Short Abstract:

In this paper, we would like to compare the common good approach and the capability approach and raise three critical questions regarding the capability approach’s capacity to do justice to relationships, social dynamics, and institutions. We argue that true human development is one that, aside from expanding individual freedoms, promotes shared human development.

Long Abstract:

Research context:

One of the most fertile topics of discussion within the capability literature has been the role of social and collective categories in promoting individual freedoms and the extent to which the capability approach is able to embrace those categories. Whereas defendants of ethical individualism have no problem in recognising, and indeed in highlighting, the social influences of those social and collective categories on individuals (e.g., through the notions of adaptive preferences, socially dependent capabilities, social conversion factors, and commitment) (Robeyns 2005), other scholars argue that the CA does not go deep enough to account for the pervasive influence of social structures on people’s freedoms and the instrumental and intrinsic role of groups and collectivities for their well-being (Deneulin 2008; Giraud et al. 2013; Ibrahim 2006, 2008; Leßmann 2022; Longshore & Seward 2009). As a result, the conceptual framework of the capability approach as discussed in the literature has moved beyond a purely individualistic lens and has begun to incorporate collective and relational understandings of the notion of capability. However, drawing on a common good approach to development, we argue that the capability approach remains insufficiently equipped to diagnose, and thus make use of, the role of social relations, solidarity, cooperation, and collective practices in order to promote shared human development.

Methodology:

In our contribution, we primarily rely on conceptual analysis (Olsthoorn 2017) and defend our thesis based on philosophical and ethical arguments (Thomson 1999; Walton 2003). Conceptual analysis provides us with a novel understanding of the connections between individual capabilities and social and collective categories. Philosophical arguments help us to analyse the tension between synchronic and diachronic approaches and the tension between individual well-being and the common good.

Analysis & Conclusion:

The common good approach (CGA) was developed to analyse the complexity of social realities (Nebel, Garza-Vázquez & Sedmak 2022). It focuses on the interdependence of human beings and the way in which they organize their interactions and collaborate to create the conditions that enable their own well-being and that of their community. Consequently, the approach understands people as social beings who relate to others and who depend on others to fully flourish. From this perspective, we raise three critical questions regarding the capability approach’s capacity to do justice to relationships, social dynamics, and institutions. First, while the CGA understands human beings as constituted by their relationships and centres its attention on people’s ability to organise and cooperate, the CA considers individual agency as primary value. Second, the CA is only able to provide a snapshot of individual outcomes within a complex social reality, whereas the CGA observes the development processes of a community in a diachronic way throughout time and space. Third, the CGA focuses on common goods and institutions as enabling and restricting, whereas the CA restricts institutions to the level of conversion factors. We therefore argue that true human development is one that, aside from expanding individual freedoms, promotes shared human development.

Bibliography:

- Deneulin, Séverine. 2008, Beyond individual freedom and agency: structures of living together in the capability approach. In: Comim F, Qizilbash M, Alkire S, eds. The Capability Approach: Concepts, Measures and Applications. Cambridge University Press; 2008: 105–124.

- Giraud, Gaël, Cécile Renouard, Hélène L’Huillier, Raphaële de la Martinière, and Camille Sutter. 2013. Relational Capability: A Multidimensional Approach. ESSEC Working Paper 1306. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2333529

- Ibrahim, Solava. 2006. From individual to collective capabilities: The capability approach as a conceptual framework for self-help, Journal of Human Development 7/3, 397–416.

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- Longshore Smith, Matthew, and Carolina Seward, 2009, The Relational Ontology of Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach: Incorporating Social and Individual Causes, Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 10:2, pp. 213–235

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- Olsthoorn, Johan. 2017. ‘Conceptual Analysis’. In Methods in Analytical Political Theory. Edited by Adrian Blau, 153-191. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press.

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- Thomson, Anne. 1999. Critical Reasoning in Action: A Practical Introduction. London: Routledge.

- Walton, Douglas. 2003. Ethical Argumentation. Oxford: Lexington Books.