Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-02T22:08:44.122Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Theory of True Interests in the Work of Amartya Sen*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Lawrence Hamilton
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

A distinction can be drawn within political philosophy between those theories which emphasize the procedural element of discussion in politics (exemplified in the work of J. Rawls and J. Habermas) and those that are concerned with the grounds people will bring up in support of their position. Within the latter type there are theories that work from wants/preferences (e.g. J. Bentham and some modern utilitarians), those that emphasize certain ideals (e.g. the Utopian Socialists), those that look to needs and their positive development (e.g. K. Marx), and those that use people's true interests (e.g. the Frankfurt School theorists and broad utilitarians like J. S. Mill and H. Sidgwick). This article has a twofold aim: to show how Sen's ‘capability approach’ incorporates a theory of true interests that goes beyond even more sophisticated existing theories of true interests; and to explain why Sen refrains from using the language of interests and needs. If his approach is reformulated in terms of needs and interests, certain political ramifications – structural and institutional changes – become unavoidable requirements for the realization of his goals. One possibility is that Sen does not discuss his innovative work in these terms because he is unwilling to condone some of these practical political ramifications.

Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 34 , Issue 4 , October 1999 , pp. 516 - 546
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1999

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

1 I am thinking especially of Adorno, T. W. and Horkheimer, M., Dialectic of Enlightenment, London, Verso, 1979 Google Scholar; Adorno, T. W., Negative Dialectics, London, Another ed., 1973 Google Scholar; Adorno, T. W., Minima Moralia, London, Verso, 1978 Google Scholar; Marcuse, H., One-Dimensional Man, Boston, Beacon Press, 1964 Google Scholar; Marcuse, H., An Essay on Liberation, Boston, Beacon Press, 1969 Google Scholar; Marcuse, H., Counter-Revolution and Revolt, Boston, Beacon Press, 1972 Google Scholar.

2 These are only examples and are not intended as anything like an exhaustive list.

3 In McMurrin, S. M. (ed.), Liberty, Equality, and Law, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1987, pp. 137–62Google Scholar.

4 Ibid., p. 161.

5 E.g. G. A. Cohen, ‘On the Currency of Egalitarian Justice’, Ethics, 99 (1989); and Cohen, G. A., ‘Equality of What? On Welfare, Resources and Capabilities’, in Nussbaum, M. C. and Sen, A. K. (eds), The Quality of Life, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1993, pp. 9–29.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

6 Rawls, J., A Theory of Justice, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1973 Google Scholar; Dworkin, R., ‘What is Equality? Part 2: Equality of Resources’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 10 (1981).Google Scholar

7 Sen, A. K., ‘Positional Objectivity’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 22 (1993).Google Scholar

8 See Nussbaum, M. C., ‘Nature, Function, and Capability: Aristotle on Political Distribution’, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy (supplementary volume) (1988).Google Scholar

9 Hume’s Treatise Book II, Part III, Section III from Hirschman, A. O., The Passions and the Interests, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1977, p. 24 Google Scholar. Hirschman’s work brings out clearly the development of the concern with and use of the idea of ‘interests’.

10 The only distinction between the individual level and the group level is that the evidence from structures and institutions makes the interpretation of apparent interests and real interests an easier, more empirically grounded exercise. This aspect will not be discussed further here.

11 Davidson, D., ‘Judging Interpersonal Interests’, in Elster, J. and Hylland, A., Foundations of Social Choice Theory, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1986.Google Scholar

12 I call it experiential knowledge because it is the sort of knowledge that is acquired as a result of having lived a particular life, under particular circumstances and experiences. It is the sort of knowledge that an external evaluator might never be able to acquire or fully understand in its particularity. The issue of whether extended ethnographic work can bring one into another culture’s (and person’s) sphere of knowledge is a distinct and more thorny one that does not concern this discussion. It is unfeasible to think that for each policy decision the external observer will have the time, resources, or will to involve an ethnographer.

13 The Frankfurt School theorists are not so optimistic. They doubt that the individual could ever know whether what she perceives as her true interests are really her true interests. They have no escape from this pessimistic position because they assume that for an agent to know her true interests requires a specific end-state of ‘perfect knowledge’ and ‘optimal conditions’. This, I maintain, is an unrealistic view of society that haunts these theorists because of their static conception of needs and interests. The conceptual difficulty with taking this position is clarified succinctly by Raymond Geuss. If both ‘perfect knowledge’ and ‘optimal conditions’ are required to enable the individual to decide whether the interests under analysis are her true interests or not, she will never be able to, for it is difficult to have ‘perfect knowledge’ without ‘optimal conditions’ (and vice versa), and yet one is required for the other. The agent can only be in a state of ‘optimal conditions’ with ‘perfect knowledge’ but will only have ‘perfect knowledge’ in a state of ‘optimal conditions’. See Geuss, R., The Idea of a Critical Theory, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, esp. ch. 2Google Scholar.

14 This, as Sen himself specifically notes, does not mean restricting the group of elements that could constitute the process of valuing the ‘good life’ to those that are found only within a single cultural context. To do this is to shift the parameters unrealistically. Every society, ‘traditional’ or otherwise, is constantly in contact with and influenced by other societies; this dynamic is what informs ideas, creates diversity and influences change. Internal criticism has a standing and force that criticism from outside cannot match, and there are reasons to pay special attention to critiques coming from within the society, community, culture in question, but to imagine that some ideas do not, or should not, come from without even in what emerges in internal criticism is artificial. See Sen, ‘Positional Objectivity’, op. cit.; Nussbaum, M. C. and Sen, A. K., ‘Internal Criticism and Indian Rationalist Traditions’, in Krausz, M. (ed.), Relativism: Interpretation and Confrontation, Notre Dame, Indiana, University of Notre Dame Press, 1989; and pp. 533–4Google Scholar of this article.

15 Sen, A. K., Inequality Reexamined, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1992, p. 6.Google Scholar

16 Sen, A. K., Commodities and Capabilities, Amsterdam and Oxford, North-Holland, 1985, pp. 20–1.Google Scholar

17 Ibid., p. 30.

18 Ibid., p. 35.

19 Primary goods are ‘things which it is supposed a rational man wants whatever else he wants’, and include ‘income and wealth’, the ‘basic liberties’, ‘freedom of movement and choice of occupation’, ‘powers and prerogatives of offices and positions of responsibility’, and ‘the social bases of self-respect’. Rawls, A Theory of Justice, op. cit., p. 92; further elaborated in Rawls, J., ‘Social Unity and Primary Goods’, in Rawls, Sen and Williams, (eds.), Utilitarianism and Beyond, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1982, p. 162 Google Scholar and J., ‘Priority of Right and Ideas of the Good’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 17 (1988), pp. 256–7.Google Scholar

20 Sen has a series of examples that forcefully indicate how the same means (primary goods, resources) enable people to varying degrees (and are put to very different use by people) depending on physical conditions such as metabolic rate, pregnancy, debilitating disease, etc.

21 Sen, Inequality Reexamined, op. cit., p. 79f. I elaborate below; see pp. 530–35.

22 Sen, ‘Capability and Well-Being’, in Nussbaum and Sen, The Quality of Life, op. cit., p. 31.

23 Sen, Inequality Reexamined, op. cit., p. 39.

24 Sen, ‘Capability and Well-Being’, op. cit., p. 31.

25 Ibid., p. 38.

26 Sen, A. K., ‘Well-Being, Agency, and Freedom: The Dewey Lectures 1984’, The Journal of Philosophy, 82: 4(1985), pp. 202 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sen, A. K., On Ethics and Economics, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, pp. 60ff.Google Scholar

27 This does not negate the importance of an external point of view that can clarify whether a person has basically everything she requires for her well-being, even though she might not have been involved herself in decisions over what her well-being entails.

28 This does not have to emerge from a thesis concerning the ‘possibility of altruism’ (e.g. Nagel, T., The Possibility of Altruism, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1970 Google Scholar) because the cause could be one that has little, or nothing, to do with the well-being of others, but still endangers personal well-being, like some obsessive sporting quests.

29 Well-being (or more specifically, well-being achievement), it seems could be decided objectively but it will be shown later, as Sen points out, that an assessment of well-being, and even more importantly an evaluation of the quality of life, must take into account agent-centred evaluation — self-evaluation (see pp. 526–30) and the freedom to achieve valued functionings that may, objectively, be decided to constitute well-being.

30 Cohen, ‘Equality of What? On Welfare, Resources and Capabilities’, op. cit.; Sen, ‘Capability and Well-Being’, op. cit.

31 Cohen, ibid., p. 20–3.

32 Sen, ‘Capability and Well-Being’, p. 38.

33 Ibid., p. 39.

34 Sen, Inequality Reexamined, op. cit. p. 52.

35 He says a very similar thing in another work: ‘Capabilities ... are notions of freedom, in the positive sense: what real opportunities you have regarding the life you may lead.’ Sen, A. K., The Standard of Living (1985 Tanner Lectures, with contributions by Hart, Keith, Kanbur, Ravi, Muellbauer, John and Williams, Bernard, ed. Hawthorn, G.), Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1987, p. 36.Google Scholar

36 Sen, Commodities and Capabilities, op. cit. pp. 69–70.

37 Cohen ends his article with: ‘No serious inequality obtains when everyone has everything she needs, even if she did not have to lift a finger to get it.’ Cohen, ‘Equality of What? On Welfare, Resources and Capabilities’, op. cit., p. 28.

38 Sen, ‘Well-Being, Agency, and Freedom: The Dewey Lectures 1984’, op. cit.; Sen, Commodities and Capabilities, op. cit. Note that counter factual reasoning does not fall into the problem of indeterminacy of ‘optimal conditions’ and ‘full knowledge’ because the counterfactual is created within the sphere of knowledge of the evaluator and evaluated — an interactive process that itself leads to more knowledge acquisition. The importance of this sort of interactive process that has no specific end-goal is particularly crucial in the light of a theory of true interests that seeks to stress the method of ascertaining true interests rather than paternalistically laying them down.

39 Posing the counterfactual, furthermore, keeps the fasting person from being forced to eat, and makes it clear that the starving person wants to eat (although in the latter case the counterfactual is not normally required to ascertain her want of food).

40 Sen, The Standard of Living, op. cit., p. 36.

41 Personal communication with Sen.

42 Sen, Inequality Reexamined, op. cit., p. 68.

43 The issue of what counts as the public and the political is discussed within my criticism of Sen on pages 535–44.

44 Assessment of choice and counterfactual opportunity prima facie demands a lot of objectivity since choice and the evaluation thereof is impossible outside of beliefs. Hence, just as Davidson’s work has shown that want-regarding theories do not sit on an epistemological pedestal as regards interpretation, it also necessitates scrutiny of the valuation involved at and within different stages of Sen’s work, and especially as regards external evaluation of the extent of freedom and well-being.

45 Sen, The Standard of Living, op. cit., p. 31. This is not to be confused with utility because it is ‘quintessentially an evaluative exercise’. Ibid., p. 32. (Sen’s emphasis.)

46 Ibid., p. 30.

47 Ibid., p. 32. (Sen’s emphasis.)

48 A further stipulation could be added that Sen seems not to concern himself with, namely that self-evaluation and rational reflection should incorporate a genealogical — historically focused — critique of apparent wants and interests. The influences of advertising, policy campaigning and, more importantly, lack of relevant knowledge or the presence of some forms of knowledge (like certain moral and religious beliefs, and some political positions) constrain individuals from critically analysing givens in society. Hence, simply entertaining the possibility that my felt interests might not be my true interests is crucial in the required constant critique of givens that is the hallmark of a theory of true interests.

49 Sen, ‘Positional Objectivity’, op. cit., p. 127. Sen is making reference to Nagel, T., The View From Nowhere, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1986.Google Scholar

50 The distinction between appearance and reality has often been made in philosophy. On this foundational issue of whether it makes sense at all to think of the world as it ‘is’, independently of reflective observers, Sen is influenced by Hilary Putnam’s realist approach. Putnam argues, metaphorically, that ‘the mind and the world jointly make up the mind and the world’. H. Putnam, The Many Faces of Realism, LaSalle, 111., Open Court, 1987, p. 1. See Sen, ‘Positional Objectivity’, op. cit. p. 130.

51 The backdrop of this discussion concerns Sen’s position as regards the nature of ‘beliefs’ within the natural sciences and the nature of ‘beliefs’ within the human/social sciences. He seems to hold that there is little to distinguish a belief in the natural and the human sciences. Once accepted as trans-positionally objective, they are taken as objectively true, but this does not mean that they always have to remain so. This is evidenced in the oft-quoted Kuhnian paradigm shifts in natural science. See Charles Taylor, ‘Explanation and Practical Reason’, in Nussbaum and Sen, The Quality of Life, op. cit., pp. 208–31; and Putnam, ‘Objectivity and the Science – Ethics Distinction’, in ibid., pp. 143–57., for very similar arguments to the one given by Sen.

52 Sen, ‘Positional Objectivity’, op. cit., p. 133. If an historical perspective were added to this it could be argued that it concurs with much Marxian philosophical work on ideology and objective illusion.

53 He shows convincingly that many arguments that defend a form of cultural relativism use overly restrictive parameters: they assume that communities are unrealistically cut off from ‘foreign’ influence and are free internally from dissenters and criticism. See also Nussbaum and Sen, ‘Internal Criticism and Indian Rationalist Traditions’, op. cit.

54 This issue also clarifies why he can defend a consequentialist ethics that does not contradict deontological considerations in judging states and actions, an elaboration of which is beyond the scope of this article.

55 An example that Sen takes from Adam Smith. Sen, Inequality Reexamined, op. cit., pp. 115–16.

56 This, and what follows, comes from personal communication with Amartya Sen. Sen maintains that Rawls’s approach is a metaphysical one.

57 He also clearly seems to defend some of Rawls’s conclusions, though, when he defends the Rawlsian priority of liberty (the first principle). See A. K. Sen, ‘Freedoms and Needs: An Argument for the Primacy of Political Rights’, The New Republic, (10 and 17 January 1994); and Nussbaum’s comment, in M. C. Nussbaum, ‘Public Philosophy and International Feminism’, Ethics (July 1998), p. 783.

58 Geuss makes a very interestingly similar point as regards the Kantian transcendentalism of Habermas’s work, though it is more clearly defended by Geuss, being the central point of a book-length analysis. See Geuss, The Idea of a Critical Theory, op. cit. This is a contentious issue that cannot be pursued here, but it is used to portray Sen’s position.

59 Nussbaum, ‘Nature, Function, and Capability: Aristode on Political Distribution’, op. cit., p. 176; Sen, ‘Capability and Well-Being’, op. cit., p. 47. Nussbaum makes this criticism while pointing out the similarity between Sen’s work and that of Aristotle. Her criticism comes from her Aristotelian position of attempting to delineate an objective normative account of human functionings (as Aristode did), further clarified in her Seeley Lectures in Cambridge, 9–12 March 1988. It is over this issue exactly, as Nussbaum and Sen note, that the similarity breaks down.

60 Sen, ‘Positional Objectivity’, op. cit., p. 49.

61 Sen, ibid., pp. 32–3.

62 This notion of overcoming by incorporating is reminiscent, and draws upon, the Hegelian notion of aufheben. Ideals are dealt with below.

63 Sen notes that: ‘The possessing of commodities … has derivative and varying relevance’ in assessment of things such as the living standard, well-being and the quality of life. Sen, The Standard of Living, op. cit., p. 25.

64 It is more plausible to think about desire and value in the following way, ‘I desire x because I value x’, rather than, ‘I desire x, therefore I value x’. Sen, Commodities and Capabilities, op. cit. p. 32.

65 Sen, ‘Positional Objectivity’, op. cit. p. 48.

66 Besides the epistemic demands of liberalism, internal considerations must play a central role because they have an important evidential role for the ascertaining of true interests.

67 In a very similar fashion to what he does in his capability approach and in his ethical discussions more generally.

68 Sen, A. K., ‘Rationality and Social Choice’, American Economic Review, 85 (1995), p. 18.Google Scholar

69 It is obvious that the pre-deliberative opinion of the majority is not given epistemological priority in Sen’s approach and true interests are rather seen to emerge from interaction with an ‘expert’ sector. Is this not itself a majority opinion, not in the sense of numerical majority but in the sense of holding the ‘majority’ of knowledge/understanding? This is elaborated upon in the next section, where the institutions of the political realm are discussed. Evaluation of the capabilities, etc. (the ‘good life’) as described here must be an intersubjective process out of which communal knowledge of true interests arises, not an instance of Plato’s ‘philosopher-kings’ or Lenin’s ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’.

70 The idea of ‘development’ would lose its defining feature if this was negated.

71 For a very stimulating analysis of this issue from a Western feminist position, see Sellar, A., ‘Should the Feminist Philosopher Stay at Home’, in Lennon, K. and Whitford, M. (eds), Knowing the Difference: Feminist Perspectives in Epistemology, London and New York, Routledge, 1994 Google Scholar. Nussbaum also discusses this concern in her Seeley lectures.

72 ‘We’ here denotes anybody and everybody that a critical theory of true interests might find as audience, whatever society, historical situation, or position therein.

73 In recent political theory Rawls, J., Political Liberalism, New York, Columbia University Press, 1996 (1993)Google Scholar, is the exemplar.

74 As regards bringing an ethical discourse back into economic theory, which in itself can be taken as a criticism of some liberal positions, Sen is, of course, the pivotal figure in attempting to do just that.

75 ‘Dictatorship over need’ is from the title of an excellent book by Ferenc Fehér et al. It clarifies why the Soviet system of determining the needs of society prior to production and directing production to meet these predetermined needs amounted to a dictatorship over citizens’ needs. This historical lesson cannot, and should not, be forgotten. See Fehér, Ferenc, Heller, Agnes and Márkus, György, The Dictatorship Over Needs, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1983.Google Scholar

76 This critique (applicable to more general rights-based political analysis and not simply as a criticism of Sen) and the way it impinges on political institutions will be extended and developed in my future research.

77 In contradistinction to Rawls’ stipulations. See Rawls, A Theory of Justice, op. cit., pp. 40–5, 60–5, 243–51; and Rawls, Political Liberalism, op. cit., pp. 173ff. Rawls argues that, ‘[b]y the priority of liberty I mean the precedence of the principle of equal liberty over the second principle of justice. The two principles are in lexical order, and therefore the claims of liberty are to be satisfied first.’ (Rawls, A Theory of Justice, p. 244). At p. 61 he lists the basic liberties, which include the right to hold property, and at p. 250 he emphasizes, in defining the ‘priority rule’ that, *[t]he principles of justice are to be ranked in lexical order and therefore liberty can be restricted only for the sake of liberty’. He notes later (p. 542), though, that this is only really applicable under ‘reasonably favourable conditions’, by which he seems to mean conditions (of equality?) in which people in the original position will not be happy to give up their liberties for greater economic gain, i.e. they are assured a ‘quality’ of life so as to not want restrictions on liberty for other reasons, say economic security. I maintain that this is unhelpful. The question that comes to mind that Rawls seems not to consider within his contractual framework is, how do we obtain these ‘favourable conditions’? I would like to say more but am restricted by space.

78 See pp. 526–7, second paragraph. Self-evaluation is an assessment of the quality of life vis-à-vis others and, as with standard evaluation, this occurs within the framework of contemporary standards and beliefs. It cannot be confused with a strict utilitarian calculation because of the emphasis on evaluation, although it is in some (restricted) sense utilitarian.

79 The duties that correspond to needs are prospective ones. Once a need has become generally accepted as one, the need claim becomes a claim for an institution to provide for the need and once this is in place the institution has the duty to provide for the need. If a new need claim becomes applicable to all (or most) people over time — as democratic participation in the voting process has become — it becomes a right. The relationship between need-claims, rights and duties will form part of my forthcoming work. Positive and ethical freedom (the normative notion that underpins Sen’s emphasis on capabilities, functionings and freedoms) is achieved only when this structure is in place; a structure that will be pushed forward, as it were, by the motor of need claims and the prolonged discourse that ensues.

80 The historical question of what exactly forced the liberal state to broaden the basic rights-structure (of property rights) to one that included the right to social security, to work (in letter), etc. is not covered here. What is shown is that the broadening of the public realm — evidenced in the growing power of institutions and individual citizen-groups within civil society — has already allowed for the greater articulation, recognition and codification of needs.

81 My use of the term ‘state’ when talking about actual (contemporary) need generation, etc. in what follows is to be understood as connoting the institutions and functioning of the actual liberal state. This does not mean that the form the state (or, ‘political realm’) might take within my analysis of the transformation of the political structure will be the same as the present liberal state that exists as the locus of political decision-making and legal force in most Western countries nor its negation in both senses in some less historically developed and less powerful states. (It must be remembered that the liberal state is an institution itself, created by human beings to meet certain needs, etc.) Hence, hereinafter ‘the state’ means the ‘liberal state’. But, when 1 speak of the transformation to a deeper deliberative politics, I use ‘political realm’. By this I mean the deliberative political activity that spreads across all spheres of society and that attempts to come (the individuals within it are motivated towards coming) to a moral/evaluative consensus. The deliberative political realm is the sovereign body; the citizens that make up a particular political realm deliberate, decide and control. The ‘executive’, as I use it, constitutes the institutions of organization and enforcement within this political realm.

82 This does not mean that we should disregard all contemporary rights, but rather that we should emphasize and extend some of them, e.g. political rights, and soften others that conflict with the goal of a receptive and critical needs-oriented political and social structure.

83 Social institutions that encourage need claims (and allow evaluation in Sen’s sense) will be more sensitive to change and improvement. They can be created not simply to accept as givens the power structures and entrenched beliefs/mores of the status quo. Needless to say, this does not mean that all and sundry need-claims will be followed by the creation of the corresponding institutions, for that can amount to giving want-claims the same epistemological (and normative) priority as need-claims. (See Wiggins, David, Needs, Values, Truth: Essays in the Philosophy of Value, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1991.Google Scholar) This philosophical analysis will form part of my further research but the exegesis and positioning of Sen’s approach as a theory of true interests that emphasizes certain valued functionings, etc., and how well-being is best evaluated as part of practical reasoning, is crucial to an understanding of the need/want distinction employed here.

84 Recall that Sen’s ‘evaluative space’ within which norms, new needs, fresh interests and widely divergent wants clash together is the sphere of political interaction. That is, political interaction in the broad sense being employed here: the political realm that incorporates deliberation within civil society and the economy. Sen is keenly aware that too concrete a discussion of the ‘evaluative space’ would restrict change.

85 The generation that occurs as a result of commodity need-satisfaction and knowledge need-satisfaction, however, is often not through complementary forces. My knowledge that my electricity is provided by nuclear reactors whose waste products, I then learn, are extremely destructive, makes me clamour for alternative means of energy-creation. Scientific studies then follow that support my particular want and, over time, the public consensus, a mix of expert and experiential knowledge (people have suffered who live around the reactors), transforms this want into a publicly recognized need. My, and others’, need for cheap energy has been trounced by my, and others’, new need for safer sources of energy-creation. Furthermore, policy-recognition of this growing need does and should impose restrictions on further nuclear reactor development and will hopefully contain the pricing of alternative energy sources. (This points to another issue, that cannot be developed here, that technological advance without a concomitant distribution of information is not necessarily life-enhancing.)

86 A phrase from R. Geuss, op. cit.

87 I am emphasizing a distinction between generation, articulation, etc. and elaborating how these different areas overlap within the different spheres of society — economy, etc. — but this is not to say that articulation and recognition themselves do not generate new needs and interests, as both intended and unintended consequences. The difference is that they emerge as a consequence of, and are inherently part of, the public discourse.

88 The issues that form the core of discussion in international development are normally more ‘basic’ in nature, though this is not to say that agreement thereupon is, or should be, easier or more often achieved.

89 Fraser, Nancy, Unruly Practices: Power, Discourse and Gender in Contemporary Social Theory, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1989, pp. 161ffGoogle Scholar, makes a similar point in a different context when she argues that if our goal is to be prospective rather than retrospective, politics should be directed towards the resolution of the ‘struggle over needs’.

90 In theoretical terms, this means that Sen should develop an institutional argument along the lines of the sketch given above.

91 This is stressed by Heller, Agnes, ‘Can “True” and “False” Needs be Posited?’, in Lederer, Katrim (ed.), Human Needs: A Contribution to the Current Debate, Cambridge, Mass., Oelgeschlager, Gunn and Hain, 1980, p. 225.Google Scholar

92 A critical theory of true interests may purport to solve the antagonistic conflict of interests and power in the public sphere but this does not mean that this is what will occur in reality. Theory, as an element within praxis is not, and cannot be, complete on its own. This is in accord with both Sen’s important emphasis on ‘incompleteness’ as well as my basic criticism of him.