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 />
191<br />
choices, in contrast to sociology, gender studies <strong>and</strong> cultural studies,<br />
among other disciplines. In political philosophy, one sees a similar split<br />
between the core of Anglo-American political philosophy, in which the<br />
concept of the self that is endorsed is that of a rational, autonomous<br />
agent whose own plans take precedence over things he finds as ‘given’<br />
in his life, versus other traditions in philosophy that pay more attention<br />
to relations <strong>and</strong> the social embedding of individuals, including unjust<br />
structures in which one finds oneself, as well as mechanisms that<br />
reproduce power differences. <strong>The</strong> consequence is that it is possible to<br />
use functionings <strong>and</strong> capabilities as the evaluative space in combination<br />
with many different normative accounts of choice, with a widely<br />
divergent critical content.<br />
Take as an example the choices made by men versus women between<br />
paid (labour market) or unpaid (care <strong>and</strong> household) work. In all societies<br />
women do much more household <strong>and</strong> care work, whereas men do much<br />
more paid work. Both kinds of work can generate a number of different<br />
functionings so that the largest capability set might perhaps be reached<br />
only by giving everyone the opportunity to combine both types of work.<br />
However, I would argue that in the world today, in which hardly any<br />
society allows people to combine market work <strong>and</strong> non-market work<br />
without having to make significant compromises when it comes to the<br />
quality of at least one of them, the labour market enables more (<strong>and</strong> more<br />
important) functionings than care work. <strong>The</strong>se include psychological<br />
functionings like increased self-esteem; social functionings like having a<br />
social network; material functionings like being financially independent<br />
<strong>and</strong> securing one’s financial needs for one’s old age or in the event of<br />
divorce. 9 Many schools in political philosophy <strong>and</strong> normative welfare<br />
economics have typically seen the gender division of labour as ethically<br />
unproblematic, in the sense that this division is seen as the result of<br />
men’s <strong>and</strong> women’s voluntary choices, which reflect their preferences.<br />
However, this is an inadequate way of explaining <strong>and</strong> evaluating this<br />
division, because gender-related structures <strong>and</strong> constraints convert<br />
this choice from an individual choice under perfect information into a<br />
collective decision under socially constructed constraints with imperfect<br />
information <strong>and</strong> asymmetrical risks. Moreover, evaluating the gender<br />
9 As is also suggested by the empirical findings of Enrica Chiappero-Martinetti<br />
(2000) who measured achieved functioning levels for Italy.