2.2: A preliminary definition of the capability approach

The capability approach has in recent decades emerged as a new theoretical framework about wellbeing, freedom to achieve wellbeing, and all the public values in which either of these can play a role, such as development and social justice. Although there is some scholarly disagreement on the best description of the capability approach (which will be addressed in this chapter), it is generally understood as a conceptual framework for a range of evaluative exercises, including most prominently the following: (1) the assessment of individual levels of achieved wellbeing and wellbeing freedom; (2) the evaluation and assessment of social arrangements or institutions;³ and (3) the design of policies and other forms of social change in society.

We can trace some aspects of the capability approach back to, among others, Aristotle, Adam Smith, Karl Marx and John Stuart Mill,⁴ yet it is Sen who pioneered the approach and a growing number of other scholars across the humanities and the social sciences who have significantly developed it — most significantly Martha Nussbaum, who has developed the capability approach into a partial theory of social justice.⁵ Nussbaum also understands her own capabilities account as a version of a theory of human rights.⁶ The capability approach purports that freedom to achieve wellbeing is a matter of what people are able to do and to be, and thus the kind of life they are effectively able to lead. The capability approach is generally conceived as a flexible and multipurpose framework, rather than a precise theory (Sen 1992a, 48; Alkire 2005; Robeyns 2005b, 2016b; Qizilbash 2012; Hick and Burchardt 2016, 78). The open-ended and underspecified nature of the capability approach is crucial, but it has not made it easier for its students to understand what kind of theoretical endeavour the capability approach exactly is. How should we understand it? Isn’t there a better account possible than the somewhat limited description of the capability approach as ‘an open, flexible and multi-purpose framework’? Answering these questions will be the task of this chapter.⁷

The open and underspecified nature of the capability approach also explains why the term ‘capability approach’ was adopted and is now widely used rather than ‘capability theory’. Yet as I will argue in section 2.3, we could use the terms ‘capability theory’ and ‘capability approach’ in a more illuminating way to signify a more substantive difference, which will help us to get a better grip on the capability literature.

It may be helpful to introduce the term ‘advantage’ here, which is a technical term used in academic debates about interpersonal comparisons and in debates about distributive justice.⁸ A person’s advantage is those aspects of that person’s interests that matter (generally, or in a specific context). Hence ‘advantage’ could refer to a person’s achieved wellbeing, or it could refer to her opportunity to achieve wellbeing, or it could refer to her negative freedoms, or to her positive freedoms, or to some other aspect of her interests. By using the very general term ‘advantage’, we allow ourselves to remain agnostic between the more particular specifications of that term;⁹ our analysis will apply to all the different ways in which ‘advantage’ could be used. This technical term ‘advantage’ thus allows us to move the arguments to a higher level of generality or abstraction, since we can focus, for example, on which conditions interpersonal comparisons of advantage need to meet, without having to decide on the exact content of ‘advantage’.

Within the capability approach, there are two different specifications of ‘advantage’: achieved wellbeing, and the freedom to achieve wellbeing. The notions of ‘functionings’ and ‘capabilities’ — which will be explained in detail in section 2.6.1 — are used to flesh out the account of achieved wellbeing and the freedom to achieve wellbeing.¹⁰ Whether the capability approach is used to analyse distributive injustice, or measure poverty, or develop curriculum design — in all these projects the capability approach prioritises certain people’s beings and doings and their opportunities to realize those beings and doings (such as their genuine opportunities to be educated, their ability to move around or to enjoy supportive social relationships). This stands in contrast to other accounts of advantage, which focus exclusively on mental categories (such as happiness) or on the material means to wellbeing (such as resources like income or wealth).¹¹

Thus, the capability approach is a conceptual framework, which is in most cases used as a normative framework for the evaluation and assessment of individual wellbeing and that of institutions, in addition to its much more infrequent use for non-normative purposes.¹² It can be used to evaluate a range of values that draw on an assessment of people’s wellbeing, such as inequality, poverty, changes in the wellbeing of persons or the average wellbeing of the members of a group. It can also be used as an evaluative tool providing an alternative for social cost-benefit analysis, or as a framework within which to design and evaluate policies and institutions, such as welfare state design in affluent societies, or poverty reduction strategies by governments and non-governmental organisations in developing countries.

What does it mean, exactly, if we say that something is a normative analysis? Unfortunately, social scientists and philosophers use these terms slightly differently. My estimate is that, given their numerical dominance, the terminology that social scientists use is dominant within the capability literature. Yet the terminology of philosophers is more refined and hence I will start by explaining the philosophers’ use of those terms, and then lay out how social scientists use them.

What might a rough typology of research in this area look like? By drawing on some discussions on methods in ethics and political philosophy (O. O’Neill 2009; List and Valentini 2016), I would like to propose the following typology for use within the capability literature. There are (at least) five types of research that are relevant for the capability approach. The first type of scholarship is conceptual research, which conducts conceptual analysis — the investigation of how we should use and understand certain concepts such as ‘freedom’, ‘democracy’, ‘wellbeing’, and so forth. An example of such conceptual analysis is provided in section 3.3, where I offer a (relatively simple) conceptual analysis of the question of what kind of freedoms (if any) capabilities could be. The second strand of research is descriptive. Here, research and analyses provide us with an empirical understanding of a phenomenon by describing it. This could be done with different methods, from the thick descriptions provided by ethnographic methods to the quantitative methods that are widely used in mainstream social sciences. The third type of research is explanatory analysis. This research provides an explanation of a phenomenon — what the mechanisms are that cause a phenomenon, or what the determinants of a phenomenon are. For example, the social determinants of health: the parameters or factors that determine the distribution of health outcomes over the population. A fourth type of research is evaluative, and consists of analyses in which values are used to evaluate a state of affairs. A claim is evaluative if it relies on evaluative terms, such as good or bad, better or worse, or desirable or undesirable. Finally, an analysis is normative if it is prescriptive — it entails a moral norm that tells us what we ought to do.¹³ Evaluative analyses and prescriptive analyses are closely intertwined, and often we first conduct an evaluative analysis, which is followed by a prescriptive analysis, e.g. by policy recommendations, as is done, for example, in the evaluative analysis of India’s development conducted by Jean Drèze and Amartya Sen (2013). However, one could also make an evaluative analysis while leaving the prescriptive analysis for someone else to make, perhaps leaving it to the agents who need to make the change themselves. For example, one can use the capability approach to make an evaluation or assessment of inequalities between men and women, without drawing prescriptive conclusions (Robeyns 2003, 2006a). Or one can make a prescriptive analysis that is not based on an evaluation, because it is based on universal moral rules. Examples are the capability theories of justice by Nussbaum (2000; 2006b) and Claassen (2016).

The difference with the dominant terminology used by economists (and other social scientists) is that they only distinguish between two types of analysis: ‘positive’ versus ‘normative’ economics, whereby ‘positive’ economics is seen as relying only on ‘facts’, whereas ‘normative economics’ also relies on values (e.g. Reiss 2013, 3). Hence economists do not distinguish between what philosophers call ‘evaluative analysis’ and ‘normative analysis’ but rather lump them both together under the heading ‘normative analysis’. The main take-home message is that the capability approach is used predominantly in the field of ethical analysis (philosophers’ terminology) or normative analysis (economists’ terminology), somewhat less often in the fields of descriptive analysis and conceptual analysis, and least in the field of explanatory analysis. We will revisit this in section 3.10, where we address whether the capability approach can be an explanatory theory.

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3 Amartya Sen often uses the term “social arrangement”, which is widely used in the social choice literature and in some other parts of the literature on the capability approach. Yet this term is not very widely used in other disciplines, and many have wondered what “social arrangement” exactly means (e.g. Béteille 1993). Other scholars tend to use the term “institutions”, using a broad definition — understood as the formal and informal rules in society that structure, facilitate and delineate actions and interactions. “Institutions” are thus not merely laws and formal rules such as those related to the system of property rights or the social security system, but also informal rules and social norms, such as social norms that expect women to be responsible for raising the children and caring for the ill and elderly, or forbid members of different castes to work together or interact on an equal footing.

4 See Nussbaum (1988, 1992), Sen (1993a, 1999a, 14, 24); Walsh (2000); Qizilbash (2016); Basu and López-Calva (2011, 156–59).

5 A partial theory of justice is a theory that gives us an account of some aspects of what justice requires, but does not comment on what justice requires in other instances or areas.

6 On the relationship between capabilities and human rights, see section 3.14.

7 For earlier attempts to describe the capability approach, see amongst others Deneulin (2014); Gasper (2007, 1997); Alkire, Qizilbash and Comim (2008); Qizilbash (2012); Robeyns (2005b, 2016b).

8 A ‘technical term’ is a term which is used in a specialist debate, and has a meaning that is defined within that debate. In many cases, the term refers to something other than its referent in common-sense language (that is, a layperson’s use of language).

9 To ‘remain agnostic’ means that, for the purpose of that analysis, one does not make a choice between different options, and hence proceeds with an analysis that should be valid for all those options. This does not mean that one cannot make a choice, or really believes that all available options are equally good, but rather that one wants to present an analysis that is applicable to as wide a range of choices as possible.

10 Following Amartya Sen (1985c), some would say there are four different ideas of advantage in the capability approach: achieved wellbeing, freedom to achieve wellbeing, achieved agency, and freedom to achieve agency. Yet whether the capability approach should always and for all purposes consider agency freedom to be an end in itself is disputed, and depends in large measure on what one wants to use the capability approach for.

11 Of course, it doesn’t follow that mental categories or the material means play no role at all; but the normative priority lies with functionings and capabilities, and hence happiness or material resources play a more limited role (and, in the case of resources, a purely instrumental role). The relations between functionings/capabilities and resources will be elaborated in 3.12; the relationship between functionings/capabilities and happiness will be elaborated in more detail in section 3.8.

12 On whether the capability approach can be used for explanatory purposes, see section 3.10.

12 Alkire (2008) calls these normative applications “prospective analysis”, and argues that we need to distinguish the evaluative applications of the capability approach from the “prospective applications” of the capability approach. I agree, but since we should avoid introducing new terms when the terms needed are already available, it would be better to use the term ‘prescriptive applications’ or, as philosophers do, ‘normative analysis’, rather than introducing ‘prospective applications’ as a new term.