Sen’s Capability Approach as an organising framework for open

evaluation

Entered for Kuklys Prize

THOMAS WELLS
Erasmus University Rotterdam

“The basic concern [of development] is with our capability to lead the kinds of lives
we have reason to value (Sen 1999, p.285).” [The unofficial slogan of the Capability
Approach]

“There is no escape from the problem of evaluation (Sen 1992, p.44).”

Amartya Sen‟s Capability Approach („CA‟) has attracted extensive criticism (including from
sympathisers) for its failings as a theory of justice. It is said to be too ambiguous (in the sense
both of vagueness and incoherence) about what capabilities are important and how
disadvantage is to be understood in terms of justice claims.1 One important debate concerns
the CA‟s ambivalence between freedoms and outcomes evidenced in the CA‟s slogan.
Perfectionists, such as Martha Nussbaum (particularly in her earlier work), see Sen‟s CA as
being insufficiently committed to the identification and achievement of an objectively
valuable good life for all. Liberals, such as the Rawlsian Thomas Pogge, perceive an
excessive commitment to a state determined conception of the good and an implicit threat to
individual freedom. Both camps assert the philosophical incoherence of attempting to have
both outcomes and freedoms, and that trying to do so will result in achieving neither.

In this essay I argue that such criticisms misunderstand Sen‟s CA, in particular its
foundational commitment to open evaluation, by assessing it as if it were or should be a
theory of justice. As a result Sen‟s particular contribution is missed or distorted, and attention
distracted from the fair assessment, in its own terms, of its qualities, potential, and scope for
improvement. In addition, a better appreciation of Sen‟s perspective has implications for the
relation of capability theories to one another: as complementary and necessarily incomplete
attempts to address particular concerns rather than as competitors about what capabilities
really are.

It is almost a commonplace in the CA literature to say that it is an evaluative framework,

though the point is still missed by many serious interpreters and critics. I want to emphasise
the importance of maintaining a distinction between the capability approach, which I see as
concerning the evaluation of individual (dis)advantage, and of policies for its improvement,
in the space of capability,2 and capability theories, which are concerned with the systematic
development and testing of coherent and justified conceptual structures.3 Capability theories
1
See e.g. several of the papers collected in Brighouse & Robeyns 2010.
2
Sen of course distinguishes multiple dimensions and multiple evaluative principles relevant to the assessment
of „advantage‟ or rather capability (see for a succinct account Osmani 2009).
3
On this distinction, see for example Ingrid Robeyns‟ identification of a hierarchy of goals for Sen “1. As a
framework of thought; 2. As a critique on other approaches to welfare evaluation; 3. As a formula to make
may take the form of theories of justice, specifying a “metric and rule” of which capabilities
are important and how much, and how they are to be distributed (Anderson 2010, pp.81-83);
or they may be concerned with developing other aspects of the CA for example with regard to
developing alternatives to orthodox welfare economics (Kuklys 2005; Fleurbaey 2009) or
development project evaluation (Alkire 2005a).

Clearly Sen‟s CA is not a theory of justice, although it does provide conceptual resources
relating to capability space which have been used to develop such theories, by for example
Nussbaum, Robeyns (Robeyns 2003) and Anderson (Anderson 1999; 2010), which propose
specific capability based claims about social justice to be developed and rigorously debated.4
But Sen‟s CA is not itself a theory of justice because it is at the same time narrower in focus
(the evaluation of individual advantage rather than the interpersonal relations of fairness,
inequality, and just social arrangements) and broader (through its commitment to open
evaluation). It is thereby opposed to alternative approaches to the evaluation of advantage,
such as welfarism (as embodied in orthodox welfare economics) and resourcism (as
embodied in Rawlsian liberalism), which, as Sen has argued in multiple places, exclude too
many informational aspects that may be relevant to a comprehensive evaluation (Sen 1979;
1985; 1996; 1999; 2000; 2009). At the same time, because of its commitment to openness,
including multi-principled as well as multi-dimensional evaluation (Osmani 2009), Sen‟s CA
positively welcomes and provides space for the particular insights of many alternative ethical
theories - from Marxist ethics to Nozickian libertarianism - since their focal variables, and the
theoretical modes of analysis they have developed to address them, are accepted as important,
just not the only important or relevant concerns.5 As an approach, the CA is pluralist and its
primary concern is not the purity of its theoretical resources but that their use is responsible to
the particularities of a case.

I begin by considering the kind of critiques made of Sen‟s CA by Nussbaum and Pogge, as
influential representatives of two important positions in the theoretical debate. I then move on
to analyse Sen‟s technique of open evaluation with reference to its success in his entitlement
approach to famine analysis, and show that its openness is a philosophical virtue, not a flaw.

Theoretical Critiques by Nussbaum and Pogge

A number of philosophers who are attracted to Sen‟s CA by its sophisticated rejection of

utilitarian and Rawlsian approaches nevertheless believe that the CA should concern itself
with first specifying the nature of, and then moving to universally achieve, “lives we have
reason to value”.6 As with Nussbaum, although they may take some inspiration from Sen‟s
founding concern with the quality of individual lives such writers find Sen‟s formulations of
the CA ambivalent and vague, leaving much important work to be done in the positive
construction of an alternative theoretical account that will be influential enough to replace its
competitors. Where they consider themselves to be working within the CA such criticism can

interpersonal comparisons of welfare (Robeyns 2000, p.3).” Sabina Alkire also provides an explicit typology of
broad evaluative, narrow evaluative, and prospective CA analysis (Alkire 2008) and her work is deeply
informed by an appreciation of the evaluative aspect of Sen‟s contribution (see e.g. Alkire 2005a; 2005b).
4
Note that, apart from Nussbaum‟s, most such capability theories accept a humbler place in a wider pluralist
capability approach.
5
Sen‟s Tanner Lectures on the Standard of Living (1985) illustrates this two stage rejection and subsumption of
other approaches quite neatly.
6
See for example (Nussbaum 1988; 1993) and for others writing from this perspective Séverine Deneulin (e.g.
Deneulin 2002) and Richard Arneson (e.g. Arneson 2010)
be construed as part of a struggle over the definition of the CA, and indeed Nussbaum‟s
constitutional list of fundamental human capabilities has become an influential independent
research programme within the CA.7 Here, for example is Martha Nussbaum in her first foray
into the Capability Approach.

“Getting the list of functionings that are constitutive of good living is a matter of
asking ourselves what is most important, what is an essential part of any life that is
going to be rich enough to count as truly human....Sen needs to be more radical than
he has been so far in his criticism of utilitarian accounts of well-being, by introducing
an objective normative account of human functioning and describing a procedure of
objective evaluation by which functionings can be assessed for their contribution to
the good human life (Nussbaum 1988, pp.175-6).”
For Martha Nussbaum, critical evaluation is not enough to support a theory of justice that will
provide the necessary rigorous structure to provide the compelling arguments and direction to
get things done. Which capabilities are most important and what do they consist of? How
should they be ranked, if at all? Since interpersonal heterogeneity in converting resources into
functionings is often co-produced by physiological, social, and environmental factors, what
does that imply for how deprivations should be addressed (e.g. extra resources or social
reform)? Nussbaum‟s critique is motivated to demand more precision of the CA by policy
concerns and the idea that if the Capability Approach is evaluating something important, it
should be possible to describe it independently of the evaluation process. The particular
theoretical moves Nussbaum makes fit closely with her theoretical background in Aristotelian
philosophy and the philosophy of (constitutional) law. She takes the metric of the CA to be
the objectively defined flourishing life (with allowances for inter-cultural differences) and the
rule to take a legal institutional (constitutional) form (see e.g. Nussbaum 2001; 2003; 2004).
Understanding the CA to be concerned with finding a thick-vague conception of the nature of
well-being is to choose only one possible theoretical development route from the organising
framework level, which is, strictly speaking, agnostic between different capability theories,
and even between capability and non-capability theories. My concern with Nussbaum then, as
Sen‟s appears to be (below), turns on whether she means to replace Sen‟s version with her
theory of justice, or whether she is merely proposing a more specified tool with an excessive
rhetorical flourish.
“There is often good sense in narrowing the coverage of capabilities for a specific
purpose. An example is the use of a selected list of very elementary capabilities for
assessing the extent of poverty in some countries [As in Drèze & Sen 1989; 2002]. I
see Martha Nussbaum‟s use of a given list of capabilities for some minimal rights
against deprivation as being extremely useful in the same practical way ...... Lists of
capabilities have to be used for various purposes, and so long as we understand what
we are doing (and in particular that we are getting a list for a particular reason, related
to a particular assessment, evaluation, or critique), we do not put ourselves against
other lists that may be relevant or useful for other purposes. All this has to be
contrasted with insisting on one „final list of capabilities that matter‟ ...This could be
very dogmatic... (Sen 2004, p.79).”

7
Nussbaum has since retreated from her earlier (more strongly perfectionist) Aristotelian foundations for her
capability theory and now defends the same list as compatible with an overlapping political consensus in a
Rawlsian sense (see e.g. Nussbaum 2003). I take no stance here on the substantive implications of this shift in
theoretical frameworks.
From this evaluation-first perspective, Nussbaum‟s list, although coherent in its own terms,
can only be considered as one possible development of a social justice application – with
regard to framing legislation at the national political level - and should therefore be judged by
how well it does so. The capability approach as a whole should not be mistaken for it,
assessed in its terms, or limited to its conceptual apparatus (which are not necessarily all that
helpful for different concerns, such as for guiding fieldwork (cf. Alkire 2005a, pp.35-45)).
Liberal political philosophers, by which I mean those who share some form of joint
commitment to individual opportunity and individual freedom, such as John Rawls, consider
Sen‟s emphasis on „outcomes‟ (their interpretation of „effective freedom‟) non-liberal,
exactly because it implies an aim of producing good lives, the nature of which is specified
independently from individuals‟ free choices.8 This interpretation of the CA has been
reinforced by the influence of Nussbaum‟s theory in the Capability literature (a second order
effect). In Rawlsian terms it implies the political endorsement of a particular comprehensive
conception of the good, whatever dissenting individuals believe, and this fails the liberal
requirement that “the public conception of justice is to be political, not metaphysical” (Rawls
1985, p.223). The Rawlsian political philosopher Thomas Pogge is one of the most prominent
such liberal critics of Sen.

“We are seeking a public criterion of social justice that tells us how an institutional
order ought to be designed, and also how existing institutional schemes fall short and
how they should be reformed. For this purpose we need not merely a partial ordinal
ranking, but a complete interval ranking...As an institutional order is fully specific, so
is the public criterion of justice underlying it...for all Sen has published on this topic,
he has done little toward ruling out any candidates within the vast space of
conceivable capability views. So far, what he has mainly proposed is a new language
(Pogge 2010, p.51).”

As the above quotation makes clear, Pogge is only concerned with the level of theoretical
competition: what is the best theory of justice? This perspective leads Pogge to read the CA
as an instruction manual for designing a perfectly just institutional scheme, a test which it of
course fails: the extent to which the CA provides a “new language” is the extent to which it
fails to provide a good - i.e. complete and rigorous - theory. Pogge‟s understanding of the CA
appears to derive from his own theoretical interpretation of Sen‟s writing, complemented by
liberal use use of the more explicitly theorised versions of the CA by Anderson and
Nussbaum to try to fill remaining theoretical gaps. In his critique Pogge exposes various
important theoretical level lacunae and problematic implications, concerning for example
institutional structure and (re)distribution policies.

But Pogge‟s theory-driven (and at times frankly hostile) reading of the CA also leads to some
striking distortions. For example, he seems to consider capability to be an aggregate index on
which everyone would be scored and requiring compensation to those falling below some
threshold – which he terms “vertical inequality” (Pogge 2002, pp.204-208; 2010, pp.44-48).
However, disaggregation is one of the CA‟s foundational features and appears everywhere in
Sen‟s work: if people are identified as disadvantaged on one important dimension, such as
health or literacy, that should not be subsumed away by unusually high achievement on other
dimensions, let alone material wealth. Most egregiously Pogge claimed that the Human

8
See for example Pogge 2002; 2010. For examples of similar liberal critiques see for example Rawls 2005,
pp.182-186; Sugden 2006; Dowding 2006.
Development Index (HDI), which was developed for the United Nations Development
Programme by Mahbub ul Haq in collaboration with Amartya Sen,

“provides an incentive to concentrate resources on the healthier individuals in such

groups, whose life expectancy can be greatly extended by ensuring only that they have
the most basic nutrition, sanitation, and medical care. The HDI thus encourages policy
makers to withhold scarce resources from those who have special needs that make
their life expectancy more expensive to extend (Pogge 2002, p.213).”

Pogge thinks the HDI is the CA in action and that it will lead to some form of „death panels‟.
But the HDI is not a policy tool, it is a description tool: an aid to evaluation that makes more
(though still quite basic and limited) information about well-being available in many
countries than previous databases (typically narrowly focussed on GDP) (Sen 2004, p.79).
When considering the CA as concerned with evaluation, this is obvious. However, from
Pogge‟s perspective, the HDI is a metric, and metrics are targets around which an
institutional scheme is to be constructed and must therefore be precisely focussed on what the
correct theory considers relevant, and their implications well mapped, or they will have
disastrous consequences.

Open evaluation in Sen’s work

“A state of affairs is informationally rich. There is no particular reason to insist on an
impoverished account of a state of affairs in evaluating it (Sen 2000, p.491).”
Sen argues for openness in considering the multiple dimensions of evidence that may be
relevant to the assessment of a question. He contrasts this with the a priori restrictions on
what kinds or dimensions of information to consider in an evaluation which committing to a
particular theoretical approach in advance usually entails (see also Sen 1992, pp.48, 107). For
example, „narrow consequentialists‟ rule out the elements of process, agents, and motivations
in assessing the final outcome, while „narrow deontologists‟ rule out everything but
principles. His concern is that while this allows theoretical consistency and elegance, and
arguably makes answering questions easier (because one always gives the same kind of
answer, no matter what the question), it fails in its responsibility to address the actual
complexity that real problems raise. This follows from the axiomatic approach itself which
seeks to reduce all problems to what can be comprehended by an a priori selected theoretical
account. As a result, Sen points out, approaches which attempt to provide a consistent
systematic rule based framework for dealing with all problems that may come up can easily
be shown to produce absurd or awful conclusions about plausible cases (see e.g. Sen 1985).
Sen argues that numerous aspects of a particular situation may have reasonable claims to be
included in an analysis and therefore reasoned evaluation requires maintaining openness to
that informational richness for as long as possible and looking for and refining concepts
which adequately reflect the particular features of the case. The CA itself can be seen as
developing „framework‟ concepts which can bring the widest possible set of potentially
relevant information and perspectives to bear on the evaluation of human well-being e.g. by
identifying but not reducing its multiple dimensions and plausible principles of valuation –
freedom, utility, justice, the standard of living, cultural norms, needs, resources, conversion
factors, and so on.
In one characteristic example Sen raises a notional case of which of three poor people to give
a job to, each of whom is defined in terms fitted to a particular theory (the poorest person,
one who would gain most pleasure, and one whose level of functioning would benefit most
(Sen 1999, pp.54-55). Rawlsian, utilitarian and capability theories pick out one aspect
respectively as the most ethically salient and would straightforwardly indicate a different
person to receive the job. However, Sen doesn‟t discuss the problem to demonstrate that the
capability theory is the only right answer, but rather to demonstrate the dependence of the
theory chosen on the information considered. In fact, Sen doesn‟t conclude that the CA
indicates the correct answer at all but uses it to argue that evaluative decisions such as these
should be explicitly justified on the basis of how appropriately all information in such an
evaluation is considered, rather than on the basis of what would follow from any particular
account that is perfectly internally coherent (i.e. according to its foundational commitments)
(Sen 1999, p.81).
“The demands of responsibility of the person making a choice (of actions, strategies,
or other decision variables in practical reason) relate both to (1) the discipline of
evaluation, and to (2) the discipline of choice based on that evaluation (Sen 2000,
p.478).”
“[A]ny description involves discrimination and selection, and the real question is the
relevance of the selection process to the objects of description (Sen 1980, p.361).”
The fact that many theories may be relevant does not mean that all are equally relevant to an
assessment. On the contrary it raises the importance of taking responsibility for the choice of
techniques underlying assessment and not merely their application. One has to consider the
merits of the different accounts for each case without letting any one of those accounts
predetermine one‟s understanding of it (Sen 1999, pp.81-85). The chosen approach should be
responsible to the features of the situation but, where no single account is convincingly best,
one will have to make one‟s own reasoned and responsible choice of which informational
aspect to give the most weight to. Every theory picks out certain features of a case as salient
and interprets them in a particular way.
One must judge, like a legal judge perhaps, by reflecting on which theoretical perspectives
might be relevant to the particulars of a case, and then trying out those theoretical
perspectives and determining which one best grasps the case.9 Like a judge one must come to
a definite decision of how to treat the case that is justified by one‟s best, even if still partial,
understanding of what its features demand, that remains defeasible in the face of new
information or critical analysis. Like a judge at the same time that one takes responsibility for
one‟s own judgement – the choice of one theoretical frame – one acknowledges that one is
not making an arbitrary or purely subjective choice but one that others placed in the same
situation would agree with.

9
Compare with Samuel Fleischacker‟s analysis of ethical judgement in „A third concept of liberty‟ (1999),
which he derives from Adam Smith and Kant, as a dynamic two phase process combining i) „reflective
judgement‟- the search for and development of general concepts which are properly responsible to the
particulars under consideration (compare with Sen‟s “discipline of evaluation”); and ii) „determinate judgement‟
– the application of concepts to a particular case (compare with Sen‟s “discipline of choice”). Compare also
with Nussbaum‟s concept of practical reason (sometimes also referred to as „analogical reasoning‟) in her
account of judicious spectatorship in which she recommends attending to individuals‟ particular circumstances
as one would read a novel as a model for legal case analysis (see particularly her „Poetic Justice‟ (Nussbaum
1995), although this focuses on the more direct „perception‟ aspect of practical reason at the expense of a more
open evaluation.
This evaluative approach can be found throughout Sen‟s work and can be illustrated by
Siddiq Osmani‟s excellent analysis of it in Sen‟s somewhat simpler work on the entitlement
approach to understanding the causes of famines (Osmani 1995). Osmani argues that Sen‟s
entitlement approach “purports to advance no causal hypothesis, only an organizing
framework within which various causal influences can be systematically explored (Osmani
1995, p.264 emphases added).”
In various places (e.g. Sen 1981; 1982) Sen has severely criticised what he termed the Food
Availability Decline (FAD) approach as mistaken and insufficient. As a matter of fact, many
historical famines had in fact been caused or exacerbated by other factors than FAD (such as
a collapse in trade entitlement in an exchange economy); as a matter of policy, dogmatic
adherence to FAD had led to mistakes in the identification of and policy responses to famines
(and pre-famine conditions), particularly with regard to the impact of famines on different
groups within the same population.
However Sen did not argue against the FAD hypothesis - that famines can be caused by FAD
- only against the claim that FAD was a necessary, rather than merely a sufficient cause of
famine. The FAD hypothesis was instead subsumed within Sen‟s own much broader
entitlement approach as something that might affect individuals’ entitlement to food through
various mechanisms. This entitlement approach, Sen suggested, was the best way to
understand all famines. People have endowment sets consisting of their legally owned
resources, and final entitlement sets consisting of the resources they can legally obtain using
their endowment set, while the entitlement mapping is the relationship between the two sets
(and includes for example, production, exchange and transfer components (Osmani 1995,
pp.254-5). This provides us with the apparently absurdly simple diagram:
Endowment  Entitlement
Entitlement mapping

As Osmani explains, the significance of what might look like a definitional sleight of hand
(or to Pogge “a new language”) – that famines are defined as mass entitlement failures, but
may still be caused by FAD – is that it places individuals at the centre of the analysis
(Osmani 1995, p.269). The analysis then begins by asking, „do individuals have sufficient
entitlement to food?‟ (and not „how much food is there in the area?‟). If an entitlement failure
is diagnosed, then an explanation is sought across the various interconnected causal
mechanisms affecting endowment and entitlement mapping. Different theoretical
explanations are tried out on the features of the particular case in hand to see how well they
do. In Bengal in 1943, Sen argued, rural food price inflation is a better explanation of the
pattern of food entitlement failure across particular groups, such as agricultural labourers,
than a decline in food production (Sen 1982).
The diagnosis of entitlement failure thus motivates, and its particular nature directs, a search
for causes affecting the endowment sets and entitlement mappings of different (particularly
socio-economically distinguished) individuals (Osmani 1995, p.269). The disaggregated
nature of this analysis and the flexible conceptual framework of the entitlement approach
allows an open-minded search into the causal mechanisms relevant to any particular case
which can often turn up unexpected relationships (as Sen illustrated with his analysis of four
very different historical famines (Sen 1982)), while at the same time discriminating the
asymmetric impact of such forces on differently situated individuals (Osmani 1995, p.269).10
In a similar way, by defining poverty in terms of capability failure – an inability to lead the
kind of life we have reason to value - the CA aims at a general „organising framework‟ within
which various ethical and practical concerns for well-being can be “systematically explored”.
Once again the analysis starts by considering the effective freedom of socio-economically
situated individuals (though this is extended beyond merely the legal entitlement to food). A
judgement of capability failure provides direction to a search for how that failure should be
understood, and further, what policy implications might follow (informed pragmatically by
feasibility constraints on measurement and action). Significantly, that search is very open-
minded as to what particular aspects should be considered salient and how they should be
analysed (i.e. as to which of the particular ethical accounts subsumed under the CA
framework may be relevant to a case, and how). Sen has himself used just this approach to
show that GNP figures are insufficient indicators of what a country can achieve, if it chooses
to, with respect to literacy and child mortality, and to show the existence of a sex bias in self-
assessed morbidity in India (Sen 1985)
The CA as an organising framework subsumes all aspects that may be relevant to the
assessment of well-being, from civil liberties to commodity availability to economic
prosperity, and the particular ethical accounts best suited to their analysis, while refusing to
privilege any of those accounts, even those, like Nussbaum‟s, specifically developed as a
theory of capabilities. Such accounts are instead considered as theoretical resources which
can be brought to bear on the analysis of practical problems.

Concluding remarks
The openness of Sen‟s CA – its ability to consider the heterogeneity of influences on
individuals‟ capability sets and to be pluralist even in its principles of assessment– has helped
the CA become seen as a particularly attractive and sensible approach to development. It is
unfortunate therefore that that very openness is often mis-seen as a problem to be overcome.
As I have tried to show, properly understood, Sen‟s open evaluative approach has
unappreciated credibility and strengths. However to some extent that „theoretical‟ criticism
has diverted philosophers‟ attention away from an engaged assessment and development of
Sen‟s evaluative system. Two important such issues concern the objective valuation of
different kinds of capability and the objective evaluation of individuals‟ capability sets. For
the former, Sen rejects both independent perfectionist views of the good life and subjectivist
utilitarian type approaches and instead suggests an objectivity in terms of public reason and
deliberation (with many similarities to Rawls‟ account of public reason) that will be
responsive to society‟s values and concerns, and their development. But this important
feature has so far been only lightly sketched by Sen and needs much working out. For the
latter, as Sugden for example notes, there is an implied moral observer in the CA whose role

10
Note that just as the CA is often mistaken for a theory, or confused with a particular capability theory, Sen‟s
entitlement approach is still frequently confused with being an entitlement hypothesis (e.g. that famines are
always caused by falls in relative purchasing power) even by serious researchers (see for an example, Lin &
Yang 2000). Particular entitlement hypotheses can be opposed to FAD ones and tested against the empirical
evidence without any relevance to the assessment of Sen‟s entitlement approach. This parallels the way
comparative assessment of capability and non-capability theories often misses the capability approach.
Regarding policy, Sen himself has endorsed greater use of transfer payments (e.g. employment programmes) to
shore up entitlement sets and prevent famine (which parallels his endorsement of a shortlist of basic capabilities
for general development purposes) but nevertheless maintains that the wider evaluative framework always
remains relevant to the analysis of a particular situation.
is not properly justified or explained (Sugden 2006). Sen‟s recent use of Adam Smith‟s
concept of the Impartial Spectator as a model for such a judge (Sen 2002; Sen 2009) is a
promising but so far incomplete answer to this challenge that would seem to deserve more
attention.

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