Skip to main content Accessibility help

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

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T04:18:05.388Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

1 - Introduction: social choice, agency, inclusiveness and capabilities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2024

By
Flavio Comim ,
P. B. Anand  and
Shailaja Fennell
Edited by
Flavio Comim ,
P. B. Anand  and
Shailaja Fennell
Flavio Comim
Affiliation:
Universitat Ramon Llull
P. B. Anand
Affiliation:
University of Bradford
Shailaja Fennell
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Get access

Summary

This chapter provides an overview of the books main issues and how they constitute a key narrative for understanding the links between Amartya Sens social choice theory (SCT) and other elements of his capability approach. It invites its readers to a long interdisciplinary journey, from an acknowledgement of the SCT features in Sen’s work to rich analytical categories that expand the core of SCT towards new forms of social theorizing. More specifically, it reviews the main features of Sen’s SCT and discusses a wide range of issues related to collective choices and individual values, such as those of consensus building, institutional change, identity perceptions, inclusiveness, notions of agency, the role of moral sentiments and emotions in shaping social choice, an ethics of sufficiency versus an ethics of optimal social capability, the influence of psychological aspects on individuals’ choices and the role of social structures in shaping people’s social priorities. It covers a wide range of empirical cases, and advances a proposal for a broader notion of social choice that can be richer, more interdisciplinary and more useful to human development theory and policies.

Keywords

social choiceagencyinclusivenesscapabilities
Type
Chapter
Information
Social Choice, Agency, Inclusiveness and Capabilities , pp. 1 - 14
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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

Arrow, K. J. (1951) Social Choice and Individual Values. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Gaertner, W. (2009) A Primer in Social Choice Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sen, A. K. (1970) Collective Choice and Social Welfare. San Francisco: Holden-Day.Google Scholar
(1982) Choice, Welfare and Measurement. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
(1984) Resources, Values and Development. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
(1997) Maximization and the act of choice. Econometrica, 65 (4): 745–79.Google Scholar
(1999) Development as Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
(2002) Rationality and Freedom. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
(2017) Collective Choice and Social Welfare, expanded edn. London: Penguin.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

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

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

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

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

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

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

Available formats
×