Article Review-Ethical Development

World Development, Vol. 24, No. I, pp. 1209-1221, 1996 Copyright 0 1996 Eisevier Science Ltd

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Ethical Development

MOZAFFAR QIZILBASH” University of Southampton, U.K.

Summary. -The subject of this paper is the project of rethinking and redefining “development” since dis- enchantment has set in with the view that development is an expansion in material prosperity. This project is termed “Ethical development.” It is argued that we are looking for a concept that involves improvements in the quality of human lives subject to the demands of social justice and freedom. Sen’s capability approach, the basic needs approach and the UNDP’s conception of human development fall short of pro- viding an adequate foundation for a new paradigm of development. Nussbaum’s version of the capability approach is stronger than Sen’s but fails to provide the basis for a consensual view of development. The most nromisina approach is one that takes its lead from J. Griffin’s recent account of well-being. Copyright 0 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd

1. INTRODUCTION

Terms such as “development ethics,“’ the “ethics of development,“* “just,“) and “human” development are now in wide use in the development literature. So I must make clear, at the outset, what I mean by the term “ethical development.” “Ethical development” is the project of rethinking and redefining “development,” since some development economists have become dis- enchanted with the view that “economic growth” is the chief objective, and that per capita income is the mea- sure of development. These economists have moved away from the associated view that development is an expansion is material prosperity.

The use of the term “ethical development” is particularly appropriate for this project. The attempts of economists to rethink the concept of development have followed three important lines of thinking. These are that development must be (a) consistent with the demands of social justice, (b) consistent with the demands of human freedom, and (c) concerned with human beings as ends rather than means and with human well-being. Since the nature of human well- being, and the claims of freedom and social justice have been at the heart of ethical enquiry for centuries, ethics has had an important bearing on the project of redefining development. Indeed, one attempt to redefine development, Sen’s capability approach, reflects this relation of ethics to development theory, in that it has been developed as a critique of two ethical theories (namely, utilitarianism and Rawls’s theory of justice) and as a critique of the view that development is an expansion in material prosperity.

In this paper, I examine the contributions of Sen, the basic needs school, and the UNDP to rethinking the concept of development. For each, I highlight limita-

tions of the approach as a possible foundation for a comprehensive account of development. It is argued that Nussbaum’s version of the capability approach generates a strong variant of Sen’s capability approach which is compatible with the basic needs approach, in a particular sense. Nussbaum’s Aristotelian approach to human flourishing may be rejected by many, however, and so fails to provide the basis for a consensual view of development. It is argued that the most promising line to pursue is one which starts from James Griffin’s recent writing on human well-being. A sketch of an account of development grounded on such a view of well-being is given at the end of the paper. This approach can also take on the concerns of the basic needs school within a broader picture of human values.

I explain the project of ethical development in section 2. Section 3 discusses Sen’s account, and its limi-

* I owe a debt of gratitude to James Griffin, for inspiration, for giving me access to unpublished material and helpful comments. I am also grateful to John Aldrich, Subrata Ghatak, Reginald Green, Alan Hamlin, Barbara Harriss- White, Tim Jenkins, John Knight, James Malcolmson, Barry McCormick, Andrew Oswald, Amartya Sen, Peter Smith, Frances Stewart, Alistair Ulph, Howard White, an anony- mous referee, and discussants at seminars at Southampton, Oxford and at the Economic and Social Research Council’s Development Economics Study Group Conference at Leices- ter for comments on previous versions of this paper. I acknowledge with thanks the financial support of the ESRC and the ODA in making the Leicester conference possible. The revised version of this paper was prepared while I was visiting the Lahore University of Management Sciences; my thanks to all there who made my work easy. Final revision accepted: February 8, 1996.

1210 WORLD DEVELOPMENT

tations. Section 4 does the same for the basic needs approach. Section 5 reviews Nussbaum’s version of the capability approach and argues that it is more defensible than Sen’s. Section 6 describes the UNDP’s concept of human development and various themes this brings to the debate. Section 7 presents a preliminary and incomplete sketch of a view of development that is based on James Griffin’s account of well-being. Section 8 concludes.

2. ETHICAL DEVELOPMENT

Dissatisfaction with the “traditional” view that development is an expansion in material prosperity, and with exclusive focus on “economic growth,” set in fairly early in the history of development economics. “Economic growth,” here, was growth in per capita income (i.e. per capita GNP). The chief reason for dissatisfaction was that a rise in per capita incomes was often accompanied by the persistence of, or an increase in, absolute poverty. Growth was also often accompanied by rising inequality. These problems led to a concern with distribution and social justice. The “growth with redistribution” and “basic needs” approaches to development responded to this concern. The first of these - associated with Chenery (1974) - developed measures of growth which would give some weight to inequality and poverty; the second - associated with Streeten (198 1) - argued for giving priority to meeting the basic needs of the most deprived. Close to Streeten was Morris’s (1979) approach which argued for looking at the physical quality of life of the most deprived.

Streeten and Morris, as well as later commentators (particularly Sen), objected to the concentration on per capita incomes in development theory, because of the instrumental role of incomes in increasing well-being. The primary concern in development, it was argued, is with improving the quality of human lives. Thus, any decent approach to development must take seriously the nature and diversity of human beings, and place them at the centre of development as the ends rather than the means of development.4 Any approach that does so is an account of “human development.”

Finally, it was noted that economic growth was consistent with excessive restrictions on freedom and vio- lations of human rights by coercive and oppressive political regimes. Considerations of human freedom have led Sen as well as Dasgupta (1986, 1989 and 1993) to insist on the intrinsic importance of human freedom in development. They have led others, such as Goulet (1989), to be particularly concerned with the participation of non-elite groups in the formation and implementation of development strategies.

There are three strands in these attempts to define a new concept or paradigm of development. These are that development must (a) give primary import to

human beings and treat humans as the ends rather than the means of development (b) not be consistent with the persistence of, or an increase in, poverty or relative deprivation and (c) give intrinsic importance to freedom. The paradigm is one that envisages people living better lives consistent with the demands of distributive justice and freedom. The paradigm is the following:

The paradigm of development (ED): Development occurs if and only if there is some overall expansion in human flourishing or the quality of human lives or human well-being consistent with the demands of social justice and freedom.

The chief reasons for rejecting the traditional view was that it conflated improvements in human well- being with increases in material prosperity or “opu- lence,” and entirely ignored the claims of justice and freedom. In the following sections, I consider the two leading approaches to rethinking development: the capability and basic needs approaches. The chief limitations of these approaches to development lie in their failure to deal adequately with parts of (ED).

The essential link between philosophy and development theory is apparent in (ED). It stems from the fact that such questions as: what constitutes human well- being or flourishing? and what constitutes a just or free society? are ethical and political questions to which philosophers, especially in ethical and political theory, have devoted a great deal of time. The form of (ED) shows that there are good reasons why philosophers must be involved in the attempts made by economists to redefine development.

3. CAPABILITIES 1: DEVELOPMENT AS EMANCIPATION

Sen’s capability approach is perhaps the most intluen- tial account of human development. It is founded on his capability approach to the quality of life? This is based on two grounding concepts:j%nctioning and capability. The approach has been reformulated in light of much criticism,” so I shah quote recent versions of it, when necessary. Sen writes that: “[fhmctionings represent parts of the state of a person - in particular the various things he or she manages to do or be in leading a life.” Lives are thought to be made up of “doings and beings.” The quality of life however, is not judged chiefly in terms of a person’s achievements (though these are not regarded as unimportant). It is assessed in terms of the capability to achieve valuable ftmctionings. He writes:

The capability of a person reflects the alternative combi- nations of functionings the person can achieve, and from which he or she can choose one collection. The approach is based on a view of living as a combination of various “beings and doings”, with the quality of life to be assessed in terms of the capability to achieve valuable functionings.

ETHICAL DEVELOPMENT 1211

The reason for Sen’s insistence on judging the quality of life in terms of capability is that he wants to give intrinsic importance to positive freedom,* which he understands in terms of what the agent can do or be. Of course, since the capability approach is concerned with valuable functionings the agent can achieve, “[tlhe freedom to lead different types of life is reflected in the person’s capability set,” where the capability set is the set of beings and doings (or functioning “vectors”) which she can achieve.

Sen’s capability approach to “development as capability expansion” follows directly from this account of the quality of life and freedom. His clear- est exposition of it comes in his essay “Goods and People,” though he has given other more recent accounts9 He writes that: “[tlhe process of economic development is best seen as an expansion of people’s capabilities, and development is seen as a process of emancipation from the enforced necessity to live less and be less.“‘o

Sen’s view is that many - especially the most deprived - in the Third World lead “constrained” lives”: there are important limitations to what they can do or be. Development is about liberation from such constraints. It is here that Sen links his conception of emancipation to Marx’s notion of “replacing the domination of circumstances and chance by the domination of individuals over chance and circumstances”‘*: the conception of emancipation has Marx- ian overtones.

It is clear, then, how Sen understands freedom and the quality of life. Justice is also understood in terms of capabilities: egalitarians must, Sen thinks, express their ideal in terms of equality of capability.13 This is an extension of Sen’s view expressed in his famous Tanner lecture, “Equality of What?“,14 that egalitarians must be concerned with equality of “basic capabilities,” “ where these were intended to separate out the ability to satisfy certain crucially important functionings up to certain minimally adequate levels.“j5 While Sen thinks that basic capabilities are linked to certain needs, and that they consequently have a particular moral and political urgency and importance,‘6 he now thinks of them, primarily, as important in terms of poverty analysis. Poverty is thought of as a failure to be able to achieve various crucially important functionings up to minimally adequate levels.17 There is running throughout this account ofjustice and poverty the notion that positive freedom matters first and fore- most and not the means to freedom. Thus, Sen is opposed to the view that justice or poverty should be thought of in terms of commodities or incomes.

This account of justice and poverty helps us to understand Sen’s account of development. Clearly, for Sen, those who live the most constrained lives are those who suffer from a failure of basic capabilities. Thus, poverty alleviation must be given considerable importance in the conception of development.

Furthermore, liberating the poor from extreme constraints clearly implies a more equal distribution of capability in the process of development.

These considerations allow a formulation of Sen’s contribution to the project of ethical development. A summary of his conception of development, expanded to take account of his views on equality, is the following:

Sen ‘s conception of development (S): development occurs if and only if there is an expansion in the capability set of people, consistent with the demands of social justice.

It is because of considerations of distributive justice that Sen’s account is not simply one of “capability expansion” but one of “emancipation from the enforced necessity to live less and be less.“‘* A first problem with this account is that it is not clear what sort of priority must be given to the expansion of basic capabilities (i.e. poverty alleviation) as compared to other sorts of capabilities. There is the related problem of how interpersonal comparisons of capability are to be done. The capability approach is incomplete here, as Beitz (1986) has pointed out, and Sen has con- ceded.19 Second, while positive freedom is taken into account nothing is said about negative freedom. Neg- ative freedom is defined by Berlin as, roughly, freedom from external hindrance, coercion or control.” It is invariably discussed by Sen and he insists that it must have intrinsic importance.2’ There is little room for it however, in his account of development. This can cause difficulties. Take the following case.

X is severely deprived. To live a valuable life in the service of humanity he steals from a rich and decrepit woman. X is successful and thereby considerably more capable of leading a valuable life. He also helps others become more capable of leading such lives. There is a limited reduction in the ability of the old woman to function.

In this example X has increased his freedom, and may, to some degree, be liberated from the necessity “to live less and be less.” He has also liberated others. There may be more equality of capability in society as a whole. I doubt very much that one would want to say, however, that development has taken place. If it had, development can simply be achieved by certain acts of theft, of this sort. There is a related point that is highlighted by this example: the means by which freedom is achieved matters a great deal. Indeed, in this case, the reason why, I suggest, we object to counting these expansions in freedom as “development,” is that we object to the means by which they are achieved. Sen’s approach is too exclusively concerned with freedom as an end, as compared to the means of freedom.

The example also shows up the incompleteness of Sen’s approach when it comes to interpersonal comparisons. It is not obvious that we can compare the gains in capability to X, and to those he helps, with the


limited loss in capability (say, the ability to live without fear) to the old woman. It seems implausible that we can make such comparisons without a fuller account of value. In the absence of such an account, we may not be able to say whether, overall, development has occurred.

Finally, there is also the difficulty that abilities, such as the ability to steal, pose for Sen’s account of the quality of life. It could, for example, be argued that it is only because X is severely deprived that he is capable of theftI Indeed, it can be argued that the ability to steal here reveals the extent of X’s desperation. Furthermore, it is in cases such as stealing that negative freedom is important; societies typically limit people’s negative freedom to steal, both through legal and moral constraints. Indeed, it may be just in the case of extreme deprivation that an individual ceases to care about such constraints and so becomes capable of functionings such as stealing or murder. It is because Sen fails to give a complete account of the valuable functionings that are constitutive of good or flourishing lives that he has difficulty here. Nussbaum (1988) and Williams (1987) have criticized Sen on these grounds, and Nussbaum’s variant of the capability approach, which I discuss below, is largely free of these problems.

So there are difficulties with Sen’s account. These arise primarily because he fails to give a list of capabilities, or functionings, associated with human flourishing, a complete account of interpersonal comparisons, or sufficient importance to the means of freedom and negative freedom. The upshot of the above criticisms is that not all expansions of capabilities con- stitute development, even when these expansions meet the claims of distributive justice, as conceived of by Sen. Furthermore, when economic transformations involve expansions in some capabilities and contrac- tions in others (e.g., those associated with traditional ways of life) the capability approach may not be able to decide whether “development” has occurred, because of difficulties in making comparisons of capability.

4. BASIC NEEDS

The basic needs approach (henceforth, BNA) is associated with the name of Paul Streeten, and has several advocates. I am also concerned with a version of the approach due to Frances Stewart (1989 and 1994). All versions of the approach articulate the priority of meeting the basic needs of the world’s poor, over other aims of development. Furthermore, in all cases there is some notion of “full” or “minimally decent” lives. In one version, Streeten’s, “the basic needs concept is a reminder that the object of development effort is to provide all human beings with the opportunity for a full life.“” Streeten adds that, how-

ever one defines the “full life,” the opportunity for achieving it presupposes meeting basic needs. In Stewart’s version, there is some minimally decent or “full life” below which people are not supposed to fall; “basic goods” are the goods necessary to lead such a life.Z4 In each case, however the BNA is about the priority of meeting basic needs in the process of development, rather than redefining development, altogether.

Stewart writes, for example, that “a common perception of development is that it involves a pattern of sustained economic growth, the benefits of which extend to the whole of society, including the most deprived, so that basic needs are met and poverty elim- inated.“2s Here Stewart does not challenge the importance of income growth; she stresses the importance of meeting basic needs in the process of growth. Indeed, this highlights an important point made by Streeten: that the BNA can be left open so as to embrace previous approaches to development. While there may be tensions between the income approach and the BNA, the two are not incompatible. Indeed, the BNA need not be thought of as an all-embracing strategy of development, at alLz6

The BNA is an approach to human development, since maintaining people above the minimum Eevel of living (where basic needs are met) is the main purpose of the BNA. The goods that are necessary to achieve this objective are (at least) such basic goods as food, health care, shelter, education, water and clothing. Such goods are only valued instrumentally, however. They are related to the “full life” (on Stewart’s view) via a “metaproduction function.” The BNA is concerned with the “full life” (or the opportunity to live such a life) as an end, basic goods as means, and the relation between these.

Sen has criticized the BNA for its emphasis on access to basic goods, and thus with the means rather than ends of development.*’ Such emphasis however, has been mostly due to the pragmatics of the BNA. The approach has also been criticized on the grounds that it is not entirely clear who will define the list of basic needs. In practice, however, there is considerable agreement about a core of such needs (nutrition, health, shelter, literacy and sanitation). “Nonmaterial needs” such as participation or self-reliance, which were stressed by Streeten, are more controversial. Furthermore, the core list of needs corresponds closely to the functionings that Sen associates with basic capability, and there seems little to differentiate the two approaches at the level of policy implications as regards poverty alleviation.

A philosophical grounding for the BNA can be found in two different sorts of ethical theory. The first is that of Rawls (1972), whose theory of justice included the following principle ofjustice (“the differ- ence principle”): “social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are . . to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged.“2y This gives one way


to justify the priority of the least well-off in the BNA. The second way is to insist that people have a right to the fulfilment of certain basic needs, which are thought of as representing vitalM interests. Wiggins (1987) supplies a theory that would provide such a foundation. This rights-based account derives its strength from the moral priority of needs over “mere” desires in moral debate and it involves some route from basic needs to human rights, via the justification of such rights through interests of certain sorts. Either way, the philosophic grounding of the BNA is through the special claims of the least well-off in considerations of social justice.3L

In fact, in 1976, the International Covenant on Eco- nomic, Social and Cultural Bights recognized the “right to development” which encompassed the right to basic goods and went beyond these to include the right to work and to participate in social, cultural and political development.3* Furthermore, some advocates of the BNA, such as Frances Stewart, take the view that human beings do have a right to the fulfilment of basic needs, though she has discussed this view mostly from a strategic point of view.

The BNA has done a great deal to put the cause of the most deprived to the forefront of the development debate. While the BNA can be grounded in various highly regarded philosophic theories, however, it is unlikely to provide the foundation of a general theory of human development, as Gasper (1995) has recently suggested it might. There are several reasons for this. First, it is not clear what sort of priority meeting basic needs has over other aims of developmentg3 It is implausible that the priority of such needs is lexical; there seems to be scope for trade-offs. It is unlikely that any sacrifice is justified in the fulfilment of basic needs. Furthermore, as Streeten (1984) has pointed out, while some might accept that people have a right to a minimum standard of living, it is clear that this right may conflict with other rights and difficult deci- sions have to be made about which of the rights has priority or whether rights can be weighed against each other.”

Indeed, concerns about rights and negative freedom must be accommodated in the BNA, if it is to provide a general theory of development. This is particularly the case because some countries, such as China, have done well in the achievement of basic needs, at various times, but have done so through extraordinary constraints on freedom. In cases such as this, a basic needs strategy has been successful but the paradigm of development has clearly not been realized. Finally, even if there are reasons to concentrate on the fulfilment of the needs of the most deprived, some account must be taken of the rest of the population. This is important because, as Sen has argued, the meeting of basic needs may be accompanied by large increases in the well-being of other members of the population. The overall effect may be an increase in relative depri-

vation. Indeed, the BNA has tended to devalue the objective of equality, as compared to that of meeting basic needs.36 The BNA may not, then, be consistent with the demands of social justice as articulated by many egalitarians.

5. CAPABILITIES 2: DEVELOPMENT AS EMPOWERMENT

Nussbaum’s account of capabilities avoids many of the difficulties associated with Sen’s approach; it also links the capability and needs approaches in an inter- esting manner which echoes Marx’s “The Economic and Political Manuscripts.” The reason that Nussbaum has relatively few of Sen’s problems is that she gives a list of capabilities,” which are based on an Aristotelian account of flourishing, virtuous lives and social justice. Furthermore, she gives importance to negative freedom.

I define someone as negatively free to Y (where to Y is to do or to be, so that Ying is functioning), if and only if she is not in any way hindered from Ying.j8 In the stealing example, above, while X was positively free to Y, in the sense that he was capable of Ying, Ying was the sort of thing that was almost certainly morally or socially prohibited. So X was not negatively free to Y.

Nussbaum takes such problems into account through her distinction between I and E-capabilities. I-capabilities are, roughly, capabilities that are internal to the person; E-capabilities involve external factors that facilitate the exercise of I-capabilities. Furthermore, the relevant capabilities are, in a sense, ethical or moral;39 they are capabilities for leading a virtuous life,4o which is conceived of as right functioning in various realms of experience. Much of this needs qualification because, as Nuss- baum notes, Aristotle does not have our modem conception of morals, nor are all Aristotelian virtues moral, in modem terms4’ In this account of capabilities for functioning well, however, there is little room for functionings such as stealing from decrepit old women.

Nussbaum’s formal definition of I-capability runs: [a] person is I-capable of function A at time t if and only if the person is so organized at t that, should the appropriate circumstances present themselves, the person can choose an A action.“42 Nussbaum is aware, however, that outside forces may be important in hindering one from leading a virtuous life: in the earlier terminology, the agent must be both positively and negatively free to lead a good life. Thus, her definition of E-capability: [a] person is E-capable of function A at time t, if and only if at t the person is I-capable of A and there are no circumstances present that impede or prevent the exercise of A.“43

If someone is E-capable of Ying, she is, in the ear-


lier terminology, both positively and negatively free to Y: she has the relevant abilities and dispositions required to Y and there is nothing external hindering her from Ying. Thus, if someone is E-capable there is no conflict between positive and negative freedoms: this was the crux of the difficulty in the stealing example.

Nussbaum thus takes account of and rules out vicious capabilities; she insists on certain capabilities, specifically those that are needed to function well and live virtuously (i.e. to choose to function in the right way, in the appropriate circumstances, in the relevant area of experience). Here good functioning must be seen in the context of her objective Aristotelian account of human flourishing.”

As regards social justice, Nussbaum argues that distribution must be according to “basic capabilities” or B-capabilities. These are unfulfilled capabilities and distinct from Sen’s “basic capabilities” described above. To avoid confusion, I refer to Nussbaum’s “basic capabilities” simply as B-capabilities. She defines them as follows: “[a], person is B-capable of function A if and only if the person has an individual constitution organized so as to A, given the provision of the suitable training, time, and other instrumental necessary conditions.“45

She argues that, for Aristotle, just distribution is based on people’s possession of B-capabilities and that education is required to develop these into I-capabilities. Other instrumental necessary conditions are then required to turn these into E-capabilities. She argues, further, that for Aristotle the best political arrangement “is that arrangement . . according to which anyone whosoever. . . might do best. . . and live a flourishing life.“* Thus, the idea is that functions must be distributed according to B-capabilities, which must be developed and refined and, further, people must be given the sort of environment in which they can flourish. Finally, the possibility of such flourishing lives must be open to anyone at all.

This approach has many of the ingredients of a good account of development. A paradigm of development that takes its inspiration from it is:

Nussbaum’s conception of development (N): (i) Development occurs if and only tf there is some overall expansion in people’s I and E-capabilities to lead flourishing lives consistent with the demands of social justice. (ii) Social justice demands that functions be distributed on the basis of B-capabilities, and that the possibility ofjlour- ishing lives be open to all.

(N)(i) needs some explanation. For Nussbaum, this would mean something like: development occurs if there is an expansion in capabilities to function well; expansions would include any move from B-capabilities to I-capabilities or more E-capabilities for existing I-capabilities. One would have to be concerned both

with education of B-capabilities and with making possible the exercise of I-capabilities. The notion of development that is implicit is of development as empowerment. It is a conception that is close to Sen’s, but not identical with it.

The chief differences between this paradigm and Sen’s are in the role of freedom, and in the very precise account of flourishing. Whereas Sen conceives of development in Marxian terms as an “emancipation from enforced necessity,” Nussbaum primarily looks to Marx and Aristotle for an account of our shared humanity which helps ground a culturally non-relative account of human flourishing and development. Nev- ertheless, as in Sen’s account, the demands of freedom are captured in capabilities?’ Indeed, as I have argued, if a person is E-capable of Ying, in Nussbaum’s sense, that person must be both positively and negatively free to Y.

There remains the question of whether, in spite of the above considerations, this conception of development may be consistent with considerable restrictions on freedom. This difficulty is associated with Aristo- tle’s own account of politics, which is notoriously anti-democratic. In Nussbaum’s case, the problem is bound up with the fact that Nussbaum’s account of human flourishing is objective, and may conflict with various people’s personal views of the good life. The question that arises is whether coercion or constraints on liberty are justified to make reluctant people act and live well. Nussbaum is relatively free from criticism on these grounds. First, Nussbaum rejects the idea that people be forced to live particular lives.” For her the virtuous life is only virtuous if it is chosen, as such. Indeed, her description of the attempts of a Rural Advancement Committee in Bangladesh to improve female literacy” shows that she thinks that her paradigm of development work is a sort of interactive approach, whereby workers immerse themselves in the local way of life and help the community grasp the usefulness of various capabilities (such as literacy) that they do not possess. As regards personal liberty, again Nussbaum puts great emphasis on choice, and, in general, her work is free of the anti-democratic views with which Aristotle is associated: her intention is to define a form of “Aristotelian Social Democ- racy. ‘W I expect that she will accept that negative freedom has to be restricted to the degree that this helps people to flourish, and this seems to be the point of her notion of E-capability. One might construe this ungen- erously, but her writings do not call for such an interpretation.5’

Finally, while there is no talk of emancipation in Nussbaum, her account is influenced by Marx’s account of human need in the “The Economic and Political Manuscripts.” In particular, she associates her conception of B-capability with need, since B- capabilities are thought of as unfulfilled and thus as generating special claims on those who are concerned


with distribution with a view to flourishing lives. Here she echoes Marx’s notions of the “rich human being and the rich human need.“52 So clearly there is scope for subsuming the BNA within Nussbaum’s account of capabilities.

The chief difficulty with Nussbaum’s approach to development is that it is based on Aristotle’s account of the virtuous life, which involves a singular and objective account of the good life. As she ~tates,5~very few philosophers today hold to this view and it would be difficult, if not impossible, to have a consensus about the paradigm of development on the basis of this account of flourishing. It may be easier to found a consensus around her list of capabilities. That alone however is not enough. Furthermore, like Sen, Nussbaum fails to deal with interpersonal comparisons of capability, though it is not clear how this might affect her approach. In much of her work she argues that values are, in some sense, incommensurable.” If they are, interpersonal comparisons may not be possible. So it may not be possible to compare one person’s capability loss with another’s gain. Finally, while it is clear why Nussbaum thinks that distribution should be on the basis of B-capability or need, it is not at all clear that this is an easy thing to carry out. The most important reason for this is that there is typically asymmetric information about people’s abilities; the state is likely to be less well informed than the agents whose B-capabilities are involved. In the circumstances, there may be incentive problems involving moral hazard and adverse selection, and Nussbaum says nothing of such problems.

6. HUMAN DEVELOPMENT: PARTICIPATION AND SUSTAINABILITY

The concept of “human development” used by the UNDP in the 1990 Human Development Report owes a great deal to the approaches that have been discussed above. The emphasis is on enlarging people’s “choices.” These include access to income, a long healthy life, education, a decent standard of living, political freedom, guaranteed human rights and personal self-respect.55 Furthermore, the concern is not just with capabilities but with their use. The environment in which capabilities are exercised matters. The report states that the basic objective of development is to create “an enabling environment for people to live long, healthy and creative lives.“5b Finally, human beings must have a decisive voice in shaping their political frameworks: the UNDP gives explicit importance to participation.

The approach is close to Sen, since it is concerned with increasing choice. It echoes the BNA since it is concerned with access to basic goods and with participation. It also puts explicit importance on political freedom and rights (and thus, negative freedom). In this respect, it goes beyond some of the other approaches.

By incorporating participation, the UNDP also takes account of another tradition in development, associated with Goulet (1989), who writes that “participation, or some role-playing by intended beneficiaries, is an indispensable part of development.“57

Participation is, of course, included in Streeten’s list of nonmaterial basic needs. Its status however, as a basic need (even if one accepts that it is a need) is not uncontroversial. Irrespective of its status as a need, one might nonetheless think of participation as something that matters in defining development. There is certainly room for it within the capability approach. Participation can be viewed as falling within that approach, since the concern there is with positive freedom and autonomy, which might encompass the ability to participate in one’s own development.

The concern with participation stems, in part, from a concern with the imposition of “development” by elite groups on non-elite groups, in the form of Western and modem techniques or goods which are inappropriate to local conditions. Indeed, a perception that the traditional view of development encompassed the notions of “modernization” and “Westernization” is reflected in the literature on participation and “authentic” development:* and in the UNDP’s concept of human development. Much of this would tit well with Nussbaum’s capability approach, since (as stated above) Nussbaum has insisted that development workers must be involved with the intended beneficiaries of their work and show the latter how and why various capabilities are relevant to their lives. Indeed, Nussbaum and Sen (1989) have jointly argued for an Aristotelian view that any good account of development involves “an account of value that will be rooted in the experience of the people and genuinely practi~al.“~~ Nussbaum and Sen both argue that any critique of traditional practices must be internal to society and made from a position of immer- sion in a culture: it cannot be made from the outside from a detached point of view. Thus, the concern with participatory development can be taken on board by either capability approach.

In the 1994 Human Development Repoti, the UNDP conception of human development is still closer to the capability approach of Nussbaum. The new paradigm of development is one which “enables all individuals to enlarge their human capabilities to the full and to put those capabilities to their best use in all fields - economic, social, cultural and political.“M It also pro- tects the options of unborn generations, however, and thus insists on sustainable development which is envi- ronmentally friendly. Thus, there is explicit emphasis on intergenerational justice, which has received scant attention from some commentators mentioned above. Finally, inasmuch as equity is valued, it is as equality of opportunities.6’ This is again close to Sen and Nuss- baum, though it is also very close to related proposals in the philosophical literature.62

In short, the UNDP’s conception seems to take a


little from all the various views of human development presented here, and draws our attention to participation, sustainability and human rights. It gives the impression at present, however, of being more a set of slogans than a coherent approach to development. The importance of the UNDP conception is more in bring- ing the notion of human development to a wide audi- ence, and in making it strategically important in international policy making, than in making a coherent contribution to the project of ethical development.

7. HUMAN WELL-BEING, PRUDENTIAL VALUES AND DEVELOPMENT

I want now to sketch a new conception of development, which takes its inspiration from the recent writing of Griffin (1991, 1992, 1993a and 1993b and 1994). The sketch is a preliminary one, which starts from Griffin’s account of well-being and prudential value. Prudential values cover, roughly, everything that makes a person’s life “go” better. They are distinct from moral values (such as justice) and aesthetic values (such as beauty). Griffin has argued that certain prudential values are shared amongst human beings and that recognition of these values is crucial to our seeing each other as human beings. Griffin is here directly echoing the writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Donald Davidson. He writes that “we tend to over- look how central certain prudential values are to our concept of a human person or of his agency”.63 Fur- thermore, he writes: “I cannot see you as a fellow human being without seeing you as having certain aims, likes, aversions-in short without seeing you as sharing certain prudential values with me.“@

While Griffin insists that recognition of certain “core” prudential values (such as “the avoidance of pain”) is necessary for our mutual intelligibility as humans, he does not insist that all prudential values are “shared,” in this sense. A value such as “accomplishment” - which he singles out as the sort of achievement that gives life point and weight - is the sort of thing that makes a life go better but it is not necessary for our mutual intelligibility or recognition as humans. This sort of “non-core” value may play a part in some people’s lives but not in the lives of others. Some may find the pursuit of accomplishment too stressful. Nevertheless, Griffin thinks that accomplishment is the sort of thing that will be generally recognized as prudentially valuable, even if it is the sort of thing that some person, in particular, does not give weight to. Non-core values are shared in this sense. He gives the following conception of prudential value: “[tlo see anything as prudentially valuable we have got to see it as enhancing life in a generally intelligible way, in a way that pertains to human life.“65 Griffin argues that prudential deliberation leads us to a list of prudential values. He puts forward this one: (1)

accomplishment (2) the components of a charactetisti- tally human existence (autonomy, liberty, and minimum material provision) (3) understanding (4) enjoyment and (5) deep personal relations.@

Griffin accepts that one might disagree with this list.” His important point is that prudential deliberation leads us to a list of this sort, which contains the whole range of prudential values. Some values may matter more than others so that one will typically assign relative weights to them.68 Some might play no part at all in a particular life. Furthermore, there is considerable scope for individual variations: you may enjoy playing rugby; I may enjoy chess. Both are instances of the value “enjoyment.” This is a promising account of well-being for an approach to human development. The reason for this is that if the list of prudential values contains elements that will be recognized as valuable for anyone, it can provide a basis for a consensual view of (human) development among people with diverging personal views of the good life. This is precisely where Nussbaum falls short. Like Nussbaum, however, Griffin’s account concentrates on values that make a distinctively human life go well. Thus, his view is also culturally non relative inasmuch as he is concerned with values which are recognizably human, and not culture bound. Some such view is indeed needed to ground an account of human development, which is relevant to any human culture, but open to different specifications in different contexts and cultures.

In the context of the development debate, I suggest a different list of prudential values: (1) certain, at least minimal, levels of health, nutrition, sanitation, shelter and security (2) certain, at least minimal, capacities, including (a) literacy and (b) certain basic intellectual and physical capacities (3) self-respect and aspiration (4) positive freedom or autonomy (5) negative freedom or liberty (6) enjoyment (7) understanding or knowl- edge (8) significant relations with others and some par ticipation in social life and (9) accomplishment.

This list is a variation on Griffin’s. Looking at the list, it is clear that the BNA and Sen’s approach have highlighted certain elements of it. The BNA has been mainly concerned with categories (1) and (2a) listed above. Some of the items listed (autonomy and participation) are close to Streeten’s “nonmaterial needs,” so that the broad definition of basic needs would include elements of (4) and (8). Sen, on the other hand, has done a great deal to put the emphasis on category (4), and has tried to subsume categories (l), (2) and (3) under (4), by arguing that people without these values are unfree. There is a strong case to be made however, for the other elements on the list. Indeed, when Sen argues that many people in developing countries are falling far short of their “utmost”,@ it is to the lack of a value like “accomplishment” that he seems to be refer- ring.“’ Putting the emphasis on the lack of a value like “accomplishment” in many people’s lives, points the


way to thinking of many lives in the underdeveloped world as frittered away, wasted and lacking in any point or meaning. This seems to be a common and accurate perception. Sen’s account of it as an absence of positive freedom or capability is inadequate.

Each member of the above list is a candidate for prudential value, for any human being, in any culture, with any personal view of the good. The list is mostly made up of intrinsic rather than instrumental values: things that are valuable in themselves (such as personal relations and enjoyment) rather than means to the good. Some items on the list, such as sanitation and shelter might be thought of as means, not valuable in themselves. I would suggest that they are instrumental necessary conditions for human beings to be able to pursue their conceptions of the good. I doubt the distinction however, between ends and means is of great importance in defining the list.

The list also draws our attention to certain values that some feel are more present in certain “underdeveloped” countries than in “developed” ones. The lack of a sense of community and various forms of traditional social activity, the perception of a fragmented and atomistic existence in the more “developed’ countries, lead some to view the “underdeveloped” world as, in certain respects, more developed and civilized than the West. This view would be very hard to make sense of in the BNA or indeed on Sen’s capability approach. Yet the view seems perfectly comprehensi- ble in Griffin’s prudential value theory. The reason is that Griffin allows for important values that the other approaches do not emphasize.

To move from a list of prudential values to a view of development, we need to accommodate the claims of freedom and justice. In Griffin’s account of well- being, freedom is taken on board as a prudential value. It is not clear what account of egalitarian justice one would want to develop, in the context of this view of well-being. I suggest that the best egalitarian position would be one that insisted on people having “equal prospects or ‘opportunities’ for leading prudentially valuable lives.” I shall not develop this formulation here.‘l It is clear, furthermore, that anyone who is lacking in the prudential values under (1) and (2a) above, must count as seriously impoverished. These values I refer to as “basic prudential values.” A person may be said to be living in poverty if her life is sufficiently lacking in the basic values of minimal health, nutrition, shelter, sanitation, security, and literacy. There is a strong case for giving these values priority in the conception of development. Finally, it is important to take as a backdrop, for the following account of development, some set of moral values, social norms and legal constraints that are necessary for society to function in the best interests of its members. In this regard, certain sorts of human disposition - altruism, kindness, courage etc. - must be regarded as valuable from a moral (rather than pru-

dential) point of view. While moral values and virtuous dispositions are taken into account, however, only the profile of prudential values matters in judging the quality of life. Morals do, however, have an important role in deciding the extent of freedom, particularly, of negative freedom. They do so by defining obligations for individuals and other agencies (governments etc.) and rights which protect certain freedoms. Develop- ment cannot be consistent with the violation of certain rights. The account of development, then, requires an account of certain basic human rights; again I cannot give one here.

The account of development I suggest is:

An alternative conception of development (D): (i) Development occurs if and only if people live more prudentially valuable lives consistent with the demands of social justice and morality. (ii) Social justice demands (a) that particular importance be put on people’s lives containing the elements of basic prudential value and (b) that people have equal prospects for living prudentially valuable lives; morality demands that rights protect certain freedoms.

This is not a complete account on its own. It is important to note however, that concerns in the development debate about participation, gender and intergenerational justice can be accommodated within it. Nevertheless, it is necessary to give some notion of the priority or weight to be placed on the interests of the least well-off and of the way in which interpersonal comparisons must be done. More needs to be said about the formulation of the egalitarian ideal and about what freedoms people have, when they must be pro- tected and what to do in the case of a conflict of rights. Griffin has discussed some of these issues; I shall not develop his views here.‘*

So the picture I have sketched is a starting point. It has many of the elements of what one would want in an account of human development. By incorporating the claims of morality, it rules out the difficulty Sen has in the example in section 3, and sets bounds on negative freedom. Perhaps something also has to be said about the way in which morality changes, and the way we question and refine our social norms and moral beliefs. That discussion however, is perhaps best left to one side as concerning the “moral” development of society.

The approach is, as I have argued, consistent with pluralism and ought to provide a basis for a consensual view of human development. In this respect, it is preferable to Nussbaum’s account. It is important that Griffin’s account is culturally non relative in terms of prudence: it does not demand non relativity in terms of morality. It seems undeniable that different societies have evolved different moral norms. I suspect that some moral norms and values such as justice and


the protection of certain freedoms such as freedom of speech, association and worship are fairly universal. It would be a mistake, however, to use any more than a very thin account of morality in defining development. It is here that the most important disagreements among human beings and cultures take place and must do so.

The conception of “basic value” offers a tool for poverty analysis which is a little different from Sen’s conception of “basic capability.” A life that contains the elements of the basic prudential values is much the same as the “minimally decent” life of the BNA. Thus, an important aspect of the BNA is incorporated in the approach. The ideas of the BNA however, are embedded in a full account of prudential value.”

A final argument in favour of this approach is that the account of prudential value is as relevant for “rich’ as for “poor” countries. Both Sen’s capability approach and the BNA are very much concerned with thinking about development in terms of liberation from or removal of the most extreme forms of deprivation. Nussbaum’s approach does not have this lim- iting characteristic. The view of development that takes its lead from Griffin’s account of well-being certainly does not. This is not least because Griffin means to single out in his profile of prudential values “a chart to the various high points human life can rise to.“74 So the account of well-being and development is as appropriate for countries where there is wide- spread extreme poverty and deprivation, as for others where there is not.

8. CONCLUSIONS

We have come far in trying to rethink and redefine development since dissatisfaction with the conception of development as an expansion in material prosperity (and the related focus on per capita GNP) set it. In this paper, I have argued that what we are looking for is a conception of development as an expansion in human flourishing, well-being, or the quality of people’s lives, subject to the claims of freedom and social justice. I have argued that Sen’s view of development as capability expansion and the UNDP’ s concept of human development fall short of the conception of development we are looking for. The BNA was not developed as a general theory of develop ment, but is unlikely to provide a foundation for such a theory. Nussbaum’s capability approach is perhaps the strongest version of the capability approach. A version of it which takes on the UNDP’s concerns with participation and intergenerational justice seems to be the best direction for the capability approach to go in.

There are, however, difficulties with Nussbaum’s approach since it is based on an Aristotelian account of flourishing and the virtuous life, which may not be accepted by many. Thus, despite her manifest concern with pluralism and consensus, her capability approach is unlikely to provide a basis for a consensual view of development. The most promising view of development comes, I have argued, from James Grifftn’s account of human well-being. Such a view has been sketched here: the main reason to recommend this is that it is based on the idea that prudential deliberation leads us to a list of prudential values that must be accepted by any human being, whatever her individual view of the good life. It is thus consistent with pluralism.

NOTES

1. Cracker (1991). 10. Sen (1984b), 509-510. pp.

2. Ingham (1993). 11. See Sen (1984a). 509. p.

3. Naqvi (1992). 12. Sen (199Ob). 44. p.

4. Sen (1990b) pp. 4243 makes this point very clearly. 13. See Sen (199Ob), and Sen (1992), chapter 5.

5. See Sen (1993, 1992, 1990a and 199Ob, 1988, 1987, 14. Sen (1980). 1985a and 1985b. 1984a and 1984b and 1980).

15. Sen(1993),p.41. 6. Particularly Beitz (1986), Sugden (1986 and 1993), Basu (1987), Williams (1987), Nussbaum (1988), Ameson (1989), 16. Sen (1993, p. 40. Cohen ( 1989 and 1993), Cracker (1992) and Gaertner (1993).

17. Sen (1993), p. 42. 7. Sen (1993) p. 31.

18. Sen (1984b), p. 510. 8. Sen’s version of this concept is similar but different to Berlin’s (1969), pp. 131-134. 19. Sen (1993). pp. 48-49 thinks of the incompleteness as a

virtue, since he wishes to leave his approach open to different 9. See Sen (1988 and 1990b). views of value and weighting.


20.

21.

22.

Berlin (1%9), p. 122.

See Sen (1985b) and (1984a). for example.

It may be argued that the failure of capabilities in this example is a failure to be able to refrain from stealing. X is, as it were, compelled to steal and in that degree unfree. While Sen may indeed want to say this, his failure to distinguish between “doing” and “refraining from doing” limits his ability to make such a defence.

23. Streeten etal. (1981), p. 21.

24. See Stewart (1989). pp. 352-353.

25. Stewart (1989), p. 360.

26. Streeteneral.(1981),pp.32-41.

27. Sen(1984b),p.513.

28. Streeten et al. (1981), p. 34.

29. Bawls (1972). p. 83.

30. For a critique of this view, see Gtiffin (1986), chapter 3.

31. Sec. Wiggins (1987), pp. 44-57.

32. See Stewart (1989), p. 348.

33. See Streeten eral. (1981). p. 55.

34. Streeten (1984). p. 974.

35. Sen (1984b), pp. 514-515.

36. Streeten et&. (1981), p. 17.

31. For the basic capabilities see Nussbaum (1990). p. 225 and Nussbaum (1992). p. 222.

38. See Berlin (1%9), p. 122.

39. Nussbaum (1988), p. 170.

40. Nussbaum (1993) gives a fuller account.

41. Nussbaum (1988), p. 170.

42. Nussbaum (1988), p. 160.

43. Nussbaum(l988), p. 164.

44. See Nussbaum (1993). pp. 263-265 and Nussbaum (1995).

45. Nussbaum (1988). p. 166.

46. Nussbaum (1988). p. 146.

47. Nussbaum discusses rights in Nussbaum (1990).

48. Nussbaum (1988). p. 153.

49. See Nussbaum (1993). p. 258.

50. Nussbaum (1989).

51. Charles (1988), pp. 202-204 expresses worries along these lines in his critique of Nussbaum. His concern is with Nussbaum’s account as a piece of Aristotelian exegesis; my concern is with Nussbaum’s own account as a contender for serious consideration. I do think that Nussbaum’s is a charita- ble and attractive account of Aristotle, but that is not the issue here.

52.

53.

54.

55.

56.

57.

58.

59.

60.

61.

62.

63.

64.

65.

66.

Nussbaum (1988), p. 145.

Nussbaum (1993). p. 243.

See Nussbaum (1986), p. 294.

UNDP (1990), p. 1.

see UNDP (1990). p. 9.

Goulet (1989). p. 175.

Cracker (1991).

Nussbaum and Sen (1989), p. 308.

UNDP (1994), p. 4.

UNDP (1994), p. 14.

See Cohen (1989) and Richard Ameson (1989).

Griftin (1991), p. 51.

Griffin (1991).

Griffin (1991), p. 652.

This list in Griffin (1991, 1992, 1993a and 1993b and 1995).

67. Griffin (1991), p. 62.

68. The prudential values are at least, in this sense, taken to be commensurable.

69. Sen (1984b), p. 509.

70. It is important that Griffin (1991). p. 60, does not intend to mean by accomplishment simply “achievement” since. he thinks that one can achieve a great deal without accomplish- ing much.

71. See Qizilbash (1995).

72. See Griffin (1986 and 1991).

73. In this sense the approach manages to do something similar to Griffin’s sueuestions in WeN-Beinn (Griffin, 1986) D. 53, that “[a]11 ba&-needs will have the; place, and imG- tance marked in the hierarchy of prudential value.”

74. Grifftn (1986), p. 64.


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