Amartya Sen rejoins to articles by Frances Stewart and Severine Deneulin, “Amartya Sen’s Contribution to Development Thinking”; Marc Fleurbaey, “Development, Capabilities, and Freedom”; and Peter Evans, “Collective Capabilities, Culture, and Amartya Sen’s Development as Freedom”. Stewart and Deneulin argue for a realistic understanding of democracy and against dependence on methodological individualism. Sen clarifies his views and counters that the two criticisms are in tension. To Fleurbaey’s comments, he contends that theories of justice cannot concentrate solely on the distribution of resources, but must also consider interpersonal comparisons of achievements and freedoms. Evans’s essay is in agreement that gaining freedom is rarely achieved through individual efforts and that cultural forces can subtly shape preferences resulting in the loss of freedom.
