FAYDACI REFAH EKONOMİSİ: AMARTYA SEN’İN ELEŞTİRİSİ

Fahri SEKER; Murat ÇETİN

Article Details

FAYDACI REFAH EKONOMİSİ: AMARTYA SEN’İN ELEŞTİRİSİ

Authors:

Fahri SEKER | Murat ÇETİN

Publisher:

Selcuk University

Journal:

The Journal of Social Economic Research 2012 Vol.12 Issue 24, pp.277-304

Document Type:

Article

Publication Date:

11/2012

Document Language:

Turkish

Document ID (Org No.):

2000610551

Frequency:

Bi-Annual

eISSN:

2148-3043

Abstract:

 

Faydacı yaklaşım, yerleşik iktisat teorisinin gelişmesinde önemli bir yere sahiptir. Bununla birlikte Amartya Sen, faydacılığın özellikle refah ekonomisinde ciddi analiz sorunlarına yol açtığını savunmaktadır. Bir kişinin refahının sadece fayda ile ölçülme çabası, birçok değişkenin analiz dışında bakılmasına neden olmuştur. Sen’e göre tek başına fayda, refahı yeteri derecede temsil edemez. Bireysel refah, kapasitelerin ve özgürlüklerin artırılmasıyla da doğrudan ilgilidir. Amartaya Sen’in eleştirisi Ortodoks yaklaşımların temel köşe taşını yerinden oynatmış olarak kabul edilmektedir. Bu makalede bu eleştirinin detayları üzerinde durulacaktır.

 

Utilitarianism, which has been accepted by the methodology of modern welfare
 economics, faces with some difficulties while trying to add some variables from daily life
 issues to the economic analyses. At this point, Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen’s studies
 enabled to add some other factors in the studies on welfare economics. According to
 another approach, Sen who is one of the most well-known supporters of new welfare
 economics developed a new definition of utility which considers the functions and turned
 toward the essence, against the classical and formal definition of utilitarianism.
 Sen’s approach is not a radical critique on strong rooted utilitarian thought; it’s more
 of a corrective and compensative one. The basic aim of this critiqueis to show that the
 analysis based on pure utilitarian terms can cause important analytical problems on welfare economy. Therefore, without ignoring utilitarianism, it is necessary to supplement
 alternative approaches to the welfare analysis.
 Sen tracksthe footsteps of the initial critiques of utilitarian thought to the Ancient
 Greek philosophy. Hedonistic basics of utilitarianism had been criticized in Aristotle’s
 ethic approach. In his approach, he putted the character and the life style forward instead
 of hedonism. According to him, happiness cannot be reduced to pleasuring. Moreover,
 despite pain and suffering, some values and behaviors can lead to big happiness in
 human’s life. At this point, the utilitarian thought criticism of Sen begins with Aristotle’s
 words: Wealth is just an instrument for good life. Wealth exists not for pleasuring but for
 living good and, a good life can necessitate more values than just pleasure and benefit.
 Aristotle says that, a life which is consisted of pure desires and pleasures is for animals
 only.
 Sen has systematically developed his critique of utilitarianism in his various studies.
 In the studies he discusses the effect of utilitarian thought on economic theory and welfare
 economy. According to Sen, considering “welfare” equals to benefit is quite open to
 criticism. Moreover, claiming welfare as the only valuable thing is not an acceptable
 argument. He criticizes the utilitarian approach which considers the development as the
 increase in national income per capita. According to him, utilitarian approaches are
 always open to criticize because of neglecting the sharing and ignoring the rights and
 freedoms.Sen’s critique of utilitarianism is also focused on inequalities in the context of
 welfare economy. He discusses the inequalities caused by the interpersonal comparison
 problem which is one of the most important dilemmas of utilitarianism. Sen claims that
 utilitarianism is having dilemmas because of considering the change in total benefit,
 instead of individual’s welfare.
 Amartya Sen examines two main streams in the history of utilitarian thought. He
 examines the effects of Bentham’s utilitarianism thought based on happiness and the other
 utilitarian thought based on fulfilling desires which takes place in the last quarter of 19th
 century. In addition to these, new utilitarian basics of Samuelson’s “revealed preferences
 theory” is also discussed by Sen. According to him both the happiness utilitarianism based
 on mental basis and Samuelson’s approach based on more objective criteria have been
 failed to solve the problem of the preference function in economic theory.
 One of the most important questions of Sen investigates, whether the public choice
 provides the adequate informatics basics of utilitarianism for the economic development
 policies or not. According to Sen, explanatory power of economics theory will be
 obviously increased as using “non-utility information” in mainstream welfare economy
 analyses.
 According to Sen, neoclassic economics also includes important deficiencies of the
 methodological perspective based on utilitarian assessment and it can’t be seen as
 “scientific knowledge”. According to him, utility and profit maximization cannot be
 proved by experiments and neither corroboration nor falsification is possible with it. Sen
 argues that neoclassic economics is out of science because “utility” is a mental state and
 as a mental perception, it is relative and impossible to measure. Eventually utility cannot
 be considered “scientific”, as an indicator which cannot be measured. Whereas, according
 to utilitarian thought, positive or negative consequences are important as the reason of
 why having to do or not to do an activity. This consequentialist approach embraces
 utilitarianism as the only concept of explanation and justification. Also well-known economist J. M. Keynes has the same approach as describing the activities good or bad
 according to their utility or non-utility consequences.
 Utilitarian philosophy effected welfare economics through welfarist approaches. In
 other words, while emphasizing only utility as a welfare measurement, it is expected to
 make welfare researches easier. It can be said that this approach provides several
 advantages to welfare economics. Especially as reducing human welfare to tangible
 utilities, the analyses has been made much easier and more certain. However, this
 overdosed simplifying approach has brought some problems with it. Although the monist
 approach of utilitarianism has some advantages,it can cause a lot of important variables
 other than the utility to stay out of the analysis. Firstly, the utilitarian approach preferred
 to be indifferent to the problem of distribution. The utilitarian calculation tends to ignore
 the inequalities of sharing the happiness. It interests in only the societies and does not care
 about the unequa ldistribution problem. The second critique about utilitarianism is that the
 adaptation and mental conditioning are also ignored. Not even the aspect claims that the
 utilitarian approach accepts the concept of individual welfare, is healthy because it can
 easily be redirected to the mental conditioning and the adaptive attitudes.
 Finally, utilitarian approach has been a significant contribution in the development of
 economic theory. However, Amartya Sen concludes that utilitarianism, particularly in
 welfare economy, causes significant analytical difficulties. For instance, the well-being of
 a person measured only by utility will disregard many other variables. Sen indicates that
 utility cannot adequately reflect the value of well-being. Individual welfare is directly
 related to the increase in the capability and freedom. It is considered that Sen’s critique
 undermines the cornerstone of orthodox approaches. This article discusses this critique in
 detail.

Article Details

FAYDACI REFAH EKONOMİSİ: AMARTYA SEN’İN ELEŞTİRİSİ

Authors: Fahri SEKER | Murat ÇETİN

Publisher: Selcuk University

Journal: The Journal of Social Economic Research 2012 Vol.12 Issue 24, pp.277-304

Document Type: Article

Publication Date: 11/2012

Document Language: Turkish

Document ID (Org No.): 2000610551

Frequency: Bi-Annual

eISSN: 2148-3043

Issues

Authors:

Fahri SEKER | Murat ÇETİN

Publisher:

Selcuk University

Journal:

The Journal of Social Economic Research 2012 Vol.12 Issue 24, pp.277-304

Document Type:

Article

Publication Date:

11/2012

Document Language:

Turkish

Document ID (Org No.):

2000610551

Frequency:

Bi-Annual

eISSN:

2148-3043