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April 6, 2003
REVIEWS: Craving for good life
This is a wide ranging book. It spans themes from abstract theories on development to surveys of people about their well-being. Given the limited space, not all topics could be covered as thoroughly as a specialized monograph focussing on a single topic may have done. Nevertheless, this book is a valuable contribution to the development field.
The four substantive chapters, after a brief introduction, discuss the concepts of development in the abstract, the ideas of capabilities and human development, an ‘augmented theory of good life’ and how people perceive development. The fourth chapter — perceptions of development — describes the methodology and findings of the survey-based empirical approach, which is the gist of the empirical contribution of the author in his PhD dissertation field research in South Africa.
There is much to admire and at the same time to be critical of in this effort. The undertaking of research in two poor communities in South Africa in itself is a good thing. The two communities seem to have not much else in common beyond their poverty. One is an isolated village in the Karoo desert. The other is a semi-urban squatter camp near Cape Town. Yet they seem to share a vision of good life, which, thanks to the painstaking surveys of the author, can be seen in great detail.
The findings of the fieldwork are interestingly revealing in view of the fact that those surveyed put emphasis on a modicum of material goods as well as on spiritual-mental aspects of what they think of as a “good life”. The results suggest that most people do, in fact, share a common set of values. Furthermore, these values are not at odds with most of the human capabilities and needs proposed by social scientists and philosophers including Nussbaum, Sen and Khan. The views of most respondents seem to be well-informed, and their responses show that the philosophers and social scientists have not gone far enough in offering a detailed enough description of capabilities in terms of human goods. In particular, many people expressed fairly ambitious desires and could imagine a substantially better life than Nussbaum’s account of good life would seem to imply. Specific emphasis was given by the respondents to values such as sport, socializing,and cultural activities such as music and dance. People valued both receiving and giving aid.
Several mentioned the value of achieving status, prestige, success and pride which indicates that Adam Smith’s acute observations about self-love are still relevant. But most importantly, the survey findings indicate that even among the poor normal human ends such as the freedom to pursue happiness, pleasure and joy in life are primary goals.
The book also indicates the potential of this non-elitist survey-based approach. Although various aspects of the survey ranging from the formulation of questions to the manipulation and interpretation of the statistical data can be questioned and improved upon, this study is a landmark beginning in an important area of research on well-being and poverty.
The survey of the theories of good life in the earlier chapters is also valuable although it does not break much new ground. Synthesizing a number of mainly descriptive approaches with a modest critique of the vague “theory of the good” by Nussbaum leads to an “augmented theory of the good” (ATG).
However, the philosophical basis of the ATG is not clear. Nussbaum is clear about the Aristotelian roots of her theory. A thorough critique must either reject this theory or expand it in such a way that what is scientific and survives empirical challenge is preserved and the theory itself augmented as a result of the empirical tests themselves.
One way to do this would be to examine the gap between the ancient Greek city state — Athens in particular — and the modern world with its history of uneven development including colonialism and neocolonialism, political and cultural imperialism. The study of the unevenness of the spatial and temporal development of the formerly noncapitalist and traditional parts of the world within the framework of both the imperial system and the neocolonial nation state systems must be an integral part of this type of research.
This requires an interdisciplinary approach that brings in not just ethics and literature on well-being, but also political economy and radical anthropology. A critical sifting of the very interesting findings of this book will require a further augmentation of this approach. I have conducted this exercise at the theoretical level which is critical of a simple Aristotelian approach, a complex but basically “Eurocentric” Hegelian approach, and the various forms of (pre- and post-modern) relativisms.
One exciting prospect will be to combine a critical and self-critical “social and cultural” capabilities approach with the line of empirical work reported in this book. If done with care and sensitivity, this will expand both theory and practice in a more encompassing way than is the situation now which is correctly and admirably described in David Clark’s book.
Visions of Development
By David A. Clark
Edward Elgar
ISBN 1840649828
xii+ 282pp. £59.95
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