Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Poverty as a Lack of Freedom: A Short History of the Capability Approach

  • Reference work entry
Handbook of the Philosophical Foundations of Business Ethics

  • 5345 Accesses

Abstract

The capability approach is a normative framework for welfare assessments. The concept of capability, understood as freedom to achieve the goals that someone appreciates, is the one which articulates the impact of Sen’s contributions to the discussions about justice, poverty, and development. The development of the capability approach can be reconstructed from two features that appear early and consistently in Sen’s work; one of them is the integration of moral rationality in social explanation and the other is the sensitivity to vulnerability. Both features determine the high sensitivity to interpersonal variability of the capability approach, which differentiates it from other proposals that have shaped the discussions about justice, poverty, and development. The development of the capability approach has benefited from theoretical contributions of philosophers and economists who have expanded and strengthened Sen’s original view, while it has become a normative guide for government agencies to adopt multidimensional measures for poverty and development, or design suitable social policies.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Cf. [1].

  2. 2.

    Cf. [2].

  3. 3.

    Cf. [5].

  4. 4.

    Cf. [6, 7].

  5. 5.

    Cf. [2, 8, 9].

  6. 6.

    Sen modified his terminology from welfare to well-being to differentiate himself from welfarism, because his proposal is a moral conception which considers people under two different perspectives: well-being and agency. This feature expands the informational restriction of utilitarianism and welfarism, which only considers personal preferences as the relevant moral information. Cf. [11].

  7. 7.

    Cf. [13].

  8. 8.

    Cf. [14].

  9. 9.

    Cf. [15].

  10. 10.

    See [9, 16].

  11. 11.

    Cf. [17].

  12. 12.

    See [16].

  13. 13.

    Cf. [17].

  14. 14.

    Cf. [18, 19].

  15. 15.

    Cf. [20].

  16. 16.

    Cf. [21].

  17. 17.

    Cf. [22].

  18. 18.

    Cf. [23].

  19. 19.

    See [22, 24].

  20. 20.

    Cf. [25].

  21. 21.

    Cf. [26–28].

  22. 22.

    Cf. [29].

  23. 23.

    Cf. [30].

References

  1. Rawls J (1971) A theory of justice. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA

    Google Scholar 

  2. Sen A (2002) Rationality and freedom. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA

    Google Scholar 

  3. Sen A (1977) Rational fools: a critique of the behavioral foundations of economic theory. Philos Pub Aff 6(4):317–344

    Google Scholar 

  4. Rawls J (1993) Political liberalism. Columbia University Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  5. Dworkin R (2000) Sovereign virtue. The theory and practice of equality. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA

    Google Scholar 

  6. Elster J (1988) Uvas amargas. Sobre la subversión de la racionalidad. Península, Barcelona

    Google Scholar 

  7. Vigorito A, Pereira G et al (2010) Preferencias adaptativas. Entre deseos, frustración y logros. Fin de siglo, Montevideo

    Google Scholar 

  8. Sen A (1992) Inequality reexamined. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA

    Google Scholar 

  9. Nussbaum M (2000) Women and human development. Cambridge University Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  10. Sen A (1979) Utilitarianism and welfarism. J Philos 76(9):463–489, pp 470–471

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Sen A (1985) Well-being, agency and freedom. The Dewey lectures 1984. J Philos 82(4):169–224

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Sen A (1999) Development as freedom. Knopf, New York

    Google Scholar 

  13. CONEVAL (2011) Metodología para la medición de la pobreza multidimensional en México (Methodology for the measurement of multidimensional poverty in Mexico). http://medusa.coneval.gob.mx/cmsconeval/rw/resource/coneval/med_pobreza/Metodologia_final/Metodologia_para_la_Medicion_Multidimensional_de_la_Pobreza_en_Mexico.pdf?view=true

  14. Santibañez C (2005) The informational basis of poverty measurement: using the capability approach to improve the CAS proxy tool. Eur J Dev Res 17(1):89–110

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Sen A (2009) The idea of justice. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA

    Google Scholar 

  16. Nussbaum M (2006) Frontiers of justice. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA

    Google Scholar 

  17. Agarwal B, Humphries J, Robeyns I (2005) Amarya Sen’s work and ideas. A gender perspective. Routledge, London

    Google Scholar 

  18. Gasper D (2004) The ethics of development. From economism to human development. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh

    Google Scholar 

  19. Gasper D, St. Clair A (eds) (2010) Development ethics. Ashgate, London

    Google Scholar 

  20. Stewart F (ed) (2008) Horizontal inequalities and conflict. Understanding group violence in multiethnic societies. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingtoke

    Google Scholar 

  21. Nussbaum M (2005) Upheavals of thought. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  22. Bohman J (1996) Public deliberation. Pluralism, complexity, and democracy. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA

    Google Scholar 

  23. Cortina A (2002) Por una ética del consumo. Taurus, Madrid

    Google Scholar 

  24. Pereira G (2010) Las voces de la igualdad. Bases para una teoría crítica de la justicia. Proteus, Barcelona

    Google Scholar 

  25. Conill J (2004) Horizontes de economía ética. Tecnos, Madrid

    Google Scholar 

  26. Alkire S (2002) Valuing freedoms. Sen’s capability approach and poverty reduction. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  27. Flavio C, Qizilbash M, Alkire S (2008) The capability approach. concepts, measures and applications. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  28. Brighouse H, Robeyns I (eds) (2010) Measuring justice. Primary goods and capabilities. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  29. Amarante V, Arim R, Vigorito A (2011) Cash transfer programmes, income inequality and regional disparities. The case of the Uruguayan Asignaciones Familiares. Cambridge J Regions Econ Soc 4(1):139–154

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. PNUD (2009) Relatorio de desenvolvimento humano 2009/2010. Brasil Ponto a Ponto: consulta pública, Brasilia

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Practical Philosophy, Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay

    Gustavo Pereira

Authors
  1. Gustavo Pereira
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Gustavo Pereira .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Peter Löscher-Stiftungslehrstuhl für Wirtschaftsethik, Technische Universität München, München, Germany

    Christoph Luetge

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.

About this entry

Cite this entry

Pereira, G. (2013). Poverty as a Lack of Freedom: A Short History of the Capability Approach. In: Luetge, C. (eds) Handbook of the Philosophical Foundations of Business Ethics. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1494-6_16

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1494-6_16

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-007-1493-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-007-1494-6

  • eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and Law

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation