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“My Well-being is (Not) as Important as Yours”: Self-sacrifice as Further Economic Motive in Amartya Sen's Thought

Valentina Erasmo (Università G. d’Annunzio, Italy)

Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology: Including a Selection of Papers Presented at the First History of Economics Diversity Caucus Conference

ISBN: 978-1-80455-983-3, eISBN: 978-1-80455-982-6

Publication date: 2 October 2023

Abstract

This paper shows that Amartya Sen admitted self-sacrifice as an opposite motive to self-interest. Between the eighties and the nineties, in his works on development economics, Sen often referred to the conditions of women in less developed countries, because these are areas where gender inequality is more pronounced, and women’s well-being is worsened by behavior motivated by self-sacrifice. But these women were affected by a perception bias that made them unable to understand their deprived condition. Perception bias made it harder to improve their freedom and reduce inequality. Sen offered a more complex analysis of economic behavior as compared to his contemporaries. Selfishness and public discussion might be identified as the ideal methods of improving individual well-being when inequality and perception bias leads people to self-sacrifice.

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Acknowledgements

Acknowledgment

Previous versions of this paper were presented at the YSI Webinar Session on Heterodox Economics and History of Economic Thought, July 2020, and at the first History of Economic Thought Diversity Caucus Annual Conference, May 2021. I would like to thank the editors, John Bryan Davis, Luis Angel Monroy-Gomez-Franco, Scott Scheall and the two anonymous referees for their valuable comments and suggestions on earlier drafts of this paper.

Citation

Erasmo, V. (2023), "“My Well-being is (Not) as Important as Yours”: Self-sacrifice as Further Economic Motive in Amartya Sen's Thought", Fiorito, L., Scheall, S. and Suprinyak, C.E. (Ed.) Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology: Including a Selection of Papers Presented at the First History of Economics Diversity Caucus Conference (Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, Vol. 41B), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 67-81. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0743-41542023000041B004

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited