scholarly journals Subjective Well-Being Capabilities: Bridging the Gap Between the Capability Approach and Subjective Well-Being Research

2013 ◽  
Vol 15 (5) ◽  
pp. 1197-1217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Binder
Keyword(s):  
Capability Approach ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Subjective Well Being ◽  
The Capability Approach

scholarly journals A Poset-Generalizability Method for Human Development Indicators

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Flavio Comim
Keyword(s):  
Human Development ◽  
Capability Approach ◽  
Generalizability Theory ◽  
Well Being ◽  
New Method ◽  
Subjective Well Being ◽  
Development Indicators ◽  
Development Policies ◽  
Development Analysis ◽  
The Capability Approach

AbstractThe paper introduces a poset-generalizability perspective for analysing human development indicators. It suggests a new method for identifying admissibility of different informational spaces and criteria in human development analysis. From its inception, the Capability Approach has argued for informational pluralism in normative evaluations. But in practice, it has turned its back to other (non-capability) informational spaces for being imperfect, biased or incomplete and providing a mere evidential role in normative evaluations. This paper offers the construction of a proper method to overcome this shortcoming. It combines tools from poset analysis and generalizability theory to put forward a systematic categorization of cases with different informational spaces. It provides illustrations by using key informational spaces, namely, resources, rights, subjective well-being and capabilities. The offered method is simpler and more concrete than mere human development guidelines and at the same time it avoids results based on automatic calculations. The paper concludes with implications for human development policies and an agenda for further work.

A contested terrain: Re/conceptualising the well-being of homeworkers

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 328-345 ◽  
Author(s):  
Farah Naz ◽  
Dieter Bögenhold
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Research ◽  
Capability Approach ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Qualitative Approach ◽  
Subjective Well Being ◽  
Sociological Perspective ◽  
Alternative Measures ◽  
Contested Terrain ◽  
Football Industry ◽  
The Capability Approach

Disenchantment with traditional income-based measures of well-being has led to the search for alternative measures. Two major alternative measures of well-being come from subjective well-being research and the objective capability approach. The capability approach has been largely discussed in the context of development studies and economics and is mainly used within quantitative frameworks, but it also raises many questions that are worthy of discussion from a sociological perspective as well. This study opts for a qualitative approach to transpose capability approach in order to assess the well-being of female homeworkers in the football industry of Pakistan. The aim of this empirical research is to focus on the capabilities of homeworkers in accessing economic, individual, social and psychological aspects of well-being.

Hope as a Critical Resource for Small Scale Farmers in Mpumalanga

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 24-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacqueline Goldin
Keyword(s):  
Social Action ◽  
Rural Women ◽  
Capability Approach ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Management Policy ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Subjective Well Being ◽  
Emotional Life ◽  
The Capability Approach

I contrast formal institutional structures that are part of water resources management policy and practice with more fluid ‘outside’ spaces that I claim are more apt for participatory engagement around food production. I link these ideas to a discussion on hope. I make three distinct contributions. First the paper expands on the theoretical concerns of the Capability Approach by bringing to the fore the linkages between subjective well-being and emotions. The paper thus connects the Capability Approach and discourses of affect and emotions explicit. The Capability Approach (CA) is a helpful entry point into the idea of hope in particular and emotions in general. Second, I claim that emotions are of public concern and that they are embedded structurally. In these spaces the dimension of power is crucial in determining the nature of the emotions that are experienced, and there is a connection between hope and power. I argue that emotions mediate and inform social action and are a function of social processes. Third, I affirm that in the essentially technical and masculinised world of water, rural women farmers are more likely to experience positive feelings, such as self-esteem, hope, pride and dignity, in informal ‘outside’ spaces. Within the context of an ethics of care, the idea of ‘particularism’ places value on concrete circumstances and individual experience and the incorporation of emotions and compassion into a social justice discourse. I propose that hope be considered amongst a range of mental states contributing to valuable and complex social functionings that are relevant for assessing poverty and human development. Looking at emotional life might help answer the question: what makes people do what they do – and whether and in what ways they take on (or do not take on) board opportunities that present themselves? The article concludes that hope is a mental state that helps command commodities and helps achieve functionings. As such hope is an input as important as seeds and fertilizer for small-scale farming.

scholarly journals Why Affordable Clean Energy Is Not Enough. A Capability Perspective on the Sustainable Development Goals

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 2485 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rafaela Hillerbrand
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Sustainable Development Goals ◽  
Capability Approach ◽  
Energy Systems ◽  
Clean Energy ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Energy Technologies ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
The Capability Approach

This paper reflects on criticisms raised in the literature on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These have been criticized as creating a dichotomy between the environment and human beings that fails to address the multiple interconnections between the two. This paper focuses on SDG7—“affordable and clean energy”—and suggests that there is in fact a tripartite distinction between the environment, human beings and technology underlying the SDGs. This distinction, we argue, does not adequately represent the multiple interconnections among the various SDGs and hampers their implementation. We contend that the formulation of SDG7 produces a circular definition of sustainability, a difficulty that is currently resolved at the level of the targets and indicators in a way that regards energy technologies primarily as artifacts. By contrast, the literature on ethical aspects of energy systems largely agrees that energy is a paradigmatic example of a sociotechnical system. We contend that, by not considering this sociotechnical nature, the SDGs run the risk of implicitly defending a certain variant of technological optimism and determinism. We argue that this is disadvantageous to the environment, human well-being and technological development. In line with recent critical evaluations of the SDGs, we argue that these (and other) shortcomings can be addressed by better connecting the SDGs to human well-being. Building on recent literature that expands the scope of the Capability Approach as an alternative measure of well-being so as to include considerations of sustainability, we articulate a framework that allows us to elucidate this connection and thus to take advantage of synergies between human well-being and the environment. On the basis of the Capability Approach, we argue that equating sustainable energy with renewable energy—as is done in the transition from SDG7’s goal to its targets—is indefensible because, as part of the overarching energy systems, energy technologies cannot be classified as simply right or wrong. Rather, the indicators and targets within a framework focused on sustainability need to be (more) context sensitive, meaning that, among other things, they may vary by country and with the available technology.

Well-Being, Adaptation and Human Limitations*

2006 ◽  
Vol 59 ◽  
pp. 83-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mozaffar Qizilbash
Keyword(s):  
Capability Approach ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Martha Nussbaum ◽  
Amartya Sen ◽  
Reliable Basis ◽  
The Capability Approach

Philosophical accounts of human well-being face a number of significant challenges. In this paper, I shall be primarily concerned with one of these. It relates to the possibility, noted by Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen amongst others, that people’s desires and attitudes are malleable and can ‘adapt’ in various ways to the straitened circumstances in which they live. If attitudes or desires adapt in this way it can be argued that the relevant desires or attitudes fail to provide a reliable basis for evaluating well-being. This is, what I shall call the ‘adaptation problem’. Nussbaum and Sen have—in different ways used this argument to motivate their versions of the ‘capability approach’. However, questions remain about the implications of adaptation for philosophical accounts of well-being.

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