Blog Marcos L. Mucheroni Filosofia, Noosfera e cibercultura

To look at the question of the capacity of Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen, we begin with the view of Aristotle’s “political distribution” that used it extensively in the analysis of the “good of human beings,” where this good is connected with the examination of ” Man “and” life in the sense of activity “, that is, the function as human empowerment for an activity.
Thinking about life as “activities and ways of being” and why they are so valuable, the assessment of the quality of life takes the form of an evaluation of these effectives and the ability to do them, that is, taking into account only the goods Or the incomes that aid in the performance of those activities and the acquisition of those capacities, as in most of the theories of value, which come from Adam Smith and Marx, we end up having a confusion of means and ends, and in this agree Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum.
Returning to the Aristotelian theory, it is possible that life “is lived under compulsion, and wealth is evidently not what we seek, for wealth is merely useful in the attainment of other goods.”
So our task is to evaluate the various effects in human life, surpassing what, in a different but related context, what Marx called “commodity fetishism,” the consumption of commodities can only be examined by the capacity of the person of Must be appropriately assessed not quantitatively, but as a combination of effectiveness.
Sen and Nussbaum point out as the first fundamental point the ambiguities and relevance in the conceptual framework of the capacity approach, Without states: “The nature of human life and the content of human freedom are problematic concepts. I do not intend to sweep these difficulties under the rug. ”
The second points are quality of life and needs: “There is a wide literature on economic development that deals with the evaluation of the quality of life, the fulfillment of basic needs and related issues,” Sen says, quoting Lipton (1968).
The third points are primary goods and freedoms, where Rawls’s work must be analyzed, since the “focus on the commodities and the means of personal fulfillment in this work contrasted with the capacity approach is also influential in modern moral philosophy,” says Amartya Sen.

Sen, Amartya. Development as capacity expansion. (see the Link).
Sen, Amartya. “Development as Capability Expansion”, Jounal of Development Planning, no. 19, 1989 (special insert on “Human development from the eighties”) Regis Castro Andrade (see the Links))