Development as Freedom Read Online Free PDF Page A

decisions regarding public affairs. These deprivations restrict social and political lives, and must be seen as repressive even without their leading to other afflictions (such as economic disasters). Since political and civil freedomsare constitutive elements of human freedom, their denial is a handicap in itself. In examining the role of human rights in development, we have to take note of the constitutive as well as the instrumental importance of civil rights and political freedoms. These issues are examined in chapter 6 .
PROCESSES AND OPPORTUNITIES
    It should be clear from the preceding discussion that the view of freedom that is being taken here involves both the
processes
that allow freedom of actions and decisions, and the actual
opportunities
that people have, given their personal and social circumstances. Unfreedom can arise either through inadequate processes (such as the violation of voting privileges or other political or civil rights) or through inadequate opportunities that some people have for achieving what they minimally would like to achieve (including the absence of such elementary opportunities as the capability to escape premature mortality or preventable morbidity or involuntary starvation).
    The distinction between the
process aspect
and the
opportunity aspect
of freedom involves quite a substantial contrast. It can be pursued at different levels. I have discussed elsewhere the respective roles and requirements of (as well as mutual connections between) the process aspect and the opportunity aspect of freedom. 4 While this may not be the occasion to go into the complex and subtle issues that relate to this distinction, it is very important to see freedom in a sufficiently broad way. It is necessary to avoid confining attention only to appropriate procedures (as so-called libertarians sometimes do, without worrying at all about whether some disadvantaged people suffer from systematic deprivation of substantive opportunities), or, alternatively, only to adequate opportunities (as so-called consequentialists sometimes do, without worrying about the nature of the processes that bring the opportunities about or the freedom of choice that people have). Both processes and opportunities have importance of their own, and each aspect relates to seeing development as freedom.
TWO ROLES OF FREEDOM
    The analysis of development presented in this book treats the freedoms of individuals as the basic building blocks. Attention is thus paid particularly to the expansion of the “capabilities” of persons to lead the kind of lives they value—and have reason to value. These capabilities can be enhanced by public policy, but also, on the other side, the direction of public policy can be influenced by the effective use of participatory capabilities by the public. The
two-way relationship
is central to the analysis presented here.
    There are two distinct reasons for the crucial importance of individual freedom in the concept of development, related respectively to
evaluation
and
effectiveness
. 5 First, in the normative approach used here, substantive individual freedoms are taken to be critical. The success of a society is to be evaluated, in this view, primarily by the substantive freedoms that the members of that society enjoy. This evaluative position differs from the informational focus of more traditional normative approaches, which focus on other variables, such as utility, or procedural liberty, or real income.
    Having greater freedom to do the things one has reason to value is (1) significant in itself for the person’s overall freedom, and (2) important in fostering the person’s opportunity to have valuable outcomes. 6 Both are relevant to the evaluation of freedom of the members of the society and thus crucial to the assessment of the society’s development. The reasons for this normative focus (and in particular for seeing justice in terms of individual freedoms and its social correlates) is more fully