Human Well-being: Concepts and Conceptualizations

well-being, welfare, happiness, objective, subjective, measurement

Introduction: Working in Development Ethics – a tribute to Denis Goulet

Denis Goulet (1931-2006) was probably the main founder of work on ‘development ethics’ as a self-conscious field that treats the ethical and value questions posed by development theory, planning and practice. This overview of a selection of papers presented at a conference of the International Development Ethics Association (Uganda, 2006) surveys Goulet’s work and compares it with issues and approaches in the selected papers. Ideas raised by Goulet provide a framework for discussing the set of papers, which especially consider corruption, professional ethics and the rights to water and essential drugs. The papers in turn provide a basis for comparing Goulet’s ideas with actual directions of work on development ethics. Rather than as a separate sub-discipline, development ethics takes shape as an interdisciplinary meeting place, aided though by the profile and intellectual space that Goulet strikingly strove to build for it

Understanding Max-Neef's model of human needs as a practical toolkit for supporting development work and societal transitions

Max-Neef's model of human needs continues to be quite widely used, across many contexts. It contains (1) a matrix of fundamental needs and diverse satisfiers; (2) a theorisation of types of satisfiers; (3) a methodology for satisfier specification, for use in diagnosing current systems, sketching preferred alternatives, and considering how to move towards them. This chapter considers not only the famous matrix but the model's purposes, contexts of emergence and use, and theorisation of satisfiers and satisfier specification. Part One outlines how it emerged to support “Human Scale Development” and “Barefoot Economics” in Latin America. It continues in use 35 years later, in a range of settings. Part Two notes that Max-Neef's distinctive contribution was to enrich thinking about satisfiers, through considering multiple existential modes, multiple types, and the impacts of satisfiers on multiple needs. He handled his concepts as practical tools to investigate (alternative) patterns of living. Part Three notes some of the range of applications, for diverse levels and topics; by Max-Neef himself and close collaborators, especially for local sustainable development; and by various recent authors not connected to Max-Neef, in situation assessments of the lives of poor and marginalised groups, and for creative policy design and planning.</p

Amartya Sen as a social and political theorist–on personhood, democracy, and ‘description as choice’

Economist-philosopher Amartya Sen's writings on social and political issues have attracted wide audiences. Section 2 introduces his contributions on: how people reason as agents within society; social determinants of people's (lack of) access to goods and of the effective freedoms and agency they enjoy or lack; and associated advocacy of self-specification of identity and high expectations for ‘voice’ and reasoning democracy. Section 3 considers his relation to social theory, his tools for theorizing action in society, and his limited degree of attention to work by sociologists and to capitalism and power structures. Section 4 characterizes a style marked by conceptual refinement, emphases on complexity and individuality, including personal individuality, and reformist optimism. Section 5 shows the features from Sections 3 and 4 at work in his conception of personhood that advocates freedom to make a reasoned composition of personal identity. Similarly, Section 6 addresses his conception of public reasoning and neglect of the sociology of democracy. It contrasts the ideal of a reasoning polity with features in many countries. Sen's programmes for critical autonomy in personhood and for reasoned politics play, nevertheless, a normic role, while his analytical formats help investigation of obstacles to more widespread agency, voice, and democratic participation.</p