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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52 <strong>Wellbeing</strong>, <strong>Freedom</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Social</strong> <strong>Justice</strong><br />
among scholars of the capability approach; for example, Sabina Alkire<br />
(2005, 122) described the capability approach as the proposition “that<br />
social arrangements should be evaluated according to the extent of<br />
freedom people have to promote or achieve functionings they value”.<br />
However, if we fully take into account that functionings can be positive<br />
but also negative (see 2.6.2), we should also acknowledge that our lives<br />
are better if they contain fewer of the functionings that are negative,<br />
such as physical violence or stress. Alkire’s proposition should therefore<br />
minimally be extended by adding “<strong>and</strong> to promote the weakening of<br />
those functionings that have a negative value”. 29<br />
However, what is relevant is not only which opportunities are<br />
open to us individually, hence in a piecemeal way, but rather which<br />
combinations or sets of potential functionings are open to us. For example,<br />
suppose you are a low-skilled poor single parent who lives in a society<br />
without decent social provisions. Take the following functionings: (1)<br />
to hold a job, which will require you to spend many hours on working<br />
<strong>and</strong> commuting, but will generate the income needed to properly feed<br />
yourself <strong>and</strong> your family; (2) to care for your children at home <strong>and</strong> give<br />
them all the attention, care <strong>and</strong> supervision they need. In a piecemeal<br />
analysis, both (1) <strong>and</strong> (2) are opportunities open to that parent, but<br />
they are not both together open to her. <strong>The</strong> point about the capability<br />
approach is precisely that it is comprehensive; we must ask which sets<br />
of capabilities are open to us, that is: can you simultaneously provide<br />
for your family <strong>and</strong> properly care for <strong>and</strong> supervise your children? Or<br />
are you rather forced to make some hard, perhaps even tragic choices<br />
between two functionings which are both central <strong>and</strong> valuable?<br />
Note that while most types of capability analysis require<br />
interpersonal comparisons, one could also use the capability approach<br />
to evaluate the wellbeing or wellbeing freedom of one person at one<br />
point in time (e.g. evaluate her situation against a capability yardstick)<br />
or to evaluate the changes in her wellbeing or wellbeing freedom over<br />
29 Moreover, further extensions of this proposition may be needed. One issue is that<br />
we should not only focus on capabilities that people value, but also on capabilities<br />
that they do not, but should, value (see section 2.7.2). Another issue is that the<br />
evaluative space should not necessarily be restricted to capabilities only, but could<br />
also be functionings, or a combination of functionings <strong>and</strong> capabilities (see section<br />
2.6.5).