Capability Deprivation

Author(s):  
Rod Hick ◽  
Tania Burchardt

This article examines capability deprivation as the basis for analyzing poverty. The capability approach, developed initially by Amartya Sen, questions the “informational space” on which considerations of poverty, inequality, justice, and so forth, should be based. According to the capability approach, the appropriate “space” for analyzing poverty is not what people have, nor how they feel, but what they can do and be. After providing an overview of the concepts that comprise the capability approach, this article discusses three key questions within the literature regarding the nature of the approach, namely: the question of functioning and/or capabilities, the question of a capability list, and the question of aggregation. It also describes some prominent empirical applications that have been inspired by the capability approach and concludes with an assessment of the current state-of-the-art literature on the capability approach.

2018 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Adams ◽  
Emma Kavanagh

High performance athletes participate and function in sports systems where exploitative behaviours may become manifest. These behaviours potentially violate an individual athlete’s human rights. Using the Capability Approach first outlined by Amartya Sen the paper details how a more precise analysis of human rights, in the context of high performance sport, may be achieved. Using in-depth narrative accounts from high performance athletes, data illustrate how athlete maltreatment is related to individual capabilities and functionings: the loss of individual freedoms infringes accepted notions of human rights. The implications for practice concern how human rights may be protected within and for systems of high performance production.


2006 ◽  
Vol 59 ◽  
pp. 83-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mozaffar Qizilbash

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.


2009 ◽  
pp. 66-79
Author(s):  
Gianluca Busilacchi

- Over the last year the capability approach has been widely used by social scientist. Its success is mainly due to the richness of its theoretical framework and the possibility to enrich the interdisciplinary researches also at the empirical level. However the empirical applications in the field of public policy, especially social policy, are still very limited: what is the reason? And which is the role of economic sociology in contributing to the analysis of social policy endorsing the capability approach? The first part of the paper concerns the explanation of the theoretical framework of the capability approach, through an analysis of its main concepts and empirical applications. Then we will try to see why the capability approach can be especially used by economic sociology, and why this social science can be enriched by the capability approach to analyse social policy with a richer toolbox.Keywords: social policy, capability approach, economic sociology, public policy, Amartya Sen, poverty


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Francesco Laruffa ◽  
Michael McGann ◽  
Mary P. Murphy

We revise Atkinson’s concept of a ‘participation income’ (PI), repositioning it as a form of green conditional basic income that is anchored in a capabilities-oriented eco-social policy framework. This framework combines the capability approach with an ‘ethics of care’ to re-shape the focus of social policy on individuals’ capability to ‘take care of the world’, thus shifting the emphasis from economic production to social reproduction and environmental reparation. In developing this proposal, we seek to address key questions about the feasibility of implementing PI schemes: including their administrative complexity and the criticism that a PI constitutes either an arbitrary and confusing, or invasive and stigmatising, form of basic income. To address these concerns, we argue for an enabling approach to incentivising participation whereby participation pathways are co-created with citizens on the basis of opportunities they recognise as meaningful rather than enforced through strict monitoring and sanctions.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hengameh Hosseini

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to comprehensively explore and propose solutions to global economic inequities and disparities, with a particular focus on healthcare. This paper also aims to explore whether drastic reductions of inequality are justified in terms of conventional economic theory, and whether ending inequality can be viewed as ethical through certain lenses. Design/methodology/approach To seek the response to those questions, the paper uses Pareto optimality; Hicks–Kaldor model; Millian utilitarianism; the ethical theories developed by John Rawls in his 1971 work on ethics as well as his 1999 Law of People; and the capability approach developed by Noble Laureate economists Amartya Sen. As demonstrated, those equalizing works cannot support a policy that would advocate an end to global inequities. Those theories also propose no practical solutions for the end of those extreme inequities. Thus, the paper attempts to present other solutions. Findings This paper discusses two theories that are very helpful in supporting those without much wealth. Mohammad Yunus’ Grameen Bank and its provision of small free-interest loans to poor businesses (in particular women) in Bangladesh has been very successful. Another alternative advocating interest-free banking that was proposed by the proponents of binary economics is discussed. Originality/value The author believes the arguments used to support the theses of this paper be unique and novel.


2011 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jac J.L van der Klink ◽  
Ute Bültmann ◽  
Sandra Brouwer ◽  
Alex Burdorf ◽  
Wilmar B. Schaufeli ◽  
...  

Sustainable employability in older workers, work as value Sustainable employability in older workers, work as value Gedrag & Organisatie, volume 24, November 2011, nr. 4, pp. 341-355.Because of demographic trends and social and societal developments sustainable employability is an important issue. As the workforce is ageing and workers will be asked to work longer in particular at the end of their careers, and as older workers have increased risks of health problems, much attention is paid to the older worker.This article joins a number of recent definitions of sustainable employability where the value aspect of work is emphasized: work must add value for the organization as well as for the employee to be sustainable.In recent history work and the valuation of work changed considerably. In this article recent developments in work and work models will be addressed briefly and work as a valuable domain of life will be discussed in relation to sustainable employability and the capability approach of Amartya Sen.


Author(s):  
Brian Langille

Forty years ago, Amartya Sen delivered his Tanner Lecture, ‘Equality of What?’, in which he introduced to the world a novel approach to the idea of equality by way of the notion of ‘basic capability’ as ‘a morally relevant dimension’.1 We can now see with hindsight that Sen’s argument—that we should focus upon equality of basic capabilities (‘a person being able to do certain basic things’)—launched what has become an academic armada now proceeding under the flag of ‘the Capability Approach’....


SATS ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gottfried Schweiger ◽  
Gunter Graf

AbstractWhat significance should the subjective experiences of poor people have in a normative philosophical critique of poverty? In this paper, we take up this question and answer it by looking at two different normative theories: the capability approach of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum and the recognition approach of Axel Honneth. While Sen and Nussbaum are largely quite reluctant toward the role of subjective experiences of poor people, the recognition approach views them as central for its social critique of poverty. We will defend the thesis that a more inclusive view on the role of the subjects of suffering and injustice is needed, that such subjective experiences and the unique first-hand knowledge it produces cannot be substituted by objective criteria, while such criteria are needed to bolster – and in some cases also criticize – the poverty knowledge of poor people.


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