An Inquiry Into Well-Being and Destitution

Destitution is the main subject matter of this study. It ranges through moral philosophy and political science to anthropology, welfare economics, economic theory and nutrition science. Dasgupta is concerned with reconciling empirical evidence with theoretical analysis, and with presenting a coherent description of the causes of undernourishment. This volume should be of interest to nutritionists and anthropologists in that it presents undernourishment, differences in calorie needs, and the phenomenon of adaptation to low energy intake - genetic, physiological and behavioural. It also addresses the current debate over methods for estimating the incidence of undernourishment, and is written in a style suitable for readers who are not economists, leaving the formal material to be presented in an appendix. This book is placed in the context of philosophical work on general well-being, and with the aim of stimulating research on policies to remedy the state of destitution. Dasgupta uses, for example, modern analytical political philosophy to define the role of the state in the context of resource-poor economies, and concludes from his empirical evaluation of 40 of the world's poorest countries that there is a striking correlation between a country enjoying greater political and civil liberties and performing better in terms of per capita income, life expectancy and the other measurement standards he outlines. He advocates the existence and recognition of both positive and negative rights, and avoids the tendency of development economics works to concentrate on mortality or growth and ingore the role of these rights.