development as freedom

December 7th, 2006

Re-reading development as freedom by Amartya Sen. One slamdunk after the other.

On page 282:

“As competent human beings, we cannot shirk the task of judging how things are and what needs to be done. As reflective creatures, we have the ability to contemplate the lives of others. Our sense of responsibility need not relate only to the afflictions that our own behavior may have caused (though that can be important as well), but can also relate more generally to the miseries that we see around us and that lie within our power to help remedy. That responsibility is not, of course, the only consideration that can claim our attention, but to deny the relevance of that general claim would be to miss something central about our social existence. It is not so much a matter of having exact rules about precisely we ought to behave, as of recognizing the relevance of our shared humanity in making the choices we face.”

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One Response

  1. brigitte

    reading somerville’s ideas about the search for a shared human ethics, she quotes:

    I cannot be me without you
    and we cannot be us without them,
    and together we have a future.

book and sword : gratitude and revenge

is the first novel written by Jin Yong. The protagonist is Chan Ka Lok, who is the leader of the Red Flower Society. The book title refers to Ka Lok being famous for being well-versed in culture and martial arts, but also for having to make a difficult ethical decision. My father named me and my brother after him.

The subtitle is from a poem Desiderata