Capabilities: Theory James Foster George

Transcript:Capabilities: Theory James Foster George:
Capabilities: Theory James Foster George Washington University and OPHI, Oxford Guide Formalization 28 29 30 Motivation What is wellbeing? What is the “right” space for evaluating inequalities? Sen’s Answer Functionings Beings and doings that people value and have reason to value Capabilities The collection of functionings available to people Motivation Examples of functionings Being adequately nourished Being free from avoidable disease Being able to take part in the life of the community Having self-respect If can represent each functioning by a continuous variable Have following graph from Foster and Sen 1997 Motivation Capability set and functioning vectors Motivation Note the distinction between functionings and capabilities: Capabilities reflect one’s freedom to choose valuable alternatives; what “could be” Independent of person’s preferences or choice rule Functionings reflect “what is” The current achievements of the person Which may have much or very little to say about other alternatives (now or in the future) Ex: Fasting is different from starving in capability, not functioning Motivation Note also that functionings and capabilities (and the associated freedoms) are Ends desirable in themselves Means instrumental for other ends and means Ex Being healthy is an end in itself and it helps to achieve other ends and means Social interaction is an end in itself and it helps to achieve other ends and means Motivation Wait a minute – why not just use income? Easy to understand Easy to measure Single dimensional Comparable across people Underlies most evaluations of wellbeing Fungible and policy relevant Motivation Sen’s answer Means, not an end Aristotle: “The life of money-making is one undertaken under compulsion, and wealth is evidently not the good we are seeking, for it is merely useful and for the sake of something else” Nicomachean Ethics The conversion of means to ends varies dramatically across persons and groups of persons Two persons with the same income may have very different levels of wellbeing if one is very disabled. Motivation “The real opportunities that different persons enjoy are very substantially influenced by variations of individual circumstances (e.g., age, disability, proneness to illness, special talents, gender, maternity) and also by disparities in the natural and the social environment (e.g., epidemiological conditions, extent of pollution, prevalence of local crime). Under these circumstances, an exclusive concentration on inequalities in income distribution cannot be adequate for an understanding of economic inequality” Foster and Sen (1997) Goodbye to the anonymity axiom of income inequality comparisons