3.10: Can the capability approach be an explanatory theory?
In almost all capability applications and theories, the capability approach is developed for conceptual and normative purposes, rather than for explanations. If it is used for conceptual work, then capability theories do not explain poverty, inequality, or wellbeing, but rather help us to conceptualize these notions. If capability analyses are used for normative work, then they help to evaluate states of affairs and prescribe recommendations for intervention and change.
Nevertheless, the notions of functionings and capabilities in themselves can be employed as elements in explanations of social phenomena, or one can use these notions in descriptions of poverty, inequality, quality of life and social change. In those cases, the properties A1 to A4 from module A would still hold, but characteristics A5 (functionings and capabilities as the evaluative space), A6 (other dimensions of intrinsic values can be important for normative analyses) and A7 (normative individualism) are not applicable.
To the best of my knowledge, few scholars use the capability approach in this way. Probably this should not be surprising, since the capability approach may not make a significant difference to this type of work. Still, there are parallels with existing studies. For example, there is a large literature on the social determinants of health (e.g. Marmot 2005; Wilkinson and Marmot 2003; Marmot et al. 2008). The goal here is to establish a set of functionings related to the general functioning of being healthy, and the determinants are investigated so that social interventions are possible. The same is done for other functionings — not surprisingly, since explaining the determinants of valuable social states is one of the main aims of social scientists.
This raises the question of whether the capability approach should aspire to do this kind of explanatory capabilitarian analysis. The answer depends on a further question: whether the capability approach would have any added value in conducting explanatory capability analyses. If not, then it is unclear why this should be part of the capability approach, since there seems to be very little value in doing what others are already doing successfully.
But this pessimistic dismissal of the potential of explanatory capability analyses may be too quick. Perhaps the capability approach has a role to play in synthesising and connecting these field-specific lines of explanatory research; since it is a strongly interdisciplinary approach, it may perhaps also have a role to play in bringing different disciplines within the social and behavioural sciences together. Another very important task of the capability approach is to reach out to those disciplines in order to make bridges between the normative and the explanatory analyses — one valuable element of the truly post-disciplinary agenda to which the capability approach aims to contribute.