Abstract
In order to appreciate the individual capability we need to respect individual evaluations that cannot be reduced to market prices or monistic utility. This reflects Sen’s interest in “income and wealth” that introduce a plural value index, named goods, in measuring total wealth in a society as discussed in Chap. 2. It confirms that Sen’s main interest was to expose economic models to ethical considerations as an external or reflective point of view. Chap. 2 also traces the origin of the capability approach in the history of welfare economics. It describes the history in six phases including the genealogy of wealth and welfare (reconceptualization of national accounting), the genealogy of liberty and rights (development of social choice theory) and the genealogy of criticism of welfarism (integrated points of view of economy and ethics).
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Notes
- 1.
On this issue refer to Atkinson (1995, 1999). See also Basu et al. (1995).
- 2.
See Gotoh (2006b).
- 3.
See Sen (1976c/1982; 1979b/1984), among others.
- 4.
As an example, Chap. 3 defines and analyzes “relative values of functionings” for both cases where the capability set is linear and strictly convex.
- 5.
Note that one of the advantages of the convexity approach is its ability to produce a global partial order that specifies the set of inferior allocations based on these “locally relevant weights”.
- 6.
The basic idea of “neutrality” can be described as follows. “[I]f the individual preferences over (x, y) in one case are identical to the individual preferences over (a, b) in another case, then the social choice in the latter case would place a and b respectively where x and y figured in the former case.” (Sen 2002a, 333).
- 7.
Prasanta Pattanaik argues that “individual welfare judgements…incorporate individual values on institutional features of social states” (Pattanaik 2005, 377). See also Fleurbaey and Mongin (2005, 386).
- 8.
Refer to “A social welfare functional (SWFL) specifies exactly one social ordering R over the set X of social states for any given n-tuple {Ui(・)}” of personal utility functions, each defined over X, one for each person i: R = F({Ui}).” (Sen 1970a/2017, 373[2017]).
- 9.
In social epidemiology, for example, there are some studies analyzing mechanisms where certain socio-economic disadvantages are translated into health disadvantages via group categories such as race or gender (Marmot 2015). Group categories here are regarded as environmental factors beyond individual control.
- 10.
Hobbes clearly points out that it is “equality” that leads to distrust, competition, and vanity (Hobbes 1641/1904), whereas “equality” here implies not “equality as a norm” that people may form through public reasoning but illusionary perception of “equality as a fact”.
- 11.
We can find insights into this fundamental equality from the perspective of chance in many works by different authors including Rawls and Levinas.
- 12.
Well-defined preference satisfies Continuity, (Strict) Monotonicity and Convexity. Continuity requires that if we prefer vector x to vector y, vectors very close to x will also be preferred to y. Convex Preference requires that for any two named vectors, their convex combinations are better than either. (Strict) monotonicity requires that if vector x is dominant vector y, we prefer x to y.
- 13.
This case reminds us of an interesting issue of “involvement allocation” discussed by the sociologist Goffman (1963b). Note that Tadenuma and Xu (2017) give an axiomatic characterization of the equality of freedom based on the opportunity set by extending the no-envy theory.
- 14.
“To individuality should belong the part of life in which it is chiefly the individual that is interested; to society, the part which chiefly interests society.” (Mill 1859/1977, Chap. 4).
- 15.
According to Aristotle, what remains a subjective wish cannot be called a choice (Aristotle, 4th Century BC/1980).
- 16.
Derek Parfit explains that different persons would be born in different results and hence it is difficult to judge different results from a point of view of the same person. (Parfit 1984).
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Gotoh, R. (2021). Welfare Economics and the Capability Approach. In: The Ethics and Economics of the Capability Approach. Hitotsubashi University IER Economic Research Series, vol 46. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-5140-6_2
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