10.13125/CH/4673
application/pdf
2533-1825
4673
2
en
urn:nbn:it:unica-28219
Valentina Erasmo
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Critical Hermeneutics
rights
Rights, Capabilities and Recognition
Text.Serial.Journal
https://ojs.unica.it/index.php/ecch
5
Varia
2022-04-13
2021-05-27
2022-04-14
2022-04-14
247-276
1
Valentina Erasmo
2021
10.13125/CH/4673
247
Università degli Studi G. d'Annunzio, Chieti-Pescara
2533-1825
2
rights
en
276
urn:nbn:it:unica-28219
Rights, Capabilities and Recognition
https://ojs.unica.it/index.php/ecch/article/download/4673/5085
5
Critical Hermeneutics, 5(2), 2021                              Received: 23/11/2022
Biannual International Journal of Philosophy                   Accepted: 1/04/2022
http://ojs.unica.it/index.php/ecch/index                       Published: 13/04/2022
ISSN 2533-1825 (on line); DOI 10.13125/CH/4673




               Rights, Capabilities and Recognition:
     an alternative reading of Amartya Sen and Paul
                             Ricoeur’s “dialogue”



                                  Valentina Erasmo




                                                 “Je m’identifie par mes capacités,
                                                 par ce que je peux faire”
                                                 (P. Ricoeur, Devenir capable, être
                                                 reconnu, 2005a: 125)




Abstract
This paper follows Ricoeur’s trajectory and strategy of thought in his
final works, bringing into discussion aspects of Sen’s texts and rele-
vant commentary by other scholars. The main result of this paper is
to offer an alternative reading compared to the literature, highlighting
how Ricoeur is indebted to Sen but also considering how the two dif-
fer in order to reach a more equilibrate view of their “dialogue”.
Among their analogies, Ricoeur explicitly recognized Sen’s influence
in his transition from self-recognition to mutual recognition and they
assigned the same value to capabilities. But their respective under-
standing of mutuality among human agents is the main difference be-
tween them. Ricoeur wants to create authentical space and real op-
portunity for mutual understanding where rights and capabilities
might be finally conciliated. In contrast, Sen is still enough weary and
Valentina Erasmo, Rights, Capabilities and Recognition




hesitant to commit to what he would consider an ideal aim of human
discourse and interaction.
Keywords: agency, capabilities, recognition, rights, self


1. Introduction
This paper follows Ricoeur’s trajectory and strategy of thought in his
final works, namely “Capabilities and Rights” and the Course of
Recognition, bringing into discussion aspects of Sen’s texts and rele-
vant commentary by other scholars.                  The literature on the relation-
ship between Ricoeur and Sen is rich and varied: on the one hand,
there is the hypothesis of Ricoeur’s debt towards Sen, advanced in
the works of Brugiatelli (2013), Genard and Cantelli (2008) and Foes-
sel (2010); on the other, Déneulin (2006) and Ballet and others
(2014) has mainly emphasized the differences between them.
      I will offer an alternative reading compared to the literature,
showing in which ways Ricoeur is indebted to Sen but also how the
two differ—especially given that Ricoeur seems not to have read
Sen’s latter works closer to and contemporaneous with the years
running up to the publication of “Capabilities and Rights” and Course
of Recognition. Working out analogies and differences between Ric-
oeur and Sen is very significant. This reading could be potentially in-
teresting for an extremely heterogeneous audience, from Ricoeur
scholarship to general economic methodologists. These latter often
set their sights lower Ricoeur’s more idealistic intentions. His inten-
tions might leave a space in disciplines, like economics, which are in-
volved with reciprocal exchange, opposed to Ricoeur’s mutual recog-
nition.
      The paper is composed as follow: in Section 2, I will provide an
overview about the concepts of rights, capabilities and recognition; in
Section 3, I will represent how Ricoeur moves from capabilities to
self-recognition; then, in Section 4, I will analyse Ricoeur’s shift from



230
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Sen to Hegel in mutual recognition; in Section 5, I will proceed with
Ricoeur’s reading of Sen’s thought which ranges from his agency to
“rights and capabilities” as the most fully developed social capacities
to their common criticism towards mainstream homo economicus; in
Section 6, I will deepen the pair of rights and capabilities in terms of
“rights to certain capabilities” and Sen’s “capacity for choice about
life”. In Section 7, some final considerations.
    The main result of this paper is to offer an alternative reading
compared to the available literature, highlighting how Ricoeur is in-
debted to Sen but also considering how the two differ in order to
reach a more equilibrate view of their “dialogue”. Among their analo-
gies, Ricoeur explicitly recognized Sen’s influence in his transition
from self-recognition to mutual recognition and they assigned the
same value to capabilities. Their respective understanding of mutuali-
ty among human agents represents the main difference between
them. Ricoeur wants to create authentical space and real opportunity
for mutual understanding where rights and capabilities might be final-
ly conciliated. In contrast, Sen is still enough weary and hesitant to
commit to what he would consider an ideal (as opposed to practical)
aim of human discourse and interaction.


2. An overview on rights, capabilities and recognition
The main concepts involved in this paper are Sen and Ricoeur’s
understanding of rights, Sen’s capabilities and Ricoeur’s recognition.
The field that these two thinkers give to rights sounds very
interesting: they consequently treat the term ‘rights’ differently,
working from different philosophical assumptions. Certainly, Sen’s use
of rights is more diffuse than Ricoeur’s reference to the juridical field
where rights are enacted and enforced.
    Ricoeur’s understanding of rights should be located in his ethical
approach which has a key role in his whole production, although he



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Valentina Erasmo, Rights, Capabilities and Recognition




seldom answered directly to very specific ethical questions. Probably,
among other contributions, like Freedom and Nature (1966), his most
mature ethical formulation is provided in Oneself as Another (1992)
where he explained his “little ethics”. This essay is an evolution of his
previous works about ethics, freedom, interpretation, narrative and
self. More specifically, this is considered (Cohen and Marsh 2002): on
the one hand, a concentration of previous themes about action theory,
philosophy of action and theory of narrative, adding the ethical
perspective; on the other, the apex of Ricoeur’s analysis of the self on
ethical, hermeneutical, linguistical and phenomenological aspects. In
a nutshell, this essay is a synthesis of his earlier themes and
methodologies with those contents and methods of ethics since the
perspective of human self.
      Its title summarizes the three main topics that make up this
essay: primarily, a reflexive meditation on the self; a dialectic reading
of the two kind of identity, such as idem or ipse; the dialectic
between the self and the others. I will not go into further details
about these topics, preferring to focus on what Ricoeur defined “little
ethics”, significantly placed at the end of this essay.       At the very
beginning, he did not see a direct link between the main theme of the
book (the analysis of those capacities and incapacities related to
human capable being) and his ethical reflection. Then, Ricoeur found
this cornerstone in the concept of imputability, such as that individual
ability to recognize himself/herself as accountable for his/her actions.
This capacity is homogeneous with those define human capable being,
namely the capacity to speak, to act and to tell.
      The main references of Ricoeur’s little ethics are represented by
Aristotle and Kant who enabled him the transition “from a basic ethic
to ethics passing through moral obligation” which is “the new formula
for what I called my ‘little ethics’” (Ricoeur 2007: 3). This little ethics
is rooted in a Kantian respect for other selves: in particular, this



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respect should be embodied by institutions and rights, according to a
Hegelian understanding of these latter (Pickett 2021). The role of
rights in Ricoeur’s little ethics is to concretely embody that abstract,
Kantian respect. Afterwards, Ricoeur came back on ethics and rights
in his final works, The Course of Recognition and “Capabilities and
Rights. Ethics became an approach rooted in Hegel’s recognition; in
turn, recognition is that missing link from the “is” of capabilities to
the “ought” of rights. Ricoeur was searching that link since the origins
of his little ethics. But I will deepen this topic in the following Sections.
     At the beginning of the Eighties, Sen developed his own ethical
approach in Rights and Agency (1982) where rights acquire a seminal
role. In this paper, Sen reflected upon justice, facing with constraint-
based theories and welfarist consequentialism in order to provide a
sort of third-way compared to these two alternatives. Although this
distinction may appear enough naïve is the same Sen availed in this
paper. This is why I am adopting it. Constraint-based theories focused
mainly on motives behind human actions. On the contrary, welfarist
consequentialism     privileged    consequences       (Cremaschi         1999).
According to Sen (1982), they have different limits about justice: the
first does not admit the violation of rights not even when they cause
poverty and availed of primary goods in order to reduce socio-
economic inequalities (but these do not transfer automatically more
freedom to individuals). In contrast, the second is neutral compared
to distributional problems for reducing socio-economic inequalities.
Sen claimed how welfarist consequentialism and constraint-based
theories have a common limit: they avoid moral rights in the
evaluation of consequences connected to human actions.
     Since those criticalities, Sen (1982) decided to elaborate its
“goals rights system”. This might be considered a “plural and public”
moral approach where different perspectives may agree about its
epistemological basis and man comes out to that privateness which



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Valentina Erasmo, Rights, Capabilities and Recognition




characterized Sen’s contemporary mainstream homo economicus. In
this system, rights acquire a double value: on the one hand, rights
are measures for evaluating state of affairs; on the other, rights are
simultaneously means and ends for reducing inequalities at the aim
to improve collective well-being. We might express rights’ role in this
ethical system quoting Sen. The


      fulfilment and nonrealization of rights are included among
      the goals, incorporated in the evaluation of states of affairs,
      and    then     applied      to   the    choice    of   actions   through
      consequential links will be called a goal rights system (Sen
      1982: 15).


      Goals rights system is a consequentialist approach compared to
rights, emptied by welfarist elements, but enriching it through the
intrinsic value of rights, like in constraint-based theories.
      Sen’s capability approach is a realistic framework for studying
human life, especially individual welfare and social states, availing of
an alternative perspective compared to those adopted in economics
and philosophy. The core of this approach is represented by capability,
such as “what people are concretely able to do or to be in their
existence”. Its first formulation dated back to the Tanner Lecture,
“Equality of What?” (1980) in terms of basic capabilities. During the
Eighties, Sen further developed this approach in Commodities and
Capabilities (1985) without any significant changes about capability’s
semantics, but introducing also functionings and commodities.
      Capabilities are about “those beings and doings that constitute
human life and that are central to our understandings of ourselves as
human beings” (Robeyns 2017: 39). They represent the concrete
freedom to choose among different combinations of functionings in
order to improve their conditions. A functioning is “an achievement of



234
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a person: what he or she manages to do or to be. It reflects [...] a
part of the “state” of that person. It has to be distinguished from the
commodities which are used to achieve those functionings” (Sen
1985a: 10). In contrast, commodities are primary goods that have
simultaneously an objective exchange value and a subjective use
value. Primary goods are means for improving individual and/or
collective welfare in order to reduce, in turn, socio-economic
inequalities.   About   the   relationship   between     commodities         and
functionings, the latter explains what an individual can concretely do
or be with the former. Finally, capabilities are individual freedoms to
choose the best combination of functionings which enable him/her to
live the life he/she prefers to (Erasmo 2019b). This is the most
famous and spread definition of Sen’s capability approach, such as
those commonly adopted by economists for extending these concepts
in applied fields of economic reality. Sen went a step further
compared to simply offering an evaluable tool for economists. During
the Eighties, he explicitly related goals rights system with his
capability approach. This is a less-known extension of this latter,
provided in Rights and Agency. Sen claimed that: “If all goal rights
takes the form of rights to certain capabilities, then a goal rights
system may be conveniently called a capability rights system” (Sen
1982: 16) In this way, Sen entangled an extension of rights with an
extension of those achieved functionings which may be translated
into capabilities.
     Recognition is at the centre of Ricoeur’s final works. The aim of
The Course of Recognition is to afford a proper redefinition of
‘recognition’ (Giusti 2012), from ‘recognize’ to ‘be recognized’ by
others (from an active to a passive form of recognition), through
three fundamental stages, corresponding to the three studies of the
book: ‘Recognition as identification’, such as the point of identity;
‘Recognize oneself’, such as the point of alterity where we find



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Valentina Erasmo, Rights, Capabilities and Recognition




Ricoeur’s reading of Sen’s thought; ‘Mutual recognition’, such as the
final   outcome         of   the   dialectic    between       recognition    and      non-
recognition, indebted to Hegel’s thought, as abovementioned. This
final   point      is    simultaneously        an   arrival    and   a   context       for
understanding these stages as a whole, in line with Hegel1.


3. Ricoeur’s (partial) intellectual debt towards Sen: from
capabilities to self-recognition
Ricoeur first compared with Sen in “Capabilities and Rights”: oddly
enough, this is the reverse title of “Rights and Capabilities” (Sen
1985c). Maybe, this can be considered a first argument for supporting
the hypothesis of his intellectual debt towards Sen, although this
latter was mentioned only once in this work. Written before the
appearance of the Course, “Capabilities and Rights” is a sort of
summary of the most important elements we will find in Ricoeur’s last
essay. The aim of this contribution is to bridge two heterogeneous but
close concepts, those of ‘capability’ and ‘rights’: Ricoeur supported
that the former belongs to philosophical anthropology and the latter
to philosophy of law. Trying an integration between them: “the best
candidate for this […] enterprise is […] recognition understood as a
dynamic process connecting a plurality of points of view as the
distinctive steps of the same development.” (Ricoeur 2006: 17)
Ricoeur started his analysis foreseeing the framework of the Course:
the different processes of recognition are represented through three
logical steps and everyone had a different epistemological value. The
first   is   the        recognition   of    person,      successively       defined     as
‘identification’, in an existentialist context. The second step is self-
recognition where Ricoeur located rights and capabilities, namely an


1
  In this paper, I will deepen only the second stage of the Course because this is
that where Ricoeur compares with Sen’s thought about the categories of rights,
capabilities and recognition.



236
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anthropological context. Finally, the third step is mutual recognition
where rights find their cornerstone in juridical context. In this space,
Ricoeur appeared to be also influenced by Sen’s capabilities for
approaching his concept of self-recognition. However, in the following
pages, he distanced himself from Sen, preferring Hegel’s perspective
in his analysis of mutual recognition.
     About the relationship between capabilities and self-recognition,
in a broader sense, Ricoeur supported how “capabilities belongs to
the lexicon of human action. It designates the kind of power that we
claim to be able to exercise. In its turn this claim expresses the kind
of recognition pertaining to the assertion of selfhood at the reflexive
level”. (Ricoeur 2006: 17) This is a very important description: in an
extremely original way, capabilities seem to be located in philosophy
of   language,     while    self-recognition     is   produced       by    selfhood’s
reflexivity.
     Some considerations about capabilities and reflexivity related to
self-recognition are required: about the first, who underestimate
Ricoeur’s debt with Sen could emphasize a linguistical difference
between these terms. However, this difference is only apparent
because their meaning is the same. According to Sen, basic
capabilities express what a person “being able to do certain basic
things” (Sen 1980: 218), while Ricoeur talked about “a kind of power
we claim to be able to exercise” (Ricoeur 2006, 17). Which is the
value of this “claim”? This sounds like a specific linguistic assertion, “I
believe that I can”, namely self-assertion2. This kind of power equals

2At the same time, every assertion of capability concerning the otherness or alterity
with activities like “helping, preventing, forbidding, or co-operating with the agent”
(Ricoeur 2006: 18) belongs to the same phenomenology of certitude related to self-
assertion like the abovementioned “I believe that I can”. However, this link between
self-assertion and otherness will be better explained in The Course where Ricoeur
considered “the connecting links within the anthropology of capabilities and the
juridical sphere of rights.” (Ricoeur 2006: 18) I argue this quotation is significant:
Ricoeur was the first to refer to an anthropology of capabilities. This understanding
foreran a more recent literature, like Davis (2009), Erasmo (2020), Giovanola



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Valentina Erasmo, Rights, Capabilities and Recognition




with Sen’s basic capability that Ricoeur defined ‘capacity’.            Instead,
about the second, there are some differences between them:
according to Ricoeur, self-recognition is produced by selfhood’s
reflexivity, as abovementioned. Since Oneself as Another, for example,
he claimed two kinds of identity, idem (or sameness) and ipse (or
selfhood). The former is an immutable or static identity through
which “we see the self in another” (Pierovich 2011: 69), while the
latter is the changing or dynamic identity that takes into account of
the historical condition of the self which is changeable in time. In this
sense, ipse explains that reflexive activity which enables self-
recognition: through their dialectical exchange, personal identity is
constituted thanks to a juridical, social and political recognition.
      The same role of self-recognition is covered by commitment’s
reflexive value in Sen. Commitment offers a global view of the
different aspects of the self (self centered welfare, self-goal choice
and self-welfare goal) and a proper development of personal identity
(Davis 2007). Perhaps, these two kinds of reflexivity differ mainly for
their sources and the kind of identity related to them. In Ricoeur, ipse
is the source of reflexivity, one of the two parts of personal identity;
instead, in Sen, reflexivity derives from commitment, a motive for
decision-making. Yet, commitment’s reflexive value enables a proper
development of personal identity. In turn, this produces the same
consequences we find in Ricoeur, although this result is reached in a
different way3.
      After this analysis of the relationship between capabilities and
self-recognition, Ricoeur focused on a set of basic capabilities (or
capacities): these are the capacity to speak, the capacity to act, the
capacity to tell and the imputability which will provide an only and

(2007, 2013), Giovanola and Totaro (2008).
3 Sen has not adopted the same Ricoeur’s distinction between immutable and

changing identity: on the contrary, he referred to personal identity which changes
continuously as a product of different decision-making motives.



238
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more       specific   capability,   namely   self-designation.         These      basic
capabilities seem very close to Sen’s capability approach but there
are analogies and differences between these two: as mentioned
above, on the one hand, Ricoeur’s basic capabilities acquired the
same value of Sen’s functionings; on the other, however, Ricoeur
introduced an interesting distinction, absent in Sen’s capability
approach, defining the transition from a set of basic capabilities to a
specific     capability   as   “from   capabilities     at   large    to    rights    at
large”(Ricoeur 2006: 18), such as from “factual to normative
capabilities”. Basic/factual capabilities concerns with philosophical
anthropology,         while    specific/normative       capabilities       with      the
philosophy of law.
     Deepening Ricoeur’s basic capabilities, the capacity to speak is
that we may find, on the one hand, in Ancient thought, especially
Homeric and Aristotelian works, where speaker subjects recognized
themselves as the “cause” of their action; on the other, in
contemporary pragmatisms, where this capacity is understood as
“doing things with words” or “being able to say things” (Ricoeur
2005c) 4 . Thanks to this linguistical ability, the capacity to speak is
characterized by a progressive recognition of the self and the others
(Ricoeur, 2005c). Then, Ricoeur deepened the second basic capability,
the capacity to act, understood as “making events happen” or “the
capacity of acting subject to make events happen in the physical and
social environment” (Ricoeur 2005c: 96). This capacity is useful for
recognizing himself/herself as the “cause of the action” in terms of “I
did it”. In particular, this is the “capacity to generate changes at the
physical, interpersonal and social level” (Ricoeur 2006: 19), making
man ‘agency’, able to answer to that question about the ‘who’ of


4In the Course, this capacity enables to extend human actions, justifying that
“characterization of the self as the capable human being recognizing himself in his
capabilities” (Ricoeur 2005c: 94).



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Valentina Erasmo, Rights, Capabilities and Recognition




actions5.
      Afterwards, Ricoeur considered the third basic capability, the
“capacity to tell” or the ability to tell stories, including those related
to his/her own self. In a broad sense, Ricoeur claimed that when
personal identity exercises its reflexive value, talking about oneself in
narrative terms, this becomes a “narrative identity”, evoking the
temporal dimension of the self and its actions. Through this reading,
personal identity acquires a temporal dimension and the relationships
which establishes between agents and the narrated action enables to
distinguish sameness and selfhood. These elements about narrative
identity are absent in Sen: thus, we cannot support any influences in
this sense.
      Finally,      Ricoeur     showed     the    fourth      basic   capabilities,   the
“liability”    or    “accountability”,     such     as   “I    can    hold   myself   as
accountable”. This “makes the subject accountable before somebody
else”, adding to the abovementioned ascription “the ability to bear the
consequences of one’s own acts, particularly those which are held to
be harms inflicted on somebody else as the victim”, including “the
ability to suffer the pain of punishment” (Ricoeur 2006: 20) On the
one hand, this understanding of human vulnerability is absent in Sen,
as Ballet and others (2014) have pointed out. This is another element
of difference between Ricoeur and Sen. On the other, Ricoeur
introduced self-designation that:


      gets attached to capabilities opened to objective description.
      As      concerns    the    action    as    much,     some       ethico-moral
      predicates, linked either to the idea of the Good or to that of
      obligation, follow the formulation of verbs of action. These

5
 However, recognizing himself/herself as “cause of the action”, able to generate
changes on the environment, does not equal with moral imputability or liability.
Rather this is the simple ascription of actions to someone.




240
                                              Critical Hermeneutics, 5(2), (2022)




     predicates reflexively to the agents themselves, these
     agents are held to be capable of moral imputation. With
     imputability or accountability, the concept of capability
     reaches its peak in terms of self-designation (Ricoeur 2006:
     20)


     At the top of this hierarchical order of basic capabilities, there is
an only and specific capability which may be explained in terms of
self-designation. This passage is very close to Ricoeur (2005c)
reading of Sen’s capability approach in The Course: according to this,
“capabilities put responsibility in agency”. Finally, capabilities have a
double value: on the one hand, as abovementioned, these enable to
represent what an individual or a group can be or do in his/her
existence (taking into account or not of other goals and choices
thanks to social interactions); on the other, capabilities may express
person’s relational value (Davis 2003), embedded in social space,
through a proper representation of his/her social relationships. In
other words, responsible behaviours may occur through capabilities
space which offers the opportunity to know, represent and consider
(or not) others’ goals and choices. This is what happened at the apex
of this Ricoeur’s phenomenology. These elements confirm a certain
proximity between Ricoeur and Sen’s capability approach, although
this is only a partial intellectual debt, given their differences about
the source of self-recognition and those missed elements in Sen’s
thought (for example, the distinction between factual and normative
capabilities and the analysis of narrative identity and human
vulnerability).




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Valentina Erasmo, Rights, Capabilities and Recognition




4. Ricoeur distances himself from Sen: mutual recognition as
juridical recognition of rights and Sen’s missed theory of
human rights
In the last Section of Capabilities and Rights, Ricoeur distances
himself from Sen, adopting Hegel’s perspective, like in The Course’s
mutual recognition. Behind this shift, perhaps, there is a significant
lack in his analysis: if rights and capabilities may be connected only
in a juridical context, Ricoeur seems not to have read Sen’s works
closer to and contemporaneous with the years running up to the
publication of his latest works. He missed to mention, for example,
Sen’s theory of human rights. Probably, Ricoeur’s reading of Sen’s
thought was limited to this latter production dating back to the
Eighties (Erasmo 2019b). In 2004, Sen has published Element of a
Theory of Human Rights where is straightforward his commitment for
juridical questions.
      But we have to proceed gradually.
      Concluding the analysis of Capabilities and Rights, the passage
from self-recognition to mutual recognition was realized in linguistical
terms, from active to passive verbs, namely from “the claim to
recognize” to “the need to be recognized” (Ricoeur 2006: 21), adding
the element of mutuality or reciprocity which is absent in self-
recognition and in Sen’s thought 6 . About reciprocal relationships,
Ricoeur supported how capabilities and rights could be finally
connected       in    the     juridical        context.   Despite   “empruntant     à
l’économiste       Amartya       Sen      le    concept   de   “capabilité”,   Ricoeur
reconnaît donc un droit à « acquérir des capacités » » (Foessel 2010:
123), he refused Sen’s absence of mutuality which causes that rights
and capabilities will never be really conciliated in his thought.

6
 Although Sen has never referred explicitly to reciprocity, his contribution for the
birth of relational goods was fundamental, so the question is a little bit more
controversial that it can seem at a first sight. For further details, see Erasmo
(2019a).



242
                                             Critical Hermeneutics, 5(2), (2022)




    In Sen’s goals rights system (1982), rights to certain capabilities
has exclusively an ethical-moral value, not juridical, like Ricoeur
wanted. Differently from Sen, Hegel focused on a different claim,
namely the “universality linked to the conquest of new rights at the
level of juridical relationship at large” where “the juridical person is
defined as the bearer of rights implying normative obligations as
regards the other partner in this kind of relationship”(Ricoeur 2006:
24). According to Ricoeur, rights and capabilities can meet in a
universal (mutual) space, namely that of juridical dimension which is
possible in Hegel’s framework, not in Sen.
    Since the transition from self-recognition to mutual recognition,
Ricoeur considered this latter a space for enriching the basic
capabilities with this “conjunction between the universal validity of
the norm and the singularity of the persons” (Ricoeur 2006: 24) in
order to obtain new, stronger, capabilities thanks to the juridical
recognition of rights. The universality of norms and the singularity of
persons equals with an enlargement of the normative sphere which
causes simultaneously “the enumeration of new subjective rights”
and “the ascription of these rights to new categories of individuals or
of groups” (Ricoeur 2006: 24) About these new subjective rights,
Ricoeur referred to civil rights (like those concerning life, freedom of
movement and property), political rights (for example, participation
in activities related to public civil) and social rights (as fair
distribution of basic goods). Differently from the Course, in the final
part of this contribution, Ricoeur went beyond the juridical stage of
mutual recognition and the need of equality in terms of rights,
reaching the so-called social esteem, close to Habermas’s works
(Busacchi 2015). Thereby, this represents a fourth logical step, the
social step expressed in terms of social rank’s recognition. However,
social esteem meets several problems because the diversity of social
mediations involved in this process (which corresponds to different



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Valentina Erasmo, Rights, Capabilities and Recognition




social roles) calls for distinct kinds of social esteem7.
      Although Ricoeur denied a juridical/universal dimension in Sen,
this latter focused on human (or universal) rights, including their
recognition and legislation route. Oddly enough, in Element of a
Theory of Human Rights (2004), the word recognition appears ‘only’
21 times and a whole paragraph is devoted to “Recognition, Agitation
and Legislation”. About the nature of human rights, they are
“primarily demands. They are not principally ‘legal’, ‘proto-legal’ or
‘ideal-legal’ commands. Even though human rights can, and often do,
inspire legislation, this is a further fact, rather than a constitutive
characteristic of human rights” (Sen 2004: 319). Rather,


      the implementation of human rights can go well beyond
      legislation, and a theory of human rights cannot be sensibly
      confined within the juridical model in which it is frequently
      incarcerated. For example, public recognition and agitation
      can be part of the obligations-often imperfect-generated by
      the acknowledgement of human rights (319–320; italics is
      mine).


      Human rights go beyond legislation, opposite to Ricoeur’s
position and his understanding of Sen’s rights.
      Moreover, human rights are “ethical claims will survive open and
informed scrutiny” (320), such as “an interactive process of critical
scrutiny” (320–321). This interactive element shows two important
elements of human rights: their mutuality and universality where the
latter is dependent on the former. In Sen, mutuality occurs in that
open process of critical and informed scrutiny which reproduces, in


7
  For better understanding the value of social esteem, Ricoeur recalled Boltanski
and Thévenot (1991) “économie de la grandeur”. According to this latter, an
individual may be judged as “small” or “great” thanks to his/her social activity.



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public space, the same dynamics of self-scrutiny which derives from
commitment’s reflexive value, as seen in the previous Section.
Human rights are able to “survive open critical scrutiny in public
reasoning” (356): this is the proof both of their universality and
viability.
     In Section VII, “Recognition, Agitation and Legislation”, Sen
emphasized how in the main literature on the theme: “it is the
legislation of human rights, along with their institutionalization, that
has tended to receive the lion’s share of attention” (342–343).
“However”, Sen supported, “legislation is an important domain of
public action”, but “there are other ways and means which are also
important and often effective in advancing the cause of recognized
human rights” (343). This passive form of the verb ‘to recognize’ is
seminal. Sen found three different line for “advancing the cause of
recognized human rights” (Ib.), such as recognition, active legislation
and legislation. About recognition route, Sen pointed how this ought
“to be distinguished from the ‘legislative route’” (Ib.) because there is
only the acknowledgment of class of claims which can be considered
as “fundamental human rights” but legalization is not required in this
level. It is straightforward how Ricoeur and Sen’s positions are
opposite about the relationship between recognition and legalization:
in fact, recognition and legislative route for rights corresponded in
Ricoeur. Instead, Sen carefully distinguished them, as a recognition of
a right does not equal with its coercive and legal status.
     These differences are significant but highlight how Sen deeply
analysed juridical questions: in particular, his position is based on the
“ethical force of human rights” from which follows social recognition
without any kind of enforcement.         Human rights’ recognition is
associated with social recognition. This latter is the same Ricoeur
developed as fourth logical steps in “Capabilities and Rights”. Instead,
active agitation goes beyond recognition: this is based on organized



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Valentina Erasmo, Rights, Capabilities and Recognition




advocacy towards those “basic claims of all human beings that are
seen as human rights” (Ib.) and “monitoring of violations of these
rights” at the aim of “generate effective social pressure” (344). Public
discussion, publicizing and criticizing any violation of these rights are
useful tools.
      Differently from recognition, there are forms of enforcement in
active agitation (like public activism or advocacy) and support in
favour of invoked rights. These latter may have or not a legal status,
however, they are central in Sen. All these forms of enforcement
differ both from Ricoeur and the concept of legislation which is, in
turn, the third line of advancement about human rights. And this
route is the luckiest one in contemporary political history, although
Sen does not agree with this legal enforcement. This is why he
claimed that: “if a human right is important, then it must be ideal to
legislate it into a precisely specified legal right” (345). Sen believed in
the power of advocacy and public discussion, stopping at the second
route for advancing in human rights recognition, without the need of
“coercive legislation”, like Ricoeur. This analysis is helpful in order to
introduce the Course.


5. From Sen’s agency and Ricoeur’s “rights and capabilities” to
their common criticism towards mainstream homo economicus
In the Course, Ricoeur firstly compares with Sen’s agency: in a
nutshell,    this    latter    might     be    explained      through        his   dualistic
conception of person in ethical calculation (Sen 1985d, 1987). This
dualism derives from agency and well-being. About the first, person
may be understood in terms of his/her ability to form commitment,
goals and values exercised individually or collectively (Alkire 2005);
instead, about the second, we may refer to person in terms of his/her
achievements, such as his/her well-being (Sen 1985a). Although
these    concepts       are   interdependent,            agency   is   not     necessarily



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convergent with individual well-being, differently from mainstream
homo economicus (where agency is totally oriented to his/her own-
well-being in a monistic and tautological ethical calculation). In this
regard, Sen considered further rational motivations together with
self-interest, like those cooperative and altruistic. This is why Sen’s
agency might also be oriented to others’ well-being, meanwhile
worsening his/hers, because agency and well-being achievements are
something different to each other 8 . Sen’s understanding of agency
points out his will to rediscover that collective and social dimension of
human existence refused by mainstream economics.
     Ricoeur availed of Sen’s agency emphasizing how this latter
could be considered as that binding notion for all the expressions
about the “power to act” analysed in the previous chapters of the
Course: especially, the introduction of agency provides a collective
sense to individual capacities. These latter become social capacities,
such as those “claimed by collectivity and submitted to public
evaluation and approval” (Ricoeur 2005c: 134). Compared to the
modes of recognition, this change:


     yields to forms of ethical-juridical justification that bring into
     play the idea of social justice, as we shall see with the most
     advanced idea of “capabilities” that I owe to the economist
     Amartya Sen, which he pairs directly with the idea of rights
     in the complex expression “rights and capabilities” (or
     sometimes       “rights    and     agency”).      This     noteworthy


8
  Ballet and Mahieu (2009) have a certain criticism towards agency: on the one
hand, they claim how this introduction has enabled Sen (1987) to practice the
distinction between agency achievement and well-being achievement and to
overcome the traditional welfare’s notion with that of well-being (more careful to
qualitative aspects of human life); on the other, however, they support how agency
seems to be a simply extension of capabilities but without “donner plus de
substance au sujet” (Ballet and Mahieu 2009: 307), emphasizing how this concept
is poor in Sen’s economic anthropology.



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Valentina Erasmo, Rights, Capabilities and Recognition




      conceptual pair will constitute the most fully developed form
      of social capacities discussed in this section. (Ricoeur 2005c:
      134–135).


      Among many other references, from Greek tradition (like Homer
and Aristotle) to modern and contemporary authors (like Austin,
Bergson, Descartes, Kant and Searle), Ricoeur is recognizing how Sen
influenced his transition from self-recognition to mutual recognition,
such as from alterity to mutuality. In this quotation, Ricoeur was
implicitly recalling two very complex Sen’s papers both dating back to
the Eighties, on which he will come back explicitly in the following
pages: on the one hand, the abovementioned Rights and Agency
(1982); on the other, Rights and Capabilities (1985c), complementary
to 1982’s paper, where Sen showed the relationship between freedom
and capabilities in order to actions. Ricoeur referred to these
passages for supporting how human beings had to develop those
rights conferred from positive and negative freedom, extending the
horizon of his/her opportunities. This extension enable persons to be
the absolute protagonists of actions towards self-recognition. Not only
are these works interesting for deepening Ricoeur’s references but
simultaneously for reaching a more comprehensive understanding of
Sen’s moral philosophy.
      In this quotation, Ricoeur realized an ambiguous generalization,
coupling rights/agency and rights/capabilities: he used these pairs as
interchangeable. But they cannot be considered as synonymous in
Sen’s works, although a similar distinction is not so straightforward.
Rather agency and capabilities are different but related to each other
in Sen’s thought: indeed, on the one hand, like in Ricoeur’s reading,
agency expresses the power to act in order to choose freely and
rationally     among        the    different      alternatives   about   individual
preferences and values. In Sen’s normative economics, agency refers



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to a responsible exercise of capabilities but it does not equal with
capabilities themselves. Under an ethical understanding of decision-
making, this is a form of consciousness and imputability. In other
words, agency is the foundation, while capabilities are his products.
On the other, at the same time, agency is a conditio sine qua non for
exercising capabilities and creates exactly those conditions for
achieving the freedom to choose rationally and responsibly (Erasmo
2020). Agency’s imputability is really appealing for Ricoeur, given that
is close to one of the four capacities which characterized his human
capable being.
    Finally, about social capacities, Ricoeur supported how they
appear to be extremely heterogeneous but they have in common “the
same anthropological ground, namely, the characterization of the
human in general by the power to act, agency” (Ricoeur 2005c: 135).
More specifically, he spoke of the most fully developed social
capacities (Brugiatelli 2013), such as rights and capabilities. Ricoeur
claimed how:


    I owe the most unexpected, if not the most audacious, of
    these extensions to the work of Amartya Sen […]. In his On
    Ethics and Economics, 1987, and more precisely in an
    important work from 1985 titled Rights and Capabilities, Sen
    places the concept of “capabilities” joined with that of
    “rights” at the centre of his argument in favour of
    reintroducing ethical considerations into economic theory
    (Ricoeur 2005c: 141).


    In On Ethics and Economics and Rights and Capabilities, Sen
tried to take significant steps towards normative economics: this may
further explain why Ricoeur was interested in his works. Then,
Ricoeur was wondering why an economist like Sen decided to deep



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Valentina Erasmo, Rights, Capabilities and Recognition




moral     philosophy,      especially      moral     feelings,   in   his   normative
economics. In particular, he emphasized how: “from the opening
pages of On Ethics and Economics, he announces his intention to take
into account the role of ‘moral feelings’ in ‘economic behaviours’”
(Ricoeur 2005c: 142) The origins of Sen (1987) analysis of moral
feelings was his criticism towards those misleading readings of Smith
and his concept of self-interest. Among many others, Sen (1987)
referred to Stigler (1971) misunderstanding about the real value of
The Wealth of Nations (1776) which led him confusing Smith’s
prudence with mainstream self-interest. This reference:


      is instructive to examine how it is that Smith’s championing
      of ‘sympathy’, in addition to ‘prudence’ (including ‘self-
      command’), has tended to be so lost in the writings of many
      economists championing the so-called ‘Smithian’ on self-
      interest and its achievements” (Sen 1987: 23).


      Between the Seventies and the Eighties, among mainstream
economists, this misunderstanding of Smith was enough common.
Several studies were mainly focused on The Wealth of Nations and its
economic       value.     This    analysis     led       mainstream   economists   to
erroneously consider Smith like the prophet of homo economicus
(Polanyi 1944). These economists were:


      almost unanimous in considering economic actors in terms
      of their motives where such motivation has been reduced to
      its rational core, itself interpreted as the maximizing of self-
      interest, in accordance with the principle of utility (Ricoeur
      2005c: 142).


      On the contrary, Sen has extended rational motives in economic



250
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behaviours compared to those selfish ones. Ricoeur highlighted how
Sen (1977, 1985b) tried to go in an opposite direction compared to
his contemporary colleagues, quoting a passage of On Ethics and
Economics where he referred to the abovementioned dualistic
conception of person in ethical calculus. In fact:


       we can see the person, in terms of agency, recognizing and
       respecting his or her ability to form goals commitments,
       values etc., and we can also see the person in terms of well-
       being, which too calls for attention. This dichotomy is lost in
       a model of exclusively self-interested motivation, in which a
       person’s agency must be entirely geared to his own well-
       being   9   .   But   once      that        straitjacket   of   self-interested
       motivation       is   removed,         it     becomes      possible      to   give
       recognition to the indisputable fact that person’s agency can
       well be geared to considerations not covered-or at least non
       fully covered- by his or her own well-being (Sen 1987: 41).


       Thus, Ricoeur appreciated that Sen introduced agency in
economics (his non monistic conception of person in ethical calculus)
where agency and well-being are two different things, emptied by
that      welfarism          adopted       in        mainstream         economics.          This
anthropological distinction is very significant in economics, Ricoeur
(1992) had already developed this capacity in his imputability.
Definitively, Sen did not influence Ricoeur for this concept, although
was very sensitive to this topic. This is why he continued his analysis
in The Course, criticizing mainstream homo economicus which caused
an anthropological understanding of person as: “simplified image of
this model of what motivates a person to act” (Ricoeur 2005c: 142).

9This passage was not quoted by Ricoeur, but I have decided to add it for better understanding the
analysis made by Sen (1987).




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Valentina Erasmo, Rights, Capabilities and Recognition




6. Deepening the pair of rights and capabilities: “rights to
certain capabilities” and the “capacity for choice about life” as
evaluative criterion for Sen’s theory of justice
A possible overcoming of mainstream homo economicus verifies
through the rediscovery of freedoms and rights which transform
freedoms in real opportunities. Ricoeur (2005c) availed of Sen’s
normative economics for relating freedoms: on the one hand, with
the life choice he/she preferred to live and the collective responsibility;
on the other, in turn, extending his thought with a look for evaluating
juridical and political dimensions. This conjunction is possible thanks
to the roles of positive and negative freedom in order to action like in
Sen (1982). In particular, negative freedom links to the set of civil
rights, while its extension is represented by libertarianism; in contrast,
positive freedom embodies what a person is able or unable to do or to
be, assuming negative freedom but extending it with the capability to
choose the life he/she prefers to live.
      Ricoeur affirmed that:


      the rights that political economy must incorporate into the
      motives for economic action are components of the idea of
      “capabilities”, as he argues in his Rights and Agency10. The
      most worthy expression in this regard is that of “rights to
      certain capabilities” (Ricoeur 2005c:143).




10
   There is a problem with one of the most famous English version of the Course of
Recognition, namely that of David Pellauer, the same adopted in this paper.
Unfortunately, Pellauer has failed to check the name of the right work quoted by
Ricoeur, confusing Rights and Agency with Commodities and Capabilities (1985a).
Looking at the other versions, like the Italian (Ricoeur 2005b) or the original French
ones (Ricoeur 2004), it is possible to find this mistake. This is why I substitute his
translation with the right Sen’s work, Rights and Agency.




252
                                                Critical Hermeneutics, 5(2), (2022)




     This is Sen’s goals rights system. In this way, we may get
“beyond the alternative between consequentialism, stemming from
the theory of well-being (such as utilitarianism), and a deontological
approach, founded on constraints external to agency ” (Ricoeur 2005c:
143), offering an alternative compared to the main moral approaches
of those years. Ricoeur emphasized how the ‘rights to certain
capabilities’ also represented the idea for the development of Sen’s
theory of social justice where the exercise of rights becomes the basis
for expanding freedoms. According to this understanding, Ricoeur
was moving from a consideration of capabilities like anthropological
features   to   the   identification   and   protection    of    these     useful
capabilities from a political and juridical perspective.
     Then, Ricoeur realized a further analysis of Sen’s thought: this is
his social evaluation which is: “contrary to the utilitarian tradition that
bases this evaluation on results already accomplished, themselves
reduced to utility”. Rather, “it is in terms of the liberty to accomplish
things, as an extension of positive liberty, that Sen bases social
evaluation-for example, of competing policies. Thereby, individual
liberty understood as a life choice becomes a social responsibility.”
(Ricoeur 2005c: 145) According to Ballet and Mahieu (2009), however,
social responsibility is the only one we may find in Sen’s works,
expessed in terms of individual freedoms (or life choice) which cannot
lead to individual responsibility. Thus, this is a very critical notion in
his thought. Ricoeur continued his analysis, arguing how:


     the conceptual revolution introduced with the pair “rights”
     and “capabilities” will be understood only if we contrast it
     with the evaluation of action in terms of utility and well-
     being. It is a real capacity for choice about life that this
     capability is promoted to the rank of a criterion for
     evaluating social justice (Ricoeur 2005c: 146).



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Valentina Erasmo, Rights, Capabilities and Recognition




      Sen’s introduction of goals rights system, anthropologically
based on agency, requires an evaluation of economic behaviours
opposite to utility and well-being. Not only this represents an
overcoming of          welfarism but Rawls (1971) theory too. This is
possible thanks to moral feelings and dualistic conception of person in
ethical calculus analysed in Section 5. According to Ricoeur, this
capability involved in our main choices is “capacity for choice about
life” and is the real evaluative criterion of Sen’s theory of justice
which enables to judge all the different political systems. Although
this criterion is useful in economics and politics, its suitability for a
similar conflictual reality is simultaneously the cause of mutuality
disappearance and the barrier which definitely explained why Ricoeur
stopped his course with Sen, reaching mutual recognition thanks to
Hegel and his Anerkennung. On the contrary, Ricoeur desired an
institutionalization of recognition (Honneth 1992), like Hegel (1804).


7. Final considerations
The main result of this paper is to have shown how Ricoeur is indebt-
ed to Sen but also considering how the two differ, reaching a more
equilibrate view of their “dialogue” compared to the available litera-
ture. Among their analogies, Ricoeur explicitly recognized Sen’s influ-
ence in his transition from self-recognition to mutual recognition and
they assigned the same value to capabilities. Their respective under-
standing of mutuality among human agents represents the main dif-
ference between them. Ricoeur wants to create authentical space and
real opportunity for mutual understanding where rights and capabili-
ties might be finally conciliated. In contrast, Sen is still enough weary
and hesitant to commit to what he would consider an ideal (as op-
posed to practical) aim of human discourse and interaction.




254
                                              Critical Hermeneutics, 5(2), (2022)




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