From alienation to capability deprivation: Reconstructing a sociological concept

Abstract

Among sociology’s normative narratives, alienation figures as one of the most captivating, influential and contested. Anchored in Hegel and Marx, the idea of alienation generated valuable theoretical and empirical tools for explanation as well as offering a normative critique of modernity. However, I argue that the concept of alienation needs to be reconstructed, suggesting that it can be renewed via Amartya Sen’s idea of capability deprivation. The article seeks to accomplish the dual task of showing what capability deprivation can replace in the standard accounts of alienation and what can be productively retained. It reconstructs alienation’s normative core, discussing it within the context of Sen’s and Nussbaum’s versions of capabilities. Having already inaugurated a novel research program in economics and political philosophy, the article proposes that the capabilities approach can contribute to improving sociological reasoning on pressing social problems and can serve as an explanatory partner to sociology’s scientific tools. I argue, therefore, that the explanatory power and normative appeal of the concept of alienation has waned considerably and that whatever correct intuitions about human sociality supported it and gave it its impetus for several decades no longer continue do so.