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This essay applies Amartya Sen's Capability Approach to the way democracy is practiced in the Philippines by Filipinos. The author has reached the conclusion that negative freedom does not secure for people their well-being. Thus, even after the removal of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos, the Philippines still remains poor. In this essay, the author argues that Filipinos should empower themselves morally in terms of their positive freedoms or capability, and the Church can be at the frontlines of this initiative, in order to achieve national development.

Resumen: The capabilities approaches (CA) have been originated in the work of the economist Amartya Sen on inequality. Sen, born in India in 1933, is currently Emeritus Professor of Harvard University. He is still active in teaching and researching. He was always concerned with the problem of social justice, poverty and equality. This has led him to hold a broad notion and an ethical view of economics. Driven by these concerns, Sen tackled the topics of inequality and quality of life, and during the 80s he formulated the capability approach. Sen's capability approach is a broad normative framework for the evaluation and assessment of individual well-being, development of countries, present socio-economic situation and social arrangements in order to implement right policies. For Sen, human agency is a crucial element of human well-being in a broad sense that goes beyond utility and that is related to the quality of life. Human agency entails freedom: Freedoms are capabilities of performing some actions, called by him "functionings". These capabilities and functionings compose a good life. Capabilities, for Sen, are a better way of assessing well-being than utility or income (for a good survey, see e.g., Sen 1993 and Ingrid Robeyns 2005). Nobody would deny that this is good news. A concern among scholars, however, has arisen about the operationality of Sen's CA. Traits as the incommensurability of capabilities and their ambiguous definition (see Sen 1999: 76- 7) are sufficient reasons for this concern. As Robert Sugden affirms, "it is natural to ask how far Sen's framework is operational" (1993: 1953). Some arguments for this lack of operationality might be summarized in terms of the inexact or "vague" character of practical reason, the capacity that lies behind the whole CA (on the central role of practical reason within the CA see Nussbaum 1987: 47 and 1995a). For Sen, indeed, the capabilities's ambiguity, both in their definition and in their election, is a positive feature because it reflects and respects the freedom and the differences of the persons (1993: 33-34): for him, asserting ambiguity and fuzziness is not a weakness but a strength.

Over the last 30 years the Indian philosopher-economist Amartya Sen has developed an original normative approach to the evaluation of individual and social well-being. The foundational concern of this 'capability approach' is the real freedom of individuals to achieve the kind of lives they have reason to value. This freedom is analysed in terms of an individual's 'capability' to achieve combinations of such intrinsically valuable 'beings and doings' ('functionings') as being sufficiently nourished and freely expressing one's political views. In this account, 'development' is conceived as the expansion of individuals' capability, and thus as a concept tha

WOS: 000452652500013 ; The capability approach initially developed by Amartya Sen is a new evaluative framework frequently used by scholars and policy makers who aim to deal with issues related to development, welfare, poverty, social choice theory, inequality and justice. Drawing upon a sociological account of various diversities related to individuals' characteristics and their social/institutional surroundings, the approach criticizes some mainstream political theories of social justice such as the utilitarian, libertarian and Rawlsian models of social justice. Therefore, it is usually addressed as a "sociological turn" within the relevant literature. This work argues that this is not a fully-deserved characteristic since the approach employs a sociologically-informed perspective of various diversities primarily to criticize rival theories of justice, but not to configure the analytical texture of its own authentic proposal that advocates "individuals' ability to achieve what they have reason to value" as the focal point of assessment of social justice.

The hierarchical nature of the firm affects stakeholders' well-being. This is our main motivation in analysing the firm through the perspective of Sen's capability approach—a social justice theory for the evaluation of any institution, organization or policy aimed at providing well-beings. In order to work out the inherent relation between the capability approach and the economic analysis of the law, we show the strict link between capabilities and entitlements, which we call capabilities-as-entitlements, and investigate if and how corporate governance, i.e., the configuration of entitlements in a firm, enhances or diminishes capabilities of stakeholders. We underline the role that the public use of reason and a sufficientarian criterion play in mitigating conflicts among stakeholders, permitting the reach of a balance amongst all of them and the identification of the capabilities that allow stakeholders to exercise democratic citizenship in corporation. We build several indexes that are able to measure and compare capabilities developed within and between corporate governance regimes.

Background Sen's capability approach is underspecified; one decision left to those operationalising the approach is how to identify sets of relevant and important capabilities. Sen has suggested that lists be developed for specific policy or research objectives through a process of public reasoning and discussion. Robeyns offers further guidance in support of Sen's position, suggesting that lists should be explicit, discussed and defended; methods be openly scrutinised; lists be considered both in terms of what is ideal and what is practical ('generality'); and that lists be exhaustive. Here, the principles suggested by Robeyns are operationalised to facilitate external scrutiny of a list of capabilities identified for use in the evaluation of supportive end of life care. Methods This work started with an existing list of seven capabilities (the ICECAP-SCM), identified as being necessary for a person to experience a good death. Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with 20 experts in economics, psychology, ethics and palliative care, to facilitate external scrutiny of the developed list. Interviews were recorded, transcribed and analysed using constant comparison. Results The seven capabilities were found to encompass concepts identified as important by expert stakeholders (to be exhaustive) and the measure was considered feasible for use with patients receiving care at the end of life. Conclusion The rigorous development of lists of capabilities using both initial participatory approaches with affected population groups, and subsequent assessment by experts, strengthens their democratic basis and may encourage their use in policy contexts.

Fundamental questions in value sensitive design include whether and how high-tech products/artefacts could embody values and ethical ideals, and how plural and incommensurable values of ethical and social importance could be chosen rationally and objectively at a collective level. By using a humanitarian cargo drone study as a starting point, this paper tackles the challenges that VSD's lack of commitment to a specific ethical theory generates in practical applications. Besides, it highlights how mainstream ethical approaches usually related to VSD are incapable of solving main ethical dilemmas raised by technological design for well-being in democratic settings. Accordingly, it is argued that VSD's ethical-democratic import would substantially be enhanced by the espousal of a procedural ethics stance and the deliberative approach to value and welfare entailed by Amartya Sen's capability approach. Differently from rival ethical–political theories, its normative and meta-ethical foundations better handle human diversity, value-goal pluralism, conflicting vested interests as well as the epistemic-moral disagreements typical of contemporary complex democracies. Particularly, Sen's capability approach procedural-deliberative tenets result in an "objective-impartial" choice procedure selecting a "hierarchy" of plural incommensurable values and rational goals thus, suitable to validate an applied science such as welfare-oriented technological design in concrete social environments. Conclusions suggest that refining VSD with a capability-based procedural approach to ethics fosters the concern for democracy and social justice while preserving vital scientific-technical standards. Major advantages are at an applied level to delivering ethically and socially justified, but yet highly functional technologies and high-tech products/artefacts.

The "capability approach" of development economist Amartya Sen, who received the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1998, poses a major challenge to the dominant paradigm of neo-classical economics. According to Sen, human well-being does not depend on the consumption of commodities but on the freedoms human beings have reason to choose and value. The capability approach has frequently been criticised for a lack of attention to the ways in which unjust social, political and economic structures restrict human capabilities. The contributors to this volume take up this criticism in a number of ways, both theoretical and practical. The theoretical discussion engages with the thought of Sen himself and with the hermeneutical tradition represented by Paul Ricoeur. The practical discussion consists of five case studies examining the effectiveness of the capability approach in dealing with cases of structural injustice. These cover: racism in South Africa; access to labour markets in Europe; participation in higher education in the UK; poverty and welfare reforms in the US; and biotechnology patents. How effectively, ask all the contributors, can Sen's capability approach be deployed in the transformation of unjust structures?

The aim of this article is to lay down the foundations of a critical sociology of democracy and participation. Based on Amartya Sen's capability approach, we identify four major pitfalls of classical theories on justice and deliberative democracy: 1) an excessive emphasis on the procedural dimension of democracy at the expense of its substantial value; 2) an ideal of deliberation that does not sufficiently account for the inequalities that characterize actual participative practices; 3) an ideal approach to rationality which is inconsistent with the plurality of reasons to value and arguments that can be observed in social reality; and 4) a focus on official or institutionalized forms of deliberation that does not pay due attention to the many forms and dynamics of participation. We contend that, by contrast, Sen's epistemology may be fruitful for the development of a critical sociology of democracy and suggest an agenda for empirical research on participation and deliberative practices.

In this paper, we elaborate on a theory of an evolutionary political economy capable of accommodating the issue of cultural justice by taking seriously the redistribution–recognition dilemma, a normative analysis of which has been put forth by Nancy Fraser. While accepting Fraser's articulation of the dilemma, we resist her concluding that Sen's capability approach is insensitive to cultural justice or the recognition of difference. There is no automatic guarantee, yet an intermediate theory of recognition or cultural justice could in theory be brought to bear on what is, after all, 'a framework'. We argue that Fraser's analysis is well suited to be such an intermediate theory, and propose a theoretical device for an evolutional perspective on redistribution and recognition. We concentrate on identifying the stage of the market process at which policy intervenes to remedy redistribution, and the stage of the communication process at which policy intervenes to remedy recognition. Interventions at the entrance stages of both processes are relatively effective and one possibility for such an intervention is to propose Basic Income, which would make it not inconsistent with the capability approach, even though this approach neither directly suggests such a policy not excludes others.

Fundamental questions in value sensitive design include whether and how high-tech products/artefacts could embody values and ethical ideals, and how plural and incommensurable values of ethical and social importance could be chosen rationally and objectively at a collective level. By using a humanitarian cargo drone study as a starting point, this paper tackles the challenges that VSD's lack of commitment to a specific ethical theory generates in practical applications. Besides, it highlights how mainstream ethical approaches usually related to VSD are incapable of solving main ethical dilemmas raised by technological design for well-being in democratic settings. Accordingly, it is argued that VSD's ethical-democratic import would substantially be enhanced by the espousal of a procedural ethics stance and the deliberative approach to value and welfare entailed by Amartya Sen's capability approach. Differently from rival ethical–political theories, its normative and meta-ethical foundations better handle human diversity, value-goal pluralism, conflicting vested interests as well as the epistemic-moral disagreements typical of contemporary complex democracies. Particularly, Sen's capability approach procedural-deliberative tenets result in an "objective-impartial" choice procedure selecting a "hierarchy" of plural incommensurable values and rational goals thus, suitable to validate an applied science such as welfare-oriented technological design in concrete social environments. Conclusions suggest that refining VSD with a capability-based procedural approach to ethics fosters the concern for democracy and social justice while preserving vital scientific-technical standards. Major advantages are at an applied level to delivering ethically and socially justified, but yet highly functional technologies and high-tech products/artefacts.

This paper aims to categorize Brazilian Internet users according to the diversity of their online activities and to assess the propensity of these Internet users´ groups to use electronic government (e-gov) services. The Amartya Sen's Capability Approach was adopted as the theoretical framework for its consideration of people's freedom to decide on their use of available resources and their competencies for these decisions, leading to the use of e-gov services. Multivariate statistical techniques were used to perform data analysis from the 2007, 2009 and 2011 editions of ICT Household Survey. The results showed that Internet users belonging to the advanced and intermediate use groups were more likely to use e-gov services than those who belong to the sporadic use group. Moreover, the results also demonstrated that the Internet user group of intermediate use presented a higher tendency to use e-gov services than the Internet user group of advanced use. This tendency is possibly related to the extensive use of interactive and collaborative activities of leisure and entertainment performed by this type of user. The findings of this research may be useful in guiding public policies for the dissemination and provision of electronic government services in Brazil.

The Capability Approach has been adopted as a theoretical framework for official Poverty and Wealth Reports by the German government. For the first time, this paper provides information on the use of the Capability Approach in this reporting process to international readers. We show the background and processes that might have led the government to adopt Amartya Sen's Capability Approach as a framework for the reports and describe the Capability-related structure and main contents of the recent 3rd Poverty and Wealth Report. We also explain why the extension of the Capability Approach from poverty to wealth issues in German reports may be promising also for analyses of capability deprivation in general. Finally, we discuss major shortcoming and challenges of the reporting and end with a brief conclusion.

This thesis explores connections between power and social development through an examination of capabilities and the formation of cultural subjects in tribal and fishing communities in the state of Kerala, India. Kerala has long been studied for its unique development model and, since 1996, its People's Plan for Democratic Decentralisation. Although Kerala is not exclusive in pursuing decentralised planning, its successes make it stand out from other Indian states and even other parts of the developing world. Despite its achievements, several scholars question Kerala's development outcomes including the continued deprivation faced by tribal and fishing communities. Through analysing the disadvantages faced by these communities utilising Amartya Sen's capability approach and Michel Foucault's concepts of power and subject creation, this thesis hopes to contribute to a reassessment of social development in Kerala. By illuminating factors besides income that signify development, and acknowledging cultural contexts that affect the participation of marginalised communities in development planning and decision-making, the thesis proposes ways in which these communities can be empowered while also exploring barriers to this empowerment. Foucault's concepts in particular assist in examining these barriers, which arise from the exercise of power in society. In light of this, I investigate the potential for increasing the capabilities of these marginalised groups by looking at policy options and the need for further research in the field. The empirical data I collected through in-depth interviews and document analysis during a five-month field study in Kerala indicates that equitable development and effective public participation of marginalised communities have not been sufficiently addressed by the state and local governments. The thesis shows that government initiatives have not translated into greater capability for the marginalised, and have even impeded capability building for these communities, creating barriers to ...

Flexicurity is a European policy agenda seeking to increase both flexibility and security in the labour-market. This book argues that it needs a revision: Although flexicurity is set out to change the way Europeans work and live, and even though it is being justified by workers' needs, flexicurity lacks of a clear and democratically justified vision of society. Flexicurity is confronted here with Amartya Sen's capability-approach, a paradigm of well-being evaluation. How is flexicurity related to a concept of employment as part of a way of life which people have reason to value? How capability-friendly are established flexicurity-indicators? It is thus shown how the capability-approach can be used in the field of labour-market and social policy.