Book: On Ethics and Economics

Overview

Amartya Sen offers a sustained exploration of the moral foundations of economic thought, arguing that economic analysis cannot be isolated from ethical reasoning. The book collects essays that probe how values enter questions of welfare, distributive justice, and public policy, and it challenges narrow doctrines that treat economics as a value-free technical exercise. Sen insists that moral reflection enriches economic inquiry and helps address persistent problems of poverty, inequality, and human deprivation.

Central Themes

A recurring theme is the critique of welfarism and the narrow identification of well-being with utility or commodity possession. Sen emphasizes that welfare must be understood through a richer informational base that includes individual freedoms, capabilities, and the real opportunities people have to lead lives they value. He also highlights the indispensability of interpersonal comparisons, public reasoning, and plural values when forming judgments about social choices and social arrangements.

Ethics and Economic Theory

Sen interrogates foundational economic assumptions about rationality, selfishness, and the aggregation of preferences. He challenges simplistic models that treat people as isolated utility-maximizers and shows how moral commitments, rights, and social values shape preferences and choices. By bringing philosophical perspectives, especially from moral and political philosophy, into dialogue with formal economics, he demonstrates how concepts like justice, freedom, and fairness can be given analytical purchase without abandoning rigorous argumentation.

Method and Argument

The approach is characteristically interdisciplinary and patient: philosophical clarity is combined with careful economic reasoning and empirical sensitivity. Sen uses thought experiments, conceptual analysis, and critiques of existing theorems to expose unstated value assumptions in welfare economics and social choice theory. He stresses the need to expand the informational base for assessing well-being, arguing that evaluative exercises must consider capabilities, functionings, and the social and institutional context that enable or constrain them.

Policy Implications

By reframing welfare in terms of capabilities and substantive freedoms, Sen reshapes how policy priorities are set and evaluated. Poverty alleviation, social safety nets, and development strategies are recast as matters of expanding real opportunities rather than merely increasing measured income. The emphasis on public reason and democratic deliberation also pushes toward policies that respect human dignity and agency, recognizing that procedures and voice are integral to assessments of justice.

Legacy and Relevance

The essays prefigure and feed into later developments in development economics, welfare theory, and human development thinking. Sen's insistence on normative pluralism and on the moral content of economic practice has influenced both academic debates and practical policy frameworks, including the human development approach. The arguments remain pertinent for contemporary debates about inequality, social choice, and the limits of market reasoning, offering a robust challenge to technocratic and reductionist tendencies in economic policymaking.