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

2. Core Ideas and the Framework
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versus capability theories
The above preliminary definition highlights that the capability
approach is an open-ended and underspecified framework, which
can be used for multiple purposes. It is open-ended because the general
capability approach can be developed in a range of different directions,
with different purposes, and it is underspecified because additional
specifications are needed before the capability approach can become
effective for a particular purpose — especially if we want it to be
normative (whether evaluative or prescriptive). As a consequence, ‘the
capability approach’ itself is an open, general idea, but there are many
different ways to ‘close’ or ‘specify’ this notion. What is needed for this
specifying or closing of the capability approach will depend on the
aim of using the approach, e.g. whether we want to develop it into a
(partial) theory of justice, or use it to assess inequality, or conceptualise
development, or use it for some other purpose.
This distinction between the general, open, underspecified capability
approach, and its particular use for specific purposes is absolutely
crucial if we want to understand it properly. In order to highlight that
distinction, but also to make it easier for us to be clear when we are
talking about the general, open, underspecified capability approach,
and when we are talking about a particular use for specific purposes,
I propose that we use two different terms (Robeyns 2016b, 398). Let us
use the term ‘the capability approach’ for the general, open, underspecified
approach, and let us employ the term ‘a capability theory’ or ‘a capability
analysis, capability account or capability application’ for a specific use of
the capability approach, that is, for a use that has a specific goal, such
as measuring poverty and deriving some policy prescriptions, or
developing a capabilitarian cost-benefit analysis, or theorising about
human rights, or developing a theory of social justice. In order to
improve readability, I will speak in what follows of ‘a capability theory’
as a short-hand for ‘a capability account, or capability application, or
capability theory’. 14
14 I kindly request readers who are primarily interested in the capability approach
for policy design and (empirical) applications to read ‘capability application’ every
time the term ‘capability theory’ is used.