Preferencias adaptativas: un desafío para el diseño de las políticas sociales

Abstract

Adaptive preferences are generated as an adaptive response to situations of opportunity restriction, due to which a person’s volitions are adjusted to his or her possibilities. This adaptation reveals a human tendency to avoid the frustration experienced when having volitions that cannot be satisfied. This kind of preferences is highly relevant to the design of public policies which have highly vulnerable populations as its objective. In this paper I shall present the problem as closely related to Sen’s capability approach and Honneth’s recognition model. In addition, I shall introduce the concept of collective capability as resulting from an inter-subjectivist adjustment of Sen’s proposal. Finally, the normative discussion which is presented in this paper aims at operating as a normative guide to the design of public policies.