Capabilidade e desenvolvimento em Amartya Sen

Abstract

The aim of the present study is to analyze the approach of the capabilities in the work of Amartya Sen to identify how these capabilities influence in human and social development. We will try to understand the reasons that led Amartya Sen to defend freedom as the key to development. We will look at the opportunities, rights and freedoms that are present in his capability theory, starting from his formulations expressed in the text ‘Equality of What?` - written in the year of 1979 - in order to arrive at the work ‘The Idea of Justice’ - published in Brazil in 2011. During this course, we will visit his formulations expressed in his writings ‘Reexamined Inequality’; ‘Development as capacity expansion’ and ‘Development as freedom’. The general objective of this work is to study Sen’s capabilities to delineate its evolution and identify in what proportion the capabilities contribute to development. The analysis will be limited to a philosophical approach and will be important for us to understand the needs and values that justify people's individual choices. For the success of the investigation we will try to answer the following questions: I) What is equality according to Sen's theory? (ii) How did Amartya Sen present his idea of capabilities throughout his work? (iii) Is it possible to affirm that there were substantial interpretative modifications in Sen’s theory of capabilities? (iv) What is the sense of freedom to Amartya Sen? (v) In what aspects does the Capabilities approach allow us to understand development as freedom? The central methodological strategy of this study is essentially theoretical and the analytical procedures will occur through a review of the literature around the researched topic. Besides reading the indicated works of the author we will seek dialogue with his critics. As a result we intend to clarify how freedom when associated to social, political and economical activities can be considered as an instrument for measuring progress and also a social efficacy ratio, extrapolating the gaps of evaluation of other theories.