Amartya Sen had an unusual educational opportunity as a doctoral student. Trinity College in Cambridge awarded him its Prize Fellowship to spend four years investigating any subject. Sen chose to learn philosophy. Sen’s deep immersion in philosophy is one aspect of his perspective that enriches his thoughts and sets him apart from many other welfare economists. Much of Development as Freedom is a critique of the policymakers and economists who think only in terms of income without considering broader questions of people’s wellbeing or even why wealth is desirable.

Sen’s focus on freedom comes from an appreciation for the Anglo-American tradition of liberal philosophy, although he is quick to point out that its principles can be found in his native India—for example, in the religious toleration enjoined by the classical Buddhist emperor Ashoka. Sen explicitly engages with the liberalism of John Rawls, one of the most prominent democratic political philosophers of the 20th century. Sen co-taught a seminar with Rawls and Kenneth Arrow (who made significant contributions to the field of social choice theory) at Harvard in 1968-69. Both influenced Sen deeply. Rawls’s philosophy puts justice at the forefront of political and ethical concerns, with a strong emphasis on fairness.