ABSTRACT
Amartya Sen advances the thinking on inequality by introducing the idea of human freedom into the debate. Sen aims to reconcile and extend contemporary understandings of human freedom to include capabilities. Sen understands human freedom as not just the achievement of things people can be or do, but the freedom or ability to pursue them in the first place. Sen proposes the importance of public debate and democracy: each group can, through reasoning and deliberation, come up with its own list of valued capabilities to define equality. Inequality Reexamined is the seminal distillation of decades of Sen's work. In Inequality Reexamined Sen proposes the original idea that past assessments of inequality are inefficient. Sen's writings complement other human development and people-centered approaches such as the Basic Needs Approach. The Basic Needs Approach focuses on the need for the minimum quantities of food, shelter, water and sanitation necessary to prevent ill health or undernourishment.
