Development as Freedom (41 page)

My point is not at all to argue against the unique importance of each culture, but rather to plead in favor of the need for some sophistication in understanding cross-cultural influences as well as our basic capability to enjoy products of other cultures and other lands. We must not lose our ability to understand one another and to enjoy the cultural products of different countries in the passionate advocacy of conservation and purity.

Before closing this chapter I must also consider a further issue related to the question of cultural separatism, given the general approach of this book. It will not have escaped the reader that this book is informed by a belief in the ability of different people from different cultures to share many common values and to agree on some common commitments. Indeed, the overriding value of freedom as the organizing principle of this work has this feature of a strong universalist presumption.

The claim that “Asian values” are particularly indifferent to freedom, or that attaching importance to freedom is quintessentially a “Western” value, has been disputed already, earlier on in this chapter. The point, however, is sometimes made that the tolerance of heterodoxy in matters of religion, in particular, is historically a very special “Western” phenomenon. When I published a paper in an American magazine disputing the authoritarian interpretation of “Asian values” (“Human Rights and Asian Values,”
The New Republic
, July 14 and 21, 1997), the responses that I got typically included some support for my disputation of the alleged specialness of “Asian
values” (as being generally authoritarian), but then they went on to argue that the West, on the other hand, was really quite special—in terms of tolerance.

It was claimed that the tolerance of
religious
skepticism and heterodoxy was a specifically “Western” virtue. One commentator proceeded to outline his understanding that “Western tradition” is absolutely unique in its “acceptance of religious tolerance at a sufficient level that even atheism is permitted as a principled rejection of beliefs.” The commentator is certainly right to claim that religious tolerance, including the tolerance of skepticism and atheism, is a central aspect of social freedom (as John Stuart Mill also explained persuasively).
²¹
The disputant went on to remark: “Where in Asian history, one asks, can Amartya Sen find anything equivalent to this remarkable history of skepticism, atheism and free thought?”
²²

This is indeed a fine question, but the answer is not hard to find. In fact, there is some embarrassment of riches in deciding which part of Asian history to concentrate on, since the answer could come from many different components of that history. For example, in the context of India in particular, one could point to the importance of the atheistic schools of Carvaka and Lokayata, which originated well before the Christian era, and produced a durable, influential and vast atheistic literature.
²³
Aside from intellectual documents arguing for atheistic beliefs, heterodox views can be found in many orthodox documents as well. Indeed, even the ancient epic
Ramayana
, which is often cited by Hindu political activists as the holy book of the divine Rama’s life, contains sharply dissenting views. For example, the
Ramayana
relates the occasion when Rama is lectured by a worldly pundit called Javali on the folly of religious beliefs: “O Rama, be wise, there exists no world but this, that is certain! Enjoy that which is present and cast behind thee that which is unpleasant.”
²⁴

It is also relevant to reflect on the fact that the only world religion that is firmly agnostic, viz., Buddhism, is Asian in origin. Indeed, it originated in India in the sixth century
B.C
., around the time when the atheistic writings of the Carvaka and Lokayata schools were particularly active. Even the Upanishads (a significant component of the Hindu scriptures that originated a little earlier—from which I have already quoted in citing Maitreyee’s question) discussed, with evident respect, the view that thought and intelligence are the results of material
conditions in the body, and “when they are destroyed,” that is, “after death,” “no intelligence remains.”
²⁵
Skeptical schools of thought survived in Indian intellectual circles over the millennia, and even as late as the fourteenth century, Madhava Acarya (himself a good Vaishnavite Hindu), in his classic book called
Sarvadarśana-samgraha
(“Collection of All Philosophies”), devoted the entire first chapter to a serious presentation of the arguments of the Indian atheistic schools. Religious skepticism and its tolerance are not uniquely Western as a phenomenon.

References were made earlier to tolerance in general in Asian cultures (such as the Arabic, the Chinese and the Indian), and religious tolerance is a part of it, as the examples cited bring out. Examples of violations—often
extreme
violations—of tolerance are not hard to find in any culture (from medieval inquisitions to modern concentration camps in the West, and from religious slaughter to the victimizing oppression of the Taliban in the East), but voices have been persistently raised in favor of freedom—in different forms—in distinct and distant cultures. If the universalist presumptions of this book, particularly in valuing the importance of freedom, are to be rejected, the grounds for rejection must lie elsewhere.

The case
for
basic freedoms and for the associated formulations in terms of rights rests on:

As it happens, the view that Asian values are quintessentially authoritarian has tended to come, in Asia, almost exclusively from spokesmen of those in power (sometimes supplemented—and reinforced—by Western statements demanding that people endorse
what are seen as specifically “Western liberal values”). But foreign ministers, or government officials, or religious leaders, do not have a monopoly in interpreting local culture and values. It is important to listen to the voices of dissent in each society.
²⁷
Aung San Suu Kyi has no less legitimacy—indeed clearly has rather more—in interpreting what the Burmese want than have the military rulers of Myanmar, whose candidates she had defeated in open elections before being put in jail by the defeated military junta.

The recognition of diversity within different cultures is extremely important in the contemporary world.
²⁸
Our understanding of the presence of diversity tends to be somewhat undermined by constant bombardment with oversimple generalizations about “Western civilization,” “Asian values,” “African cultures” and so on. Many of these readings of history and civilization are not only intellectually shallow, they also add to the divisiveness of the world in which we live. The fact is that in any culture, people seem to like to argue with one another, and frequently do exactly that—given the chance. The presence of dissidents makes it problematic to take an unambiguous view of the “true nature” of local values. In fact, dissidents tend to exist in every society—often quite plentifully—and they are frequently willing to take very great risks regarding their own security. Indeed, had the dissidents not been so tenaciously present, authoritarian polities would not have had to undertake such repressive measures in practice, to supplement their intolerant beliefs. The presence of dissidents
tempts
the authoritarian ruling groups to take a repressive view of local culture and, at the same time, that presence itself
undermines
the intellectual basis of such univocal interpretation of local beliefs as homogenous thought.
²⁹

Western discussion of non-Western societies is often too respectful of authority—the governor, the minister, the military junta, the religious leader. This “authoritarian bias” receives support from the fact that Western countries themselves are often represented, in international gatherings, by governmental officials and spokesmen, and they in turn seek the views of their opposite numbers from other countries. An adequate approach of development cannot really be so centered only on those in power. The reach has to be broader, and the need for popular participation is not just sanctimonious rubbish. Indeed, the idea of development cannot be dissociated from it.

As far as the authoritarian claims about “Asian values” are concerned, it has to be recognized that values that have been championed in the past of Asian countries—in East Asia as well as elsewhere in Asia—include an enormous variety.
³⁰
Indeed, in many ways they are similar to substantial variations that are often seen in the history of ideas in the West also. To see Asian history in terms of a narrow category of authoritarian values does little justice to the rich varieties of thought in Asian intellectual traditions. Dubious history does nothing to vindicate dubious politics.

The idea of using reason to identify and promote better and more acceptable societies has powerfully moved people in the past and continues to do so now. Aristotle agreed with Agathon that even God could not change the past. But he also thought that the future was ours to make. This could be done by basing our choices on reason.
¹
For this we need an appropriate evaluative framework; we also need institutions that work to promote our goals and valuational commitments, and furthermore we need behavioral norms and reasoning that allow us to achieve what we try to achieve.

Before I proceed further along this line, I must also discuss some grounds for skepticism of the possibility of reasoned progress, which can be found in the literature. If these grounds are compelling, then they may indeed be devastating for the approach pursued in this book. It would be silly to build an ambitious structure on the foundations of quicksand.

I would like to identify three distinct lines of skepticism that seem to demand particular attention. First, the point is sometimes made that given the heterogeneity of preferences and values that different people have, even in a given society, it is not possible to have a coherent framework for reasoned social assessment. There can be, in this view, no such thing as a rational and coherent social evaluation. Kenneth Arrow’s famous “impossibility theorem” is sometimes invoked in this context to drive the point home.
²
That remarkable theorem is typically interpreted as proving the impossibility of rationally deriving
social choice from individual preferences, and it has been taken to be a deeply pessimistic result. The analytical content of the theorem as well as its substantive interpretations would have to be examined. The idea of an “informational base” already explored in
chapter 3
will turn out to be crucial in this context.

A second line of critique takes a particularly methodological form, and draws on an argument that questions our ability to have what we
intend
to have, arguing that “unintended consequences” dominate actual history. The importance of unintended consequences has been emphasized in different ways by Adam Smith, Carl Menger and Friedrich Hayek, among others.
³
If most of the important things that happen are not intended (and not brought about through purposive action), then reasoned attempts at pursuing what we want might appear to be rather pointless. We have to examine what precisely the implications are of the insights that emerge from the work in this field that was pioneered by Smith.

A third class of doubts relates to a skepticism, which many people entertain, about the possible
range
of human values and behavioral norms. Can our modes of behavior go at all beyond narrowly defined self-interest? If not, it is argued that while the market mechanism may still work (since it is supposed to invoke nothing other than human selfishness), we cannot have social arrangements that call for anything more “social” or “moral” or “committed.” The possibility of reasoned social change, in this view, cannot go beyond the working of the market mechanism (even if it leads to inefficiency, or inequality, or poverty). To ask for more would be, in this perspective, hopelessly utopian.

The primary interest of this chapter is in examining the relevance of values and reasoning in enhancing freedoms and in achieving development. I shall consider the three arguments in turn.

The Arrow theorem does not in fact show what the popular interpretation frequently takes it to show. It establishes, in effect, not the impossibility of rational social choice, but the impossibility that arises when we try to base social choice on a limited class of information.
At the risk of oversimplification, let me briefly consider one way of seeing the Arrow theorem.