Ever since its first publication in 1970, Amartya Sen's paper “The Impossibility of a Paretian Liberal” has served as the starting point for almost all discussions of liberty in social choice theory. However, a number of people, myself included, have argued that Sen's theorem rests on a misleading characterization of liberty . In a recent paper, addressed to a philosophical audience, Sen has provided a careful defence of his theorem against this charge. I shall argue that this defence does not (...) work. (shrink)

Winner of the 1975 National Book Award, this brilliant and widely acclaimed book is a powerful philosophical challenge to the most widely held political and social positions of our age--liberal, socialist, and conservative.