Sen is not a capability theorist^†

† The paper has been presented at the PHARE Seminar of Economic Philosophy (Paris, May 2014), at the 18th meeting of the European Society of the History of Economic Thought (Lausanne, May 2014), and at the 2nd International Conference for Philosophy and Economics (Strasbourg, October 2014).

Abstract

This paper aims to clarify the status of capability in Sen’s idea of justice. Sen’s name is so widely associated with the concept of capability that commentators often assume that his contribution to the study of justice amounts to a capability theory, albeit underdeveloped. We argue that such a reading is misleading. Taking Sen’s reticence about operationalization seriously, we show that his contribution is inconsistent with a capability theory. Instead, we defend the idea that the capability approach plays a heuristic role: capability is a step in his argument against alternative materials, but is not meant as a definitive end. Sen defends a critical perspective primarily to encourage public reasoning and respect for agency as regards the definition of what should count in the evaluation of social states.

Keywords:

• capability
• capability theory
• welfarism
• justice
• operationalization
• paternalism
• agency
• public reasoning

JEL codes:

• A13
• B41
• D63
• D79
• I31

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank the participants at these events for their comments, including Catherine Audard, Emmanuelle Bénicourt, Constance Binder, Judith Favereau, and Bob Sugden. We are grateful to Béatrice Cherrier, John Davis, Alain Marciano, Fabienne Peter, Philippe Solal, Alex Voorhoeve, and an anonymous referee for their comments on previous versions of the paper, and Ben Young for proofreading. We also thank Amartya Sen who, being aware of the paper and what it shows, kindly checked and accepted our using of certain quotes from the forthcoming conversation. The usual caveat holds.

Notes

† The paper has been presented at the PHARE Seminar of Economic Philosophy (Paris, May 2014), at the 18th meeting of the European Society of the History of Economic Thought (Lausanne, May 2014), and at the 2nd International Conference for Philosophy and Economics (Strasbourg, October 2014).

1. This conversation has been transcribed in a paper for Social Choice and Welfare (Baujard et al., in press). See especially 20’20”–20’45” in the online movie ‘A conversation with Amartya Sen’, Forge Numérique MRSH Caen, online since 06/07/2010, persistent address [url: http://www.unicaen.fr/recherche/mrsh/forge/262].

2. Aggregation should be here taken in its broadest sense, i.e. a way to rank social states on the basis of the description of individual situations within these states. It includes two cases. First, we reduce the full description of each individual situation to a single collective outcome, e.g. with computing the sum of utilities in the utilitarian theory. Second, we rank the distributions of such states, e.g. following egalitarian or prioritarianist rules.

3. In philosophical approaches, the second stage is often more complex than the mere definition of aggregative or distributive principles (see, for instance, the diverse modules of the cartwheel view in Robeyns (2016), once the material is chosen). But, what we claim is that the two stages are a minima present in philosophical theories of justice (see, e.g. Robeyns, 2011).

4. These references do not necessarily fall within the formal welfarism framework, but they share the idea that a theory of justice needs a predefined material of justice.

5. For a precise definition of the capability approach, see Robeyns (2016). In reaction to Martha Nussbaum’s description (Nussbaum, 2011), she offers a less restricted characterization of both the core of the capability approach, and the ways it can be developed in a very wide range of more specific normative theories, under the common name of capabilitarianism. Robeyns’ characterization is illuminating in many aspects, and paves the way for a diversity of usages and theories. Nevertheless, her characterization was not aimed to help in understanding the status of Sen’s capability approach in his contribution to the issue of justice.

6. See for instance Nussbaum (2003, p. 35): ‘the view is suggestive, but basically silent’.

7. Shapiro (2011), for instance, regrets that Sen does not resolve the trilemma raised in the ‘flute example’ by means of his capability approach. In the flute example, we need to decide which of three children should get a flute: Anne, the one who knows how to play it; Bob, the poorest who has no other toys; or Carla, who made the flute. Sen (2009, pp. 12–15) shows that the decision will differ depending on the material chosen – e.g. utility, resources, or effort, but surprisingly not capability – all of which may be considered relevant.

8. Note that Carter speaks of the capability approach in general. But in so far as he considers the existence of a list to be necessary, what Carter calls a capability approach is what we in this paper call a capability theory. In this regard, our view is consistent with that of Robeyns (2016).

9. A central claim from the freedom of choice literature is that it is impossible to attribute a value simultaneously to utility and to freedom. For a discussion of whether it is formally and conceptually possible to derive proper judgments over social states based on these two distinct values, see Baujard (2011). For an axiomatic description of one possible solution with threshold, see Baujard and Gaspart (2004).

10. This view contrasts with certain claims in the literature. According to Robeyns (2009, p. 407), while ‘being happy’ may considered as a subjective capability, it should be a priori excluded from the selection of capabilities for it is not a legitimate ground on which citizens can make claims on each other in the public realm.

11. For instance, see Sen’s explicit stance against interpretations of his work as a ‘capability-based theory of justice’: ‘this could be true only in the rather limited sense of naming something according to a principal part of it’ (Sen, 2004, p. 337, footnote 38). More recently, he clearly distinguishes ‘the fullness and the definitive achievements’ of capability-based theories of justice such as Nussbaum’s (1999) from ‘the informational perspective on which they are based’ (Sen, 2009, p. 232).

12. To a certain extent our analysis echoes Qizilbash’s (2007) distinction between thick and thin views on the capability approach. Qizilbash (2007, p. 170) calls a ‘thin view’ on the capability approach ‘arguments in favor of capability and functioning as significant evaluative spaces’; and he defines the ‘thick view’ as arguments which stress the importance of public reasoning for dealing with the evaluative issues that arise in the application of the capability approach. According to us, it is correct that public reasoning is at the core of Sen’s theory of justice. However, we show that this has no necessary relation to an application of the capability approach.