Capability Egalitarianism and Moral Selfhood

Transcription

1 Capability Egalitarianism and Moral Selfhood John M. Alexander ABSTRACT Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum advocate that a person s quality of life and equal standing in society should be evaluated in terms of capabilities rather than utility, income or resources. In this article, I critically examine the concept of the person that underpins the capability approach. I argue that the ideal of equality of capability articulates a nonutilitarian and non-liberal view of the self. KEYWORDS Equality; Capabilities; Positive Freedom; Selfhood; Amartya Sen; Martha Nussbaum AUTHOR INFORMATION John M. Alexander, PhD candidate. Institute of Philosophy, K.U.Leuven, Kard. Mercierplein 2, B-3000 Leuven (Belgium). joalmichael@hotmail.com Introduction Many egalitarian philosophers are troubled by the disparity between the living standards of the rich and the poor in modern societies and by the disparity between the average living standards of people in developed and underdeveloped countries. However, they find it difficult to agree on the appropriate criterion or measure by which people should be accounted as equal. It could be argued that one of the fundamental reasons for this disagreement are the intuitive moral ideas on the human person or the self that egalitarian philosophers want to preserve and promote in formulating egalitarian principles. Rawls was motivated to propose his ideal of equality of primary goods in order to overcome the limitations of the utilitarian view of the human person. Utilitarianism sees persons as locations or sites of utility where activities such as having pleasure or pain, happiness, and desire-fulfillment take place. It does not intrinsically value the qualitative separateness of persons and their freedom of choice. Rawls, on the contrary, considers that each person is an end and possesses an inviolable capacity for freedom and self-determination understood as the ability to form, revise and rationally pursue her own conception of the good. The self, says Rawls, is prior to the ends which are affirmed by it. 1 Consequently, a liberal society based on justice as fairness, without imposing any particular conception of the human good, distributes equal amounts of primary goods of basic liberties, freedom of movement and choice of occupation, powers and prerogatives of offices and positions of responsibility, income and wealth and the social bases of self-respect, to its citizens in accordance with the Difference Principle so that their capacity for self-determination is not violated. * This article is a revised version of the paper presented at the conference Promoting Women s Capabilities: examining Nussbaum s Approach, September 2002, University of Cambridge, UK. I thank Martha Nussbaum for her presence and insightful comments during the presentation of this paper. I am also very grateful to Antoon Vandevelde, William Desmond, Roger Burggraeve, Yvonne Denier, Thomas Nys, Sahayadas Fernando and S. G. Selvam for helpful comments on an earlier version of this article. Ethical Perspectives 10 (2003)1, p. 3

2 Dworkin agrees with Rawls s rejection of the utilitarian view of the person and his effort to put back people s capacity for freedom and self-determination at the heart of the egalitarian conception. However, Dworkin thinks that Rawls s equality of primary goods does not explicitly 2 address the issue of individual responsibility. Rawls s Difference Principle, Dworkin points out, demands that the position of the worst off group be improved no matter what the consequences for those who do not belong to this group. It does not take account of the impact of transfer of people s hard-earned income and wealth to the undeserving poor. To overcome the limitation of the unfair transfer and to hold people fully responsible, he proposes the ideal of equality of resources that makes a clear distinction between people s choices and their circumstances. Dworkin s equality of resources thus recommends compensating individuals only for aspects for which they are not responsible which nevertheless obstruct their achievements of whatever is valuable in life. Differences that arise due to acts, attitudes, preferences and beliefs for which they are responsible do not fall under the purview of justice. 3 In this essay, I argue that capability egalitarianism advocated by Sen and Nussbaum in its conception of the human person follows and at the same time breaks with forms of liberal egalitarianism advocated by Rawls and Dworkin. It continues the tradition of liberal egalitarianism insofar as it unequivocally rejects the utilitarian moral view of the person and upholds the liberal principles of freedom and responsibility. It breaks with the liberal tradition because it focuses on equalizing capabilities to functionings rather than primary goods or resources. This is based on the philosophical conviction that all people could flourish better as free and responsible moral agents in situations where a substantial account of the human good is affirmed in the form of some basic capabilities. I develop my arguments in three stages. The first part examines Sen s ideal of equality of capability in its relation to the notion of positive freedom in order to show that for Sen both the wellbeing and the agency aspect of the person, and individual capabilities and non-individualized social goods 4 play a normative role in arriving at egalitarian judgments. It also points out that Sen s equality of capability should be seen more as a framework to think about normative issues on equality than a substantive egalitarian theory because of Sen s deliberate decision not to develop a systematic account of capabilities. The second part critically explores Nussbaum s attempt to develop a particular variety of capability egalitarianism based on a list of central human capabilities. It highlights some important features of Nussbaum s list of capabilities in order to demonstrate how it complements Sen s egalitarian framework and differentiates itself from Rawls s and Dworkin s understanding of what it is to be a human person or a self. The third part, identifying the common elements in Sen s egalitarian framework and Nussbaum s list of capabilities, elucidates three important intuitive moral ideas of the human person that underpin capability egalitarianism. The elucidations that I put forward here first of all involve an exploration of the notion of the self that identifies the crucial features of human agency. It is therefore an ethical inquiry rather than an empirical, psychological or ontological one. Furthermore, these elucidations also involve a hermeneutical exercise of interpreting the capability approach advocated by Sen and Nussbaum. But this is done keeping in mind the broader philosophical implications of the capability approach itself. 1. Sen s capability egalitarian framework Sen points out that the most appropriate way of evaluating people s equal standing in society is to focus on their capabilities to achieve different human functionings. 5 Capabilities refer to the set of real opportunities and choices available to a person in leading a life. And they can range from the most basic capabilities such as adequate nourishment and health to more complex ones such as Ethical Perspectives 10 (2003)1, p. 4

3 achieving self-respect and participation in social and political life. We could say that by proposing to equalize people s capabilities, Sen s capability approach differs from utilitarian theories that evaluate people s quality of life exclusively in terms of their welfare interpreted as pleasure, happiness or desire-fulfilment. It also differs from resourcebased theories of equality that concentrate on income, primary goods or resources overlooking the fact that the transformation of resources into a person s capabilities varies depending on people s physical and psychological make-up, external environment and social circumstances. One of the important aspects of Sen s ideal of equality of capability is that it is a freedom-centred approach. 6 By looking at a person s overall real opportunities and choices that go together to constitute a person s capability set, we could have a fairly good idea of the actual freedom enjoyed by that person. This is the reason why Sen says that capabilities are notions of freedom, in the positive sense: what real opportunities you have regarding the life you may lead. 7 Sen s four-fold distinctions of the notion of positive freedom into well-being and agency freedom on the one hand and control and effective freedom on the other are particularly important to understand the moral view of the person that underpins his egalitarian proposals. Well-being and agency freedom The first set of distinction concerns well-being and agency freedom. Well-being freedom refers to a person s opportunities and choices in the context of her personal advantage. Agency freedom refers to opportunities and choices available to a person to form and to pursue goals, commitments and obligations whose outcome need not be advantageous to the agent herself. Agency freedom, therefore, could be considered as a broader concept than well-being because of what Sen calls its open conditionality that enables the person, as a responsible agent, to pursue whatever the person decides to pursue. Well-being freedom does not necessarily indicate this open conditionality because of its focus on various capabilities to achieve particular functionings. 8 It is important to keep in mind that even though Sen distinguishes well-being from agency freedom, he is also keen on showing how they are in fact related to each other. A person s well-being freedom could be enhanced when she is able to pursue goals and obligations that are beneficial to other agents such as her family, group, community, and nation. Similarly, it is possible that the person s well-being is likely to diminish under circumstances that hinder pursuing these commitments. But what Sen insists is that this causal link does not warrant collapsing the distinction: the ranking of alternative opportunities from the point of view of agency need not be the same as the ranking in terms of well-being, and thus the judgments of agency freedom and well-being freedom can move in contrary directions. So, even though agency freedom is broader than well-being freedom, the former cannot subsume the latter. 9 Sen is, obviously, reluctant to collapse this distinction because while in the perspective of agency freedom a person is seen as a doer and judge, the same person is seen as a beneficiary in the perspective of well-being freedom. For Sen, both aspects of freedom have their independent and normative importance in arriving at egalitarian judgements. In the context of public policy issues such as social security arrangement or planning for the fulfilment of basic needs, or what responsible citizens could reasonably expect from the state, it might be more important to concentrate on wellbeing freedom, without of course neglecting their involvement and participation. On the other hand, in many matters of personal morality it might be more reasonable to focus on the agency aspect and on one s responsibility to others. The idea of correlating the well-being aspect and the agency aspect of the person and treating both as normative considerations for evaluating people s equal standing in society makes Sen s understanding of the human person remarkably different from utilitarianism. Utilitarianism seldom distinguishes these two aspects and very often Ethical Perspectives 10 (2003)1, p. 5

4 moves towards a monistic normative evaluation on the basis of well-being alone. Furthermore, Sen s understanding of the human person could also be considered as more comprehensive than Rawls s and Dworkin s understanding insofar as it recognizes in full measure the importance of human diversity such as personal characteristics, social circumstances and environmental conditions that play a crucial role in transforming resources into well-being freedom and agency freedom. Nussbaum, however, seems to think that Sen s well-being/agency distinction does not bring any additional clarity to the concept of freedom in the capability approach. This could be captured in the capability/functioning distinction itself. Moreover, the idea of well-being always invites association with the utilitarian notion of enjoying well-being that does not involve active well-being and freedom. 10 Nussbaum s objection could be answered this way: if the distinction between well-being and agency freedom is seen as an elaboration of the notion of positive freedom, then, contrary to Nussbaum s observation, it does have a crucial importance in Sen s capability egalitarian framework at least in two respects. First, making the distinction between well-being and agency freedom helps to affirm that the capability approach values people s freedom and choice not only for instrumental reasons but for intrinsic reasons as well. While wellbeing freedom emphasizes the need to focus on the possibility of achieving different functionings, agency freedom also offers the possibility of focusing on freedom and choice per se. Second, in Sen s capability approach both the well-being and agency aspect are active concepts and do not coincide with the usual distinction between patient and agent. This avoids any association with the passive utilitarian notion of well-being. 11 Control and effective freedom We now come to Sen s second set of distinction: control and effective freedom. This distinction demonstrates Sen s argument for the interdependence between individual s capabilities and nonindividualized social goods. Control freedom refers to opportunities that are the outcome of a person s own exercise of choice. The role of other agents is minimal. Effective freedom refers to opportunities that are the outcome of other agents such as the family, community or state. The person is either a mere beneficiary or his exercise of control is very minimal. The contrast between effective power [effective freedom] and procedural control [control freedom] is important in practice. It is often not possible to organize society in such a way that people can directly exercise the levers that control all the important aspects of their personal lives. To try to see freedom exclusively in terms of control is to miss out on the demands of freedom when control cannot feasibly be exercised by the persons themselves. 12 Sen s motivation for retaining this distinction between control and effective freedom is to recognize the importance of economic, social and political structures that either facilitate or hamper individual capabilities. Persons acquire, exercise and enhance their capabilities depending on their social circumstances. For example, a female child growing up in a Dalit (untouchable caste) family in rural India faces fewer opportunities for education, employment and social life than her counterparts in the families of other castes. A citizen of some of the European countries receives more support from the state social security system in times of illness and unemployment than someone in America. A child born in Ethiopia has a much lower life expectancy and facilities for health care at birth than a child born, say, in any of the Scandinavian countries. Today, while it is not uncommon to think of freedom mostly in terms of individual s privilege and achievement, Sen reminds of its other important dimension. Freedom is one of the most powerful social ideas. 13 Freedoms such as freedom from hunger, freedom from malaria, freedom from unsafe streets and neighbourhoods, freedom from race, caste and gender discrimination, and freedom from polluted environment are results of effective freedom Ethical Perspectives 10 (2003)1, p. 6

5 brought about by interventions of responsible communities and governments. It would be unreasonable to expect individuals to exercise direct control in these situations of effective freedom. Operationalization of capabilities While it could be admitted that Sen s equality of capability has made considerable conceptual advancement from utilitarianism and other resource -based theories, it does encounter a number of difficulties at the stage of operationalizing capabilities. Not only the critics but also the researchers and advocates of the capability approach point this out. 14 The first one concerns the problem of valuation of capabilities. Given the fact that different people and societies attach in varying degrees what doings and beings should count as important and what trivial, it is difficult to identify, discriminate and select the most important capabilities as a measure for evaluating people s equal standing. The valuation of capabilities poses a further formidable challenge because of the broader informational base that Sen s equality of capability requires. A person could be considered as receiving an equal treatment insofar as she enjoys more or less the same extent of well-being freedom and agency freedom as others in society. The second difficulty is concerned with the indexing of capabilities. Sen has not so far proposed a complete ordering of capabilities that will help us to say that one person s capability set is richer or better than another s. This becomes much more difficult when we judge the equal standing of people belonging to different societies and cultures. What a person in one culture considers as the most enriching capability for the good human life, a person in another culture might consider it impoverishing. One way of resolving these difficulties, is to follow what Sen himself does. This is to realize that the valuation of capabilities and the partial ordering of capability sets are intrinsic parts of the capability approach. This calls for an ongoing democratic exercise of selection of capabilities. The need for selection and discrimination, says Sen, is neither an embarrassment, nor a unique difficulty, for the conceptualisation of functionings and capabilities. 15 This is the reason why he suggests that in the practical application of the capability approach we need to creatively follow different strategies. Sometimes we could try the capability approach in the most direct and full-blooded way. At other times, pragmatic wisdom might prompt us to use it as an indirect and supplementary approach to complement evaluation based on income, primary goods or resources. 16 For the reason of preserving the democratic and pluralistic character of the capability approach, what Sen has so far resisted is to develop a systematic account of basic capabilities and provide a substantive egalitarian theory. I have not gone beyond outlining a space and some general features of a combining formula, and this obviously falls far short of being a complete theory of justice. Such a complete theory is not what I am seeking Nussbaum s list of capabilities While Sen is contented in offering the capability approach as an evaluative framework, Nussbaum develops it as a substantive theory of justice by providing a normative content: It seems to me, then, that Sen needs to be more radical than he has been so far by introducing an objective normative account of human functioning and by describing a procedure of objective evaluation by which functionings can be assessed for their contribution to the good human life. 18 Drawing inspiration from Aristotle-Marx s conception of truly human functioning and focusing on the idea of human dignity, she proposes a systematic list of central capabilities that could serve as benchmarks for governments, public policy makers and people involved in development issues to think about what equality is. Nussbaum s list of central capabilities includes capabilities such as living a long life and avoiding premature death, having good health and adequate nourishment, freedom of movement, freedom from assault, freedom of choice regarding sexual matters, the ability and the opportunity to use one s senses, imagination, thinking and practical reason, Ethical Perspectives 10 (2003)1, p. 7

6 and the ability to engage in various forms of familial, social and political relationships. 19 In Nussbaum s thinking these central capabilities represent a thick vague conception of the human being because it (in contrast to Rawls s thin theory of the human good) provides a comprehensive conception of human functionings but at the same time allows space for cultural specifications. She also describes this way of conceiving equality as broad and deep because it aims at bringing everyone in society, instead of just a few elite into circumstances and conditions in which a good human life may be chosen; it focuses on distributing not only money, offices, land and other things but ensuring the totality of human functioning that constitute the good human life. 20 It is important to note that the list of capabilities, for Nussbaum, functions as a threshold below which a human person could not be considered as living in a truly human way. The political distribution of society should be arranged such that every citizen should be enabled to cross this threshold. While Sen hardly ever speaks of a threshold or level of capabilities in his egalitarian framework, in Nussbaum s version of the capability approach, the notion of threshold plays an important role in order to ensure basic central human capabilities to everyone in society. Nussbaum s version of egalitarianism, therefore, could be called capability egalitarianism with threshold. Capabilities: powers and possibilities By providing a normative content of central capabilities to what is left open and unspecified in Sen s framework, Nussbaum has further clarified and enriched the concept of capabilities. We shall here briefly point out three of these features. First, Nussbaum, by her concept of combined capabilities, has made it explicit that capabilities should be thought of as a person s internal powers and external opportunities. As David Crocker points out, Sen is largely inclined to use a language that explains capabilities as opportunities or options available to a person rather than explicitly referring to them as internal powers. If and when he refers to capabilities as powers, he refers to them for instrumental reasons. For Sen, says Crocker, capabilities are not powers of the person that might or might not be realized in different situations. They are, rather, options (sets of compossible options) for actions. Sen s concept of capability as possibility focuses rather on options for actions. These options may refer to but are not identical with traits of a person. 21 By suggesting that capabilities are in fact a combined result of a person s powers and possibilities, Nussbaum reiterates the idea that a theory of equality should focus both on the proper development of the internal powers of the person and at the same time facilitate proper conditions for the exercise of these powers. As Nussbaum points out, Aristotle explicitly addresses this issue in many of his ethical and political writings. 22 An effective political arrangement of distribution, for Aristotle, would be the one that focuses both on the nurturing of human potentials as well as external structures that sustain this. This is the reason why he recommends, on the one hand, that the legislator should focus on the provision of adequate scheme of education of the young and adults, and that if people are to become capable of functioning well, education must be the concern of the political sphere and not merely a private affair. And, on the other hand, Aristotle also discusses in very concrete details how the same legislator should be concerned about providing external structures and living conditions that could positively support people s exercise of various personal and social functions. This is what leads him to recommend subsidy for the poor to enable them to participate in common meals, to argue against Plato s communism of property for creating space for people to exercise choice and to intrinsically link citizenship with people s judicial and deliberative participation. Moral philosopher Bernard Williams too pursues a similar line of reasoning. He thinks that the notion of capability would be limited when we refer to them either only as powers or as Ethical Perspectives 10 (2003)1, p. 8

7 possibilities. It should include both these aspects. He suggests, therefore, that we think of capabilities as sets of co-realizable capabilities, and about social states in which people acquire various ranges of capability. 23 Practical reason and affiliation Now, we come to the second important feature of Nussbaum s list of capabilities. Among the list of capabilities, Nussbaum considers the capabilities of practical reason and affiliation as the most morally significant ones because they influence and fill all other capabilities making them fully human. Practical reason refers to the ability to form a conception of the good and to engage in critical reflection about the planning of one s life. Affiliation refers to being able to live with and towards others expressed in different forms of personal relationships such as the family and friends, as well as relationships of a political nature as citizens in various kinds of interactions with other citizens. It is difficult to imagine a decent human life devoid of these seminal capabilities. For example, functions of nourishing, using our senses, and sexual fulfilment become truly human only to the extent that these are guided and moderated by reason and are satisfied in the context of others. Similarly, the functioning of performing a job becomes a truly human activity only when the employee is given the opportunity to exercise her practical reason and to perform it with and towards others. 24 From one point of view, we could say that Nussbaum s architectonic capabilities of practical reason and affiliation find similarities with Rawls s understanding of the human person. Rawls emphasizes that the two moral powers of the person, namely, the capacity for an effective sense of justice and the capacity to form, revise and rationally pursue a conception of the good, play a central role in arriving at the liberal theory of justice. 25 This is similar to Nussbaum s understanding of practical reason and Sen s concept of agency freedom. We could also say that Rawls is concerned with the capability of affiliation when he insists that the subject of justice as fairness is basic structures of society and that such conception must be one by which citizens can live together and cooperate with each other. However, there is an important difference between Rawls s theory and Nussbaum s proposal, which we could trace back to their respective moral views of the person. Rawls distinguishes between a conception of the person and a theory of human nature. The conception of the person, in his understanding, is primarily characterised by the two moral powers: the capacity for a sense of justice and conception of the good. A theory of human nature, on the contrary, is the one that takes into account people s needs, natural abilities, social positions, contingencies of luck, and so on. 26 In Rawls s equality of primary goods these ideas are distinct elements and enter at different stages. At the level of the Original Position where the parties formulate the principles of justice that would govern the distribution of primary goods, it is the conception of the person with its two moral powers that is taken into consideration. Elements concerning human nature play no role whatsoever. If that were the case, Rawls would have then given a normative consideration to natural primary goods such as health, handicaps, natural talents etc. that in fact affect in crucial ways people s ability to transform primary goods into different functionings. It is only at the second stage, the legislative or constitutional stage where the principles of justice are applied concretely to existing structures of society, that elements concerning human needs and diversities are taken into consideration. Rawls s separation of moral powers from elements of human nature comes perhaps from his Kantian heritage. In Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant affirms that a person is moved to act morally by the pure good will. The good will, for him, shines like a jewel and is superior to any of the other characteristics of the person such as needs, desires, talents and temperaments. This tendency to split the moral and the natural is also seen in his methodology of arriving at the categorical imperative. The good Ethical Perspectives 10 (2003)1, p. 9

8 will excludes and harnesses all desires, inclinations and needs, and any forms of external influences and controls in order to move towards a stage where it can freely determine itself in accordance with the supreme principle of autonomy. 27 Nussbaum questions precisely the legitimacy of the Kant-Rawls s split between the moral and natural order. She thinks that not only a person s moral powers but also elements of human nature demand normative consideration in the egalitarian conception. This is the reason why Nussbaum s list of capabilities contains many items of what Rawls calls natural primary goods such as health, intellect, emotion, imagination and natural talents knowing that unless citizens are provided with the appropriate social basis to make good the differences they cannot humanly exercise their reason and enjoy different forms of personal, social and political relationships. We need to recall here that Sen also moves in that direction. In Sen s egalitarian framework, both the agency aspect and the wellbeing aspect of the person are taken to be normatively important in the distribution of resources. The list of capabilities: democratic and open-ended The third feature of Nussbaum s list of capabilities that we must highlight is the kind of methodology or procedure that is followed in reaching the list of capabilities. Nussbaum mentions three interrelated procedures. First, the list of central capabilities is arrived at through an internalistic perspective that reflects on our own human conditions and experiences and examines a wide variety of self-interpretation of human being in different societies and cultures. It is not meant to be an externalist inquiry that looks for a value-neutral scientific or metaphysical account of human nature. Getting the list of functionings that are constitutive of good living, Nussbaum points out, is a matter of asking ourselves what is most important, what is essential part of any life that is going to be rich enough to count as truly human. A being totally detached from human experience and choice could not, I think, make such a judgement. 28 Second, the list is a result of a critical participation of the community. Aristotle is a good example to explain what this means. Using the Socratic method, he would make his pupils and audience to think along with him critically. He would more often pose questions rather than give ready-made answers to ethical inquiries and philosophical problems. In today s context, the idea of critical participation requires two processes: one, we listen to people of different cultures, to their stories and myths, customs and intellectual traditions for discerning what according to them are the most central human capabilities; two, we also critically reflect with them to identify elements in their cultures that could seriously hamper living the good human life. This is done in an atmosphere of openness and sincerity. Third, the list of capabilities is provisional and open-ended. As a result of dialogue with other cultures and societies, Nussbaum s list of capabilities offers the possibility for revision and reformulation. New capabilities could be added or the existing ones could be reformulated to accommodate local particularities. It only claims that in these areas of capabilities, it is possible to work for a Rawlsian sense of an overlapping consensus to reiterate certain universal features. It must be pointed out here that Nussbaum has always approached the issue of equality with certain pragmatism and realism. She has often insisted that the present condition of the world demands that we first work for equality where everyone in the world will reach a threshold of these capabilities. Because of this we might call her approach a theory of partial equality. But what should be however kept in mind is that Nussbaum s threshold of capabilities does not foreclose a movement towards complete equality with more complex and richer capabilities. The open-ended nature of the list makes room for this possibility. 3. Three features of the self So far, I have argued that Nussbaum s list of central human capabilities further specifies and complements Ethical Perspectives 10 (2003)1, p. 10

9 Sen s egalitarian framework centred on positive freedom. I have also shown that the forms of equality of capability advanced by Sen and Nussbaum differ in some important respects from the utilitarian and Rawls s understanding of what it means to be a human person or a self. Now, I shall articulate three important features of the moral self that capability egalitarianism wishes to promote. Although each of these features could be pursued more elaborately, and also the divergent position between Sen and Nussbaum further highlighted, the purpose here is to indicate the direction of such a task. Individual capabilities and non-individualized social goods The first feature of the self that supports the equality of capability conception is concerned with the relationship between the individuals and community. Since the aim of capability egalitarianism is to equalize people s capability to function, it focuses on the individual person as the most basic unit of analysis and comparison. Political arrangement of distribution is evaluated to be just and effective only insofar as all individuals in that arrangement enjoy more or less an equal amount of real opportunities and valuable choices in leading meaningful human lives. Focusing on larger units of analysis such as the family, class, caste, gender, cultural or religious community, nation and so on are useful and even necessary under certain contexts and circumstances in order to evaluate the structural or institutional support for individuals. However, such focus often runs the danger of hiding many forms of deprivation and unequal distribution to the individuals belonging to these collectives. The capability approach thus focuses primarily on individual s capabilities, but stresses also the importance of the institutional framework for enhancing individual freedom. This is the reason why Nussbaum emphasizes that the principle of each person s capability and the idea of the individual as the basic political subject play a central role in the equality of capability conception. 29 These principles motivate us to ask: Does each person enjoy access to the capabilities enlisted in the threshold or at least, stands the chance of crossing this threshold? What are the real opportunities and valuable choices available to each and every individual? Sen also substantiates this need to focus on the individual s capability set in terms of well-being freedom and agency freedom on the one hand and well-being achievement and agency achievement on the other. He argues that an aggregate understanding of the family can do harm to individuals well-being and freedom and that the problems of hunger and malnutrition should not be seen only as an entitlement failure of the family but also as a problem of distribution of entitlements within the family. 30 Both for Sen and Nussbaum, the rationale for pursuing such line of inquiry are twofold: first, it is based on the moral conviction that each person is valuable and worthy of respect as an end that cannot be overridden by some aggregative concerns and procedures; second, we do this by way of strategy in combating entrenched evil social practices that do not give importance to the well-being and freedom of individuals. Yet, it must be emphasized that along with its focus on promoting individual s capabilities, it is typical of the capability approach to be simultaneously concerned about capabilities that are strictly speaking not individual capabilities. These include public goods such as transport, hospitals, parks, museums, healthy environment etc. as well as what Charles Taylor calls the irreducibly social goods such as language, culture, social ethos etc. 31 I shall refer to both of them with the common term non-individualized social goods. These goods are enjoyed collectively, rather than by individuals, on their own account. A healthy environment, for example, is a non-individualized social good. If a healthy environment that is free from malaria and other endemic diseases is secured for one person living in a particular region, others living in the community enjoy its benefit as well. This is true in the case of a language, which seems to be the essential feature of a community. Unless the Ethical Perspectives 10 (2003)1, p. 11

10 community as a whole is granted the assurance of preserving this social good, it is difficult to promote the capabilities of individual persons to speak their language and to lead valuable human lives. We have earlier referred to Sen s idea of effective freedom understood as the freedom enjoyed by individuals through the presence of non-individualized social goods ranging from hunger-free economic arrangements to societies free from class, caste, colour, and gender discrimination. The reason for paying attention to non-individualized social goods is based on the realization that individuals acquire and develop their capabilities in the context of economic and social arrangements. A closer look at Nussbaum s list of capabilities reveals that it is in fact a delicate balancing of both individual capabilities and non-individualized social goods. It is often wrongly assumed that because the capability approach strives to guarantee to every individual some basic capabilities, it necessarily involves individualism or atomistic egoism. But this is not the case. Both individuals and their participation in the community are two vital elements that guide evaluation in the capability approach. On the contrary, individualism could be attributed only to egalitarian theories that do not recognise the independent existence and value of non-individualized social goods and to philosophical conceptions that conceive of relationships between individuals in terms of social contract. 32 Neither of these two could be attributed to equality of capability conception. Sen and Nussbaum have consistently maintained that the human self is at once a socially constituted and a self-constituting agent and that promoting individual capabilities goes hand in hand with the institutional support received from non-individualized social goods. 33 Beyond self-interest In Nicomachean Ethics, Book I, Chapter 5, Aristotle introduces the question: what is the nature of the human good or human happiness (eudaimonia)? As eligible answers to this question, he examines three ways of the good life: hedonism, politics and contemplation. 34 He rejects the hedonistic way of life as bestial, a life fit only for cattle, and unworthy of a human being. In this connection, he also rules out the life of business, since money and wealth are merely instrumental to other goods. The life of politics and the life of contemplation receive competing attention in his discussion. It is not very clear whether Aristotle favours one over the other, or considers them mutually exclusive and equally important. But what is clear is that happiness, for him, should be attainable in ordinary human activity and that human happiness consists in the exercise of virtues. Because of this, in Chapter 6, he rejects the Platonic idea of the Form of the good as something detached from such activity. And, further in Chapter 7, in order to show that happiness is the most complete or perfect good, Aristotle gives a broader definition of the term self-sufficient to include various forms of familial, social and political relationship. We are applying the term self-sufficient not to a person on his own, living a solitary life, but to a person living alongside his parents, children, wife, and friends and fellow-citizens generally, since human being is by nature a social animal. 35 The Aristotelian idea that human beings are oriented towards the good life and that the good life and human happiness cannot be reduced to a hedonistic interpretation is the second important feature of the self that underpins the capability approach. The capability approach aims at equalizing people s capabilities precisely because they should have opportunities and choices to pursue a valuable life that cannot be merely reduced to selfcentred welfare often understood in terms of pleasure or desire-fulfilment. We could say that after Rawls, Sen and Nussbaum are among the few thinkers who develop an elaborate and consistent criticism of utilitarianism and its hedonistic underpinnings. Sen and Nussbaum criticize utilitarianism for its severe informational constraint and a narrow understanding of the human person. 36 They show how this takes place with respect to all the three essential aspects Ethical Perspectives 10 (2003)1, p. 12

11 of utilitarianism: welfarism, sum-ranking and consequentialism. By means of welfarism, a state of affairs is judged exclusively on the basis of utility information related to that state. It does not make room for any non-utility information. By means of sum-ranking or aggregation, it merges different units of utility together as one big unit, without paying attention to the separateness and identity of individuals. And finally, by means of consequentialism, it judges actions, rules, institutions etc. by the goodness of the ensuing state of affairs. In contrast to a utilitarian view of the person, Sen and Nussbaum point out that focusing on capabilities allows space for a plurality of sources of information about freedom, virtues, rights, other-regarding goals etc. that help to make a more comprehensive moral decisions. Nussbaum points out that the list of capabilities is analogous to Aristotle s list of grounding human experiences such as death, bodily appetite and social relations within which different corresponding virtues such as courage, moderation, friendship, citizenship etc. could be specified. The capability approach as a theory of equality, therefore, tries to ensure that all citizens enjoy equal opportunities and choices for the exercise of human excellence and virtues. 37 Sen rarely speaks of capabilities in the Aristotelian vocabulary of virtues. But following the philosophical tradition of Adam Smith, he argues for broadening the traditional and narrow conception of economic rationality based solely on self-interest. 38 A person is, Sen points out, not only an entity that can enjoy one s own consumption, experience and appreciate one s welfare, and have one s goals, but also an entity that can examine one s values and objectives and choose in the light of those values and objectives. 39 Sen s broader understanding of economic rationality accommodates values such as prudence, self-scrutiny, sympathy, commitment, generosity, and public spirit as an integral part of people s economic behaviour. In a number of writings, Sen has strongly campaigned against any attempt to narrowly interpret Smith s analysis of people s economic behaviour. 40 The support that believers in, and advocates of, selfinterested behaviour have sought in Adam Smith is, in fact, hard to find on a wider and less biased reading of Smith. The professor of moral philosophy and pioneer economist did not, in fact, lead a life of spectacular schizophrenia. Indeed, it is precisely the narrowing of the broad Smithian view of human beings, in modern economics, that can be seen as one of the major deficiencies of contemporary economic theory. This impoverishment is closely related to the distancing of economics from ethics. 41 Sen here argues for a pluralistic Smithian view that takes account of Smith s concern with other values along with self-interest. Smith does not treat economics and ethics as water-tight compartments. Sen illustrates this with two instances. 42 First, in speaking about the virtue of prudence, for instance, Smith defines it as union of the two qualities of reason and understanding on the one hand, and self command on the other. Prudence is not choosing what promotes one s self-interest alone. Second, along with self-interest, Smith also speaks of rules of conduct that deeply influence people s motivation and behaviour. They play a corrective role of restraining people s self-interest. It is often pointed out that even though the capability approach understands and interprets the human good not purely in terms of self-centred utility but in terms of a variety of other concerns and goals, the problem of residual welfarism seems to still haunt it. For instance, in explaining the notion of capabilities, Sen gives examples of capabilities to achieve different complex functionings such as happiness, selfrespect and participation in community life. Similarly, Nussbaum s list of central human capabilities includes among other things emotional capabilities such as the ability to be happy, to grieve and to be grateful and capabilities of affiliation referring to the ability to live with and towards others. This invites suspicion of welfarism by some egalitarians. Dworkin, for example, argues that the ideal of equality of capability for different functionings is nothing but a version of equality of welfare because it suggests that people should be made Ethical Perspectives 10 (2003)1, p. 13

12 as nearly equal as possible in their capacity to realize the complex achievements of happiness, self-respect, and a significant role in the community. 43 Obviously, for Dworkin this is an impossible ideal because capabilities such as happiness, self-respect and community participation are very subjective and are charged with feelings and desires. They vary vastly from person to person and from community to community. He would therefore opt for a more objective criterion of equality of resources. Roemer also raises this objection of residual welfarism because including happiness as one of the functionings weakens the extent to which an index of functionings will be independent of self-conceived notions of welfare. 44 It is clear that Dworkin and Roemer here have been mislead by the use of the term happiness and its associated capabilities such as self-respect and community participation. Traditionally, some of these are associated with different versions of welfare theories. But Sen s intention in using the term happiness and including it in the list of capabilities is markedly different from any form of welfarism. There are different problems with different interpretations of utility, but they share the programme of getting the evaluation done indirectly through using some psychological metric like happiness or desire. This is precisely where the main difficulty lies. While being happy may count as an important functioning, it cannot really be all there is to leading a life (i.e. it can scarcely be the only valuable functioning). If the utility-based functioning is done in terms of pleasure or happiness, then in effect the other functionings would get disenfranchised, and would be valued only indirectly and only to the extent that they contribute to pleasure or happiness. 45 Nussbaum pursues a similar line of defense in order to explain why her list of capabilities also includes being happy as one of the important human functionings. The Aristotelian takes desire seriously as one thing we should ask about, in asking how well an arrangement enables people to live. But insists that we also, and more insistently, ask what the people involved are actually able to do and to be and, indeed to desire. We consider not only whether they are asking for education, but how they are being educated; not only whether they perceive themselves as reasonably healthy, but how long they live, how many of their children die, how, in short, their health is. 46 Two facts are made clear from these passages. First, the achievement of happiness, for Sen and Nussbaum, is not only a psychological feeling through which the capability approach reviews people s overall quality of life. The overall quality of life of the person is evaluated looking at the capability set (real opportunities and choices for valuable human functionings) as a whole. The residual welfarism that could arise because of a subjective interpretation of happiness, self-respect and community participation is counter-checked and counter-balanced by other functionings in the capability set. A battered housewife might have psychologically educated herself to be happy but looking objectively at her condition of lack of freedom and opportunities, it is not difficult to determine how deprived her life is. Thus, the Ministry of Justice guided by the intuitions of the capability approach would not give more resources to the Arrow-Dworkin creature hooked on plovers eggs and pre-phylloxera claret because there is nothing to suggest that he cannot do the usual things that other people can, except being happy. 47 Second, similar to Rawls who includes the social bases of self-respect as one of the primary goods, the capability theory does recognize the value of complex functioning capabilities such as happiness and self-respect in leading an enhanced human life. But because these capabilities are complex and difficult to objectively measure, it would not eliminate them from the capability set. Nor, as Dworkin fears, would it recommend governments to initiate a frightening and bizarre Ethical Perspectives 10 (2003)1, p. 14