The Freedom-based Critique of Well-Being's Exclusive Moral Claim. Issue 4 (2nd October 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Fox, Joshua Isaac
• Is Part Of: Journal of human development and capabilities. Volume 22:Issue 4(2021)
• Page Start: 647
• Page End: 662
• Publication Date: 2021-10-02
• Subjects: Amartya Sen -- well-being -- dignity -- freedom -- welfarism -- potential; Economic development -- Periodicals; Social change -- Periodicals; Human rights -- Periodicals; Welfare economics -- Periodicals; 303.44
• DOI: 10.1080/19452829.2021.1966612
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1945-2829

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Amartya Sen has suggested that the moral significance of freedom undermines the view that well-being alone possesses fundamental moral worth. Sen's efforts to establish this claim, however, seem to fall short: he attempts to establish freedom's independent moral significance by pointing to the value of autonomy, but explains the value of autonomy in terms of its role as an element of well-being. Nonetheless, I take it that Sen is very much on the right track: well-being is not the only fundamental moral value, and an examination of freedom's moral significance really will bring this out. I thus offer my own version of the freedom-based critique of well-being's exclusive moral claim, focusing not on autonomy but what Sen has called "well-being freedom." The value of this variety of freedom derives, I will suggest, not from the value of well-being itself but the value of well-being potential. Well-being freedom matters not only because promoting it is a way of promoting human well-being, but also because respecting it is a way of respecting the dignity of human nature. The freedom-based critique of well-being's moral uniqueness succeeds even if Sen's particular version of it does not.