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

2. Core Ideas and the Framework
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acceptable and unacceptable. For example, many ethnographers tend to
reject normative theorising and also often object to what they consider
the reductionist nature of quantitative empirical analysis, whereas many
economists tend to discard the thick descriptions by ethnographers,
claiming they are merely anecdotal and hence not scientific.
Two remarks before closing this section. First, providing a typology
of the work on the capability approach, as this section attempts to do,
remains work in progress. In 2004, I could only discern three main
modes of capability analysis: quality of life analysis; thick description/
descriptive analysis; and normative theories — though I left open the
possibility that the capability approach could be used for other goals
too (Robeyns 2005a). In her book Creating Capabilities, Nussbaum
(2011) writes that the capability approach comes in only two modes:
comparative qualify of life assessment, and as a theory of justice. I don’t
think that is correct: not all modes of capability analysis can be reduced
to these two modes, as I have argued elsewhere in detail (Robeyns 2011,
2016b). The different modes of capability analysis described in table 2.1
provide a more comprehensive overview, but we should not assume
that this overview is complete. It is quite likely that table 2.1 will, in
due course, have to be updated to reflect new types of work that uses
the capability approach. Moreover, one may also prefer another way
to categorise the different types of work done within the capability
literature, and hence other typologies are possible and may be more
illuminating.
Second, it is important that we fully acknowledge the diversity of
disciplines, the diversity of goals we have for the creation of knowledge,
and the diversity of methods used within the capability approach. At
the same time, we need not forget that some aspects of its development
might need to be discipline-specific, or specific for one’s goals. As a
result, the capability approach is at the same time multidisciplinary,
interdisciplinary, but also forms part of developments within disciplines
and methods. These different ‘faces’ of the capability approach all need
to be fully acknowledged if we want to understand it in a nuanced and
complete way.