Wellbeing, Freedom and Social Justice The Capability Approach Re-Examined, 2017a

92 Wellbeing, Freedom and Social Justice
potential or achieved. This kind of language is most familiar to social
choice scholars and scholars in formal welfare economics, where the
focus of much of the analysis is on the opportunity set.
However, many other scholars working on the capability paradigm,
including Martha Nussbaum, have labelled these potential functionings
‘capabilities’, and only use the term ‘functioning’ for an outcome. In
that terminology, the capability set consists of a number of capabilities,
in the same way as a person’s overall freedom is made up of a number
of more specific freedoms. One does not find this usage of ‘capabilities’
(meaning the separate elements of one person’s capability set) in Sen’s
earlier writings, and in his later writings he (perhaps reluctantly) uses
the word ‘capability’ in both senses interchangeably.
What, then, is the terminology that is now predominantly used? As
was explained in chapter 2, a functioning is a state of one’s being (such
as being healthy or ill), or something one is doing (such as going on
a trip or raising children). The real opportunity to accomplish such a
functioning, is the corresponding capability. Hence if my sister goes on
a trip and invites me along, but I decide to stay at home because I want
to do something else, then I have the capability to go on a trip, but I
chose not to have the corresponding outcome — the functioning. Each
functioning corresponds exactly to one capability.
This plural use of capabilities is widespread in the contemporary
literature on the capability approach — with the exception of those
working in social choice theory, formal welfare economics and related
fields. The terminology as used by the broader group of scholars
working on the capability approach seems to be more straightforward
and less technical, but when reading Sen’s (earlier) work it is important
to know that the term ‘capability’ started with a different definition. 1
Nussbaum’s terminology
In Women and Human Development, her first book-length work on her
capabilities theory, Martha Nussbaum used the following terminology,
which she still uses in her recent book on the capability approach
(Nussbaum 2011, 20–25). Human capabilities are “what people are
1 For a seminal analysis of the differences between Nussbaum’s and Sen’s conceptual
and terminological apparatus, see the twin papers by David A. Crocker (1992, 1995).