Capability approach
Encyclopedia
The capability approach was initially conceived in the 1980s as an approach to welfare economics
.
In this approach, Amartya Sen
brought together a range of ideas that were hitherto excluded from (or inadequately formulated in) traditional approaches to the economics of welfare. The core focus of the capability approach is on what individuals are able to do (i.e.; Capable of).
Initially Sen argued for five components in assessing capability:
Subsequently, and in collaboration particularly with political philosopher Martha Nussbaum
, development economist Sudhir Anand and economic theorist James Foster
, Sen has helped to make the capabilities approach predominant as a paradigm for policy debate in human development where it inspired the creation of the UN's Human Development Index
(HDI: a popular measure capturing the freedom and multidimensionality aspects of human development including health and education). In addition, the approach has been operationalised with a high income country focus by Paul Anand and colleagues. Furthermore, since the creation of the Human Development and Capability Association
in the early 2000s, the approach has been much discussed by political theorists, philosophers and a range of social sciences, including those with a particular interest in human health.
The approach emphasizes functional capabilities ("substantive freedoms", such as the ability to live to old age, engage in economic transactions, or participate in political activities); these are construed in terms of the substantive freedoms people have reason to value, instead of utility
(happiness
, desire-fulfillment or choice
) or access to resources (income
, commodities, asset
s). Poverty is understood as capability-deprivation. It is noteworthy that the emphasis is not only on how human beings actually function but also on their having the capability, which is a practical choice, to function in important ways if they so wish. Someone could be deprived of such capabilities in many ways, e.g. by ignorance, government oppression, lack of financial resources, or false consciousness.
This approach to human well-being emphasizes the importance of freedom of choice, individual heterogeneity and the multi-dimensional nature of welfare. In significant respects, the approach is consistent with the handling of choice within conventional microeconomics
consumer theory
although its conceptual foundations enable it to acknowledge the existence of claims, like rights, which normatively dominate utility-based claims (see Sen (1979)).
contends that functionings are crucial to an adequate understanding of the capability approach; capability is conceptualized as a reflection of the freedom to achieve valuable functionings. In other words, functionings are the subjects of the capabilities referred to in the approach: what we are capable, want to be capable, or should be capable to be and/or do. Therefore, a person’s chosen combination of functionings, what they are and do, is part of their overall capability set – the functionings they were able to do. Yet, functionings can also be conceptualized in a way that signifies an individual’s capabilities. Eating
, starving, and fasting
would all be considered functionings, but the functioning of fasting differs significantly from that of starving because fasting, unlike starving, involves a choice and is understood as choosing to starve despite the presence of other options. Consequently, an understanding of what constitutes functionings is inherently tied together with an understanding of capabilities, as defined by this approach.
– valuable as a means to achieve an end – and no intrinsic value
– valuable in and of itself – to a person’s well being, then the value of the capability set as a whole would simply be defined by the value of a person’s actual combination of functionings. Such a definition would fail to acknowledge the entirety of what a person is capable of being and doing and their resulting current state due to the nature of the options available to them. Consequently, the capability set outlined by this approach is not merely concerned with achievements; rather, freedom of choice
, in and of itself, is of direct importance to a person’s quality of life
. Take the example of fasting
as a functioning; there is an important difference between fasting
and starving because, in examining a starving person’s achieved well being, it is critical to consider whether the individual is personally choosing not to eat or whether the person cannot eat because they lack the means to acquire an adequate amount of food. In this example, therefore, the functioning is starving but the capability to obtain an adequate amount of food is the key element to be considered in evaluating well being between individuals in the two states. In sum, choosing a lifestyle is not exactly the same as having that lifestyle no matter how chosen, and a person’s well being does depend on how that lifestyle came to be. For this reason, while the combination of a person’s functionings represents their actual achievements, their capability set represents their opportunity freedom – their freedom to choose between alternative functioning combinations.
’s description of an agent, defining an agent as someone who acts and brings about change, whose achievement can be evaluated in terms of his or her own values and objectives. This differs from the more common use of the expression “agent
” sometimes used in the literature of economics
and game theory
to signify a person who is acting on someone else’s behalf. Furthermore, agency focuses on the ability to personally choose the functionings one values, a choice that may not always correlate with personal well being. For example, when a person chooses to engage in fasting
, they are exercising their ability to pursue a goal they value, though such a choice may not positively affect physical well-being. Amartya Sen
explains that a person as an agent need not be guided by a pursuit of well being; agency achievement considers a person’s success in terms of their pursuit of the totality of their considered goals and objectives. Therefore, a key difference exists between “the agency aspect” and “the well being aspect” of a person. Moreover, for the purposes of the capability approach, agency primarily refers to an individual’s role as a member of society
and the public, with the ability to participate in economic, social
, and political actions. Agency is therefore crucial to an assessment of one’s capabilities, allowing for an examination of whether or not economic, social
, and/or political barriers impede a person’s ability to pursue substantive freedoms. Furthermore, concern for agency stresses that participation
, public debate in the public sphere
, democratic practice, and empowerment
, should be fostered alongside well being. Another point, raised by Alkire and Deneulin, is that agency and the expansion of valuable freedoms go hand in hand. The reasoning is that people need the freedom to be educated, speak in public without fear, have the freedom of expression and association, etc., in order to be agents of their own lives; simultaneously, it is by being agents that people can establish such an environment. The agency aspect, in summary, is important in assessing what a person can do in line with his or her conception of the good.
, has been much discussed in philosophy, and is increasingly influential in a range of social sciences.
The ten capabilities Nussbaum argues should be supported by all democracies are:
Although Nussbaum by no means claims her list as definite and unchanging, she does strongly advocate for the advantages of outlining a list of central human capabilities. However, on the topic of a canonical list of essential capabilities, Sen is reluctant to join the search. His view is that an exact list and weights would be too difficult primarily due to two reasons: the necessary appropriate specification of the context of their use, which could vary, and a disinclination to in any way disvalue the domain of reasoning in the public sphere
. Sen argues that the task of weighing various capabilities should be left to both the ethical and political considerations and scrutiny of a given society based on public reasoning. Sen argues that part of the “richness” of the capability perspective is its insistence on the need for open valuational scrutiny for making social judgments, and as such, he chooses not to seek a defined, pre-determined list of what capabilities matter. Furthermore, along with a number of concerns raised regarding Nussbaum’s list, Alkire and Black also argue that Nussbaum’s methodology “runs counter to an essential thrust of the capabilities approach which has been the attempt to redirect development theory away from a reductive focus on a minimally decent life towards a more holistic account of human well being for all people.”
The approach was first fully articulated in Sen (1985) and discussed in Sen and Nussbaum (1993). Applications to development are discussed in Sen (1999), Nussbaum (2000), and Clark (2002, 2005) and are now numerous to the point where the capabilities approach is widely accepted as a paradigm in development.
commissioned by the United Nations Development Program set out to create a distribution-sensitive development measure. This measure was created to rival the more traditional GDP and GNP, which had previously been used to measure development in a given country, but which did not contain provisions for any considerations in terms of distribution . The resulting measure was entitled the Human Development Index
(HDI). The Human Development index took into consideration a number of development and well-being factors that were not previously taken into account in the calculation of the GDP and the GNP. The HDI was calculated using the indicators of life expectancy, adult literacy, school enrollment, and logarithmic transformations of per-capita income. In 1995, the UNDP introduced two new measuring indices, namely the Gender Empowerment Measure
(GEM) and the Gender-related Development Index
(GDI) in order to expand on the HDI and to add a gender component to the measurement of development in a given country. The GDI is defined as a “distribution-sensitive measure that accounts for the human development impact of existing gender gaps in the three components of the HDI” (Klasen 243). The GEM was a little more specialized, focusing particularly on the relative empowerment of women in a given country . In 1997, the UNDP introduced the Human Poverty Measure, which was aimed at capturing poverty in both industrialized and developing countries. In the 2010 Human Development Report
the new Gender Inequality Index was introduced and calculated for 137 countries. This new experimental measure used indicators such as Reproductive Health, Empowerment, and Labor force participation in order to measure development in a gender-sensitive way. It was created in order to revise some of the shortcomings of the GDI and the HDI.
today is grounded in a utilitarian approach according to the classical Benthamite form of utilitarianism
, in which the most desirable action is the one that best increases peoples’ psychological happiness
or satisfaction. The “utility
” of a person stands for some measure of his or her pleasure
or happiness
. Some merits associated with this approach to measuring well being are that it recognizes the importance of taking account of the results of social arrangements in judging them and the need to pay attention to the well being of the people involved when judging social arrangements and their results. However, though all people want to be happy, the concerns this approach raises are that it may overlook the things we really value as well as fundamental inequalities. Amartya Sen
outlines three main deficiencies: distributional indifference, neglect of rights
, freedoms and other non-utility concerns, and adaptation and mental conditioning. First off, for some more than others, it may take much less to bring about happiness, but subjecting them to lesser opportunities for resources and benefits is by no means fair or just. Thus, distributional indifference refers to ignoring extents of inequalities in what’s needed to obtain happiness on an individual level. Secondly, the utilitarian approach attaches no intrinsic value (ethics)
to claims of rights and freedoms, which people have reason to value and the importance of which is fundamental to the capabilities approach. Lastly, Amartya Sen
makes the argument that the utilitarian view of individual well being can be easily swayed by mental conditioning and peoples’ happiness adapting to oppressive situations. The utility calculus can essentially be unfair to those who have come to terms with their deprivation as a means for survival, adjusting their desires and expectations. The capability approach, on the other hand, doesn’t fall victim to these same criticisms because it acknowledges inequalities by focusing on equalizing people’s capabilities, not happiness, it stresses the intrinsic importance of rights and freedoms when evaluating well being, and it avoids overlooking deprivation by focusing on capabilities and opportunities, not state of mind.
and judging development has traditionally been to focus on income
and resources. These sorts of approaches to development focus on cultivating resources, such as assets, property rights, or basic needs. However, measuring resources is fundamentally different than measuring functionings, such as the case in which people don’t have the capability to use their resources in the means they see fit. Arguably, the main difficulty in a resource or income based approach to well being lies in personal heterogeneities, namely the diversity of human beings. Different amounts of income are needed for different individuals to enjoy similar capabilities, such as individuals with severe disabilities whose treatment to ensure the fulfillment of basic capabilities may require dramatically more income. All sorts of differences, such as differences in age, gender, talents, etc. can make two people have extremely divergent opportunities of quality of life
even when equipped with exactly the same commodities. Additionally, other contingent circumstances which affect what an individual can make of a given set of resources include environmental diversities, variations in social climate, differences in relational perspectives, and distribution within the family. The capability approach, however, seeks to consider all such circumstances when evaluating people’s actual capabilities. Furthermore, there are things people value other than increased resources. In some cases, maximizing resources may even be objectionable. As was recognized in the 1990 Human Development Report
, the basic objective of development to create an enabling environment for people to live long, healthy, and creative lives is often lost in the immediate concern for the accumulation of commodities and financial wealth. Overall, though resources and income have a profound effect on what we can or cannot do, the capability approach recognizes that they are not the only things to be considered when judging well being, switching the focus from a means of good living to the freedom to achieve actual livings that one has reason to value.
Welfare economics
Welfare economics is a branch of economics that uses microeconomic techniques to evaluate economic well-being, especially relative to competitive general equilibrium within an economy as to economic efficiency and the resulting income distribution associated with it...
.
In this approach, Amartya Sen
Amartya Sen
Amartya Sen, CH is an Indian economist who was awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to welfare economics and social choice theory, and for his interest in the problems of society's poorest members...
brought together a range of ideas that were hitherto excluded from (or inadequately formulated in) traditional approaches to the economics of welfare. The core focus of the capability approach is on what individuals are able to do (i.e.; Capable of).
Initially Sen argued for five components in assessing capability:
- The importance of real freedoms in the assessment of a person's advantage
- Individual differences in the ability to transform resources into valuable activities
- The multi-variate nature of activities giving rise to happiness
- A balance of materialistic and nonmaterialistic factors in evaluating human welfare
- Concern for the distribution of opportunities within society
Subsequently, and in collaboration particularly with political philosopher Martha Nussbaum
Martha Nussbaum
Martha Nussbaum , is an American philosopher with a particular interest in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, political philosophy and ethics....
, development economist Sudhir Anand and economic theorist James Foster
James Foster
James Foster may refer to:*James Foster *James Foster , English mason and architect in Bristol*James Foster , English cricketer...
, Sen has helped to make the capabilities approach predominant as a paradigm for policy debate in human development where it inspired the creation of the UN's Human Development Index
Human Development Index
The Human Development Index is a composite statistic used to rank countries by level of "human development" and separate "very high human development", "high human development", "medium human development", and "low human development" countries...
(HDI: a popular measure capturing the freedom and multidimensionality aspects of human development including health and education). In addition, the approach has been operationalised with a high income country focus by Paul Anand and colleagues. Furthermore, since the creation of the Human Development and Capability Association
Human Development and Capability Association
The Human Development and Capability Association was launched in September 2004 at the Fourth Capability Conference in Pavia, Italy. Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen was the founding President and remained President until 2006 when Martha Nussbaum became President, succeeded by Frances Stewart in 2008...
in the early 2000s, the approach has been much discussed by political theorists, philosophers and a range of social sciences, including those with a particular interest in human health.
The approach emphasizes functional capabilities ("substantive freedoms", such as the ability to live to old age, engage in economic transactions, or participate in political activities); these are construed in terms of the substantive freedoms people have reason to value, instead of utility
Utility
In economics, utility is a measure of customer satisfaction, referring to the total satisfaction received by a consumer from consuming a good or service....
(happiness
Happiness
Happiness is a mental state of well-being characterized by positive emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. A variety of biological, psychological, religious, and philosophical approaches have striven to define happiness and identify its sources....
, desire-fulfillment or choice
Choice
Choice consists of the mental process of judging the merits of multiple options and selecting one of them. While a choice can be made between imagined options , often a choice is made between real options, and followed by the corresponding action...
) or access to resources (income
Income
Income is the consumption and savings opportunity gained by an entity within a specified time frame, which is generally expressed in monetary terms. However, for households and individuals, "income is the sum of all the wages, salaries, profits, interests payments, rents and other forms of earnings...
, commodities, asset
Asset
In financial accounting, assets are economic resources. Anything tangible or intangible that is capable of being owned or controlled to produce value and that is held to have positive economic value is considered an asset...
s). Poverty is understood as capability-deprivation. It is noteworthy that the emphasis is not only on how human beings actually function but also on their having the capability, which is a practical choice, to function in important ways if they so wish. Someone could be deprived of such capabilities in many ways, e.g. by ignorance, government oppression, lack of financial resources, or false consciousness.
This approach to human well-being emphasizes the importance of freedom of choice, individual heterogeneity and the multi-dimensional nature of welfare. In significant respects, the approach is consistent with the handling of choice within conventional microeconomics
Microeconomics
Microeconomics is a branch of economics that studies the behavior of how the individual modern household and firms make decisions to allocate limited resources. Typically, it applies to markets where goods or services are being bought and sold...
consumer theory
Consumer theory
Consumer choice is a theory of microeconomics that relates preferences for consumption goods and services to consumption expenditures and ultimately to consumer demand curves. The link between personal preferences, consumption, and the demand curve is one of the most closely studied relations in...
although its conceptual foundations enable it to acknowledge the existence of claims, like rights, which normatively dominate utility-based claims (see Sen (1979)).
Functionings
In the most basic sense, functionings consist of “beings and doings”. As a result, living may be seen as a set of interrelated functionings. Essentially, functionings are the states and activities constitutive of a person’s being. Examples of functionings can vary from elementary things, such as being healthy, having a good job, and being safe, to more complex states, such as being happy, having self-respect, and being calm. Moreover, Amartya SenAmartya Sen
Amartya Sen, CH is an Indian economist who was awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to welfare economics and social choice theory, and for his interest in the problems of society's poorest members...
contends that functionings are crucial to an adequate understanding of the capability approach; capability is conceptualized as a reflection of the freedom to achieve valuable functionings. In other words, functionings are the subjects of the capabilities referred to in the approach: what we are capable, want to be capable, or should be capable to be and/or do. Therefore, a person’s chosen combination of functionings, what they are and do, is part of their overall capability set – the functionings they were able to do. Yet, functionings can also be conceptualized in a way that signifies an individual’s capabilities. Eating
Eating
Eating is the ingestion of food to provide for all organisms their nutritional needs, particularly for energy and growth. Animals and other heterotrophs must eat in order to survive: carnivores eat other animals, herbivores eat plants, omnivores consume a mixture of both plant and animal matter,...
, starving, and fasting
Fasting
Fasting is primarily the act of willingly abstaining from some or all food, drink, or both, for a period of time. An absolute fast is normally defined as abstinence from all food and liquid for a defined period, usually a single day , or several days. Other fasts may be only partially restrictive,...
would all be considered functionings, but the functioning of fasting differs significantly from that of starving because fasting, unlike starving, involves a choice and is understood as choosing to starve despite the presence of other options. Consequently, an understanding of what constitutes functionings is inherently tied together with an understanding of capabilities, as defined by this approach.
Capabilities
Capabilities are the alternative combinations of functionings a person is feasibly able to achieve. Formulations of capability have two parts: functionings and opportunity freedom – the substantive freedom to pursue different functioning combinations. Ultimately, capabilities denote a person’s opportunity and ability to generate valuable outcomes, taking into account relevant personal characteristics and external factors. The important part of this definition is the “freedom to achieve”; the reason being, if freedom had only instrumental valueInstrumental value
Instrumental value is the value of objects, both physical objects and abstract objects, not as ends-in-themselves but a means of achieving something else...
– valuable as a means to achieve an end – and no intrinsic value
Intrinsic value (ethics)
Intrinsic value is an ethical and philosophic property. It is the ethical or philosophic value that an object has "in itself" or "for its own sake", as an intrinsic property...
– valuable in and of itself – to a person’s well being, then the value of the capability set as a whole would simply be defined by the value of a person’s actual combination of functionings. Such a definition would fail to acknowledge the entirety of what a person is capable of being and doing and their resulting current state due to the nature of the options available to them. Consequently, the capability set outlined by this approach is not merely concerned with achievements; rather, freedom of choice
Choice
Choice consists of the mental process of judging the merits of multiple options and selecting one of them. While a choice can be made between imagined options , often a choice is made between real options, and followed by the corresponding action...
, in and of itself, is of direct importance to a person’s quality of life
Quality of life
The term quality of life is used to evaluate the general well-being of individuals and societies. The term is used in a wide range of contexts, including the fields of international development, healthcare, and politics. Quality of life should not be confused with the concept of standard of...
. Take the example of fasting
Fasting
Fasting is primarily the act of willingly abstaining from some or all food, drink, or both, for a period of time. An absolute fast is normally defined as abstinence from all food and liquid for a defined period, usually a single day , or several days. Other fasts may be only partially restrictive,...
as a functioning; there is an important difference between fasting
Fasting
Fasting is primarily the act of willingly abstaining from some or all food, drink, or both, for a period of time. An absolute fast is normally defined as abstinence from all food and liquid for a defined period, usually a single day , or several days. Other fasts may be only partially restrictive,...
and starving because, in examining a starving person’s achieved well being, it is critical to consider whether the individual is personally choosing not to eat or whether the person cannot eat because they lack the means to acquire an adequate amount of food. In this example, therefore, the functioning is starving but the capability to obtain an adequate amount of food is the key element to be considered in evaluating well being between individuals in the two states. In sum, choosing a lifestyle is not exactly the same as having that lifestyle no matter how chosen, and a person’s well being does depend on how that lifestyle came to be. For this reason, while the combination of a person’s functionings represents their actual achievements, their capability set represents their opportunity freedom – their freedom to choose between alternative functioning combinations.
Agency
Agency is best understood via Amartya SenAmartya Sen
Amartya Sen, CH is an Indian economist who was awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to welfare economics and social choice theory, and for his interest in the problems of society's poorest members...
’s description of an agent, defining an agent as someone who acts and brings about change, whose achievement can be evaluated in terms of his or her own values and objectives. This differs from the more common use of the expression “agent
Agent (economics)
In economics, an agent is an actor and decision maker in a model. Typically, every agent makes decisions by solving a well or ill defined optimization/choice problem. The term agent can also be seen as equivalent to player in game theory....
” sometimes used in the literature of economics
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
and game theory
Game theory
Game theory is a mathematical method for analyzing calculated circumstances, such as in games, where a person’s success is based upon the choices of others...
to signify a person who is acting on someone else’s behalf. Furthermore, agency focuses on the ability to personally choose the functionings one values, a choice that may not always correlate with personal well being. For example, when a person chooses to engage in fasting
Fasting
Fasting is primarily the act of willingly abstaining from some or all food, drink, or both, for a period of time. An absolute fast is normally defined as abstinence from all food and liquid for a defined period, usually a single day , or several days. Other fasts may be only partially restrictive,...
, they are exercising their ability to pursue a goal they value, though such a choice may not positively affect physical well-being. Amartya Sen
Amartya Sen
Amartya Sen, CH is an Indian economist who was awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to welfare economics and social choice theory, and for his interest in the problems of society's poorest members...
explains that a person as an agent need not be guided by a pursuit of well being; agency achievement considers a person’s success in terms of their pursuit of the totality of their considered goals and objectives. Therefore, a key difference exists between “the agency aspect” and “the well being aspect” of a person. Moreover, for the purposes of the capability approach, agency primarily refers to an individual’s role as a member of society
Society
A society, or a human society, is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or virtual territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations...
and the public, with the ability to participate in economic, social
Social
The term social refers to a characteristic of living organisms...
, and political actions. Agency is therefore crucial to an assessment of one’s capabilities, allowing for an examination of whether or not economic, social
Social
The term social refers to a characteristic of living organisms...
, and/or political barriers impede a person’s ability to pursue substantive freedoms. Furthermore, concern for agency stresses that participation
Participation (decision making)
Participation in social science refers to different mechanisms for the public to express opinions - and ideally exert influence - regarding political, economic, management or other social decisions. Participatory decision making can take place along any realm of human social activity, including...
, public debate in the public sphere
Public sphere
The public sphere is an area in social life where individuals can come together to freely discuss and identify societal problems, and through that discussion influence political action...
, democratic practice, and empowerment
Empowerment
Empowerment refers to increasing the spiritual, political, social, racial, educational, gender or economic strength of individuals and communities...
, should be fostered alongside well being. Another point, raised by Alkire and Deneulin, is that agency and the expansion of valuable freedoms go hand in hand. The reasoning is that people need the freedom to be educated, speak in public without fear, have the freedom of expression and association, etc., in order to be agents of their own lives; simultaneously, it is by being agents that people can establish such an environment. The agency aspect, in summary, is important in assessing what a person can do in line with his or her conception of the good.
What capabilities matter?
Nussbaum (2000) frames these basic principles in terms of ten capabilities, i.e. real opportunities based on personal and social circumstance. The capabilities approach has been highly influential in development policy where it has shaped the evolution of the human development index HDIHuman Development Index
The Human Development Index is a composite statistic used to rank countries by level of "human development" and separate "very high human development", "high human development", "medium human development", and "low human development" countries...
, has been much discussed in philosophy, and is increasingly influential in a range of social sciences.
The ten capabilities Nussbaum argues should be supported by all democracies are:
- Life. Being able to live to the end of a human life of normal length; not dying prematurely, or before one's life is so reduced as to be not worth living.
- Bodily Health. Being able to have good health, including reproductive health; to be adequately nourished; to have adequate shelter.
- Bodily Integrity. Being able to move freely from place to place; to be secure against violent assault, including sexual assault and domestic violence; having opportunities for sexual satisfaction and for choice in matters of reproduction.
- Senses, Imagination, and Thought. Being able to use the senses, to imagine, think, and reason—and to do these things in a "truly human" way, a way informed and cultivated by an adequate education, including, but by no means limited to, literacy and basic mathematical and scientific training. Being able to use imagination and thought in connection with experiencing and producing works and events of one's own choice, religious, literary, musical, and so forth. Being able to use one's mind in ways protected by guarantees of freedom of expression with respect to both political and artistic speech, and freedom of religious exercise. Being able to have pleasurable experiences and to avoid non-beneficial pain.
- Emotions. Being able to have attachments to things and people outside ourselves; to love those who love and care for us, to grieve at their absence; in general, to love, to grieve, to experience longing, gratitude, and justified anger. Not having one's emotional development blighted by fear and anxiety. (Supporting this capability means supporting forms of human association that can be shown to be crucial in their development.)
- Practical Reason. Being able to form a conception of the good and to engage in critical reflection about the planning of one's life. (This entails protection for the liberty of conscience and religious observance.)
- Affiliation.
- Being able to live with and toward others, to recognize and show concern for other humans, to engage in various forms of social interaction; to be able to imagine the situation of another. (Protecting this capability means protecting institutions that constitute and nourish such forms of affiliation, and also protecting the freedom of assembly and political speech.)
- Having the social bases of self-respect and non-humiliation; being able to be treated as a dignified being whose worth is equal to that of others. This entails provisions of non-discrimination on the basis of race, sex, sexual orientation, ethnicity, caste, religion, national origin and species.
- Other Species. Being able to live with concern for and in relation to animals, plants, and the world of nature.
- Play. Being able to laugh, to play, to enjoy recreational activities.
- Control over one's Environment.
- Political. Being able to participate effectively in political choices that govern one's life; having the right of political participation, protections of free speech and association.
- Material. Being able to hold property (both land and movable goods), and having property rights on an equal basis with others; having the right to seek employment on an equal basis with others; having the freedom from unwarranted search and seizure. In work, being able to work as a human, exercising practical reason and entering into meaningful relationships of mutual recognition with other workers.
Although Nussbaum by no means claims her list as definite and unchanging, she does strongly advocate for the advantages of outlining a list of central human capabilities. However, on the topic of a canonical list of essential capabilities, Sen is reluctant to join the search. His view is that an exact list and weights would be too difficult primarily due to two reasons: the necessary appropriate specification of the context of their use, which could vary, and a disinclination to in any way disvalue the domain of reasoning in the public sphere
Public sphere
The public sphere is an area in social life where individuals can come together to freely discuss and identify societal problems, and through that discussion influence political action...
. Sen argues that the task of weighing various capabilities should be left to both the ethical and political considerations and scrutiny of a given society based on public reasoning. Sen argues that part of the “richness” of the capability perspective is its insistence on the need for open valuational scrutiny for making social judgments, and as such, he chooses not to seek a defined, pre-determined list of what capabilities matter. Furthermore, along with a number of concerns raised regarding Nussbaum’s list, Alkire and Black also argue that Nussbaum’s methodology “runs counter to an essential thrust of the capabilities approach which has been the attempt to redirect development theory away from a reductive focus on a minimally decent life towards a more holistic account of human well being for all people.”
The approach was first fully articulated in Sen (1985) and discussed in Sen and Nussbaum (1993). Applications to development are discussed in Sen (1999), Nussbaum (2000), and Clark (2002, 2005) and are now numerous to the point where the capabilities approach is widely accepted as a paradigm in development.
The Measurement of Human Capabilities
In 1990 in the Human Development ReportHuman Development Report
The Human Development Report is an annual milestone publication by the Human Development Report Office of the United Nations Development Programme .-History:...
commissioned by the United Nations Development Program set out to create a distribution-sensitive development measure. This measure was created to rival the more traditional GDP and GNP, which had previously been used to measure development in a given country, but which did not contain provisions for any considerations in terms of distribution . The resulting measure was entitled the Human Development Index
Human Development Index
The Human Development Index is a composite statistic used to rank countries by level of "human development" and separate "very high human development", "high human development", "medium human development", and "low human development" countries...
(HDI). The Human Development index took into consideration a number of development and well-being factors that were not previously taken into account in the calculation of the GDP and the GNP. The HDI was calculated using the indicators of life expectancy, adult literacy, school enrollment, and logarithmic transformations of per-capita income. In 1995, the UNDP introduced two new measuring indices, namely the Gender Empowerment Measure
Gender Empowerment Measure
The United Nation's Development Programme's attempt to measure the extent of gender equality across the globe's countries, based on estimates of women's relative economic income, high-paying positions, and access to professional and parliamentary positions....
(GEM) and the Gender-related Development Index
Gender-related Development Index
The Gender-related Development Index and the Gender Empowerment Measure were introduced in 1995 in the Human Development Report written by the United Nations Development Program. The aim of these measurements was to add a gender-sensitive dimension to the HDI. The first measurement that they...
(GDI) in order to expand on the HDI and to add a gender component to the measurement of development in a given country. The GDI is defined as a “distribution-sensitive measure that accounts for the human development impact of existing gender gaps in the three components of the HDI” (Klasen 243). The GEM was a little more specialized, focusing particularly on the relative empowerment of women in a given country . In 1997, the UNDP introduced the Human Poverty Measure, which was aimed at capturing poverty in both industrialized and developing countries. In the 2010 Human Development Report
Human Development Report
The Human Development Report is an annual milestone publication by the Human Development Report Office of the United Nations Development Programme .-History:...
the new Gender Inequality Index was introduced and calculated for 137 countries. This new experimental measure used indicators such as Reproductive Health, Empowerment, and Labor force participation in order to measure development in a gender-sensitive way. It was created in order to revise some of the shortcomings of the GDI and the HDI.
Contrast with utility
Much of conventional welfare economicsWelfare economics
Welfare economics is a branch of economics that uses microeconomic techniques to evaluate economic well-being, especially relative to competitive general equilibrium within an economy as to economic efficiency and the resulting income distribution associated with it...
today is grounded in a utilitarian approach according to the classical Benthamite form of utilitarianism
Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism is an ethical theory holding that the proper course of action is the one that maximizes the overall "happiness", by whatever means necessary. It is thus a form of consequentialism, meaning that the moral worth of an action is determined only by its resulting outcome, and that one can...
, in which the most desirable action is the one that best increases peoples’ psychological happiness
Happiness
Happiness is a mental state of well-being characterized by positive emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. A variety of biological, psychological, religious, and philosophical approaches have striven to define happiness and identify its sources....
or satisfaction. The “utility
Utility
In economics, utility is a measure of customer satisfaction, referring to the total satisfaction received by a consumer from consuming a good or service....
” of a person stands for some measure of his or her pleasure
Pleasure
Pleasure describes the broad class of mental states that humans and other animals experience as positive, enjoyable, or worth seeking. It includes more specific mental states such as happiness, entertainment, enjoyment, ecstasy, and euphoria...
or happiness
Happiness
Happiness is a mental state of well-being characterized by positive emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. A variety of biological, psychological, religious, and philosophical approaches have striven to define happiness and identify its sources....
. Some merits associated with this approach to measuring well being are that it recognizes the importance of taking account of the results of social arrangements in judging them and the need to pay attention to the well being of the people involved when judging social arrangements and their results. However, though all people want to be happy, the concerns this approach raises are that it may overlook the things we really value as well as fundamental inequalities. Amartya Sen
Amartya Sen
Amartya Sen, CH is an Indian economist who was awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to welfare economics and social choice theory, and for his interest in the problems of society's poorest members...
outlines three main deficiencies: distributional indifference, neglect of rights
Rights
Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people, according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theory...
, freedoms and other non-utility concerns, and adaptation and mental conditioning. First off, for some more than others, it may take much less to bring about happiness, but subjecting them to lesser opportunities for resources and benefits is by no means fair or just. Thus, distributional indifference refers to ignoring extents of inequalities in what’s needed to obtain happiness on an individual level. Secondly, the utilitarian approach attaches no intrinsic value (ethics)
Intrinsic value (ethics)
Intrinsic value is an ethical and philosophic property. It is the ethical or philosophic value that an object has "in itself" or "for its own sake", as an intrinsic property...
to claims of rights and freedoms, which people have reason to value and the importance of which is fundamental to the capabilities approach. Lastly, Amartya Sen
Amartya Sen
Amartya Sen, CH is an Indian economist who was awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to welfare economics and social choice theory, and for his interest in the problems of society's poorest members...
makes the argument that the utilitarian view of individual well being can be easily swayed by mental conditioning and peoples’ happiness adapting to oppressive situations. The utility calculus can essentially be unfair to those who have come to terms with their deprivation as a means for survival, adjusting their desires and expectations. The capability approach, on the other hand, doesn’t fall victim to these same criticisms because it acknowledges inequalities by focusing on equalizing people’s capabilities, not happiness, it stresses the intrinsic importance of rights and freedoms when evaluating well being, and it avoids overlooking deprivation by focusing on capabilities and opportunities, not state of mind.
Contrast with resources
Another common approach to conventional economics, economic policyEconomic policy
Economic policy refers to the actions that governments take in the economic field. It covers the systems for setting interest rates and government budget as well as the labor market, national ownership, and many other areas of government interventions into the economy.Such policies are often...
and judging development has traditionally been to focus on income
Income
Income is the consumption and savings opportunity gained by an entity within a specified time frame, which is generally expressed in monetary terms. However, for households and individuals, "income is the sum of all the wages, salaries, profits, interests payments, rents and other forms of earnings...
and resources. These sorts of approaches to development focus on cultivating resources, such as assets, property rights, or basic needs. However, measuring resources is fundamentally different than measuring functionings, such as the case in which people don’t have the capability to use their resources in the means they see fit. Arguably, the main difficulty in a resource or income based approach to well being lies in personal heterogeneities, namely the diversity of human beings. Different amounts of income are needed for different individuals to enjoy similar capabilities, such as individuals with severe disabilities whose treatment to ensure the fulfillment of basic capabilities may require dramatically more income. All sorts of differences, such as differences in age, gender, talents, etc. can make two people have extremely divergent opportunities of quality of life
Quality of life
The term quality of life is used to evaluate the general well-being of individuals and societies. The term is used in a wide range of contexts, including the fields of international development, healthcare, and politics. Quality of life should not be confused with the concept of standard of...
even when equipped with exactly the same commodities. Additionally, other contingent circumstances which affect what an individual can make of a given set of resources include environmental diversities, variations in social climate, differences in relational perspectives, and distribution within the family. The capability approach, however, seeks to consider all such circumstances when evaluating people’s actual capabilities. Furthermore, there are things people value other than increased resources. In some cases, maximizing resources may even be objectionable. As was recognized in the 1990 Human Development Report
Human Development Report
The Human Development Report is an annual milestone publication by the Human Development Report Office of the United Nations Development Programme .-History:...
, the basic objective of development to create an enabling environment for people to live long, healthy, and creative lives is often lost in the immediate concern for the accumulation of commodities and financial wealth. Overall, though resources and income have a profound effect on what we can or cannot do, the capability approach recognizes that they are not the only things to be considered when judging well being, switching the focus from a means of good living to the freedom to achieve actual livings that one has reason to value.
General References
- Alkire, S. (2002). Valuing Freedoms: Sen's Capability Approach and Poverty Reduction. (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
- Alkire, Sabina. 2002. "Dimensions of Human Development." World Development 30(2): 181–205.
- Alkire, Sabina. 2005b. "Why the Capability Approach." Journal of Human Development 6(1): 115–33.
- Anand P, Hunter G and Smith R, (2005). Capabilities and Wellbeing: Evidence Based on the Sen-Nussbaum Approach to Welfare, Social Indicators Research, 74, 9-55.
- Anand P, 2005 Capabilities and Health, Journal of Medical Ethics, 31, 299-303.
- Anand P, 2005 Introduction to Special Issue on Capabilities and Social Indicators, Social Indicators Research, 74 (1), 1-8
- Anand P, Hunter G and Smith R, 2005 Capabilities and Wellbeing, Social Indicators Research, 74 (1), 9-55.
- Anand P and Dolan P, 2005 Equity Capbilities and Health: Introduction, Social Science and Medicine, 60 (2), 219-222
- Anand P, 2005 QALYS and Capabilities, Health Economics, 14, 1283-86.
- Anand P and van Hees M, 2006 Capabilities and Achievements: (with M v Hees), Journal of Socio-Economics, 35, 268-84.
- Anand P and Santos C, 2007 Violence, Gender Inequalities and Life Satisfaction, Revue d'Economie Politique, 117, 135-60.
- Anand, Paul. 2011. New Directions in the Economics of Welfare. Journal of Public Economics, in press.
- Clark, David A. (2002) Visions of Development: A Study of Human Values (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham).
- Clark, David A. (2005) 'Capability Approach' in D. A. Clark (ed.) (forthcoming 2006) The Elgar Companion to Development Studies (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham). Draft available online at http://www.gprg.org/pubs/workingpapers/pdfs/gprg-wps-032.pdf
- Crocker, David A. 1992. “Functioning and Capability: The Foundations of Sen’s and Nussbaum’s Development Ethic.” Political Theory 20(4): 584-612.
- Deneulin, Séverine and Lila Shahani. 2009. An Introduction to the Human Development and Capability Approach: Freedom and Agency. Sterling, VA: Earthscan. http://www.idrc.ca/openebooks/470-3/ (accessed Oct. 28, 2010).
- Fukuda-Parr, Sakiko. 2003. “The Human Development Paradigm: Operationalizing Sen’s Ideas on Capabilities.” Feminist Economics 9(2/3): 301–17.
- Fukuda-Parr, Sakiko and Shiv Kumar. (2009). Handbook in Human Development: Concepts, Measures, and Policies. Delhi, IN: Oxford University Press.
- Kaufman, Alexander. (2006). Capabilities Equality: Basic Issues and Problems. New York, NY: Routledge.
- Kuklys, Wiebke (2005) Amartya Sen's Capability Approach: Theoretical Insights and Empirical Applications (Springer, Berlin).
- Otto, H-U & Schneider, K.(2009) From Employability Towards Capability: Luxembourg
- Nussbaum, Martha C. and Amartya Sen, eds. (1993). "The Quality of Life" Oxford: Clarendon Press. http://books.google.com/books?id=pJaz1471B68C&dq=+Martha+Nussbaum+and+Amartya+Sen,+eds.+%22The+quality+of+life%22+Oxford:+Clarendon+Press++&pg=RA1-PA322&ots=mLErtNowVf&sig=dobxut-rdiyB8Wh4VHjPljMeU0k&prev=http://www.google.com/search%3Fhl%3Den%26q%3D%2BMartha%2BNussbaum%2Band%2BAmartya%2BSen%252C%2Beds.%2B%2522The%2Bquality%2Bof%2Blife%2522%2BOxford%253A%2BClarendon%2BPress%2B%2B%26btnG%3DSearch&sa=X&oi=print&ct=result&cd=1(Google book preview)]
- Nussbaum, Martha. (1993). Non-Relative Virtues: An Aristotelian Approach. In M. Nussbaum and A. Sen, eds. The Quality of Life, pp. 242–69. New York: Oxford Clarendon Press.
- Nussbaum, Martha C. (2000) Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge).
- Riddle, Christopher A. (2010) "Indexing, Capabilities, & Disability." Journal of Social Philosophy 41(4): 527-37.
- Robeyns, Ingrid. (2003). Sen's capability approach and gender inequality: selecting relevant capabilities. Feminist Economics 9(2/3): 61-92.
- Robeyns, Ingrid. (2005). The Capability Approach: A Theoretical Survey Journal of Human Development 6(1) 93-114.
- Sen, Amartya K. (1979) Utilitarianism and Welfarism, The Journal of Philosophy, LXXVI (1979), 463-489.
- Sen, Amartya. (1988). The Concept of Development. In Behram and Strinivasan, eds. Handbooks of Development Economics, pp. 2–23. Vol. 1. Elsevier: North-Holland.
- Sen, Amartya. (1989). Development as Capability Expansion. Journal of Development Planning 19: 41–58, reprinted in Sakiko Fukuda-Parr and A.K. Shiva Kumar, eds. 2003. Readings in Human Development, pp. 3–16. New York: Oxford University Press.
- Sen, Amartya. (1993). Capability and Well-Being. In M. Nussbaum and A. Sen, eds. The Quality of Life, pp. 30–53. New York: Oxford Clarendon Press.
- Sen, Amartya. (2009). The Idea of Justice. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
- United Nations Development Programme. 1990. Human Development Report. New York: Oxford University Press.
External links
- Human Development and Capability Association
- Journal of Human Development
- The Measurement of Human Capabilities
- Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative (OPHI)
- "Justice Across Boundaries" Radio interview with Martha NussbaumMartha NussbaumMartha Nussbaum , is an American philosopher with a particular interest in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, political philosophy and ethics....
on Philosophy TalkPhilosophy TalkPhilosophy Talk is a talk radio program co-hosted by John Perry and Ken Taylor, who are professors at Stanford University. The show is also available as a podcast, available for purchase. The program deals both with fundamental problems of philosophy and with the works of famous philosophers,...
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