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Amartya Sen

Bio: Amartya Sen is an academic researcher from Harvard University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Poverty & Human rights. The author has an hindex of 149, co-authored 689 publications receiving 141907 citations. Previous affiliations of Amartya Sen include Trinity College, Dublin & University of Chicago.


Papers
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Journal ArticleDOI
Amartya Sen1
01 Mar 2006-Utilitas
TL;DR: In this paper, the similarities between Mill's ideas and mine partly reflect, of course, his influence on my thinking, but also discuss some difficulties in taking Mill's whole theory without modification, since there are internal tensions within it.
Abstract: I am embarrassed at being placed in the dizzying company of one of the truly great thinkers in the world. The similarities between Mill's ideas and mine partly reflect, of course, his influence on my thinking. But I also discuss some difficulties in taking Mill's whole theory without modification, since there are internal tensions within it. In a paper I published in 1967, I tried to discuss how Mill's willingness to hold on to some contrary positions depended on the nature of his empirical reading of the world. I draw on that diagnosis in commenting on some of the articles here. There are some serious issues of misinterpretation in one of the articles, which I try to clarify. I also comment on Arrow's interpretation of what is involved in the idea of autonomy and on his own way of assessing freedom, and acknowledge the seriousness of the questions he raises about the value of freedom in normative political philosophy.

66 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined flat models containing a dark matter component and an arbitrary dark energy component, subject only to the constraint that the dark energy satisfies the weak energy condition, and determined the constraints that these conditions place on the evolution of the Hubble parameter with redshift, H(z), and on the scaling of the coordinate distance with redshifting, r(z).

66 citations

Book ChapterDOI
01 Feb 2006
TL;DR: The Wealth of Nations as mentioned in this paper is a collection of essays on economic subjects written by Adam Smith, who devoted some 12 years of his life to the composition of the book, which was eventually published in 1776 (finish your Work before Autumn; go to London; print it,” Hume had written sternly in 1772).
Abstract: A PRACTICAL AND POPULAR MANNER Adam Smith's writings on economic subjects - to adapt the title that his closest friends gave to his posthumously published Essays on Philosophical Subjects - are diverse, discursive, and interspersed with almost everything else that he wrote. Economic life, for Smith, was intricately interconnected with the rest of life, or with the life of politics, sentiment, and imagination. Economic thought was interconnected with the rest of thought, or with legal, philosophical, and moral reflection. In the speculative thought of philosophers, as in the plans and projects of merchants, the economic and the political were virtually impossible to distinguish. “I have begun to write a book in order to pass away the time,” Smith wrote to David Hume from Toulouse, in 1764. He devoted some 12 years of his life to the composition of The Wealth of Nations , which was eventually published in 1776 (“finish your Work before Autumn; go to London; print it,” Hume had written sternly in 1772) (Corr., pp. 102, 166). But The Wealth of Nations is not concerned only with wealth, and Smith's other writings and lectures were concerned in part with wealth, as well as with the emotional or moral lives of individuals ( The Theory of Moral Sentiments ), or with legal institutions (the lectures on jurisprudence). In The Wealth of Nations , individuals seek amusement, attention, and conversation; they think about fear and oppression; they reflect on ontology; and they are interested in equity. In The Theory of Moral Sentiments , they desire trinkets and tweezer cases, they have theories about wealth and poverty, and they reflect on the commerce with China and on the precariousness of life. Smith says almost nothing about self-love in The Wealth of Nations ; it is a principal theme of The Theory of Moral Sentiments . “[I]t is chiefly from this regard to the sentiments of mankind, that we pursue riches and avoid poverty,” Smith wrote in The Theory of Moral Sentiments (I.iii.2.1), of the desire to be attended to, and taken notice of.

66 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors examines the role of democratic practice in contemporary India, going beyond the elementary concern with democratic institutions per se, and argues that democratic practice itself is a powerful tool of elimination of these handicaps.
Abstract: This paper examines the role of democratic practice in contemporary India, going beyond the elementary concern with democratic institutions per se. The foundations of democratic practice are identified as facility (functional democratic institutions), involvement (informed public engagement with these institutions), and equity (a fair distribution of power). The achievements and limitations of Indian democracy are assessed in this light, with special attention to the adverse effects of social inequality on democratic practice. It is argued that while the quality of democracy is often compromised by social inequality and inadequate political participation, democratic practice itself is a powerful tool of elimination of these handicaps.

64 citations


Cited by
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This review considers research from both perspectives concerning the nature of well-being, its antecedents, and its stability across time and culture.
Abstract: ▪ Abstract Well-being is a complex construct that concerns optimal experience and functioning. Current research on well-being has been derived from two general perspectives: the hedonic approach, which focuses on happiness and defines well-being in terms of pleasure attainment and pain avoidance; and the eudaimonic approach, which focuses on meaning and self-realization and defines well-being in terms of the degree to which a person is fully functioning. These two views have given rise to different research foci and a body of knowledge that is in some areas divergent and in others complementary. New methodological developments concerning multilevel modeling and construct comparisons are also allowing researchers to formulate new questions for the field. This review considers research from both perspectives concerning the nature of well-being, its antecedents, and its stability across time and culture.

8,243 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Commission on Social Determinants of Health (CSDH) as mentioned in this paper was created to marshal the evidence on what can be done to promote health equity and to foster a global movement to achieve it.

7,335 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
08 Aug 2002-Nature
TL;DR: A doubling in global food demand projected for the next 50 years poses huge challenges for the sustainability both of food production and of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and the services they provide to society.
Abstract: A doubling in global food demand projected for the next 50 years poses huge challenges for the sustainability both of food production and of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and the services they provide to society. Agriculturalists are the principal managers of global useable lands and will shape, perhaps irreversibly, the surface of the Earth in the coming decades. New incentives and policies for ensuring the sustainability of agriculture and ecosystem services will be crucial if we are to meet the demands of improving yields without compromising environmental integrity or public health.

6,569 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors review the observational evidence for the current accelerated expansion of the universe and present a number of dark energy models in addition to the conventional cosmological constant, paying particular attention to scalar field models such as quintessence, K-essence and tachyon.
Abstract: We review in detail a number of approaches that have been adopted to try and explain the remarkable observation of our accelerating universe. In particular we discuss the arguments for and recent progress made towards understanding the nature of dark energy. We review the observational evidence for the current accelerated expansion of the universe and present a number of dark energy models in addition to the conventional cosmological constant, paying particular attention to scalar field models such as quintessence, K-essence, tachyon, phantom and dilatonic models. The importance of cosmological scaling solutions is emphasized when studying the dynamical system of scalar fields including coupled dark energy. We study the evolution of cosmological perturbations allowing us to confront them with the observation of the Cosmic Microwave Background and Large Scale Structure and demonstrate how it is possible in principle to reconstruct the equation of state of dark energy by also using Supernovae Ia observational data. We also discuss in detail the nature of tracking solutions in cosmology, particle physics and braneworld models of dark energy, the nature of possible future singularities, the effect of higher order curvature terms to avoid a Big Rip singularity, and approaches to modifying gravity which leads to a late-time accelerated expansion without recourse to a new form of dark energy.

5,954 citations