Book contents
- Welfare Theory, Public Action, and Ethical Values
- Welfare Theory, Public Action, and Ethical Values
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures and Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: Revisiting the History of Welfare Economics
- Part IPlurality of Welfare in the Making of Welfare Economics
- Part IIDeveloping Modern Welfare Economics
- 7John Hicks’s Farewell to Economic Welfarism
- 8Individualism and Ethics
- 9Non-welfarism in the Early Debates over the Coase Theorem
- 10Musgrave and the Idea of Community
- 11Non-welfaristic Features of Kenneth Arrow’s Idea of Justice
- 12Beyond Welfarism
- 13The Influence of Sen’s Applied Economics on His Non-welfarist Approach to Justice
- 14Conclusion
- Index
- References
12 - Beyond Welfarism
The Potential and Limitations of the Capability Approach*
from Part II - Developing Modern Welfare Economics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 March 2021
Book contents
- Welfare Theory, Public Action, and Ethical Values
- Welfare Theory, Public Action, and Ethical Values
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures and Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: Revisiting the History of Welfare Economics
- Part IPlurality of Welfare in the Making of Welfare Economics
- Part IIDeveloping Modern Welfare Economics
- 7John Hicks’s Farewell to Economic Welfarism
- 8Individualism and Ethics
- 9Non-welfarism in the Early Debates over the Coase Theorem
- 10Musgrave and the Idea of Community
- 11Non-welfaristic Features of Kenneth Arrow’s Idea of Justice
- 12Beyond Welfarism
- 13The Influence of Sen’s Applied Economics on His Non-welfarist Approach to Justice
- 14Conclusion
- Index
- References
Summary
The capability approach is widely considered to be a promising alternative to welfarist approaches in welfare economics. Indeed, prominent criticism of the informational basis of utilitarianism and resource-based approaches in welfare economics and political philosophy stand at the origins of the approach. What is not straightforward is whether the capability approach can indeed overcome the problems that motivated its origins. This chapter discusses the latter issue, covering the intrinsic importance of freedom, issues of preference adaptation and the neglect of diversity linked to paternalism. Drawing both on the wide diversity of the literature on capabilities and on the axiomatic literature on freedom rankings, we show that the characteristic features of the capability approach are not enough to respect these three criteria together. We conclude that any promising non-welfarist approach will require further scrutiny of the conceptualisation of freedom, and the modalities of application of value pluralism.
Keywords
Information
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Welfare Theory, Public Action, and Ethical ValuesRevisiting the History of Welfare Economics, pp. 277 - 297Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021
References
Alkire, S. 2002. Valuing Freedoms: Sen’s Capability Approach and Poverty Reduction, New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Alkire, S. and Foster, J. 2011. Counting and Multidimensional Poverty Measurement, Journal of Public Economics 95(7–8): 476–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Backhouse, R. E. and Nishizawa, T. 2010. No Wealth but Life: Welfare Economics and the Welfare State in Britain, 1880–1945, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Basu, K. and Lopez Calva, L. F. 2011. Functionings and Capabilities, in Arrow, K., Sen, A. K. and Suzumura, K. (eds.), Handbook of Social Choice and Welfare, Volume II, Amsterdam: Elsevier, 153–87.Google Scholar
Baujard, A. 2007. Conceptions of Freedom and Ranking Opportunity Sets: A Typology, Homo Oeconomicus 24: 231–54.Google Scholar
Baujard, A. 2011. Utilité et liberté de choix dans les classements d’ensembles d’opportunités, Raisons politiques 43: 59–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baujard, A. 2016. Welfarism, an historical perspective. 3rd International Conference Economic Philosophy, June 2016, Aix-en-Provence, France.Google Scholar
Baujard, A. and Gilardone, M. 2017. Sen Is Not a Capability Theorist, Journal of Economic Methodology 24(1): 1–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Binder, C. 2013. Plural Identities and Preference Formation. Social Choice and Welfare: 1–18. doi:10.1007/s00355-013-0761-z.Google Scholar
Binder, C. B. 2019. Agency, Freedom and Choice. Theory and Decision Library A: Rational Choice in Practical Philosophy and Philosophy of Science. Heidelberg: Springer.Google Scholar
Binder, C. and Binder, C. B. 2016. A Capability Perspective on Indigenous Autonomy, Oxford Development Studies 44: 297–314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dowding, K. and van Hees, M. 2009. Freedom of Choice, in Anand, P., Pattanaik, P. K. and Puppe, C. (eds.), The Handbook of Rational and Social Choice, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 374–92.Google Scholar
Drydyk, J. and Keleher, L. 2019. Routledge Handbook of Development Ethics, New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Echávarri, R. A. and Permanyer, I. 2008. Ranking Profiles of Capability Sets, Social Choice and Welfare 31: 521–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elster, J. 1982. Sour Grapes, in Sen, A. and Williams, B. (eds.), Utilitarianism and Beyond, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 219–38.Google Scholar
Elster, J. 1983. Sour Grapes: Studies in the Subversion of Rationality, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fiebiger Byskov, M. 2018. The Capability Approach in Practice: A New Ethics for Setting Development Agendas, New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foster, J. E. 2015. Freedom, Opportunity, and Well-Being, in Arrow, K., Sen, A. K. and Suzumura, K. (eds.), Handbook of Social Choice and Welfare, Volume II, Amsterdam: Elsevier, 687–728.Google Scholar
Fukuda-Parr, S. 2003. The Human Development Paradigm: Operationalizing Sen’s Ideas on Development, Feminist Economics 9(2/3): 301–17.Google Scholar
Gasper, D. 2002. Is Sen’s Capability Approach an Adequate Basis for Considering Human Development? Review of Political Economy 14: 435–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Hees, M. 2016. Analysing Capabilities: Games, Groups and Effectivity, Working Paper.Google Scholar
Khader, S. 2011. Adaptive Preferences and Women’s Empowerment, New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kreps, D. M. 1979. A Representation Theorem for ‘Preference for Flexibility’, Econometrica 47: 565–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nussbaum, M. C. 1988. Nature, Function, and Capability: Aristotle on Political Distribution, in Annas, J. and Grimm, R. H. (eds.), Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, Supplementary Volume, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 145–84.Google Scholar
Nussbaum, M. C. 1993. Non-relative Virtues: An Aristotelian Approach, in Nussbaum, M. C. and Sen, A. K. (eds.), The Quality of Life, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 242–69.Google Scholar
Nussbaum, M. C. 2000. Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nussbaum, M. C. 2001. Adaptive Preferences and Women’s Options, Economics and Philosophy 17: 67–88.Google Scholar
Nussbaum, M. C. 2006. Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Nussbaum, M. C. 2011. Creating Capabilities: The Human Development Approach, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Nussbaum, M. C. and Sen, A. K., eds. 1993. The Quality of Life, Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Pattanaik, P. K. and Xu, Y. 1990. On Ranking Opportunity Sets in Terms of Freedom of Choice, Recherches Economiques de Louvain 56: 383–90.Google Scholar
Pattanaik, P. K. and Xu, Y. 1998. On Preference and Freedom, Theory and Decision 44: 173–98.Google Scholar
Pattanaik, P. K. and Xu, Y. 2012. Some Foundational Issues in the Functioning and Capability Approach to the Concept of Well-Being, in Social and Cultural Development of Human Resources [Eds. UNESCO-EOLSS Joint Committee], in Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), developed under the Auspices of the UNESCO, EOLSS Publishers, Oxford, UK, [www.eolss.net] [Retrieved 24 April 2013].Google Scholar
Pattanaik, P. K. and Xu, Y. 2020. The Concept of Capability and Its Measurement, in Chiappero, E., Qizilbash, M. and Osmani, S. (eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of the Capability Approach, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Qizilbash, M. 2007. Social Choice and Individual Capabilities, Politics Philosophy Economics 6: 169–92.Google Scholar
Qizilbash, M. 2016. Capability, Objectivity and ‘False Consciousness’: On Sen, Marx and J. S. Mill, International Journal of Social Economics 43: 1207–18.Google Scholar
Robeyns, I. 2011. The Capability Approach, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2016 Edition), Zalta, Edward N. (ed.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/capability-approach/.Google Scholar
Robeyns, I. 2017. Wellbeing, Freedom and Social Justice: The Capability Approach Re-examined, Cambridge: Open Book Publishers.Google Scholar
Saito, M. 2003. Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach to Education: A Critical Exploration, Journal of Philosophy of Education 37: 17–34.Google Scholar
Sen, A. K. 1977. On Weights and Measures: Informational Constraints in Social Welfare Analysis, Econometrica 45: 1539–72.Google Scholar
Sen, A. K. 1979a. Personal Utilities and Public Judgements: Or What’s Wrong With Welfare Economics?, The Economic Journal 89: 537–58.Google Scholar
Sen, A. K. 1980. Equality of What?, in McMurrin, S. M. (ed.), The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 195–220; reprinted in Goodin, R. E. and Pettit, P. (eds.), Contemporary Political Philosophy, An Anthology, Oxford: Blackwell, 473–83.Google Scholar
Sen, A. K. 1983. Development: Which Way Now?, The Economic Journal 93(372): 745–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sen, A. K. 1984. Rights and Capabilities, in Resources, Values, and Development, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 307–24.Google Scholar
Sen, A. K. 1991. Welfare, Preference and Freedom, Journal of Econometrics 50: 15–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sen, A. K. 1995. Gender Inequality and Theories of Justice, in Nussbaum, M. C. and Glover, J. (eds.), Women, Culture, and Development, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 259–73.Google Scholar
Suzumura, K., and Xu, Y. 2009. Consequentialism and Non-consequentialism: The Axiomatic Approach, in Anand, P., Pattanaik, P. K. and Puppe, C. (eds.), The Handbook of Rational and Social Choice, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 346–73.Google Scholar
Wantene, K., Yap, M. and Bockstael, E. 2019. Indigenous Peoples and the Capability Approach, New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Accessibility standard: Unknown
Why this information is here
This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.Accessibility Information
Accessibility compliance for the HTML of this chapter is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.