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

2. Core Ideas and the Framework
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income), but rather explicitly ask the question: which types of means are
important for the fostering and nurturing of a particular capability, or
set of capabilities? For some capabilities, the most important means will
indeed be financial resources and economic production, but for others it
may be a change in political practices and institutions, such as effective
guarantees and protections of freedom of thought, political participation,
social or cultural practices, social structures, social institutions, public
goods, social norms, and traditions and habits. As a consequence, an
effective capability-enhancing policy may not be increasing disposable
income, but rather fighting a homophobic, ethnophobic, racist or sexist
social climate.
as the evaluative space
If a capability theory is a normative theory (as is often the case), then
functionings and capabilities form the entire evaluative space, or are
part of the evaluative space. 28 A normative theory is a theory that entails
a value judgement: something is better than or worse than something
else. This value judgement can be used to compare the position of
different persons or states of affairs (as in inequality analysis) or it can
be used to judge one course of action as ‘better’ than another course of
action (as in policy design). For all these types of normative theories, we
need normative claims, since concepts alone cannot ground normativity.
The first normative claim which each capability theory should
respect is thus that functionings and capabilities form the ‘evaluative
space’. According to the capability approach, the ends of wellbeing
freedom, justice, and development should be conceptualized in terms
of people’s functionings and/or capabilities. This claim is not contested
28 I am using the term ‘normative’ here in the way it is used by social scientists, hence
encompassing what philosophers call both ‘normative’ and ‘evaluative’. For these
different uses of terminology, see section 2.2. It is also possible to use the notions
of ‘functionings’ and ‘capabilities’ for non-normative purposes (see section 3.10). In
that case, the basic notions from the core are all that one takes from the capability
approach; one does not need this normative part of the core. I will suggest in the
concluding chapter 5 that explanatory applications of the capability approach are
part of how it could be fruitfully developed in the future.