Adaptive Preferences as Constraints on Self-Development

The problem of adaptive preferences (APs) played a central motivating role in the Capability Approach, since these internalised preferences were seen as one of the causes of the perpetuation of the unjust conditions that gave rise to them. A number of different theoretical frameworks were proposed to understand what unites such preferences and why they warrant our moral concern. Scholars are mostly divided between broadly “content-neutral” approaches that focus on the authenticity of the procedural formation of a preference, substantive approaches that apply normative restrictions on the content of the preference in relation to how it affects a person’s well-being, or a variation of a hybrid approach among them. In this article, I critically examine several recent accounts that incorporate substantive features into a content-neutral procedural framework; I argue that although they can successfully deal with certain pressing issues, they still face unresolved challenges. Building on a more substantive accounts, I propose to conceptualise APs as constraints on self-development, suggesting how we can understand the internal dynamic of such a deficient “constraining” relation to a self.