Civil Relation and Empowerment: Comparative Study of Hannah Arendt and Amartya Sen

Hannah Ardent as a political philosopher, offering the concept of “civic virtue” and criticizing Liberal democracy, tried to constitute a way of good life in her time. In her version of civic virtue, human as a citizen should be able to secure his/her liberty and equality, in a context of dialogue and interaction. On the other hand, Amartya Sen in his human development approach, tried to moralize economy in context of Political thought by taking a critical view toward the concept of modernization and economic development. Sen, with the concept of Empowerment, introduced development as freedom, and considered Empowerment as a road to freedom. This notion takes place in an equal and moral context in which each entity of humankind, besides being an agent and capable toward others, has the possibility of dialogue and discussion in democratic situation. In this article, we propose that how the concept of civic virtue in Hannah Ardent has related to human development approach in Amartya Sen, considering human agency in the context. Based on the mentioned question, we assume that the human development approach is in line with civic virtue; which in both the essential priority is human agency. We show that from a civic viewpoint, Empowerment in the context of understanding and interaction has common conceptual and practical grounds with civic virtue as citizenship responsibility in context of dialogue and interaction.