From Welfare to Well-being: new approaches for a good life

Abstract

In this paper we reflect on some analysis conducted by researchers as Laura Balbo, Mary Catherine Bateson and Martha Nussbaum who, although having not had direct relations among them or specific partnerships, have greatly contributed to elaborate concepts and categories regarding our new vision of the well-being. This concept, so dear to the economist Amartya Sen, draws nourishment from thoughts and lived belonging to women’s life experience, particularly as concerning their capacity to organize their daily and family life, taking care of others, shouldering the vulnerabilities and building their biographical paths with creativity and adaptation. So we can understand what is a good life through the realization of our abilities, that is of each person, and not using a utility calculation. This involves a new approach to life quality and human development, that is exactly the capabilities approach described by Sen, rehashed by Nussbaum but, for some aspects, it was already present into the studies which characterize the gender prospective.