Poverty and Human Rights: Sen’s Contributions in Economics
Author(s)
Vizard, Polly
Abstract
This chapter analyses the ways in which Amartya Sen’s work contributes to ethical debates concerning the characterisation of fundamental freedoms and human rights. It explores in particular the ways in which Sen’s development of the ‘capability approach’ provides a framework in which the capability to achieve a standard of living adequate for survival and development — including adequate nutrition, safe water and sanitation, shelter and housing, access to basic health and social services, and education — is characterised as a basic human right that governments and other actors have individual and collective obligations to defend and support. Sen’s work is shown to have moved the debates about global poverty and human rights in ethics and political theory. These aspects of Sen’s work provide elements of — or a partial basis for — a theory of human rights that includes the elimination of global poverty as a central and critical objective.
