Wellbeing, Freedom and Social Justice The Capability Approach Re-Examined, 2017a
Wellbeing, Freedom and Social Justice The Capability Approach Re-Examined, 2017a
Wellbeing, Freedom and Social Justice The Capability Approach Re-Examined, 2017a
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4. Critiques <strong>and</strong> Debates<br />
177<br />
But what about the philosophical theories of basic needs? Are there<br />
reasons why we should favour them rather than the capability approach?<br />
<strong>The</strong> arguments that were given for the pragmatic basic needs approach<br />
apply also to some extent to the questions of the complementarities<br />
<strong>and</strong> differences between the theories. <strong>The</strong>re are, theoretically, close<br />
similarities between theories of needs <strong>and</strong> capabilities, <strong>and</strong> Soran <strong>Re</strong>ader<br />
(2006) has argued that many of the objections that capability scholars<br />
have to theories of needs are unwarranted <strong>and</strong> based on implausibly<br />
reductionist readings of theories of needs. According to <strong>Re</strong>ader, theories<br />
of needs <strong>and</strong> capability theories have much more in common than<br />
capability scholars have been willing to see.<br />
Still, Sen has been notorious in arguing that the capability approach<br />
is superior to the basic needs approach, a critique he has reaffirmed<br />
in his latest book (Sen 2017, 25). In his paper ‘Goods <strong>and</strong> people’,<br />
Sen (1984a, 513–15) criticised the basic needs approach for being too<br />
focussed on commodities, <strong>and</strong> seeing human beings as passive <strong>and</strong><br />
needy. Those criticisms were rebutted by Alkire (2002, 166–74), who<br />
believed they were based on misinterpretations. However, Alkire did<br />
argue that the other two claims by Sen were correct. First, that the basic<br />
needs approach confines our attention to the most desperate situations,<br />
<strong>and</strong> is therefore only useful to developing countries. Alkire, however,<br />
sees this as potentially a strength of the basic needs approach; one<br />
could argue that it helps us to focus our attention on the worst off. Sen’s<br />
final criticism was, according to Alkire, the one with most theoretical<br />
bite: that the basic needs approach does not have solid philosophical<br />
foundations.<br />
However, the question is whether that is true. A set of recent<br />
papers by basic needs scholars (Brock <strong>and</strong> <strong>Re</strong>ader 2002; <strong>Re</strong>ader <strong>and</strong><br />
Brock 2004; <strong>Re</strong>ader 2006) make clear that the philosophical theory of<br />
basic needs is sophisticated; moreover, several philosophically highly<br />
sophisticated theories of needs have been proposed in the past, both<br />
in the Aristotelian tradition but also more recently by contemporary<br />
philosophers (e.g. Doyal <strong>and</strong> Gough 1991; Wiggins 1998). Instead, a<br />
more plausible explanation for the basic needs approach losing ground<br />
in comparison to the capability approach seems to me that in the case of<br />
the basic needs approach, there was less interaction between empirical<br />
scholars <strong>and</strong> policy makers on the one h<strong>and</strong>, <strong>and</strong> philosophers on<br />
the other. It is hard to find evidence of a clear synergy between basic