Abstract

REYES MOREL, Agustín. Communities of meaning as collective capabilities: A communitarian cevision of Amartya Sen’s theory. arete, 2008, vol.20, no.1, p.137-166. ISSN 1016-913X.

Sen’s Capability Approach it is distinguished in the field of the distributive justice, because It has tried to set evaluatives terms that exceed the atomism of the Utilitarian theories. But some critical thinkers have pointed out that the Approach still keep an individualistic style that restrict its impact at the moment of implementing public policies. For these critics, Sen’s basic concepts must be complemented with the idea of collective capability, irreducible to indivudual terms, that allows to account to the intersubjective process of agency and the personal identity constitution. This paper will attempt to present a plausible candidate to the collective capability, that respects the live core of the communitarian comments and that keeps the capability and agency concepts, which are fundamental in Sen’s theory.

Keywords: Sen; capabilities; intersubjectivity; agency; Communitarianism.