Ideal vs non-ideal

We talked about how, similar to Shelby, Sen is talking about a non-ideal theory here. There is no perfect society as there is in Rawls, but simply increasing freedoms (development) is better than how it is now or just that more freedom is better than less. He sees his theory as viewing development as a soft and friendly process rather than a fierce one (35-6). 

In the absence of this ideal theory, I wonder where we draw the line. As freedom increases, it will likely get harder and harder to "get more" or make society better than before. A fierce process of development certainly brings to mind some big tech slogans like move fast and break things. Technological development is certainly one way of improving substantive freedoms. 

So firstly, is a move fast and break things approach to development necessary? Obviously, technological development is not the only way to increase freedoms, and it could be argued that tech is in fact too big, actually reducing freedoms at a certain point. So do we need to limit technological development to prevent things like income inequality? If we do, there appears to be some sort of calculation we are doing for how to increase freedoms as much as possible. At least, we are balancing numerous factors to maximize freedom and if there is some combination of factors that does in fact maximize freedoms, isn't this now an ideal theory?




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