Conditions of Life, Functionings and Capability: Similarities, Differences and Complementary Features

Abstract

The German conditions of life approach to the measurement of well‐being bears some resemblance to the capability approach (CA) and can be said to anticipate some of its features. In particular, both approaches view well‐being as inherently multidimensional and suggest that freedom of choice is an important aspect of well‐being. Conditions of life are viewed as elements that together build an opportunity set from which the person can choose only one element. The paper gives a brief, chronological introduction to the conditions of life approach and considers the differences between the versions proposed by the main authors. Parallels are then drawn between the individual versions of the conditions of life approach and the CA. There are several similarities with the CA, but the conditions of life approach takes up some issues that CA more or less neglects. This thus gives rise to the question of how these issues fit into the CA.

Key words:

• Conditions of life
• Capability
• Measurement of well‐being
• Opportunity sets

Acknowledgements

This paper summarizes part of my PhD thesis (Lessmann, 2007a), written as an external student at the University of Oldenburg. The work was therefore conducted in a domestic situation. I would like to thank my mentors Udo Ebert and Wolfgang Voges for helpful comments on and discussions of my thesis. In addition, I would like to thank Thomas Uebel, Volker Peckhaus, Olaf Jürgens, and three anonymous referees for their valuable suggestions and support. Ian Priestnall did a wonderful job correcting my English.

Notes

1 ‘German’ refers to the language of publication only. Otto Neurath was Austrian.

2 Most contributions to the conditions of life approach are not translated into English. An important exception to this rule is the work of Otto Neurath. Many of his writings have now been translated into English — Neurath and Cohen (1973) and Uebel and Cohen (2004) are the most important collections.

3 There are two translations of the German ‘Lebenslage’, which I use interchangeably throughout the paper: conditions of life, and life‐situation.

4 ‘Total socialization’ means the transition of society into a socialist one. It is also the title of Neurath ([1920] 2004).

5 Otto Neurath (1882–1945) studied mathematics, philosophy, history and economics in Vienna and Berlin. He was one of the leading members of and the organizer of the ‘Vienna Circle’. This group of philosophers, mathematicians and scientists met regularly from the mid‐1920s to the mid‐1930s and discussed epistemological problems. Along with the Berlin Society for Scientific Philosophy, this group pioneered the movement of logical empiricism. Neurath had other interests as well: he founded and headed several museums in the course of his life and developed methods of visual education, which he called ISOTYPE.

6 The original reads: “Eine direkte Abschaetzung der Abstaende scheint nicht recht durchfuehrbar zu sein. Wir haben zwar gesehen, wie man zwei L miteinander vergleichen kann, aber nicht wie zwei Lustabstaende verglichen werden” (Neurath, 1911, p. 96).

7 Two interests of Neurath are combined in his suggestion of using silhouettes: his long‐standing interest in the education of the masses, and his interests in measurement problems. His search for methods of education that allow even illiterate people to understand complex problems has lead him to develop a system of symbols (ISOTYPE). See on this Neurath (1945, 1991) and Nemeth (2003).

8 Kurt Grelling (1886–1942) studied mathematics, physics and philosophy in Goettingen, and thereafter economics in Munich. He was a student and collaborator of the philosopher Leonard Nelson, who stood in the tradition of Immanuel Kant and Jakob Friedrich Fries. Grelling joined a students association (IJB) which was founded by Nelson. His short texts on the conditions of life approach were written as contributions to the informal newsletter of the IJB. Later, Grelling turned his back on the epistemic base of Nelson’s philosophy and joined the Berlin Society for Scientific Philosophy, which formed along with the ‘Vienna Circle’ a second group in the movement of logical empiricism. Grelling’s main areas of interest consisted in symbolic logic, semantics and set‐theory. Further, he translated several writings of Bertrand Russell into German.

9 This is my own translation of Kurt Grelling: “Die Gesamtheit der von einem Menschen in einer bestimmten Periode seines Lebens faktisch befriedigten Interessen, wobei jedes einzelne mit dem Grade zu versehen ist, bis zu welchem es befriedigt wird, will ich die Lebenshaltung dieses Menschen waehrend dieser Periode seines Lebens nennen. Die Gesamtheit der moeglichen Lebenshaltungen, zwischen denen er am Anfang der Periode (etwa bei Aufstellung eines Haushaltsplanes) waehlen kann, nenne ich seine Lebenslage” (Grelling, 1921, p. 1f).

10 Since there is only the one short paper of Grelling where he outlines his conditions of life approach, we can only guess why he introduced freedom of choice in his approach. His mentor Leonard Nelson (1936) always pointed out that a ‘true interest’ demands active choice (on this, see Lessmann, 2007a). Furthermore, Grelling had a strong interest in set theory.

11 Originally: “Interessen sind nicht addierbar und folglich auch nicht zahlenmaessig messbar”.

12 Gerhard Weisser (1898–1989) studied economics and philosophy in Goettingen and Munich. Like Grelling he was a student of Leonard Nelson and joined the students association IJB founded by Nelson. His first writings on the conditions of life approach can be found in the same informal newsletter of the IJB as Grelling’s. After the Second World War, Weisser held a chair on social policy at the University of Cologne. The notion of ‘life‐situations’ formed the starting point of his concept of social policy. At the same time he was engaged in the German social democratic party and in the protestant church of Germany. Subsequently, he made the notion ‘life‐situation’ known among German politicians.

13 This is very difficult to translate. The original reads as follows: “Als Lebenslage gilt der Spielraum, den die aeusssseren Umstaende dem Menschen fuer die Erfuellung der Grundanliegen bieten, die ihn bei der Gestaltung seines Lebens leiten oder bei moeglichst freier und tiefer Selbstbesinnung und zu konsequentem Verhalten hinreichender Willensstaerke leiten wuerden”.

14 Originally: “Die Lebenslage formen sich in einem Prozess, den die Gesellschaft bewirkt und fuer den ihre Mitglieder daher eine originaere Verantwortung tragen” (Weisser, 1956, p. 302).

15 In ‘A Similar Line of Thought in Neurath and Sen: Interpersonal Comparability’ (Lessmann, 2008), I have worked out these ideas in more detail. In ‘Utility and the Measurement of Well‐being: A Similar Line of Thought and a Fundamental Dissent in Neurath and Sen’ (Lessmann, forthcoming), I focus on Neurath’s and Sen’s attitude towards commensurability.

16 At least Sen and Nussbaum agree on the importance of providing people with the opportunity to choose the life they value. Apart from that, the question of paternalism in Nussbaum and Sen deserves a more thorough analysis and discussion.

17 Alkire (2002, p. 40) criticizes the multiplicity of methods Nussbaum uses and asks why the different methods should all support the same list. More recently, Jaggar (2006) criticized “Nussbaum’s methods of justifying the capabilities”.

18 This example also shows that Neurath takes the whole situation into consideration and is opposed to calculate utility by means of adding up utility sums. In particular, he does not believe in additive separability (Lessmann, forthcoming). This is why he demands to draw silhouettes of conditions of life and assess them as a whole.

19 A translation of Neurath (1931) can be found in Neurath and Cohen (1973). However, I have changed the translation of this passage (Neurath [1931] 1973, p. 396) in several ways: I replace “living standards” with ‘life‐situation’ and “terrain of life” with ‘basis of life’, in line with Uebel and Cohen (2004). I have also changed the second sentence in order to grasp its meaning better. The German original is the following: “Sowie man in der Berufspruefung einem jungen Mann allerlei Hebel, Schrauben usw. vorlegt und ihm die Aufgabe stellt, eine Konstellation zu finden, die Hubleistungen ermoeglicht, so kann man bei gegebenem Lebensboden die Frage stellen, welche Lebenslagenleistung eine Lebensordnung erzeugen kann. Die jeweils erzeugte Lebenslage wird selbst zu einem Stueck Lebensboden, mit dem weiterhin gerechnet werden muss” (Neurath, [1931] 1973, p. 119).

20 Sen also refers to freedom of choice as the process aspect of his approach. But Sen does link this process to the time it takes.

21 Namely, Anton Amann (1983) and Rainer Wendt (1984, 1988) have interpreted the conditions of life approach in that way. See also Voges (2002), who draws a parallel to the sociological theory of Coleman (1990).

22 This view is expressed by Schulz‐Nieswandt (1995, p. 59) (but I cannot translate it): “Sozialphilosophisch gesprochen geht es um die Konstitution personaler Identitaet im dialektischen Wechselspiel von Entwurf und Faktizitaet. Philosophisch gesehen ist die Lebenslage daher als ‘In‐der‐Welt‐Sein’ immer beides: Entwurf (Sartre) und Geworfensein (Heidegger)”.

23 Within the CA the importance of time and processes is acknowledged. See especially the contributions to the 3rd Conference on the Capability Approach in 2003 [http://cfs.unipv.it/sen/third.html]. See also Grasso (2002), Comim (2004), Clark and Hulme (2005) and Teschl and Comim (2005).

24 Again I have replaced ‘standard of living’ by ‘conditions of life’ or ‘life‐situation’ and ‘profile’ by ‘silhouette’ in the translation. The original reads as follows: “Man kann nun darangehen, die Lebenslagen verschiedener Menschen auf Grund objektiv angebbarer Merkmale miteinander zu vergleichen. Man kann also in jedem Zeitabschnitt ein Lebenslagenrelief aufstellen, das sich aendert. Zunaechst ist das Lebenslagenrelief derart, dass jedes Individuum besonders behandelt wird. Man kann aber auch verwandte Gruppen zusammenfassen und eine Art Durchschnitt herstellen; etwa Bevoelkerungsklassen auf ihre Lebenslage hin untersuchen” (Neurath, [1931] 1973, pp. 125–126).

25 That is my own translation. Originally: “Mitglieder einer Gesellschaft, deren Spielraum bei der Befriedigung einer Mehrzahl bestimmter lebenswichtiger Interessen annaehernd der gleiche ist, moegen dadurch gekennzeichnet worden, dass sie dem gleichen ‘Lebenslage‐Typus’ angehoeren. Man kann den Versuch machen, den Inhalt des Begriffs ‘Bevoelkerungsschicht’ vom begriff des Lebenslage‐Typus aus zu bestimmen …” (Weisser, 1951, pp. 2–3).

26 Incidentally, a first paper on that subject was presented by Roche (2006) in the same session of the Human Development and Capability Association (HDCA) conference in Groningen at which I presented this paper. Apart from that, Grusky and Kanbur (2006) edited a volume on ‘Poverty and Inequality’ that brings together writings on the capability approach, the measurement of multi‐dimensional poverty and social stratification.

27 Some differences in the conception of capability are present within the CA as well (Lessmann, 2007b).