The reasoning agent: agency in the capability approach and some implications for development research and practice

• Pablo Garcés ^[1]
  1. [1] Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador

     Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador

     Quito, Ecuador

     
• Localización: Revista Iberoamericana de Estudios de Desarrollo= Iberoamerican Journal of Development Studies, ISSN-e 2254-2035, Vol. 9, Nº. 2, 2020, págs. 268-292
• Idioma: inglés
• DOI: 10.26754/ojs_ried/ijds.491
• Títulos paralelos:
  • El agente razonante: agencia en el enfoque de capacidades y algunas implicaciones para la investigación y la práctica del desarrollo
• Enlaces
  • Texto completo (pdf)
• Dialnet Métricas: 1 Cita
• Resumen
  • español

    El enfoque de capacidades (EC) es un marco centrado en la libertad y orientado hacia la agencia para la evaluación de estados individuales y sociales. Efectivamente, se considera que la agencia tiene importancia intrínseca, instrumental y constructiva. Así, hay una creciente bibliografía donde se explora cómo capturar la agencia empíricamente. Sin embargo, relativamente menos se ha dicho sobre lo que la agencia del EC implica en sus propios términos. Esa discusión involucra dos temas: la racionalidad y la libertad. Contrario al enfoque dominante, la teoría de la elección racional, que propone a un elector egoísta, calculador y atomista, el EC propone a un elector con múltiples motivaciones, multidimensional, plural y reflexivo; es decir, en lugar de uno racional, el EC sugiere a un agente razonante. Estudiar a ese agente tiene importantes implicaciones para la investigación, incluida la filosofía de la ciencia. Aquellas pueden enfrentarse de mejor manera si esta se aborda debidamente.

  • English

    Amartya Sen’s capability approach (CA) is a freedom-centered and agency-oriented fra-mework to the assessment of individual and social states. Indeed, it regards agency as having intrinsic, instrumental, and constructive importance. Thus, there is a growing literature exploring how to empirically capture agency. However, relatively less has been said about what the CA agency entails on its own terms. That discussion hinges on two themes: rationality, and freedom. Contrary to the dominant approach, rational choice theory, which proposes a selfish, calculative, atomistic chooser, the CA proposes a multi-motivated, multidimensional, plural, and reflective chooser. That is, instead of a rational, the CA suggests a reasoning agent, accounting for such an agent has important implications for the conduct of inquiry, including the philosophy of science. They might be better tackled in the latter is given its due.

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