The Capability Approach

The capability approach evaluates justice and well-being in terms of people's real freedoms — their capabilities to achieve the kinds of lives they have reason to value.

Definition

The capability approach holds that the proper space for assessing advantage and justice is that of capabilities — the various combinations of functionings (beings and doings) a person is genuinely able to achieve — rather than resources or subjective utility.

Scope

Covers the central distinction between functionings and capabilities, Sen's freedom-focused and comparative account of justice, Nussbaum's list of central human capabilities and its partial-political-conception form, and the approach's role in human-development measurement. Excludes technical welfare economics.

Core questions

• What is the right informational space for judging justice and well-being?
• Why prefer capabilities to resources or utility?
• Should the approach specify a definite list of central capabilities or leave it open?
• How can capabilities be measured and used in public policy?

Key concepts

• capabilities
• functionings
• conversion factors
• agency freedom
• central human capabilities
• the capability set
• human development

Key theories

Capabilities and functionings

Sen argues that advantage should be assessed in terms of capabilities — the freedoms people have to achieve valued functionings — because resources and utility ignore differences in people's ability to convert means into valuable doings and beings.

Central human capabilities

Nussbaum develops the approach into a partial theory of justice by specifying a list of ten central capabilities (such as life, bodily health, affiliation, and practical reason) that governments should secure to a threshold for all citizens.

History

The approach grew from Sen's 1979 'Equality of What?' lecture and his subsequent work on capabilities (Inequality Reexamined, 1992; The Idea of Justice, 2009), influencing the UN Human Development Index. Nussbaum developed a normative variant grounded in a list of central capabilities (Women and Human Development, 2000).

Debates

A fixed list or an open framework?

Whether the approach should specify a definite list of central capabilities, as Nussbaum proposes, or remain a deliberately open framework whose content is fixed by democratic reasoning, as Sen prefers.

Key figures

• Amartya Sen
• Martha Nussbaum

Seminal works

• sen2009
• nussbaum2000

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between a functioning and a capability?

A functioning is an achieved state or activity (such as being well-nourished or taking part in community life), while a capability is the real freedom or opportunity a person has to achieve such functionings.