ABSTRACT
Educationalists are be ginning to e xplore the implications of Amatyra Sen’ s ‘capability theory’ for curriculum planning and pedagogy in educational institutions (see Saito 2003 and Walker 2005, 2006). This chapter is an additional contribution to an emer ging interest by introducing a lar gely philosophical perspective that connects Sen’s work to Dewey’s account of educational values. The major thrust of Sen’ s work is to use philosophical tools to reconceptualize the relationship between economy and society in the conte xt of de velopment. He argues that de velopment consists of ‘the e xpansion of the “capabilities” of persons to lead the kind of li ves they value and ha ve reason to v alue’ (1999, p.18). Capabilities consist of the substanti ve freedoms people have to do things they may come to v alue and, in so doing, enrich their li ves. They presuppose both conditions of ne gative and positi ve freedom, i.e. freedom from e xternal constraints on their opportunities to do things, and the development of capacities for doing them that are internal to the person (see Sen 2002, pp. 11-12). From Sen’s capability perspective the end of de velopment is the e xpansion of human freedom rather than economic growth at the societal level and income growth at the level of the private individual. He explicitly invokes Aristotle’s contention in the Nicomachean Ethics that ‘wealth is evidently not the good that we are seeking; for it is merely useful and for the sake of something else’ (Sen 1999, p. 14). For Sen the linkage between economic wealth and people’s overall capability to live lives they have reason to value is a contingent and complex matter that can vary in strength from society to society and depend on other circumstances. It cannot simply be viewed as a straightforw ard linear relation between cause and ef fect. Just as the e xpansion of people’ s capabilities or substanti ve freedoms may , at
least in part, be a consequence of economic growth in society and growth in their individual incomes, it may also be the case that they contribute indirectly to such growth. The relationship is a reciprocal one.
