Question
“Do you think more recent ideas such as Amartya Sen’s (1999) ‘capabilities framework’ is a useful way of thinking about social justice?”
‘Social justice’ mainly refers to a just society where everyone has equal social, economical and political rights and opportunities and where there is no discrimination or prejudice on the basis of sexuality, gender, race, religious beliefs, social class, political affiliations, or any other characteristics. Social justice has three dimensions to it. It is expressed in distributional terms or using the recognition paradigm and the more recently characterised third dimension, recognition-redistribution paradigm (Fraser, N., 2005). Poverty and inequality in terms of income and wealth are the social problems termed under distributional justice whereas recognition paradigm is more concerned with non-material dimensions of social justice such as domination and oppression. It is about how people in a society are treated and about how valued their opinions are. The third dimension is a combination of the two (redistribution and recognition) and argues that when there is a conflict between diversity and solidarity, the public policies should be more in favour of solidarity.
In spite of years of legislation to tackle the problems of inequality, discrimination, and poverty, barriers to social justice still exist even today. In Britain, the coalition Government, with a clear intent to eradicate these barriers came up with a new approach which focussed on creating equal opportunities for all, giving them equal chances to progress in life, devolving power to people, transparency of governing, supporting social action by involving social and volunteer institutions and embedding equality. These principles in turn led to the government’s identification of its key areas of focus in the attainment of their equality strategy which are: tackling problems of inequality related to family background by providing early years and education, health care, child care and social mobility, eradicating child poverty, creating a labour market that is fair and flexible, opening of public services and changing the attitudes of people by building respect for all and reducing crime and violence (Pearce, N., and Paxton, W., 2005).
The main objective of this assignment is to discuss the applicability and usefulness of Amartya Sen’s ‘Capabilities framework’ in tackling and overcoming these problems and support the idea since, Amartya Sen’s theory may be a promising approach for social justice analysis because it can reflect the many ways in which human lives are blighted.
Amartya Sen, an Indian economist and philosopher has made big contributions to the theory of social justice. He came up with a framework for evaluating poverty, inequality and development, known as the ‘Capabilities Framework’. According to his arguments the freedom to achieve things is primarily important and that depends upon people’s capabilities to do what they value or to be what they value. It is concerned with the identification of these value objects and sees the evaluative space in terms of functioning and capabilities to function. The Capabilities approach is essentially a ‘people-centred’ approach which puts the people at the centre of the stage rather than any organizations or the governments (Sen, A., 2002).
According to him, measuring the quality of life based on growth of a country is bad since it doesn’t take into consideration the lives of those who are deprived. Either the nations are compared by international welfare measures or internal striving by a nation to achieve development for its people; capabilities provide the best basis for thinking about development since they provide us with an excellent way of understanding the idea of development (Nussbaum, M., 2003). The capabilities approach makes explicit, the implicit assumptions in the basic needs approach about the value of choice and participation freedom. It extends beyond the analysis of poverty and inequality.
The basis of Amartya Sen’s theory began with him distinguishing between the commodity, capability (to function), human functioning, and utility. He disagreed with traditional welfare economics where well-being was typically related to opulence (commodity command and income) or utility (fulfilment of desire, happiness). Like Aristotle, Sen emphasizes that, though economic growth, goods and commodities are necessary for development, it is not everything. It is just a means of attaining something else (Sen, A., 1990). What people are able to achieve with their wealth/commodity determines the quality of their life which depends upon their capacity to convert the wealth into something valuable. Instead of looking only at the commodities, it is important to consider how well they are able to function with what is available to them. Similarly utility approach concentrating on happiness is also challenged by Sen. He argues that desire fulfilment is not the only aspect of human life and there are intrinsic values of welfare neglected in this approach. Considering these, he came to a conclusion that a more direct approach focussing on human functioning and capability is required. He distinctly defines functioning and capabilities.
The prime strength of Amartya Sen’s capabilities approach is that it is very flexible. He describes a set of intrinsically valuable capabilities such as being well nourished, being well educated, live long, escaping avoidable morbidity, writing and communicating and so on but the important part of his theory is that he does not describe a specific set or list of capabilities (Sen, A., 1984). This point has been argued upon a lot and has been criticised as being a short coming of the theory. But this gives flexibility and according to Sen, the weighing of capabilities by a particular person depends upon his personal value judgements and it is only practical. Sen’s work has also been criticised for underplaying negative freedom with positive freedom. Critics argue that sometimes negative freedom tends to feature more prominently in capabilities approach that distinguish internal capabilities from external conditions required to achieve these capabilities. But Sen has acknowledged the significance of negative freedom as intrinsic and instrumental and argued that capability failure can stem from absence of positive freedoms as well as violation of personal rights.
Next, this theory can be used to assess individual advantage in different spaces. This theory also helps in broadened understanding of the informational base of evaluation and changes the focus back on people as ends in themselves instead of just using them as a means to economic activity, recognizing that different people from various cultures and society may have different values and aspirations. It also draws attention to group disparities based on class, caste, gender, race, sexuality or age (Clark, D.A., 2005).
Martha C. Nussbaum furthered the research on this theory and came up with a list of capabilities answering the main limitation of this approach according to critics that is the capabilities not being defined. According to her, the capabilities included life, health, bodily integrity (freedom from assault and reproductive choices), emotions, practical reason, affiliation relating to social interaction, senses, imagination and thought relating to literacy and education, respect for species relating to the ability to co-exist and control over one’s environment (Nussbaum, M.C., 2000).
In the ‘normative focus’ capability framework, in the analysis of a particular context, the selection of the functioning and capabilities as the informational space is done before identifying the context. The context being analysed may be poverty, justice or anything while conceptual focus, the analyst might first decide the context of analysis before deciding the informational space. For example if the context is poverty, whether to measure it using income, opportunities or consumption. In capability approach, poverty is defined as being deprived of basic capabilities which may vary from being well fed (well nourished), being clothed and properly sheltered, to complicated capabilities such as being able to take part in a community. People have varying needs and will require varying amounts of resources to achieve same standard of living. For example, the difference between an able-bodied person and a person with disability, the disabled person definitely requires more resources to attain similar living standard as the able bodied person. This variability in translation of resources into capabilities is referred by Sen as ‘Conversion factors’ (Hick, R., 2011). The Capability approach allows the inclusion of deprivation, conditions at work, and so forth to be included in analysing poverty thus providing with a broader focus than the direct approach of analysis.
The basic capabilities refer to the innate talent of humans that is necessary for developing advanced capabilities. It is the foreground for moral concern. With the support of surrounding environment, many of these capabilities are converted into internal capabilities over the course of a person’s life and become developed states of the person which, as far as the person is concerned, are sufficient conditions for the exercising of requisite functions. These internal capabilities combined with suitable external conditions for the exercise of the function is what defines combined capabilities.
The latest version of the capabilities approach explicitly recognises five broad categories of instrumental freedoms that include: Economical facilities freedom, political freedom, social opportunities, transparency guarantees, and protective security. These instrumental freedoms contribute to the expansion of human capabilities. In capabilities approach, the empirical links between different capabilities and freedoms have also been examined. But one approach involving the building of a matrix of means and ends to help through the many complex interconnections between various capabilities with policy implications, has not been fully worked out.
The question on whether the approach can be operational has been around for a long basically owing to the fact that Sen refused to endorse a list of these capabilities. In their Capability-based approach in monitoring human rights and equality in England, Scotland and Wales, researchers have adopted a deliberative approach (Burchardt. and Vizard. 2011). From existing human rights frameworks, they drew on a minimum core of dimensions and by deliberative consulting with the general public and with people groups at risk of discrimination and disadvantage came up with a list of dimensions that include life, health, education, security, standard of living, participation, influence, productive activities, self-respect, identity, social life, and freedom of expression. This approach is definitely a broad focus and an example of using consultative process to apply the capabilities approach. Martha C. Nussbaum’s list of ten philosophically derived capabilities that, she argues, are every citizen’s rights demonstrate the feasibility of the using the capability approach to support empirical analysis though it is termed non-trivial (Anand, P., Hunter, G., et al., 2009).
There have been studies where the approach is used with a variety of non-resource based capabilities. For example it has been used in a multi-dimensional poverty analysis focussing on health, employment, education and learning, shelter (housing), social relationships and economic resources (Brandolini., and d’Alessio., 1998). There are studies focussed on the outcomes in health and housing and studies that emphasize the importance of capability for work and capability for voice. These studies together demonstrate the ability of the capability approach to support various empirical analyses and the ability to extend the focus beyond resource-based dimensions to non-resource based capabilities.
The capability approach provides a lens for analysing various social justice parameters and is normative. It stresses that people’s capabilities are intrinsically important as opposed to the importance of their wealth or income (means). It argues for the multi-dimensional approach in assessment which helps to ensure that informational indicators employed have a clear and accepted interpretation. Unlike more limited approaches such as the low income approach or the material deprivation approach, the capability approach with its multidimensional characteristics can contribute in a practical way to the study on social justice. By systematic approach to this framework can help ensure omission of inclusion errors (inclusion of parameters that do not come under the particular framework) and exclusion errors (failure to include important dimensions) by ensuring application of appropriate indicators (Hick, R., 2011).
The capability framework would provide the basis for assessment of social and economical changes between countries and within a country. The approach may even provide an adequate evaluation of capitalist society. In focussing on ability of people to be or to do what they want and not the resources (means) involved but still in focussing on both the monetary and non-monetary constraints and dimensions, this approach can help to assess the outcomes of a capitalist society in terms of resulting unequal capabilities.
An advantage of the capabilities approach is that, by focussing on the capabilities of people from the beginning, it easily addresses the inequalities that some suffer; inequalities in resources, opportunities, educational deprivations and failure of recognition. The capability approach overcomes traditional approach by overcoming the central problems in them which use the resources as being the core and has limited not only the constraints but also the indicators.
The important insights in capability approach include; whether or not a researcher can be neutral between direct and indirect approaches to the analysis. But, any concepts that we apply should only reflect on the concepts that are enforced and not self-inflicted or voluntary non-participation. The theory also emphasizes that the lack of resources cannot be the only constraint of interest in an analysis. Thus, by putting focus on the absence of some very important capabilities instead of proxy resources like income, the approach towards ones capability can provide foundations not only to understand social injustice but also to fight them.
Conclusion
According to the Capabilities approach, the overriding objective of development is the expansion of human capabilities rather than economic growth. Despite the questions on how plausible this theory is in practice, the number of attempts to apply the theory to Social justice has multiplied in recent years. This theory has been very useful in investigating poverty, inequality, gender discrimination, social exclusion, disability, child poverty, well-being and identity and has also been related to human rights, human needs and security. Numerous attempts have to apply Capabilities approach in the measurement of poverty and well-being (Clark, D.A., 2005; Martinetti, C., 1994), in identifying the human development index covering income, life expectancy and education. Researches in identifying the links between income and expenditure and various capabilities are in favour of the Capabilities approach and suggest that income and capabilities do not go together. And it is useful in identifying group disparities by referring to gross inequalities in terms of life expectancy, literacy, nutrition, gender, class, race and so on. These researches in the recent years prove the practical applications of this theory and the possibility of making the theory operational. Based on this, Capabilities framework is definitely a useful way of thinking about social justice.
References
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