Esta obra contribuye al homenaje que la Universitat de València rindió al profesor Amartya Kumar Sen con motivo de su investidura como Doctor Honoris Causa. La cuidada selección de artículos preparada por el profesor Casas Pardo, precedida de un estudio introductorio sobre su obra, recoge las aportaciones más importantes, originales y creativas del Dr. Sen a la economía, la ética y al pensamiento social en general.

Este artículo trata de las comparaciones ordinales de desigualdad de bienestar y su uso en los juicios de bienestar social, especialmente en el contexto del "principio de diferencia" de Rawls. En la sección 1 se desarrolla el concepto de comparaciones de desigualdad ordinales y se presenta un teorema sobre las comparaciones de desigualdad de bienestar para problemas de distribución. La sección 2 se dedicaa la discusión de Harsanyi (1955) de que la preocupación por reducir las desigualdades de bienestar entre las (...) personas no debe interferir en los juicios de bienestar social. En la sección 3 se presenta una derivación axiomática de la regla lexicográfica maximin de Rawls; ésta se relaciona directamente con los resultados establecidos por Hammond (1975), d'Aspremont y Gevers (1975), y Strasnick (1975). En la última sección se examinan los axiomas usados y se analizan algunos axiomas alternativos con la intención de llegar a una evaluación crítica del enfoque de Rawls de los juicios sobre el bienestar social. (shrink)

In this comprehensive collection of essays, most of which appear for the first time, eminent scholars from many disciplines—philosophy, economics, sociology, political science, demography, theology, history, and social psychology—examine the causes, nature, and consequences of present-day consumption patterns in the United States and throughout the world.

Poverty continues to present an enormous challenge to the well-being of humanity. Different frameworks on poverty tend to identify different persons as poor, impacting on efforts to fight poverty. The church as a role player in the public domain needs a framework that can assist it in its task of working for salvation and liberation in the face of overwhelming poverty. Acombined framework, from Amartya Sen’s entitlement approach and capability approach, is amalgamated and suggested as an integrated framework that (...) could act as a lens or a viewpoint from which the church could venture to conceptualise, quantify and respond to instances of poverty. Keywords: Poverty; Church; Well-being; Amartya Sen; Entitlement Approach; Capability Approach. (shrink)

Amartya Sen has developed the so-called capability approach to meet the criticism that income alone may be insufficient as a measure of economic inequality. This is because knowledge about people’s income does not tell us what they are able to acquire with that income. For example, people with the same income may not have the same access to health and transportation services, schools and opportunities in the labor market. Recently, there has been growing interest in empirical studies based on (...) the capability approach. Most of these, however, are only loosely related to quantitative behavioral theory, at least in a concrete and empirically operational way. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that the theory of random scale models offers a powerful theoretical and empirical framework for representing and accounting for key aspects of Sen’s theory. (shrink)

Global cultures, local ethics -- Modernity and the West's self-understanding : the discursive paradigm -- Pluriversal justice : Amartya Sen and the capabilities approach.

And in this book the distinguished scholar Amartya Sen offers a powerful critique of the theory of social justice that, in its grip on social and political ...

This book develops some of the most important themes of Sen's works over the last decade. He argues in a rich and subtle approach that we should be concerned with people's capabilities rather than their resources or welfare.

Commodities and Capabilities presents a set of inter-related theses concerning the foundations of welfare economics, and in particular about the assessment of personal well-being and advantage. The argument presented focuses on the capability to function, i.e. what a person can do or can be, questioning in the process the more standard emphasis on opulence or on utility. In fact, a person's motivation behind choice is treated here as a parametric variable which may or may not coincide with the pursuit of (...) self-interest. Given the large number of practical problems arising from the roles and limitations of different concepts of interest and the judgement of advantage and well-being, this scholarly investigation is both of theoretical interest and practical import. (shrink)

In The Joyless Economy, Tibor Scitovsky proposes a model of human behavior that differs substantially from that of standard economic theory. Scitovsky begins with a basic distinction between “comfort” and “stimulation.” While stimulation is ultimately more satisfying and creative, we frequently fall for the bewitching attractions of comfort, which leads to impoverished lives. Scitovsky's analysis has far‐reaching implications not only for the idea of rationality, but for the concept of utility (by making it plural in nature) and, perhaps most importantly, (...) for the importance of freedom (including the freedom to change our preferences). (shrink)

Suitable for students and scholars, this title challenges the assumption that skepticism, rather than established belief, lies at the heart of scientific discovery.

Based on the 1972 Radcliffe Lectures, this book presents a systematic treatment of the conceptual framework as well as the practical problems of measurement of inequality.

This paper is about three distinct but interrelated problems: (1) the role 0f rights in moral theory, (2) thc characterization 0f agent relative values and their admissibility in consequ<—:ncc—bascd evaluation, and ( 3) the nature 0f moral evaluation 0f states 0f aihirs.

Gary Becker and others have done important work to broaden the content of self interest, but have not departed from seeing rationality in terms of the exclusive pursuit of self-interest. One reason why committed behavior is important is that a person can have good reason to pursue objectives other than self interest maximization (no matter how broadly it is construed). Indeed, one can also follow rules of behavior that go beyond the pursuit of one's own goals, even if the goals (...) include non-self-interested concerns. By living in a society, one develops possible reasons for considering other people's goals as well, which takes one beyond an exclusive concentration on one's own goals, not to mention the single-minded pursuit of one's own self interest. The recognition of other people's goals may be a part of rational thought. If rational behavior may depart from the relentless pursuit of one's own goals, commitment has to be important in a theory of rationality. Furthermore, seeing the role of commitment in human behavior can have explanatory importance in allowing us to understand behavior patterns that are hard to fit into the narrow format of contemporary rational choice theory. Commitment is, thus, important both for practical reason and for causal explanation. (shrink)

I am embarrassed at being placed in the dizzying company of one of the truly great thinkers in the world. The similarities between Mill's ideas and mine partly reflect, of course, his influence on my thinking. But I also discuss some difficulties in taking Mill's whole theory without modification, since there are internal tensions within it. In a paper I published in 1967, I tried to discuss how Mill's willingness to hold on to some contrary positions depended on the nature (...) of his empirical reading of the world. I draw on that diagnosis in commenting on some of the articles here. There are some serious issues of misinterpretation in one of the articles, which I try to clarify. I also comment on Arrow's interpretation of what is involved in the idea of autonomy and on his own way of assessing freedom, and acknowledge the seriousness of the questions he raises about the value of freedom in normative political philosophy. (shrink)