Economics or Ethics?

When reading the third chapter especially, I had to take a step back and ask myself, this won the nobel prize for economics??? Maybe this is from taking Macro 100 with Professor Buckles, but I definitely would not have imagined the study of economics to be such a humanitarian endeavor. It was refreshing to read something that considered 'regular' economics but actually focuses on human suffering and decision-making. Overall I thought that Sen's broad argument was fairly persuasive, probably because of his multidisciplinary approach. Aside from economics and ethics, he also discusses political science and culture.

Aside from this general comment, I want to mention three other things that particularly caught my attention: 1) I agree with several of my classmates that Sen's emphasis on groups and the individual as opposed to just countries allows for a much more accurate understanding of living conditions and human suffering. The example of minorities living in America was extremely persuasive. Economic disparities is something that we all know exists in the United States, but sometimes it is tempting to generalize about the living conditions in other countries. By citing this example early, Sen avoids that generalization which makes it impossible to accurately portray peoples' quality of life.

2) I also think that Sen's approach to human nature is refreshingly realistic. He discusses influential philosophical beliefs but ultimately is firmly in the middle. Approaching economics from a standpoint that all people are completely self-centered and greedy is clearly wrong, but so is assuming that people will be selfless. This is particularly important when discussing the relationship between the developing countries and the developed countries. Even though Sen's writing was very philosophical, he avoided extremes, and his discussion of human nature is only one example of that.

3) Although I liked Sen's general argument, I still don't really know if at the end we are anywhere closer to forming a solution to alleviate poverty and enhance social justice. I didn't read the whole book, but my last thought on what I did read is a sort of: now what do we do?