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Means and Capabilities in the Discussion of Distributive Justice *
Author(s) -
PEREIRA GUSTAVO
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
ratio juris
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.344
H-Index - 10
eISSN - 1467-9337
pISSN - 0952-1917
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9337.2006.00317.x
Subject(s) - distributive justice , distributive property , economic justice , subjectivism , autonomy , task (project management) , perfectionism (psychology) , law and economics , computer science , welfare , epistemology , sociology , social psychology , psychology , economics , microeconomics , political science , law , mathematics , philosophy , pure mathematics , management
. Dworkin's equality of resources can be interpreted as a proposal that integrates distributive criteria taken from both equality of means and equality of capabilities , and overcomes the risks of subjectivism, overrigidity and perfectionism inherent in theories of welfare, means and capabilities respectively. This can be achieved by concentrating on arrangements of justice working within the parameter of equality of resources that equalize capabilities at a level of minima, thus avoiding the perfectionist risk and, once the threshold that ensures autonomous subjects is passed, ruled by criteria taken from theories of means. In such a task, the concept of moral person will be used as the criterion for determining the threshold of autonomy, and not only will it allow for the discrimination between the different circumstances that make the application of distributive criteria possible, but it will also specify the circumstances in which it is possible to attribute responsibility to an agent.