Irreducibly social goods and the informational basis of Amartya Sen's capability approach

✍ Scribed by CHARLES GORE

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1997
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 168 KB
• Volume: 9
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0954-1748
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-1328(199703)9:2<235::aid-jid436>3.0.co;2-j

✦ Synopsis

This paper argues that Sen's capability approach requires that judgements about the relative goodness of states of aairs must be based exclusively on properties' of individuals. Functionings and capabilities are seen, like utility and opulence, as objects of value which individuals have Ð achieved or attainable eects which are disembedded from the institutional contexts of human activity. If such contexts are intrinsically valuable for individual well-being, as some communitarians' argue, the capability approach is inappropriate for assessing social justice, societal well-being and development, and inequalities in individual well-being across cultures or in multicultural societies.