Wellbeing, Freedom and Social Justice The Capability Approach Re-Examined Chapter 1 Introduction

. Introduction Why the capability approach ?

Many people who encounter the capability approach for the first time find the ideas embedded within it intuitively attractive . The basic claim of the capability approach is that , when asking normative questions , we should ask what people are able to do and what lives they are able to lead . That claim resonates with widespread ideas among citizens , academics , and politicians about how to make policies , views about what social justice requires , or views about development and social progress . Perhaps the most important contribution the capability approach makes is to prompt us to ask alternative questions , and to focus on different dimensions when we make observations or when we gather the relevant data for making evaluations or judgements . What is the capability approach ?

This book will answer that question in detail . But let us start with a first , preliminary description , taken from a quote by Sen , who introduced the theoretical idea of the capability approach in his 1979 Tanner Lecture ( Sen ) and soon after in empirical work ( Sen and 1983 Sen ) According to Sen , the capability approach is an intellectual discipline that gives a central role to the evaluation of a person achievements and freedoms in terms of his or her actual ability to do the different things a person has reason to value doing or being ( Sen , 16 ) As we will see later in this book , I will propose a definition and an account of the capability approach that does not exactly equal Sen but rather can be interpreted 2017 , BY .

, Freedom and Social as a of Sen definition ?

Yet Sen definition is a good Way to start , since it highlights that the capability approach is concerned with aspects of people lives such as their health , the education they can enjoy and the support they enjoy from their social networks it is also concerned with what people can do , such as being able to work , raise a family , travel , or be politically active . The capability approach cares about people real freedoms to do these things , and the level of wellbeing that they will reach when choosing from the options open to them . It is a rich , multidimensional approach . Here an example illustrating the difference the capability approach makes . Everyone agrees that poverty needs to be but who are the people that suffer from poverty ?

Which conceptual and normative framework do we use when we identify the poor ?

Which definition of poverty do we use when we analyse the incidence of poverty in a country ?

As empirical research has shown , it does matter whether one uses the widespread metric , or whether one takes a capability perspective and focuses on a set of thresholds of basic , the lack of which indicates a dimension of poverty . 1997 ) used data from a Chilean household survey to investigate the extent to which an measure is able to capture some basic that could arguably be seen as central to poverty analysis basic education , health and nutrition . She found that the income variable in itself is insignificant as a determinant of the shortfall in health , schooling and child nutrition and that the role that income plays is highly and depends on a number of other personal , household and regional characteristics . In other words , looking at the income level in a household to determine whether the members of that household are poor may be an unreliable indicator for the prevalence of poverty . The difference between , on the one hand , the measurements and , on the other hand , measurements based on a selection of basic indicators that reflect how people are doing has also been confirmed by a large number of other studies in the last years ?

It is for that approach that the The exact definition and description of the capability approach that I will develop in this book is broader than Sen own . The reason , as will become clear in due course , is that the having reason to value clause in Sen definition is , in my view , a special case of the general definition of the capability approach . See , among others , 2000 , Saith and Stewart 2003 , 2002 , Reddy , and 2009 et al . 2015 .

. Introduction capability approach offers an alternative but , as will be explained in this book , it is also an alternative to many other approaches and theories , such as the happiness approach or theories of justice . While the capability approach has been used to identify the poor , it has also been used for many other purposes . Over the last five years , the range of fields in which the capability approach has been applied and developed has expanded dramatically , and now includes global public health , development ethics , environmental protection and ecological sustainability , education , technological design , welfare state policies and many , many Nor has the use of the capability approach been restricted to empirical research only . Some of its purposes have been theoretical , such as the construction of theories of justice ( Anderson 1999 2000 2016 ) or the development of a , which allows us to identify the rich ( Other uses of the capability approach have combined theoretical and empirical research , such as and ( 2007 ) study of disadvantage . For all these endeavours , the capability approach asks What are people really able to do and what kind of person are they able to be ?

It asks what people can do and be ( their capabilities ) and what they are actually achieving in terms of beings and doings ( their ) Do the envisioned institutions , practices and policies focus on capabilities , that is , their opportunities to do what they value and be the kind of person they want to be ?

Do people have the same capabilities in life ?

Or do global economic structures , domestic policies or brute bad luck make people capabilities unequal , and if so , is that unfair and should we do something about that ?

Do development projects focus on See section for a more detailed discussion of the scope of the capability approach , and some references to the various fields in which it is now applied and developed . Some capability scholars , in particular Martha , have extended the capability approach to include the of animals . In this book , I restrict the discussion to human and capabilities . This is not to deny that the of animals are important , nor that for some ethical questions we need to consider both humans and animals . There is a literature that analyses whether the capability approach can plausibly be extended to include animals , which will not be discussed here , given the focus on humans ( 2008 2010 2011 , Holland and Linch 2016 ) Note that there is also a large literature on the capabilities of firms , which is not related to how the term capabilities is used in the capability approach . In this book , the term capabilities ' refers only to the capabilities of members of the human species .

10 , Freedom and Social expanding people capabilities , or do they have another public policy goal ( such as economic growth ) or are they merely serving the interests of a dominant group ?

The capability approach thus offers a different perspective than alternative approaches that focus on the accumulation of material resources , or the mental states of people , such as their overall satisfaction with their lives . The worries of the sceptics Although the capability approach appeals to many readers , others have wondered whether this theory is really any different from other more established theories , or whether the capability approach is promising as a theory with sufficient bite . For example John Rawls ( 1999 , 13 ) while acknowledging that the idea of basic capabilities is important , calls it an unworkable idea for a liberal conception of justice . 1996 , has criticized the capability approach for being insufficiently specified a complaint that is also echoed in the critique made by Bhanu ( 2009 ) Others have questioned the practical significance of the capability approach for policy making and empirical assessment . For instance , Robert ( 1993 , 1953 ) has questioned the usefulness of the capability approach for welfare economics a critique to which we will return in section . In addition , at seminars and other scholarly gatherings , an criticism is that the capability approach is old wine in new bottles it aims to do what the social sciences have been doing all along . If that is the case , then why should we bother ?

There are two types of answer to the sceptics . The first is conceptual or theoretical and that answer will be given in the remainder of this book . In a nutshell , the reason the capability approach is worth our time and attention is that it gives us a new way of evaluating the lives of individuals and the societies in which these people live their lives . The attention is shifted to public values currently not always considered most important such as wellbeing , freedom and justice . It is an alternative discourse or paradigm , perhaps even a to a range of more mainstream discourses on society , poverty and prosperity . Several more specific critiques on the capability approach will be discussed in chapter .

. Introduction 11 Moreover , it brings insights from several disciplines together , and gives scholars a common language . Nevertheless , it follow that the capability approach will always offer a framework that is to be preferred over other as this book will show , the capability approach can contribute something , but we should be careful not to overplay our hand and believe that it can do a better job for all ethical questions . The second answer to the sceptic is empirical to show the sceptic what difference the capability approach makes . The earlier mentioned study by ( 1997 ) and dozens of similar studies do exactly that . In 2006 , I provided a survey of the studies in which the capability approach had been put into practice ( a task that I think is no longer feasible today in a single paper or chapter , given that the empirical literature of applications of the capability approach has grown dramatically . But in order to illustrate in somewhat greater depth this kind of answer to the sceptic , let us focus on one type of empirical application of the capability approach namely how we perceive and evaluate our lives at a macro level , and how we evaluate the social arrangements in which we live those lives . A yardstick for the evaluation of prosperity and progress For many decades , the dominant way to measure prosperity and social progress has been to focus on Gross Domestic Product ( or Gross National Product ( per capita . The more we produce , the more developed our country has been taken to be . Yet a large literature has emerged showing that per capita is limited and often as a measure of social and economic progress ( 2009 , Sen and 2010 and 2013 2015 ) In one of the very first empirical applications of the capability approach , Sen ( used some very simple statistics to illustrate how deceiving per capita can be as a measure of prosperity and Sen showed that , in the early , the ( roughly An even earlier empirical study , in which the capability approach is referred to as the right evaluative framework , was done by Sen and Sunil ( 1983 )

12 , Freedom and Social equivalent ) per capita of Brazil and Mexico was more than seven times the ( roughly equivalent ) per capita of India , China and Sri yet performances in life expectancy , infant mortality and child death rates were best in Sri , better in China compared to India and better in Mexico compared to Brazil . Important social indicators related to life , premature death and health , can thus not be read from the average national income statistic . Another finding was that India performs badly regarding basic education but has considerably higher tertiary education rates than China and Sri . Thus , Sen concluded that the public policy of China and especially Sri towards distributing food , public health measures , medical services and school education have led to their remarkable achievements in the capabilities of survival and education . What can this application teach us about the capability approach ?

First , the ranking of countries based on per capita can be quite different from a ranking based on the selected . Second , growth in per capita should not be equated with growth in living standards . Sen has often made use of the power of comparing the differences in the ranking of countries based on per capita with indicators of some essential . Recently and Sen ( 2013 , used the capability approach to develop an analysis of India development policies . For example , as table shows , they compared India with the fifteen other poorest countries outside Africa in terms of development Of those sixteen countries , India ranks on top in terms of per capita , but ranks very low for a range of , such as life expectancy at birth , infant mortality , undernourishment , schooling and literacy . Other countries , with fewer financial means , were able to achieve better outcomes in terms of those . Once again , the point is made that focussing on metrics such as disposable income at the household level , or per capita at the national level , gives limited information on the lives people can lead . Those other countries are Afghanistan , Burma , Haiti , Nepal , Pakistan , New Guinea , Vietnam and Yemen .

. Introduction 13 Table Selected Indicators for the World Sixteen Poorest Countries Outside Africa per capita , 2011 ( Constant 2005 international ) Life expectancy at birth , 2011 ( years ) Infant mortality rate , 2011 ( per live births ) mortality rate , 2011 ( per live births ) Total fertility rate , 2011 ( children per woman ) Access to improved sanitation , 2010 Wu ) Mean years of schooling , age , 2011 Literacy rate , age years , 2010 ( Female Male India 65 47 61 34 74 88 Average for other poorest countries 67 45 56 57 79 85 rank among 16 poorest countries 10 10 13 11 11 Proportion of children below years who are undernourished , Underweight Stunted Child immunization rates , 2011 ( Measles 43 48 72 74 30 41 88 87 Source and Sen ( 2013 , 47 ) 15 13 13 11

14 , Freedom and Social This type of illustration of the power of the capability approach , whereby at the macro level the quality of life in a country is compared with per capita , is not restricted to poor countries only . For example , the capability approach has recently also been taken up by the Better Life Initiative of the , the Organisation for Economic and Development . The aim of this initiative is to track wellbeing , both in the present day and historically , by looking at ten dimensions of wellbeing per capita , real wages , educational attainment , life expectancy , height , personal security , the quality of political institutions , environmental quality , income inequality and gender inequality . Several of these dimensions can be through a capability lens and others ( such as per capita or real wages ) are needed for a comparison between capability dimensions and income dimensions , or can be seen as core capability or capability inputs . In a recent report , which reconstructed the outcomes on those dimensions between 1820 and 2000 , it was found that some dimensions , such as education and health outcomes , are strongly correlated with per capita , but others are not such as the quality of political institutions , homicide rates and exposure to ( Van et al . 2014 ) Another example that illustrates the difference the capability approach can make is the analysis of gender inequality , for which i is clear that we are missing out the most important dimensions if we only focus on how income is distributed . There are two main problems with an approach to gender inequalities . The first is tha it is often assumed that income within households will be shared . Ye that assumption makes most of the economic inequalities between women and men invisible ( and Marshall 1994 Burton 1995 ) Moreover , gender scholars across the disciplines have argued that one of the most important dimensions of gender inequality is the distribution of burdens between men and women ( paid work , household work and care work ) the fac that women are expected to do the lion share of unpaid work and care work makes them financially vulnerable and restricts their options . Any account of gender inequality that wants to focus on what really matters should talk about the gender division of and unpaid work , and the capability approach allows us to do that , since both paid and unpaid work can be as

. Introduction 15 capabilities of human beings ( Lewis and 2005 2003 , 2010 , and 2010 ) Moreover , for millions of girls and women worldwide , the most important capability that is denied to them is extremely basic the capability to live in the first place . As Sen showed in an early study and as has been repeatedly confirmed since , millions of women are missing from the surface of the Earth ( and from the population statistics ) since newborn girls have been killed or fatally neglected , or female foetuses have been aborted , because they were females in a society in which daughters are more likely to be seen as a burden , especially when compared to sons ( Sen , 1994 and Wink 2003 ) In sum , tracking the gap between women achievements in income and wealth or labour market outcomes will not reveal some crucial dimensions of gender inequality , whereas the capability approach draws attention to these dimensions . Using the capability approach when thinking about prosperity and social progress has another advantage it will impede policy makers from using mistaken assumptions about human beings in their policies , including how we live together and interact in society and communities , what is valuable in our lives and what kind of governmental and societal support is needed in order for people ( and in particular the disadvantaged ) to . For example , in their study of disadvantage in societies , in particular the UK and Israel , Jonathan and discuss the effects of a government policy of clearing a slum by moving the inhabitants to newly built tower blocks . While there may be clear material advantages to this policy in particular , improving the hygiene conditions in which people live a analysis will point out that this policy damages the social aspects of people wellbeing , since social networks and communities are broken up and can not simply be assumed to be rebuilt in the new tower blocks ( and 2007 , 168 , Since social relationships among people are key to their wellbeing , this may well have additional derivative effects on other dimensions of people lives , such as their mental health . Understanding people as beings whose nature consists of a plurality of dimensions can help governments to think carefully through all the relevant effects of their policies .

16 , Freedom and Social Scope and development of the capability approach The previous section provides one type of answer to those who are sceptical about the capability approach , namely by showing what difference it makes in practice . The other strand in answering the sceptic who asks Why bother ?

is to explain in detail how one should understand the capability approach as a conceptual and theoretical frame and how it differs from other theoretical . After all , a proper understanding of what the capability approach precisely is ( and is not ) should also help in making clear what difference it can make . While this book is not framed as a reply to the sceptic , implicitly such an argument is made in the chapters to come . Nevertheless , we should not simply assume that the added value of the capability approach is equal across cases , fields and disciplines . In some areas , the difference between the capability approach and the dominant ways of thinking and evaluating are so significant that we can rightly speak of a . In other debates and discussions , the difference that the capability approach makes to the prevailing modes of analysis has been more limited . Moreover , the development of the capability approach itself is uneven within different disciplines . In some debates , the capability approach has been so much studied , developed or applied that we should no longer speak of the potential of the capability approach or the promises of the capability approach , since the work that has been done has made quite clear what difference the capability approach actually makes . The prime example is the literature and debate on the very idea of what development is . The capability approach has made a crucial foundational contribution to the growth of the human development paradigm which is now known , especially through the work of the Human Development Reports , which are annually published by the United Nations Development Programme ( In addition , the most of Sen books among the wider public is Development as Freedom , which uses the capability approach as a key element of his alternative vision on development ( Sen ) In economics , Sabina , James Foster and

. Introduction 17 their collaborators have made major contributions to the development of poverty measures based on the capability approach , with the development of the Multidimensional Poverty Index ( and Foster 2011 et al . 2015 ) In the area of development studies , the capability approach is no longer a new and emerging alternative ( as it was twenty to thirty years ago ) but rather one of the major established Another area is philosophical thinking about the metric of distributive justice ( that is what we ought to compare between individuals when We make statements about whether certain inequalities between people are unjust ) In this literature too , the capability approach has by now established itself as an important alternative . And while work on development and perhaps stands out , there are now significant bodies of literature on the capability approach in many fields , such as health economics and public health , technology , sustainability analysis and environmental policy studies , disability studies , and For some examples from the huge body of literature in development economics , development studies and development ethics that builds on the capability approach , see ( 2002 ) Clark ( 2002 , 2005 ) 2013 ) Crocker ( 2008 ) 2014 ) 2011 , 2013 ) Gasper ( 2004 ) Ibrahim ( 2011 ) 2000 ) 1996 ) and and Clark ( 2005 ) See . Anderson ( 1999 , 2010 ) 1988 ) 2000 ) 2000 ) 2007 ) and ( 2007 ) and ( 2010 ) 2010 , 2013 ) 2014 , 2016 ) and ( 2017 ) See also section . 10 . et al . 2006 ) Ruger ( 2006 , 2010 ) Coast et al . 2008 ) Coast , Smith and ( 2008 ) 2009 , 2011 , 2013 ) and ( 2013 ) and Watt ( 2013 ) Mitchell et al . 2016 , 2017 ) 11 . 2009 , 2011 , 2015 ) Zheng ( 2009 ) Zheng and ( 2011 ) Kleine ( 2010 , 2011 , 2013 ) et al . 2014 ) 12 . Anand and Sen ( 1994 , 2000 ) and Van der Veen ( 2007 ) 2010 ) and Carruthers ( 2010 ) and ( 2012 ) 2012 ) 2013 ) 2013 , 2015 ) Schultz et al . 2013 ) Holland ( 2014 ) 13 . 2004 ) and ( 2005 ) 2005 , 2007 , 2008 ) 2005 ) Mitra ( 2006 ) 2011 ) 2013 )

18 , Freedom and Social the vast amount of literature in educational studies that works with the capability However , in other academic fields it is more disputed to what extent the capability approach has been shown to make a real difference . For example , in ethical theories within the strand of philosophy , the capability approach has yet been much developed . Similarly , one can doubt whether the capability approach has contributed to a significant change in mainstream economic thinking . The development of the capability approach within different academic disciplines and discussions thus differs significantly , and the effect the capability approach has had on developing new policies also differs drastically between different policy fields . In the debates where the capability approach is now , the development of that literature has often raised new questions . For example , in philosophical theories of justice there are now enough convincing arguments that the capability approach makes a difference , but the very possibility of a capability theory of justice has also allowed us to be much more explicit about which questions remain unaddressed in case one wants to make a substantive theory of ( distributive ) justice ( Freeman 2006 ) This is a normal way in which a paradigm develops . It therefore should be surprising that we have just as many questions about the capability approach as we had a few years ago . We may even have more , but they are different to those that were raised a decade or two ago . Whatever the unevenness in its uptake and development between disciplines , and independently of the new questions that the capability approach has raised , the current state of the literature which I will present in this book confirms that the capability approach is here to stay . It makes a difference in many debates . It is one of those rare theories that strongly connects disciplines and offers a truly language . And it leads to recommendations on how to organise society and choose policies that are often genuine alternatives for prevailing views . 14 . 2008 ) Walker and ( 2007 ) et al . 2012 ) and Walker ( 2013 ) and Casper ( 2014 ) 2009 , 2013 ) Hart ( 2009 , 2012 ) 2011 , 2016 ) Peppin and Walker ( 2012 ) 2003 ) Walker ( 2003 , 2005 , 2008 , 2010 , and Walker ( 2015 , 2016 ) and Walker ( 2015 ) and Walker ( 2015 )

. Introduction 19 A guide for the reader This book has an extremely simple structure . There are five chapters an introduction ( this chapter ) a short concluding chapter ( chapter ) and three very long chapters in the middle . In chapter we start with a rather simple explanation of the capability approach , and then present a more detailed account of capability theories , focusing in particular on their structure and properties . I will present the capability approach by describing it as having modular structure whereby each specific capability theory combines the core elements of the module with a range of modules . This way of looking at the capability approach helps those who want to apply the capability approach to a particular question or problem to see clearly which elements are needed for such an application it also makes it very clear that the capability approach can be specified in diverse ways . One could see chapter as trying to provide the anatomy of the capability approach to try to see behind its skin , to detect what its various organs are , how they interact and which ones are essential , whereas others may be more tangential . In chapter we discuss further details and try to clear up some misunderstandings . The capability approach is a field that is notoriously prone to misunderstandings , in part because of its nature , but also because the terminology differs somewhat between different authors . Chapter tries to present the literature as neutrally as possible and describes how it has been evolving . Chapter then zooms in on a range of critiques that have been made of the capability approach , such as the argument that it is too individualistic , or that it can not properly account for power . In this chapter , my own voice will be more prominent , as I will engage with these claims , agreeing with some of them ( and , as philosophers do , giving reasons why I agree ) but also arguing against some other critiques . Here , it will become clear what the value is of the distinction between the general capability approach and more specific capability theories , which I introduced elsewhere ( and explain again in section . As it turns out , some of the critiques are valid against particular capability theories , but make no sense against the capability approach in general . I hope that the adoption of this distinction between capability theories or applications on the one hand , and capability approach on

20 , Freedom and Social the other , will clear the capability literature of many confusing and unnecessary criticisms , so that we can devote our energy to those that are powerful and with which we need to engage . Moreover , let us not forget that the capability approach is a tool and not an end in itself we should master it as well as we can , perhaps also as efficiently as we can , and then move on to use it in the work that really matters .