Commensurable freedoms in the capability approach

Antoinette Baujard

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Abstract: The basis of the capability approach (CA) was recently attacked by a paper by Prasanta Pattanaik and Yonghseng Xu: the CA is strongly committed to two substantial principles, dominance on the one hand, and relativism on the other hand. The authors have shown these two principles, along with a harmless continuity condition, are together inconsistent. The aim of this paper is twofold. On the one hand, it provides a discussion on the interpretation of this result, based on a reading of the literature on the CA, which brings to thefore the diversity of the approaches. On the second hand, it aims at proposinga way out from the impossibility, which yields to further discussions of Sen'sCA.

Keywords: freedom; commensurability; capability; relativism; universalism; local ethics; liberté; commensurabilité; capabilités; relativisme; universalisme : éthique locale (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published in 2007

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-00294563

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