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

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3. Clarifications 125 Indeed, this directly relates to an advantage of objective list theories: many of the items that have been proposed by such theories have been translated into specific indicators such as health or social policy, or else overall assessments have been made that can be used for an entire population. The long-standing literature on social indicators can be situated in this tradition (Boelhouwer and Stoop 1999; Boelhouwer 2002; Hagerty et al. 2001). in the capability approach So how does the capability approach fit in this standard taxonomy? The capability approach is often categorised as being an objective list theory, since functionings and capabilities are plural and the selection of dimensions gives us a list of items which are judged to be valuable for persons. However, in my view there is not merely one wellbeing account in the capability approach, but several wellbeing accounts. So why is there not one, but several accounts of wellbeing in the capability literature? As was mentioned in the introduction to this section, the reason is that there are a variety of capability theories in the general capability literature, and those theories need different accounts of wellbeing. If a capability theory is used for a first-person perspective, for example by an adolescent contemplating what to do with her life, she may ask herself what she really wants: to study hard and work hard and become a medical doctor? Or does she have a stronger desire to build a family and search for a job that makes it possible to spend enough time with her children? Does she want to devote her life to fighting for a good cause? In this personal deliberation, the account of wellbeing she then uses can be seen as a desire-fulfilment account in which the desires all refer to functionings. In the design of institutions, there is also often implicitly a desirefulfilment account, by trying to create valuable options (capabilities) for citizens, but by not forcing them into those outcomes (functionings). But policy making can’t be done by trying to enlarge a non-specific general account of freedom to realise one’s desires: what would that look like? In policy making, we often assume that what we owe to each other
126 Wellbeing, Freedom and Social Justice are specific freedoms, not a general vague notion of overall freedom (Anderson 2000b). Therefore, at the policy level we can often see that the implicit account of wellbeing is desire-fulfilment, whereby it is assumed that the desires refer to particular functionings (such as being able to enjoy higher education or leisure activities in green spaces in cities), or, alternatively, policies provide the resources (money, and sometimes time) that are inputs for a wide range of desires that people may have. If a capability theory is made for macro-level poverty analysis, then the researchers will select a number of functionings that they have reason to believe are good for people, such as their health, educational outcomes, and the kind of shelter in which they can live. The notion of achieved wellbeing entailed in this normative exercise is an objectively good account, although one could also argue that one has reason to assume that these are dimensions of the quality of life that people would want for themselves (hence their desires) and that, given that one is working with very large numbers, it is a safe assumption to proceed this way. There are at least two interesting things to notice. First, for policy making we often have to choose either an approach that uses resources as a proxy for wellbeing (although this cannot account for differences in conversion factors between people) or else policy makers will try to provide a range of options to us, where ideally the policy maker assumes that these options are things that many people want. Second, the often-heard view that the account of wellbeing given by the capability approach is an objective list theory doesn’t seem to be true. Rather, depending on the kind of capability theory one is pursuing (in particular, the choice in B1) it is more accurate to see this as a desirefulfilment or an objective list account. In section 3.7.2, we encountered hedonist theories of wellbeing as an important subgroup of theories of wellbeing. The debates about hedonism and the happiness approach are closely related. Hedonism is the philosophical view that wellbeing can be captured by the balance of pleasures over pains. The core aspect is the exclusive focus on mental states, and on a person’s subjective assessments of their own
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Contents Acknowledgements 3 1. Intr
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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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1. Introduction 9 capability approa
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1. Introduction 11 Moreover, it bri
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1. Introduction 13 Countries Outsi
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1. Introduction 15 capabilities of
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1. Introduction 17 their collaborat
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1. Introduction 19 This book has a
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Index 253 Fleurbaey, Marc 154 flour
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Index 255 political institutions 14
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