Markets and Freedom

I thought it would be interesting to discuss Sen's references to economics, markets, and utility maximization as this falls in line with many of our prior readings. Sen's capabilities outlook provides, in my opinion, a better reason for a free market. He writes, "it can still be argued that there is some social loss involved in denying people the right to interact economically with each other." Markets do provide efficiency, but this is not the primary reason we should support them. When describing a the scenario of economic efficiency under a dictator, Sen adds, "[a citizen] may still have very good reason to prefer the scenario of free choice over that of submission to order."

I think this is why I like Sen so much. He gives grounded (moral?) reasons for operating a state in a certain way. It's not just that a state should produce the best outcomes (although I know he is a consequentialist), but the intrinsic significance of ensuring freedoms is also valued. He seems to find a way to rationalize the realization of the best outcomes in a way that is morally sound.

The ability to live a meaningful life

Sen discusses income as not only a means to live, but also to "achieve actual livings that one can have reason to value" (73). This extends the evaluation of poverty beyond income and even access to food, healthcare, etc., to the ability of an individual to function in society without deprivation. As he notes, the "relative deprivation in terms of incomes can yield absolute deprivation in terms of capabilities" (89). He notes that even if an individual may have a higher absolute income in terms of world standards, being relatively poor in a rich country can be a great handicap.

I like this version of inequality as deprivation because it accounts for variances in cultural/societal standards; rather than arguing that African-Americans are better off (in terms of income) than the relatively poor in countries like India, which diminishes the level of adversity this group truly faces, Sen promotes weighing the importance of capability to participate in society. Social exclusion, which results from being unable to participate meaningfully in a community, inhibits the ability of an individual to participate in the political and economic spheres of that society. This not only hinders an individual's ability to succeed, but also to live a life that the society would consider meaningful in the least.

I also understand that this view may generate criticism. How did you guys receive this idea?

Can We Measure Freedom?

A couple classes ago, in a discussion about Ripstein, Tyler said that we tend to focus more on numerical measurements of nations (GDP, purchasing power, exchange rates, ext.) as an indication of quality of life rather than more qualitative qualifications, like freedom. It is just harder to measure freedom directly, and harder to quantify. Sen moves us closer to directly identifying which countries give their citizens more freedom. But he shies away from putting a numerical value on freedom. Sen writes, " I have also not attempted to produce an 'aggregate' measure of deprivation, based on 'weighting' the different aspects of capability deprivation. A constructed aggregate may often be far less interesting for policy analysis that the substantive pattern of diverse performances" (103).  I agree with Sen in that an analysis illuminates what metrics often obscure. However, counting freedoms might be possible.

I think we could list all the freedoms gained or lost due to a societal feature (like welfare programs, income inequality, right to bare arms) for a set of individuals. Then, we could add the freedoms or subtract the unfreedoms for each set of individuals, and then we could arrive at a sum of freedoms. This would only be interesting if, through an analysis, it wasn't clear which country gave citizens more freedom.   For example, Europe and the United States diffing levels of unemployment and income inequality, that yield different freedoms and unfreedoms. They seem to be sort of at a tie. Sen explains that "American social ethics seems to find it possible to be very non-supportive of the indigent and the impoverished, in a way that a typical Western European, reared in a welfare state, finds hard to accept. But the same American social ethics would find the double-digit levels of unemployment, common in Europe quite intolerable"(95). But which country is more free? We could apply this little math trick to see which situation either more equality, more unemployment or less equality, less unemployment generates more freedoms for sets of individuals and fewer unfreedoms for sets of individuals. Maybe if we could start to quantify freedom on a rudimentary level, we could talk more directly about freedom, instead about indirect measurements of quality of life.

Sen's Democracy

I really like the way that Sen separates the various reasons that democratic liberties are important: directly, instrumentally, and constructively. He illustrates how these different components of liberty are lacking in certain undemocratic nations, but it's also interesting to think about how these different aspects of the importance of democracy can be seen in the US. For instance, I think a lot of American citizens are aware of the direct and instrumental importance of democracy; if asked about why democracy is important, they could probably come up with reasons both about the intrinsic importance of democracy as well as the democratic actions that democracy allows us to undertake. However, the constructive aspect that Sen points out might not be as immediately obvious, but explains a lot of democratic feeling in the US. Based on how Sen describes the constructive aspect, it seems like the reason most Americans largely believe in the importance of certain capabilities in the first place is because our democratic political system has allowed us to discuss and arrive at their importance. As Sen says, "these [democratic] processes are crucial to the formation of values and priorities, and we cannot, in general, take preferences as given independently of public discussion, that is, irrespective of whether open debates and interchanges are permitted or not" (153).

I also think the qualification that Sen places on democracy's value adds strength to his overall understanding of democracy. According to Sen, democratic liberties' "effectiveness would depend on how they are exercised" (154). This is how Sen explains the inequalities that African Americans in the US are subject to, even though the US is a functioning democracy.

Other thoughts on how Sen presents democracy?

The Lee thesis

As a Singaporean I’m very well acquainted what Sen calls “the Lee thesis,” which broadly speaking says that freedom and rights tend to inhibit economic development. I’m not sure how many of you caught this, but Lee Kuan Yew passed away recently. It was a pretty big deal in Singapore, to put it mildly. Lee Kuan Yew towers over Singaporean history. I am fairly ambivalent about LKY, but I’d happily contend that he’s one of the greatest leaders of the 20th century. His life’s work has been to secure many of Sen’s multiform freedoms for Singaporeans. But he never believed much in democracy. 

This recent Atlantic article puts forward the Lee thesis quite succinctly:

The contrast between Singapore’s ranking in the first two categories, and the third, reminds us of a fundamental question of political philosophy: What is government for? Contemporary Western Europeans and Americans tend to answer that question by emphasizing political rights. But for Lee Kuan Yew, “the ultimate test of the value of a political system is whether it helps that society establish conditions that improve the standard of living for the majority of its people.” As one of his fellow Singaporeans, Calvin Cheng, wrote this past week in The Independent, “Freedom is being able to walk on the streets unmolested in the wee hours in the morning, to be able to leave one’s door open and not fear that one would be burgled. Freedom is the woman who can ride buses and trains alone; freedom is not having to avoid certain subway stations after night falls.” Lee Kuan Yew always insisted that the proof is in the pudding: rising incomes for the broad middle class, health, security, economic opportunity.

I am personally on Sen’s side. I believe there is intrinsic value to democracy, and its instrumental and constructive impact on other freedoms is not to be neglected. But it surely cannot be prescribed indiscriminately for all societies (in all their disparate stages of development). Sen mentions that the strength of democracy is very much dependent on a society’s ability to seize it. A society must have civic virtue, there must be “vigor” in its multiparty politics, there has to be “dynamism of moral arguments” and “value formation.” This reminded me of Brettschneider’s value theory of democracy. Brettschneider outlined a few core constitutive values of democracy, but I do not remember him commenting on the constitution populace itself. This might be a fourth core value, then: it requires a people ready for it.

Section 3, in plainer prose

I find Kant’s writing next to impossible to parse sometimes. Section 3, especially, was a pain. Each page must have taken me half an hour. I’ll try to explain it in my words. I hope I didn’t get it wrong.

(a) Kant proves that free will is concerned only with the categorical imperative.

I had to go back and revise a few definitions before I could get to grips with this passage. Causality is the relationship between cause and effect. Heteronomy = subject to external laws.

1. Freedom is a type of causality. It’s a type of causality that exists (“be efficient” in Kant’s words) independent of external influences.
2. All causalities are ruled by laws. It would be absurd if they weren’t: how else is a cause supposed to translate into an effect?
3. Since freedom cannot have exogenous laws affecting it, its law must come from itself. 
4. We know from earlier that the will has only one principle, the categorical imperative (“I ought never to act except in such a that I could also will that my maxim should become a universal law.”)
5. Therefore free will is ruled only by the categorical imperative. (i.e. “a free will and a will under moral laws are one and the same.”)

(b) Rational beings must have free will.

1. A rational being is so because he can initiate causality, i.e. be the source of an effect.
2. It is only possible to do so with a self-generated reason that is independent of external influences.
3. The only way for a being to generate a reason of his own is if he has free will.
4. Therefore all rational beings have free will.

Hope this helps anyone who struggling with these passages.

Kant's free and rational individual & the implication on creating moral society

Kant emphasizes the requirement of individuals being both free and rational agents in creating and applying a moral standard. He argues that these characteristics are what uniquely make humans able to understand and act upon moral principles. Thus, "...the most fundamental moral principles must therefore apply to any possible (free and) rational agent" (289).  Kant then argues that these same characteristics which "make us subject to moral oughts...are also sufficient for us to comply with them" (289). Similarly, these these characteristics are also what make lead Darwell to his account 'reciprocal accountability,' or why we are bound and restricted by these moral obligations. Furthermore, a moral community is one is which freely acting moral agents are all accountable to one another.

In each of these aspects of Kant's account, we presume the existence of society of human beings. Morality would take on a different form if we were not assuming that we are constantly interacting with other free and rational beings. Like Darwell explains, would not matter if we lied if the subject of the lie was not similarly a human. Yet this makes me consider whether or not this account requires a more extensive definition of free and rational. Does one only need to be a human by nature in order to be considered to have these characteristics? What about the issues of mental health, or even imposed social positions? Furthermore, does a moral society require a state that ensures such standards of basic equality? I'm curious to hear others' thoughts.