ABSTRACT
Robert Francis Kennedy opposed the nature of the US welfare system for its proclivity to be paternalistic and destructive of self-worth by depriving welfare recipients of their own opportunity to be heard in the making of decisions that affected their very lives. Martha C. Nussbaum makes a strong case for the fundamental proposition that "for all, then, the Capabilities Approach supplies insight". For Robert Kennedy, the bane of modernization in the twentieth century is that the ideology of modernization had been taken captive by a form of utilitarian calculation that severed moral concerns, idealism, and a more humane vision for the human from human commitments in the political world. With regard to respecting people's power for self-definition, it would be helpful to return once more to the history of the Alliance for Progress as a model for what Robert Kennedy had in mind for a program dedicated to advancing human rights, development, and the capabilities of people.
