Reflexões sobre a liberdade: uma perspectiva a partir de Amartya Sen Reflections on freedom: a view starting from Amartya Sen

Through the economic perspective of social choice, Amartya Sen has outlined various different meanings of the notion 'freedom'. Here we present an analytical reconstruction of his reasons and arguments, highlighting the instructive distinctions he makes between freedom as 'welfare' and freedom as 'agency'; freedom as 'power' and as 'control'; and freedom as 'opportunity' and as 'process'. On the basis of these dimensions, we will see, Sen places the idea of freedom as capability. This understanding uncovers the connection between the good life and free life: freedom is fundamentally a capability to function and to achieve personal fulfillment; to develop as a person and as a society.