murray, (eds.), ‘Goodness’ and ‘Fairness’: Ethical Issues in Health Resource Allocation (unpublished).
Foster, J. (1984). “On Economic Poverty: A Survey of Aggregate Measures,” in Basmann, and Rhodes, Jr . (eds.), Advances in Econometrics, Vol. 3 (Greenwich, CT: JAI Press).Google Scholar
Foster, J., Greer, J., and Thorbecke, E. (1984). “A Class of Decomposable Poverty Measures,” Econometrica, 52, 761–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frankfurt, H. (1987). “Equality as a Moral Idea,” Ethics, 98, 21–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gevers, L. (1979). “On Interpersonal Comparability and Social Welfare Orderings,” Econometrica, 47, 75–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hammond, P. J. (1976). “Equity, Arrow's Conditions, and Rawls' Difference Principle,” Econometrica, 44, 793–804.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jensen, K. K. (2003). “What is the Difference between (Moderate) Egalitarianism and Prioritarianism?” Economics and Philosophy, 19, 89–109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McKerlie, D. (1994). “Egalitarianism,” Dialogue, 23, 223–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parfit, D. (1991). “Equality or Priority?” (1991 Lindley lecture), in Clayton, and Williams, (eds.), The Ideal of Equality (New York: St. Martin's Press).Google Scholar
Rachels, S. (1998). “Counterexamples to the Transitivity of Better Than,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 76, 71–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, K. (1980). “Possibility Theorems with Interpersonally Comparable Welfare Levels,” Review of Economic Studies, 47, 409–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sen, A. (1970). Collective Choice and Social Welfare (San Francisco: Holden-Day).Google Scholar
Sen, A. (1974). “Rawls versus Bentham: An Axiomatic Examination of the Pure Distribution Problem,” Theory and Decision, 4, 301–10. Reprinted with slight revisions in Daniels (ed.), Reading Rawls (New York: Basic Books, 1975).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sen, A. (1976a). “Poverty: An Ordinal Approach to Measurement,” Econometrica, 44, 219–31. Reprinted in Sen, Choice, Welfare, and Measurement (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1982), 373–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sen, A. (1976b). “Welfare Inequalities and Rawlsian Axiomatics,” Theory and Decision, 7, 243–62. Reprinted in Butts and Hintikka (eds.), Logic, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1977).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sen, A. (1977a). “On Weights and Measurements: Informational Constraints in Social Welfare Analysis,” Econometrica, 45, 1539–72. Reprinted in Sen, Choice, Welfare, and Measurement (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1982).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sen, A. (1977b). “Social Choice Theory: A Re-Examination,” Econometrica, 45, 53–89. Reprinted in Sen, Choice, Welfare, and Measurement (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1982).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sen, A. (1978). “Ethical Measurement of Inequality: Some Difficulties,” in Kreller, and Shorrocks, (eds.), Personal Income Distribution (Amsterdam: North-Holland). Reprinted in Sen, Choice, Welfare, and Measurement (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1982).Google Scholar
Sen, A. (1979). “Issues in the Measurement of Poverty,” Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 81, 285–307.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sen, A. (1985). Commodities and Capabilities (Amsterdam: North-Holland).Google Scholar
Sen, A. (1986). “Social Choice Theory,” in Arrow, and Intriligator, (eds.), Handbook of Mathematical Economics, Vol. 3 (Amsterdam: North-Holland).Google Scholar
Sen, A. (1987). On Ethics and Economics (Oxford: Basil Blackwell).Google Scholar
Sen, A. (1992). Inequality Reexamined (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).Google Scholar
Sen, A. (1997). On Economic Inequality, enlarged ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Original edition published in 1973.Google Scholar
Sen, A. (2002). Rationality and Freedom (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).Google Scholar
Temkin, L. (1987). “Intransitivity, and the Mere Addition Paradox,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, 16, 138–87.Google Scholar
Temkin, L. (1993). Inequality (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Temkin, L. (1996). “A Continuum Argument for Intransitivity,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, 25, 175–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tungodden, B. (2000). “Egalitarianism: Is Leximin the Only Option?” Economics and Philosophy, 16, 229–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tungodden, B. (2003). “The Value of Equality,” Economics and Philosophy, 19, 1–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tungodden, B., and Vallentyne, P. (2005). “On the Possibility of Paretian Egalitarianism,” Journal of Philosophy, 102, 126–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vallentyne, P. (2000). “Equality, Efficiency, and Priority for the Worse Off,” Economics and Philosophy, 16, 1–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×