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

2. Core Ideas and the Framework
59
means (including social institutions, structures, and norms) as well as
conversion factors, as well as non-capabilitarian elements of value — as
long as we are clear what the role or status of each of those elements is. 35
Note that the use of the term ‘normative individualism’ is deeply
disputed. Some scholars see no problem at all in using that term,
since they use it in a technical sense that they believe should not be
conflated with any pejorative use of the term ‘individualism’ in daily
life. Other scholars resist the term ‘ethical individualism’, since they
cannot separate it from (a) the notions of ontological and explanatory
individualism, and/or (b) from the pejorative meaning that the term
‘individualism’ has in daily life, which is probably close to a term such
as ‘egoism’. While the first group is, in my view, right, the second group
conveys important information about how the capability approach will
be perceived in a broader setting, including outside academia. It may
therefore be recommendable to replace the term ‘ethical or normative
individualism’ with the term ‘the principle of each person as an end’
whenever possible.
optional content
I believe that the best way to understand the capability approach is
by taking the content of the A-module as non-optional. All capability
theories need to endorse the content of the A-module (ideally in an
explicit way) or at a very minimum should not have properties that
violate the content of the A-module. But there are also properties of a
capability theory where the module is non-optional, yet there is choice
involved in the content of the module. This doesn’t mean that ‘anything
goes’ in terms of the choice of the content, but it does mean that within
each module, there is a range of options to choose from. These are
the B-modules, each of which contains a range of possible content,
35 However, the question remains whether the capability approach is fully compatible
with indigenous world views and normative frameworks, as well as thick forms
of communitarianism. This is a question that doesn’t allow for a straightforward
answer, and requires more analysis. For some first explorations of the compatibility
of indigenous world views with the capability approach, see Binder and Binder
(2016); Bockstael and Watene (2016); Watene (2016).