Commodities and Capabilities presents a set of inter-related theses concerning the foundations of welfare economics, and in particular about the assessment of personal well-being and advantage. The argument presented focuses on the capability to function, i.e. what a person can do or can be, questioning in the process the more standard emphasis on opulence or on utility. In fact, a person's motivation behind choice is treated here as a parametric variable which may or may not coincide with the pursuit of self-interest. Given the large number of practical problems arising from the roles and limitations of different concepts of interest and the judgement of advantage and well-being, this scholarly investigation is both of theoretical interest and practical import.

Amartya Sen is Lamont University Professor, Professor of Philosophy and Professor of Economics at Harvard University. He was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, from 1998 to 2004. In 1998 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics and in 1999 he was conferred the Bharat Ratna. His many books include Development as Freedom, Rationality and Freedom, The Argumentative Indian and Identity and Violence.