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

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3. Clarifications 95 A third way in which the term ‘basic capabilities’ can be used is, as in analytical political philosophy, to refer to essential (moral and/ or political) entitlements that signify a higher level of moral urgency, according to the philosopher’s own normative commitments. For example, Rutger Claassen, who has been developing an agency-based capability theory of justice, has been using the term ‘basic’ in that sense (Claassen 2016). A fourth way to use the term ‘basic capability’ has been proposed by Bernard Williams. Yet this has, to the best of my knowledge, not been taken up by anyone. Williams has argued that it is important to distinguish between the capability to choose yet another new brand of washing powder from, say, Adam Smith’s often-cited capability to appear in public without shame. Williams rightly notes that “what you need, in order to appear without shame in public, differs depending on where you are, but there is an invariant capability here, namely that of appearing in public without shame. This underlying capability is more basic” (Williams 1987, 101). I agree with the need for the distinction that Williams makes, but I would rather call these underlying capabilities the general capabilities, so as to avoid confusion with Sen’s use of basic capabilities. I will turn to the discussion of general versus specific capabilities in section 3.2.4, but first I want to ask the question: how should we interpret the term ‘basic capability’? My reading is that, within the capability literature, the most widespread (and hence dominant) use of ‘basic capabilities’ is Sen’s use, referring to poverty or deprivation. Hence, while the notion of capabilities refers to a very broad range of opportunities, ‘basic capabilities’ refers to the real opportunity to avoid poverty or to meet or exceed a threshold of wellbeing. By focusing on ‘basic’ capabilities, we are limiting the set of all capabilities in two ways: first, by having a selection of capabilities (i.e. those that are key to capturing wellbeing, and those that are centrally important), and second, by imposing a threshold at which those capabilities will be evaluated (i.e. at a low or poverty-like level). Basic capabilities are thus crucial for poverty analysis and in general for studying the wellbeing of large sections of the population in poor countries, or for theories of justice that endorse sufficiency as their distributive rule. In affluent countries, by contrast, wellbeing analysis
96 Wellbeing, Freedom and Social Justice often focuses on capabilities that are less necessary both for survival and the avoidance of poverty. It is important to acknowledge that the capability approach is not restricted to poverty and deprivation analysis but can also serve as a framework for, say, project or policy evaluations or inequality measurement in non-poor communities. Sen’s and Nussbaum’s extensive writings on the capability approach in the context of poverty alleviation and development questions have misled some of their readers into thinking that the capability approach is about poverty and development issues only. Yet as has been absolutely clear from the description and account of the capability approach presented in chapters 1 and 2, there is conceptually or normatively no reason to restrict its scope in this way. The term ‘basic capabilities’ is helpful since it can signal to the reader when the capability approach is specifically used in this context. Over the years, several proposals have been made to refine the notions of ‘functioning’ and ‘capability’, or to add additional qualifications which may be helpful in capability analyses. The first refinement — which is straightforward but still very helpful — is the distinction between general and specific functionings and capabilities (Alkire 2002, 31). Suppose we are concerned with questions about what is needed for people not to be socially excluded. Sen has repeatedly referred to Adam Smith’s example that, in order to be able to appear in public without shame, one needed (in the time and place Smith lived) a linen shirt. Yet in other countries one would need a sari, or a suit, or something else. We all know that in every specific time and place, there are certain types of clothes one shouldn’t wear if one doesn’t want to be frowned upon or be seen as inappropriately dressed. We could say that, for women in place A, being able to wear a sari is important, and for men in another place, being able to wear a suit is important, in order not to be excluded. ‘Being able to wear a sari’ and ‘being able to wear a suit’ are specific capabilities; ‘being able to wear the clothes that are considered appropriate’ is the more general capability. Thus, if we formulate the relevant capabilities at a higher level of generality, it will be easier to reach agreement on what those are, than if we focus on more
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3. Clarifications 89 3.1 Introducti
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4.7 What about power and political
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Acknowledgements In 1998, when I st
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Acknowledgements 5 the capability a
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1. Introduction Many people who en
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