Critics and modifications

There Is No List of Capabilities

In his review of Amartya Sen's "Commodities and Capabilities," Robert Sugden of the University of East Anglia noted what he thought was a serious lack of insight in Sen's approach. "This is an important idea, but Sen has disappointingly little to say about how these sets are to be valued; he makes a few suggestions but only to show how unsatisfactory they are." (Sugden, 821) In the point of view of Sugden, there is a need for a ranking of capabilities because in order to judge whether or not someone is living a full life, we need to know what the scale is that judges that happy life.

Sugden is referring to Sen's inability to create any list for use. Sen, in a paper in Feminist Economics, responds to the question as to whether or not a list of capabilities can be drawn. He combats the argument that he does not refer to lists because they cannot be created. Instead, he makes the point that lists can and have been made and refers to his efforts in the development of the Human Development Index. The importance is that the researches understand for what purpose the list is being created. His one objection towards lists is that there can be no final list. A list of capabilities, according to Sen, must always be flexible in order to fit different situations. While some capabilities will stay the same on every list- food, water, shelter, etc., as time changes, there will become new inventions and circumstances that might in turn create new capabilities.

Sugden's largest criticism, however, was on the lack of value placed on certain capabilities. There must be a way that we can judge economic development, according to Sugden, by looking at what capabilities a country supports and then ranking the importance of those versus the value of the capabilities lacking. Sen does not believe in a value system of rankings because the value of capabilities differs from situation to situation. "We may have to give priority to the ability to be well nourished when people are dying of hunger in their homes, whereas the freedom to be sheltered may rightly receive more weight when people are in general well fed, but lack shelter." (Sen 78)

When looking at economic development in a nation, it is important, then, to take into account the current circumstances of that nation. After doing so, Sen believes it possible to create some sort of flexible list of capabilities in which to use in evaluating economic development.

Martha Nussbaum, however, points out that while Sen has a social goal, the lack of guidance through a carefully selected list of capabilities hampers the strength of his argument. "They give us a general sense of what societies ought to be striving to achieve, but because of Sen’s reluctance to make commitments about substance (which capabilities a society ought most centrally to pursue), even that guidance remains but an outline. And they give us no sense of what a minimum level of capability for a just society might be." (Nussbaum 35) She believes that Sen falls short because he does not create a guidline for societies to follow because he is unable or unwilling to select certain concrete capabilities as necessary.

Sen and Social Justice: Nussbaum, Hayek, and Berzyak

Why is it that developing this list is so important?

Group 6: Amartya Sen's Capabilities Approach