Abstract

This article develops a systematic reinterpretation of Amartya Sen’s capability approach as a human-centered renewal of the theory of justice grounded in Adam Smith’s moral philosophy. The central claim is that the epistemological foundation of Sen’s theory does not primarily depends on Kantian normativism mediated by Rawls’s theory of justice as fairness, but rather on The Theory of Moral Sentiments, particularly it depends on the concepts of “sympathy”, “impartial spectator”, and justice interpreted as “a social practice”. Through a genealogical reconstruction that brings Aristotle, Adam Smith, and Amartya Sen into dialog, the paper argues that the capability approach can be interpreted as an alternative tradition to Enlightenment theories of justice, because oriented toward human person flourishing and the public evaluation of real freedoms. By overcoming the limits of classical liberal egalitarianism and transcendental institutionalism, the article shows that Sen’s formalization of extended sympathy within social choice theory enables a comparative, pluralistic, and non-dogmatic conception of justice, capable of assessing real social states without recourse to transcendental foundations. In line with the thematic focus of the Special Issue Adam Smith’s Philosophy and Modern Moral Economics, the paper highlights the implications of this interpretation for contemporary moral economics, economic justice, human development, and the role of markets in pluralistic democratic societies.

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