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

42 Wellbeing, Freedom and Social Justice
punishment of the aggressor. If there is a set of social norms justifying
rape, and would-be rapists help each other to be able to rape, then
would-be rapists in that country effectively enjoy the capability to rape.
But clearly, rape is a moral bad, and a huge harm to its victims; it is thus
not a capability that a country should want to protect. This example
illustrates that functionings as well as capabilities can be harmful or
have a negative value, as well as be positive or valuable. At an abstract
and general level, ‘functionings’ and ‘capabilities’ are thus in themselves
neutral concepts, and hence we cannot escape the imperative to decide
which ones we want to support and enable, and which ones we want to
fight or eliminate. Frances Stewart and Séverine Deneulin (2002, 67) put
it as follows:
[…] some capabilities have negative values (e.g. committing murder),
while others may be trivial (riding a one-wheeled bicycle). Hence there is
a need to differentiate between ‘valuable’ and non-valuable capabilities,
and indeed, within the latter, between those that are positive but of lesser
importance and those that actually have negative value.
The above examples show that some functionings can be unequivocally
good (e.g. being in good health) or unequivocally bad (e.g. being
raped or being murdered). In those cases, there will be unanimity on
whether the functionings outcome is bad or good. But now we need to
add a layer of complexity. Sometimes, it will be a matter of doubt, or of
dispute, whether a functioning will be good or bad — or the goodness
or badness may depend on the context and/or the normative theory we
endorse. An interesting example is giving care, or ‘care work’. 22 Clearly
being able to care for someone could be considered a valuable capability.
For example, in the case of child care, there is much joy to be gained, and
many parents would like to work less so as to spend more time with
their children. But care work has a very ambiguous character if we try
to answer whether it should be considered to be a valuable functioning
from the perspective of the person who does the care. Lots of care is
performed primarily because there is familial or social pressure put on
someone (generally women) to do so, or because no-one else is doing it
22 On the complex nature of ‘care’, and what the need to care and be cared for requires
from a just society, see e.g. Tronto (1987); Kittay (1999); Nussbaum (2006b); Folbre
(1994); Folbre and Bittman (2004); Engster (2007); Gheaus (2011); Gheaus and
Robeyns (2011).