Qizilbash 2007 Social Choice and Individual Capabilities

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DOI: 10.1177/1470594X07077271

2007 6: 169Politics Philosophy EconomicsMozaffar Qizilbash

Social choice and individual capabilities

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Social choice and individualcapabilities

Mozaffar QizilbashUniversity of York, UK

abstract Amartya Sen has recently suggested that certain issues which arise in theapplication of the capability approach can be seen in terms of social choice.This article explores certain connections and tensions between KennethArrow’s celebrated discussion of social choice and the capability approachwhile focusing on one central link: pluralism. Given the variety of valuespeople hold, substantive issues which arise in the application of the capabilityapproach can be seen as social choice problems. Seeing them in this wayhelps to explain some of Sen’s suggestions about applying the approach in thelight of an analogue of Arrow’s theorem. However, it also poses a potentialproblem because of the focus on preferences in social choice theory, giventhat the capability approach is motivated in part by problems which ‘adaptivepreferences’ raise for ‘utility’-based views. In this article, it is argued thatSen’s writings about public reasoning allow him to address this problem tosome degree. The reading underlying this argument clarifies issues about therelationship between the individual and society in his approach. It alsoilluminates the extent of Sen’s debt to John Rawls’s writings on ‘publicreason’, while clarifying some points on which Sen and Rawls diverge.

keywords social choice, capability, welfare, democracy

1. Introduction

At first sight, the areas of social choice and the capability approach appear quitedistinct. In his Nobel lecture, Amartya Sen writes that the ‘subject of “socialchoice” includes within its capacious frame various problems with the commonfeature of relating social judgements and group decisions to the views and inter-ests of the individuals who make up the society or group’.1 By contrast, Sen’s

politics,philosophy & economics article

DOI: 10.1177/1470594X07077271Mozaffar Qizilbash is a Professor in the Department of Economics and Related Studies and School of Politics, Economics and Philosophy at the University of York, UK [email: [email protected]] 169

© SAGE Publications LtdLondonThousand Oaks, CAand New Delhi

1470-594X200706 6(2) 169–192



capability approach is about states of a person. A person’s ‘capability’ refers tothe different collections or n-tuples of ‘beings’ and ‘doings’ or ‘functionings’which make up the lives from which she can choose one.2 It reflects the person’sfreedom or opportunities. To this degree, the capability approach seems to focuson the individual rather than society. The approach provides a perspective whichcan be used to think about issues such as justice, the quality of life, and develop-ment inter alia.

In this article, I focus on one link between Kenneth Arrow’s pioneering contributions to modern social choice theory and the capability approach whicharises from the fact that both are deeply concerned with pluralism. I argue that aconcern with pluralism in part explains Sen’s desire to restrict himself to, what Icall, a ‘thin view’ which consists of arguments in favour of capability and func-tioning as significant evaluative spaces. His reluctance to go much further in ‘filling out’ the approach, by specifying a definitive list of capabilities or func-tionings or a set of weights to be attached to such capabilities or functionings, hasgenerated a considerable literature. Partly in response to this literature, Sen hasstressed the importance of ‘public reasoning’ in his more recent writings. This isthe basis of what I call Sen’s ‘thick view’, which addresses how one might dealwith evaluative issues which arise in the application of the capability approach.Sen’s thoughts on these issues often focus on a search for reasoned agreement3

and I take this search to be a defining feature of his thick view. Sen also suggeststhat some relevant issues about the application of the capability approach, particularly issues relating to weights and the selection of valuable capabilities orfunctionings, are social choice problems.

There is thus a need to examine conceptual issues relating to the capabilityapproach and social choice. Such an examination is necessary if we are to makesense of Sen’s thick view and the relationship between the individual and societyin that view. I begin by explaining some linkages and apparent contrasts betweensocial choice theory and the capability approach in Section 2; in Section 3, Iargue that some of Sen’s suggestions about how one might apply the approachcan be seen as a response to an analogue of Arrow’s general possibility theorem;in Section 4, I explain why the selection of weights and valuable functionings andcapabilities can be seen as social choice problems; in Section 5, I explore Sen’smore recent writings on public reasoning, evaluate the extent to which these canovercome a central tension between social choice theory and the capabilityapproach which relates to ‘adaptive preferences’, and explore the differences andoverlaps between Sen’s discussion of public reasoning and justice and JohnRawls’s account of ‘public reason’; and Section 6 concludes.

2. Some contrasts and linkages

In Kenneth Arrow’s Social Choice and Individual Values, a concern with reflecting the plurality of values in society in social judgements is central. The

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commitment to value pluralism strongly influences Arrow’s articulation of thevarious conditions a ‘social welfare function’ (SWF) should meet. The SWF is aprocedure or rule which, for each set of individual preference orderings, states asocial preference ordering.4 Arrow distinguishes between the preference orderingwhich is relevant to consumer decision-making, which reflects a person’s‘tastes’, and the ordering that goes further by adding standards of equity and soon, which reflects her ‘values’ more broadly. He emphasizes that ‘we must lookat the entire system of values, including values about values, in seeking for a trulygeneral theory of social choice’.5

Arrow rules out the possibility that the SWF can be ‘imposed’ (so that it isentirely dictated by tradition) or ‘dictatorial’ (so that it merely reflects the preferences of one individual).6 He also requires that the rule works for some‘sufficiently wide range of individual orderings’.7 In later statements of his theorem, Arrow introduces the ‘unrestricted domain’ condition.8 This goes further and requires that the rule should produce a social ordering for any logic-ally possible set of orderings. Arrow recognizes that by defining these conditionshe is committed to certain value judgements which might be questioned, and that‘taken together they express the doctrines of citizens’ sovereignty and rationalityin a very general form, with the citizens being allowed to have a wide range ofvalues’.9 Because it allows people to hold to a wide range of preference orderings(where ‘preference’ is understood in terms of value rather than taste) Arrow’sformulation of the problem of social choice is centrally concerned with value pluralism.

In explaining the capability approach, Sen also emphasizes pluralism. Senthinks that the capability approach is ‘inescapably pluralist’10 for a number ofreasons. First, there is a heterogeneous set of distinct functionings. Second, thereis the issue of the weight to give to capability as compared to achieved function-ings. Finally, Sen allows for the fact that there are considerations other than capability (such as process) that matter for evaluative purposes. Since theapproach is concerned with a heterogeneous set of functionings, the componentsof the quality of life or ‘advantage’ are seen as plural. In this sense, it is com-mitted to ‘component pluralism’. However, in merely advocating that one oughtto be concerned with capability and functionings as ‘spaces’ for evaluation, Sendoes not take a strong stance on which capabilities or functionings matter in anaccount of the good life or justice, or on the relative importance of different capabilities and functionings. He does so, in part, to allow for the fact that various people have different conceptions of the good life – which I term ‘good-life pluralism’ – and give different weights to the components of advantage –which I term ‘weight pluralism’.

A central contrast between modern social choice theory and the capabilityapproach relates to the central role of preferences in social choice theory. The focus on preferences is clear in Arrow’s formulation. Sen11 himself hasargued that the basis of social choice in individual preferences can be seen as an

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advantage for social choice theory, because of the many ways of interpreting thenotion of preference.12 However, Sen’s thin view, which is constituted by argu-ments in favour of capability and functioning as evaluative spaces, is based on acritique of some accounts of the quality of life which see it as ‘utility’ understoodas desire satisfaction or happiness. This point is important because of the well-known problem of ‘adaptive’ preferences or desires. Sen stresses that people can adapt to the straitened conditions in which they find themselves and restricttheir desires so that they are easily satisfied or learn to find happiness in small mercies. If they do so, the metric of desire satisfaction or ‘utility’ can, on hisview, be ‘deeply unfair to the persistently deprived . . . the usual underdogs instratified societies’.13 This point is clearly relevant to the use of a ‘utility’-basedmetric of the quality of life, but also has relevance for utilitarianism as a theoryof morality or justice. Jon Elster has given a related, if distinct, account of ‘adaptive preferences’ which focuses on the phenomenon of ‘sour grapes’: ondiscovering that the grapes he desires are out of reach, the fox concludes that theyare sour.14 The fox’s preferences adjust to the range of possibilities he faces. Insuch cases, for Elster, the adjustment of preferences is not deliberate, but is driven by causal processes which work ‘behind the back’ of the agent.15

In spite of these worries with ‘utility’ or preference accounts, Sen adopts apreference-based view in his work on the measurement of freedom and opportu-nity. He follows Arrow in stressing that in this context he is using the sense ofpreference as value rather than as taste, mental satisfaction, or desire.16 Inasmuchas this sense is distinct from mental satisfaction or desire, and to the degree thatvalues are less malleable than mental states and desires, this move would seemto limit the relevance of adaptation to the use of preferences in social choice theory. The fact that values themselves can adapt and be socially conditionedremains, nonetheless, and this is no doubt one reason why Sen suggests that thereis good reason for social choice theory to investigate preference formation moredeeply.17 To this degree, adaptive preferences remain a potential problem withany attempt to develop the capability perspective which invokes social choicetheory. Indeed, for this reason, Elster argues that people’s preferences may provide a ‘fragile foundation for social choice’ and cites his notion of adaptivepreferences by way of illustration.18

A second contrast between social choice theory and the capability approach isimplicit in Kaushik Basu’s review of Sen’s Commodities and Capabilities.19

Basu notes that Sen has ‘always been careful to make room for the imprecisionsand inexactitudes which abound in life’.20 However, Basu finds the subject ofSen’s book ‘too diverse, too complex to be amenable to the relentless precisionof social choice theory’.21 The key contrast here lies in the fact that the methodof modern social choice theory is, for the most part, axiomatic and relies heavilyon formal techniques. Sen himself acknowledges that the reliance on theaxiomatic method in social choice theory means that it can neglect substantiveissues.22 Indeed, it is unclear how far such methods can take us in applying the


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capability approach, since substantive questions about which capabilities mattermay not be resolved by a formal, axiomatic method. However, there are nownumerous contributions which show the potential fruitfulness of the axiomaticmethod in clarifying issues relating to the capability approach, particularly asregards the measurement of opportunities and functionings.23 Furthermore, giventhe possibility that preferences might be fuzzy, as well as Sen’s repeated sugges-tion that well-being and inequality are ‘partly opaque concepts’,24 it is unsurpris-ing that work in both social choice theory and on the capability approach hasexplored the use of fuzzy set theory.25 Basu’s contrast between the precision ofthe methods of social choice theory and the complexity of issues involved inapplying the capability approach is perhaps less striking now than it was when itwas originally made.

Finally, there is also an apparent contrast between the focus on social judge-ments in social choice theory and the focus on individuals in the capabilityapproach. In Arrow’s classic statement, the objects of social choice are ‘socialstates’, while in the capability approach, the objects of choice are collections offunctionings which are states of the person. The most precise definition of asocial state would be, according to Arrow:

a complete description of the amount of each type of commodity in the hands of eachindividual, the amount of labor to be supplied by each individual, the amount of each productive resource invested in each type of productive activity, the amounts of various types of collective activity, such as municipal services, diplomacy and itscontinuation by other means, and the erection of statues to famous men.26

This apparent contrast is not especially strong for at least two reasons. First, asalready mentioned, social choice theory is rooted in an analysis of individualpreferences, and indeed social choice theory can be seen as being rather individ-ualistic. Second, the apparent contrast between the levels at which social choiceand the capability approach operate is less striking if, as Sen suggests, ‘prefer-ence or valuation over different social states can include assessment of differentfreedoms enjoyed by different persons’.27 For this reason, the capability approachand work based on it, such as the Human Development Reports published by theUnited Nations Development Programme (UNDP), can be seen as part of a programme in social choice theory which aims to expand the informational basisof social choice by including freedoms in the definition of social states.28 Whilethis programme locates the judgement of individual opportunities or freedoms inthe context of social evaluation, it is noticeable that Sen’s formulation of this linkagain makes preferences (or values) central, since social states are the objects ofpreference (or valuation). So the issue of adaptive preferences (or values) is alsoa potential problem for this way of linking the capability approach and socialchoice theory. Indeed, this issue appears to present the only significant tension inlinking the two.


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3. The Arrow theorem and component pluralism

There are a number of different versions of Arrow’s general possibility theorem.In one version, the theorem proved that there is no SWF that meets four innocuous-looking conditions.29 It is not hard to see that, if one adopts an accountof the quality of life or advantage which involves multiple dimensions, there is arelated result about multidimensional advantage. To make sense of this result,suppose that there is a set of dimensions or components of advantage with components indexed by i. These can be capabilities or functionings, though theresult applies to any approach which involves plural components of advantage.The rule or procedure that is relevant in the context of multidimensional advan-tage is a multidimensional advantage function (MAF), which is a rule which generates a single overall advantage ordering for a set of orderings based on thecomponents of advantage. The objects which are of concern in the context of anMAF are not ‘social states’, but rather any objects that can be judged as regardsadvantage. For ease of exposition, I refer to these objects as ‘alternatives’. Soindividual people or groups or nations whose quality of life or advantage is rele-vant can be considered as ‘alternatives’, which we can write as x, y, and so on.

The analogy between social choice and decision-making in the context of mul-tidimensionality has been much discussed30 and suggests that the axiomaticmethods of social choice theory can inform discussions about the application ofthe capability approach. Analogues of the Arrow conditions have been definedfor the case of multidimensional decision-making, as well as for the case of anMAF. I state these conditions in the form they are presented in Sen’s expositionof Arrow’s theorem. In what follows, I shall be concerned with the relations ‘atleast as good as in terms of component i’ and ‘better than in terms of componenti’ as well as ‘at least as good as in terms of overall advantage’ and ‘better than interms of overall advantage’. These relations might have various properties. I shallcall the set of alternatives X. Any binary relation, O, is an ordering if it has theproperties of reflexivity, transitivity, and completeness. These are defined in theusual way, as follows:

1. Reflexivity: for all x in X, xOx.2. Transitivity: for all x, y, z in X, if xOy and yOz, then xOz.3. Completeness: for all x, y in X, where x and y are not identical, xOy or yOx.31

The analogues of the Arrow conditions in Sen’s version of the theorem32 are asfollows:

U. The domain of the MAF must include all logically possible combinations oforderings based on the components of advantage.

P. For all x, y in X, if for all i, x is better than y in terms of component i, then xis better than y in terms of overall advantage.

I. For all x and y, if the rankings of these alternatives according to all the com-ponents of advantage stay the same, then the ranking of overall advantage is


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the same (that is, the ranking of these alternatives in terms of overall advantage depends only on the ranking of the alternatives in terms of thecomponents of advantage).

N. There is no component i such that for all x, y in X if x is better than y in termsof component i, then x is better than y in terms of overall advantage.

Conditions U, P, I, and N are, respectively, the analogues of unrestricted domain,the weak Pareto principle, the independence of irrelevant alternatives, and non-dictatorship in standard statements of Arrow’s theorem. Since there is a directanalogy between the possibility of an MAF and that of an SWF, the analogue ofArrow’s theorem tells us that there is no MAF which meets these conditions. Ifwe wish to apply an approach which embodies component pluralism, we mustthen ask which of these conditions we might relax. It is worth recalling thatArrow’s theorem was proven in a setting in which interpersonal comparisons ofwell-being were taken to have no meaning.33 In the present context, the analogueof interpersonal comparability is comparability between the components ofadvantage. Inter-component comparability would be denied by some of thosewho see values as ‘incommensurable’.34 However, there is nothing in Sen’s thinview which rules out such comparability. Even if the components of advantageare seen as ‘irreducible’ to a single value or component (so that component pluralism holds), they may, nonetheless, be comparable.35

There are a number of routes one might take in responding to the impossibilityof an MAF which mirror standard ways of attempting to address or to ‘escape’the Arrow result. The options involve giving up the search for an MAF, droppingone of the conditions, or increasing the informational base for evaluation byallowing for inter-component comparability. In different parts of his work, Senseems to pursue at least two of these strategies. The first approach is to give upthe search for an ordering by dropping the requirement that the ‘at least as goodas in terms of overall advantage’ relation is complete, so that it is reflexive andtransitive, but not necessarily complete – a ‘quasi-ordering’. If we take this line,then a rule which says that x is better than y in terms of overall advantage if andonly if it is better than y in terms of some component i and at least as good as yin terms of all components may be widely endorsed. Sen suggests this as one possible ‘partial ordering’.36 Elsewhere he suggests the possibility of a ‘domi-nance partial order’,37 which would involve judging that x is better than y in termsof overall advantage if and only if x is better than y in terms of all components.38

These suggestions about how to apply the capability approach can be linked tothe search for reasoned agreement, which underlies Sen’s thick view. As long asagreement about the components of advantage is secure, then the ‘dominancepartial order’ will lead to shared evaluative judgements. However, some worryabout the extent of incompleteness implied by the ‘dominance partial order’.39

Worries might also be expressed about how one might secure agreement aboutthe components of advantage and Sen’s thick view must address these.


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An alternative to pursuing partial orderings is to allow comparability of thecomponents of advantage. That would open up the possibility of using anaggregative index with weights attached to different components. At the level ofinternational rankings of the quality of life, the human development index (HDI)is one such index. It can be seen as an application of the capability approach.40

Nothing in Sen’s thin view commits one to following any of these routes, sincethe thin view only advocates the importance of the spaces of capability and functioning. Sen was one of the creators of the HDI41 and so has taken differentroutes in responding to the multidimensionality of advantage in applying thecapability approach in different parts of his work.42 Again, when pursuing thepossibility of an aggregative index, issues about the weights given to differentcomponents arise. There can clearly be disagreement about these. Sen’s thickview must also address these worries to the degree that the HDI is an applicationof his capability approach.43

4. Lists, weights, and social choice

In discussing the analogue of Arrow’s theorem, I put the issue of the selection offunctionings, capabilities, and weights to one side. The theorem applied for anyset of components of advantage. As regards weights, Sen often suggests that ifdifferent people have different weights, we may still be able to pin down a rangewithin which their weights fall, and make judgements which hold for this range of weights. This is the so-called ‘intersection’ approach44 and it is clearlymotivated by Sen’s thick view: the aim is to arrive at judgements that are widelyshared, given weight pluralism.

As regards the selection or ‘list’ of functionings and capabilities, a consider-able literature about lists has emerged. On the one hand, there are those whoargue in favour of a definite list of some sort. Indeed, Martha Nussbaum45 hasdeveloped a definite list of capabilities, while others have developed method-ologies for the articulation of lists.46 Nussbaum’s list initially emerged from anAristotelian account of the good life,47 while in more recent work48 she presentsa somewhat revised list which has emerged through discussion and dialogue withothers and which, she suggests, can form part of an ‘overlapping consensus’among people with different conceptions of the good life. Nussbaum deliberatelyleaves her list vague and open to a multiplicity of specifications so that it can bespecified differently by various people at different times and in different places.49

This move is central to her attempt to address good-life pluralism. The list is‘open-ended’ and can be ‘contested and remade’ through debate.50

Sen has a range of reasons for not specifying a definitive list. He is concernedthat by providing such a list one might end up overspecifying the capabilityapproach.51 In distinct applications and contexts, different capabilities or func-tionings may be relevant. A related reason for worrying about specifying a defin-itive list is that it risks alienating those who do not share some conception(s) of


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the good life implicit in any such list or who would advance other lists.52 Thatcould undermine the advocacy of the spaces of capability and functioning whichis central to Sen’s thin view. Nonetheless, Sen thinks there is likely to be broadagreement about a range of functionings. Functionings such as being adequatelynourished, being in good health, and so on are, he thinks, ‘very elementary’ and‘may be strongly valued by all, for obvious reasons’. Others such as being socially integrated may be ‘more complex, but still widely valued’.53 His opti-mism about the existence of a broad range of functionings which are valued bymost people is clearly important to the plausibility of his thick view, since in theabsence of such a range there would not be much basis for reasoned agreement.

In some of Sen’s applications of the capability approach, furthermore, specificfunctionings, capabilities, or weights are selected. His thick view can be betterunderstood by considering these applications. Of these, the best known is the HDI. That index includes three components which are given equal weight.Since the selection of weights and components is an evaluative exercise, it cangenerate controversy.54 For this reason, Sen is concerned that any selection ofweights and components which is relevant to public decision-making must betransparent and open to public discussion and scrutiny.55 Indeed, he sees theseissues through the lens of social choice. So, for example, in the context of theselection of weights, he writes:

It is of course crucial to ask, in any evaluative exercise of this kind, how the weightsare to be selected. The judgmental exercise can be resolved only through reasoned evaluation. For a particular person, who is making his or her own judgements, the selection of weights will require reflection, rather than any interpersonal agreement (or consensus). However, in arriving at an ‘agreed’ range for social evaluation (forexample, in social studies of poverty), there has to be some sort of reasoned ‘consensus’on weights, or at least on a range of weights. This is a ‘social choice’ exercise, and itrequires public discussion and a democratic understanding and acceptance.56

There needs, however, to be some clarity about why the selection of weights is best seen as a ‘social choice’ exercise. One reason why the selection is a matter of social choice (defined in the broad way that Sen uses in his Nobel lecture) is that one is interested in proceeding from a wide range of weights heldby different members of society to one final set of weights for social evaluation.However, there are a number of elements in Sen’s actual text. On my reading, thekey elements involve a recognition of (1) weight pluralism, (2) a distinctionbetween evaluations at the social and personal levels, and (3) the importance ofreasoned agreement, public discussion, and acceptability. While the concern withpluralism involved in (1) is central to my subject in this article, (2) is also a keyelement to Sen’s own understanding of when a weighting exercise involvessocial choice.57 Finally, (3) is crucial to what I have described as Sen’s thickview.

Sen’s focus on public discussion and democratic understanding can be illus-


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trated in the context of one attempt to use the axiomatic method of social choice theory to address the issue of weight pluralism. Achin Chakraborty hasattempted to find a ‘common set of weights attached to the set of functionings byall the individuals in society’.58 He sets out a set of axioms which imply that thiscommon set of weights should just be the average of the set of weights endorsedby different people.59 If one had information on these weights, this might proveto be an attractive and neat solution. By contrast, Sen’s discussion seems toinvolve a less formal and potentially more messy approach. He writes:

There is an interesting choice between ‘technocracy’ and ‘democracy’ in the selectionof weights . . . A choice procedure that relies on a democratic search for agreement orconsensus can be extremely messy, and many technocrats are sufficiently disgustedwith its messiness to pine for some magic formula that would give us ready-madeweights that are ‘just right’. However, no such magic formula does, of course, exist,since the issue of weighting is one of valuation and judgement, and not one of someimpersonal technology. We are not prevented, by any means, from proposing that someparticular formula – rather than any alternative formula – be used for aggregation, butin this inescapably social-choice exercise its status must depend on its acceptability toothers.60

What makes the selection of weights an ‘inescapably social-choice exercise’ here again goes beyond addressing weight pluralism per se and recognizes the need for acceptability at the social level. So, on this account, the status ofChakraborty’s attempt to address the problem of diverse weights would dependon its acceptability to others in the light of public discussion.

Sen’s argument here is also relevant to lists. Arriving at a set of componentsof advantage for social evaluation can again be seen as a social choice problem.Agreement on such a set was required, as we saw earlier, for the ‘dominance partial order’ to generate shared judgements. A list which some particular personuses to plan her life no doubt emerges from reflection and experience. Suchreflection may lead members of society to endorse a wide range of lists of capa-bilities or functionings. For public decision-making, the identification of a list (orlists) would require a procedure for filtering these diverse lists into an agreed orwidely endorsed list or set of lists. For this to be a genuine exercise in socialchoice, on my reading of Sen’s account, one must allow for a wide range of‘voices’ in determining the list (or set of lists) through public discussion. If theselected list or set of lists is not agreed on or endorsed by people with a widerange of views and values, any decisions based on it may lack acceptability orlegitimacy. While Sen does not explicitly mention legitimacy, a concern with itis, no doubt, one reason that Sen is centrally concerned with public reasoning anddemocracy in his recent writings.


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5. Public reasoning, democracy, the formation of preferences,and justice

In stressing the importance of ‘public reasoning’ in his recent writings, Sen hascited John Rawls’s notion of ‘public reason’ and James Buchanan’s discussion of‘government by discussion’ as well as contributions from John Stuart Mill,Jürgen Habermas, and the related literature on ‘democratic deliberation’.61 Inanalysing and assessing this aspect of Sen’s recent writings, I begin by brieflyoutlining the relevant views of Rawls and Buchanan. Rawls’s discussion of theidea of public reason emerges in his later work, notably in his PoliticalLiberalism. Rawls assumes the ‘fact of pluralism’ – the fact that citizens hold arange of ‘reasonable comprehensive doctrines’, each of which includes an idea of the good life. He thinks that such pluralism is a feature of any democratic society. In introducing the idea of public reason, Rawls writes:

A political society, and indeed, every reasonable and rational agent, whether it be anindividual, family, or an association, or even a confederation of political societies, hasa way of formulating its plans, of putting its ends in an order of priority and of makingits decisions accordingly. The way a political society does this is its reason, its abilityto do these things is also its reason, though in a different sense: it is an intellectual andmoral power rooted in the capacities of its human members.62

Public reason is not, however, the reason of an individual or of the family orassociations as such: it is the ‘reason of equal citizens who, as a collective body,exercise final political and coercive power over one another in enacting laws andamending the constitution’63 in a democratic society. Rawls assumes that citizensshare a political conception of justice.64 The content of public reason includes‘substantive principles of justice’ as well as ‘guidelines of enquiry that specifyways of reasoning and criteria for the kinds of information relevant for politicalquestions’.65 Public reason is also restricted to ‘matters of constitutional essen-tials and basic justice’: in such matters the ‘basic structure [of society] and public policies are to be justifiable to all’.66 For this reason, in discussing consti-tutional essentials citizens are not to appeal to their comprehensive doctrines nor to ‘elaborate economic theories of general equilibrium, say, if these are indispute’, but to restrict themselves to ‘plain truths now widely accepted [by], oravailable to, citizens generally’.67 In the absence of this restriction the sharedpolitical conception of justice which citizens endorse ‘would not provide a public basis of justification’.68 Rawls accepts that public reason may not alwayslead to agreement among citizens since there will be more than one reasonableanswer to specific questions. Disagreement may, for example, emerge on theissue of the weighting of political values.69 In such cases, Rawls urges citizensnot to abandon public reason, but rather to hold a vote. Public reason does not,then, evade standard problems of social choice. It can serve as an input in suchchoice.70


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It is unsurprising that the notion of public reason appeals to Sen. First, it takesfor granted the ‘fact of pluralism’. Second, it involves citizens in a position ofequality with different views engaging in a discussion about values, and the relative weights attached to these values, which can lead to agreement. Such anagreement might be the basis of public decision-making which can be seen aslegitimate. These were, on my reading, among Sen’s central concerns in his dis-cussion of the selection of weights. Sen does not endorse the details of Rawls’saccount, which is restricted to constitutional democracies in which people sharea political conception of justice. Rather, he focuses on the importance of Rawls’snotion of the ‘exercise of public reason’ which, for Sen, ‘includes the opportunityfor citizens to participate in political discussions and so to be in a position toinfluence public choice’.71 Sen’s recent writings thus emphasize the importanceof public debate and participation, which can be seen as central to the search forreasoned agreement in his thick view.72

In discussing public reasoning and social choice, Sen73 also repeatedly citesBuchanan’s critique of Arrow’s Social Choice and Individual Values. In his critique, Buchanan argues that in examining the inconsistencies which canemerge in majority voting, Arrow assumes that ‘individual values will not them-selves change during the decision-making process’.74 On Buchanan’s view, thisdisregards one of the central characteristics of democracy, that it is ‘governmentby discussion’. Such ‘“government by discussion” implies that individual valuescan and do change in the [decision-making] process. Men must be free to chooseand must maintain an open mind if the democratic mechanism is to work at all.’75

The period of discussion must, furthermore, not be restricted to the period priorto the initial vote, but also extended to ‘the whole period of activity during whichtemporary majority decisions are reached and reversed, new compromises appearand are approved and overthrown’.76 The important point that emerges from thisdiscussion, for Sen’s purposes, is that people’s views about values and weights(and other issues) can be revised and formed through public discussion. In fact,the ‘constructive’ role of democracy in the formation of values and prioritiesthrough public discussion is one which he often mentions.77 This point is, ofcourse, relevant to the worry that people’s preferences which bear on socialchoice may have adapted to the conditions in which they live. Engagement inpublic discussion can lead people to revise and correct their views (as John StuartMill noted78) and can thus lead them to form more enlightened or informed preferences. These preferences are less likely to be distorted by the conditions inwhich people find themselves.79

The issue of adaptive preferences is addressed more explicitly in JoshuaCohen’s discussion of deliberative democracy. In his discussion, Cohen articu-lates a notion of ‘ideal deliberation’.80 Such deliberation is ‘free’, for Cohen,inasmuch as participants see themselves as bound by its results (and precondi-tions) and can act on the basis of these results. It is ‘reasoned’ inasmuch as participants are required to state their reasons for advancing proposals. It


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involves parties who are ‘formally and substantively equal’ and aim at a ration-ally motivated consensus.81 In stressing the importance of autonomy in idealdeliberation, Cohen directly addresses adaptive preferences. He takes the centralproblem raised by Elster’s notion of adaptive preferences to be that such prefer-ences are determined ‘externally’. Cohen understands them to be ‘preferencesthat shift with changes in the circumstances of the agent without any deliberatecontribution by the agent to that shift’.82 Cohen also considers a phenomenoncloser to Sen’s examples, which typically involve ‘the usual underdogs in strati-fied societies’.83 This is the phenomenon of ‘accommodationist preferences’,which ‘represent psychological adjustments to the conditions of subordination’.84

In ideal deliberation, ‘relations of power and subordination are neutralised’, sothat such preferences do not pose a problem.85 Furthermore, while preferencesare ‘formed’ in ideal deliberation, they are autonomous inasmuch as they are theresult of ‘the power of reason as applied through public discussion’.86 If this viewof ideal deliberation supplemented Sen’s thick view, it would go some way todealing with the standard problems associated with adaptive preferences.87

While Sen’s writings on public reasoning do not invoke ideal deliberation, hecan also argue that the selection of capabilities and functionings through publicdiscussion is less likely to be ‘distorted’ by the conditions in which preferencesand values are formed. In the absence of the ideal conditions invoked in Cohen’swritings, preferences or values which emerge from public discussion may retain‘distortions’ which arise from an unjust status quo. This is no doubt one reasonwhy, in his recent writings, Sen talks of the ‘“capabilities” of persons to lead thekind of lives they value and have reason to value’.88 Certainly, any public dis-cussion of the selection of functionings, capabilities, and weights would involvepeople putting forward reasons for selection. To be persuasive, these reasonswould have to be compelling for people living in diverse conditions. If relevantcapabilities, functionings, and weights were to be endorsed through public scrutiny and discussion, this would thus involve arguments which would transcend the particular circumstances of people’s lives. The danger of ‘dis-tortion’ through the influence of the particular living conditions of deprivedgroups would to this degree be minimized.

Sen’s discussion of public reasoning does not, of course, rule out any specificlist of functionings or capabilities (such as Nussbaum’s list) or any particularmethodology for arriving at a list. Rather, it suggests that for any list to play arole in social evaluation would require wide endorsement through a processwhich involves the participation of relevant parties. Sen is adamant, nonetheless,that ‘pure theory cannot “freeze” a list of capabilities for all societies for all timeto come, irrespective of what the citizens come to understand and value’. On his view, that would be not only ‘a denial of the reach of democracy, but also amisunderstanding of what pure theory on its own can do, completely divorcedfrom the particular social reality that any particular society faces’.89

It is important in this context to distinguish a strand in the literature on


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deliberative democracy, exemplified by the writings of Rawls and Cohen, whichis primarily concerned with public justification and legitimacy from anotherwhich sees democratic deliberation and public discussion as an input into asearch for truth. In his discussion of the literature, Samuel Freeman associates thesecond strand with the work of Jürgen Habermas. In this context, ‘majority ruleis justified only so far as democracy involves equal participation in a “search fortruth”’.90 This position is prefigured in the writings of the Marquis de Condorcet,who was concerned, in the context of elections, with ‘the truth of the pluralitydecision on the order of merit of the candidates’.91 This strand of the deliberativedemocracy literature focuses on the role of public discussion in correcting falsebeliefs. While Sen’s writings on scientific advance in India show that he is awareof the importance of public discussion for science and epistemology92 and so tothe ‘search for truth’, in his writings on applying the capability approach hisfocus is (on my reading) on agreement on, or widespread endorsement of, valuesor weights and the transparency which allows for public discussion. The under-lying concern here is with the search for reasoned agreement that is relevant topublic justification and legitimacy.

While Sen’s discussion of public reasoning champions pluralism, it can also becriticized for embodying specific sectarian views. His thick view appears to giveconsiderable weight to the value of participation. It might be argued that theimportance Sen gives to this value involves adopting a specific western view-point which is not shared by all. It is, in part, to ward off such criticism that Rawlsrestricts his theory of justice to constitutional democracies in his later work.93 Itis no doubt to address this line of criticism that Sen has written extensively aboutthe global roots of the conception of democracy which sees it primarily in termsof public reasoning.94 He has traced these roots to the history of Buddhism,Hinduism, and Islam and rejects the idea that it is exclusively a western con-ception.95

It has also on occasion been suggested that Sen’s capability approach is undulyindividualistic because it focuses exclusively on an individual’s capability andfunctionings. Frances Stewart and Severine Deneulin pursue this suggestion further and argue that on Sen’s account ‘individuals are assumed to come together for instrumental reasons only, and not as an intrinsic aspect of their wayof life’.96 Quite aside from the fact that, as we have seen, Sen mentions beingsocially integrated as a valuable functioning which might be quite widelyendorsed, his writings on public reasoning see individuals as forming and revis-ing their views and values through public discussion. Indeed, in discussing ‘therole of public interaction in the formation of values and ideas of justice’ he suggests that ‘the agency of the “public” has to be seen in different perspectives’and acknowledges the extent to which ‘value formation is a social processinvolving public interactions’.97 Inasmuch as his views on public reasoning constitute a central element of the thick view embodied in his writings on thecapability approach, that view is far removed from Stewart and Deneulin’s


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picture of atomistic individuals who ‘come together for instrumental reasonsonly’. Public discussion and communication are clearly constitutive of and, inthat sense, intrinsic to the democratic way of life in Sen’s recent writings. Thesewritings, and indeed even Sen’s earlier work on the capability approach, clearlyinvolve a view of individuals as socialized rather than atomistic.

Having begun this section by noting the influence of Rawls on Sen’s discus-sion of public reasoning in relation to social choice problems which are relevantto the application of the capability approach, I must now qualify those remarks,since there are a number of ways in which Sen’s writings on public reasoning andjustice diverge from Rawls’s account. In a number of recent papers, Sen has criticized Rawls’s views,98 particularly as regards his account of impartiality andthe presumption that one must focus on an answer to the question: what is a justsociety?99 I suggest that his arguments show how his thick view extends to coverquestions of justice. As regards impartiality, Rawls’s work falls within the con-tractarian tradition and on his account agreement is made by equal citizens with-in a democratic society. Those outside that society are not party to the agreementand do not necessarily share that political conception which in part constitutes the content of public reason in Rawls’s account.100 Sen argues, by contrast, that‘distant voices’ (that is, the voices of those who do not belong to the relevantsociety) might be introduced and may provide an impartial perspective alonglines suggested by Adam Smith in his discussion of the ‘impartial observer’.101

This point is relevant to value formation and adaptive preferences. By allowingdistant voices, a ‘non-parochial’ element is introduced into public reasoning andthis might help to address the issue of adaptive preferences when a social choiceperspective is brought to bear on questions of justice. For example, if a traditionof gender bias shapes local values (or preferences), distant voices might trans-form, or enter into the formation of, local values (or preferences), thus suggest-ing that introducing distant voices can ‘be critically important for the reach ofpublic reasoning’ and ‘can help to avoid undue dominance of local interest as well as possible parochialism of local reasoning shaped by the influence ofestablished conventions and limited informational frameworks’.102

Sen’s recent discussion also suggests that a social choice approach has someadvantages over Rawls’s account. Sen argues that because Rawls is concernedwith finding an answer to the question of what a just society is his approach isnot primarily concerned with comparative judgements about whether one state ofaffairs is more or less just than another. Sen argues in favour of a ‘comparativeapproach’ which is primarily concerned with such judgements rather than a ‘tran-scendental approach’ of the sort which Rawls takes and which is committed toidentifying a just or ‘fully’ just society.103 It is unsurprising that here Sen takessocial choice theory to have significant advantages in the context of justicebecause its ‘analytical framework is firmly relational and altogether grounded onpairwise judgements’.104

Another set of differences between Sen and Rawls relates to the fact that, as


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has already been noted, for Rawls a specific political conception of justice and itsprinciples form part of the content of public reason. An example of such a principle is the well-known ‘difference principle’ which spells out the weight orpriority to be given to the least-well-off group in Rawls’s account. On thataccount, furthermore, the political conception of justice must be ‘complete’ in thesense that it can ‘give a reasonable answer to all, or nearly all, questions involv-ing constitutional essentials and matters of basic justice’.105 By contrast, Sen doesnot presuppose that public reasoning already contains a political conception ofjustice along with principles which define the weight to be given to the interestsof different groups in social decision-making in the way that Rawls’s own theory106 (‘justice as fairness’) does. Indeed, Sen thinks that theory ought not todeliver such a set of weights. In discussing the conflicting claims of ‘aggregative’and ‘distributional’ considerations in different theories of justice, such as utilitarianism and Rawls’s theory, he writes:

at the level of a pure theory of justice, it would be a mistake to lock prematurely intoone specific system for ‘weighting’ some of these competitive concerns, which wouldseverely restrict the room for democratic decision making in this crucial resolution (andmore generally in ‘social choice,’ including the variety of processes that relate to participation). Foundational ideas of justice can separate out some basic issues as beinginescapably relevant, but they cannot plausibly end up, I have argued, with an exclu-sive choice of some highly delineated formula of relative weights as being the uniqueblueprint for ‘the just society’.107

My reading of Sen’s view here is that different ‘conceptions of justice’ (inRawls’s terms) which recommend different weighting schemes embodied inprinciples such as the difference principle might inform public reasoning. Suchreasoning may then deliver some set or range of weights for interpersonal comparisons of advantage.108 Furthermore, on Sen’s view, there is no reason tosuppose that public reasoning delivers a complete set of judgements – he allowsfor the possibility that there is incompleteness as regards judgements about justice. He argues that allowing for such incompleteness is not a flaw in a theory of justice, since it ‘allows one to arrive at quite strong judgements . . . forexample, about the injustice of continuing famines in a world of prosperity, or ofpersistently grotesque subjugation of women’.109 In different parts of his writ-ings, he returns to social choice and reasoned agreement in discussing this point.He writes that ‘the acceptability of evaluative incompleteness is indeed a centralsubject of social choice in general, and it is relevant to theories of justice as well,even though Rawlsian and other theories assert . . . that a full agreement will definitely emerge’.110 He tells us that ‘the greatest relevance of ideas of justicelies in the identification of patent injustice, on which reasoned agreement is possible, rather than in the derivation of some extant formula for how the worldshould precisely run’.111 It is clear that his discussion here is quite compatiblewith his comments on the application of the capability approach. Indeed, his


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discussion shows how that approach might be applied to questions of justice – tothis degree it constitutes part of his ‘thick view’. In developing his thoughts onjustice, unsurprisingly, Sen both acknowledges his debt to Rawls’s discussion ofpublic reason, while distancing himself from Rawls’s account. So he writes thata ‘non-Rawlsian comparative (rather than transcendental) approach to justice canbe a good conceptual base for such – essentially Rawlsian – public reasoning’.112

Sen’s thick view goes some distance in illustrating how the capability approachmight be used in the context of judgements of advantage and justice by incorpo-rating a distinct account of public reasoning that has Rawlsian roots while diverg-ing from Rawls’s position at various levels.

6. Conclusions

This article has explored links and contrasts between social choice and the capability approach, and has focused, for the most part, on one link: pluralism. Itcan be argued that reliance on the axiomatic method and the focus on preferencesin social choice theory limit its usefulness to applying the capability approachbecause of substantive evaluative judgements involved in applications of theapproach. By contrast, I have suggested that an analogue of Arrow’s theorem canclarify central issues relating to multidimensionality in the application of theapproach. Furthermore, as Sen suggests, there is a sense in which evaluativeissues about weights and lists of capabilities and functionings can be seen associal choice problems. Sen’s thick view, which engages with how one mightapply the capability approach and emphasizes reasoned agreement among peoplewith different values, has been more fully articulated in his writings on publicreasoning and justice. His account of public reasoning is compatible with socialchoice theory while going some way towards addressing worries which relate tothe fact that preferences and values can adjust to subordination and disadvantage.To some degree, it thus defuses a central tension between the capability approachand social choice theory which arises because of the focus on preferences insocial choice theory. The thick view also helps to clarify the relationship betweenthe individual and society in his approach. While Sen’s view owes a great deal toRawls’s account of public reason, it does not presuppose that a specific politicalconception of justice and the principles associated with it are part of the contentof public reasoning. Furthermore, Sen does not restrict public reasoning to themembers of specific societies. Such reasoning can consider a range of weightingschemes associated with different conceptions of justice and need not generatecomplete judgements even if there is reasoned agreement on ‘patent injustices’.Sen’s thick view thus provides a framework for applying the capability approachin relation to judgements relating to both multidimensional advantage and justice.


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notes

An earlier version of this article was presented at the 4th International Conference on theCapability Approach, Università degli Studi di Pavia in September 2004 and at aseminar at the University of Sheffield. I am very grateful to Indranil Dutta, PrasantaPattanaik, Jennifer Prah-Ruger, Amartya Sen, and Bob Sugden for helpful discussionsand to Jonathan Riley for very thoughtful comments. The ideas in this article were inpart developed in the time I spent visiting Harvard University, and I would particularlylike to thank Sabina Alkire, Amartya Sen, Shelley Weiner, the Department ofPhilosophy, and the Global Equity Initiative for their help and hospitability while I wasthere. Any error or omission is mine.

1. Amartya Sen, ‘The Possibility of Social Choice’, American Economic Review 89(1999): 349–78.

2. A.K. Sen, ‘Capability and Well-Being’, in The Quality of Life, edited by M.C.Nussbaum and A.K. Sen (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), p. 31.

3. For example, see ibid., p. 48.4. Kenneth J. Arrow, Social Choice and Individual Values (New York: Wiley, 1963),

p. 23.5. Ibid., p.18.6. Ibid., p. 28.7. Ibid., p. 25.8. Ibid., p. 96.9. Ibid., p. 31.

10. A.K. Sen, Development as Freedom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 77.11. A.K. Sen, ‘Individual Preference as the Basis of Social Choice’, in A.K. Sen,

Rationality and Freedom (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), p. 318.

12. Indeed, Arrow notes that preferences can even be interpreted in terms of ‘well-beingin some more-or-less objective sense’, which, he thinks, might include capability orfunctioning. See K.J. Arrow, ‘Freedom and Social Choice: Notes in the Margin’,Utilitas 18 (2006): 53.

13. Sen, Development as Freedom, p. 63.14. Jon Elster, ‘Sour Grapes: Utilitarianism and the Genesis of Wants’, in Utilitarianism

and Beyond, edited by B.A.O. Williams and A.K. Sen (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1982), p. 219.

15. Ibid., p. 224.16. Sen, Rationality and Freedom, p. 588.17. Ibid., p. 310.18. Jon Elster, ‘The Market and the Forum: Three Varieties of Political Theory’, in

Foundations of Social Choice Theory, edited by J. Elster and A. Hylland(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 106–9.

19. K. Basu, ‘Achievements, Capabilities and Well-Being: A Review of Commoditiesand Capabilities by Amartya Sen’, Social Choice and Welfare 4 (1987): 69–76;A.K. Sen, Commodities and Capabilities (Amsterdam: North Holland, 1985).

20. Basu, ‘Achievements, Capabilities and Well-Being: A Review of Commodities andCapabilities by Amartya Sen’, p. 69.


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21. Ibid. Prasanta Pattanaik has suggested in discussion that Basu’s comment needs tobe qualified by noting that in its early forms social choice theory was notparticularly precise. While social choice theory has no doubt become more precisesince the early contributions of Jean-Charles de Borda and the Marquis deCondorcet, it is striking that Lacroix’s obituary of Borda noted that his method was‘mathematically rigorous’ in certain circumstances and that ‘all this research onelections . . . is merely brilliant but useless’. See I. McLean and F. Hewitt,Condorcet: Foundations of Social Choice and Political Theory (Aldershot: EdwardElgar, 1994), p. 50.

22. Sen, Rationality and Freedom, p. 300.23. For example, P.K. Pattanaik and Y. Xu, ‘On Ranking Opportunity Sets in Terms of

Freedom of Choice’, Recherches Economique de Louvain 56 (1990): 383–90; A.Chakraborty, ‘On the Possibility of a Weighting System for Functionings’, IndianEconomic Review 31 (1996): 241–50; K. Basu and J. Foster, ‘On MeasuringLiteracy’, Economic Journal 108 (1998): 1733–49; Sen, Rationality and Freedom;Y. Xu, ‘Functioning, Capability and the Standard of Living: An AxiomaticApproach’, Economic Theory 20 (2002): 387–99; W. Bossert, C. D’Ambrosio andV. Peragine, ‘Deprivation and Social Exclusion’, Cahier 02-2004 (Montreal:CIREQ); P.K. Pattanaik and Y. Xu, ‘Minimal Relativism, Dominance and Standardof Living Comparisons Based on Functionings’, Oxford Economic Papers(forthcoming).

24. A.K. Sen, Inequality Reexamined (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), p. 48.25. C.R. Barrett and P.K. Pattanaik, ‘Fuzzy Sets, Preference and Choice: Some

Conceptual Issues’, Bulletin of Economic Research 41 (1989): 229–53; M.Dasgupta and R. Deb, ‘Fuzzy Choice Functions’, Social Choice and Welfare 8(1991): 171–82; M. Dasgupta and R. Deb, ‘Transitivity and Fuzzy Preferences’,Social Choice and Welfare 13 (1996): 305–18; E. Chiappero Martinetti, ‘A NewApproach to the Evaluation of Well-Being and Poverty by Fuzzy Set Theory’,Giornale Degli Economisti e Annali di Economia 53 (1994): 367–88; E. ChiapperoMartinetti, ‘Standard of Living Evaluation Based on Sen’s Approach: SomeMethodological Suggestions’, Notizie di Politeia 12 (43/44) (1996): 37–53; E.Chiappero Martinetti, ‘A Multi-Dimensional Assessment of Well-Being Based onSen’s Functioning Theory’, Rivista Internationale di Scienzie Sociali 2 (2000):207–31.

26. Arrow, Social Choice and Individual Values, p. 17.27. Sen, Rationality and Freedom, p. 593.28. A.K. Sen, ‘The Possibility of Social Choice’, p. 359.29. A.K. Sen, Collective Choice and Social Welfare (Amsterdam: North Holland,

1979), pp. 33–46.30. See, among others, K.O. May, ‘Intransitivity, Utility and the Aggregation of

Preference Patterns’, Econometrica 22 (1954): 1–13; K.J. Arrow and H. Raynaud,Social Choice and Multicriterion Decision-Making (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,1986); S. Hurley, Natural Reasons (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989); M.Qizilbash, ‘Pluralism and Well-Being Indices’, World Development 25 (1997):2009–26.

31. In Arrow’s own exposition, transitivity and ‘connectedness’ are taken to be thedefining properties of an ordering (or ‘weak ordering’). The connectedness of O is


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the property that for all x, y in X, xOy or yOx. In the definitions of completeness andconnectedness, ‘or’ is used in the ‘inclusive’ sense. See Arrow, Social Choice andIndividual Values, p. 13.

32. Sen, Collective Choice and Social Welfare, p. 41.33. Arrow, Social Choice and Individual Values, p. 9.34. There is now a considerable literature and debate about ‘incommensurability’ and

‘incomparability’, particularly in moral philosophy. See, among others, R. Chang,Incommensurability, Incomparability and Practical Reason (Cambridge, MA:Harvard University Press, 1997); M. Qizilbash, ‘Rationality, Comparability andMaximization’, Economics and Philosophy 18 (2002): 141–56. While he has alwaysallowed for incompleteness, Sen also explicitly discusses ‘incommensurability’ inhis recent writings. See A.K. Sen, ‘Incompleteness and Reasoned Choice’, Synthese140 (2004): 43–59.

35. Sen allows for this distinction between plurality and non-comparability ofcomponents in his ‘vector view’ of utility. See A.K. Sen, ‘Plural Utility’,Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 81 (1980–81): 193–215. The distinction ismade much more explicitly by James Griffin, Well Being: Its Meaning,Measurement and Moral Importance (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986).

36. Sen, Development as Freedom, p. 78.37. Sen, Inequality Reexamined, p. 46.38. Recent results about the measurement of capabilities can also be seen in the light of

the result about an MAF. In Yongsheng Xu’s attempt to develop an axiomaticcapability measure (which imposes non-comparability of different functionings), theresult is a quasi-ordering. Xu nonetheless accepts that if the informational base wasricher (allowing for ‘inter-functioning’ comparisons) new possibilities might beopened up. See Xu, ‘Functioning, Capability and the Standard of Living: AnAxiomatic Approach’, p. 398.

39. See Chakraborty, ‘On the Possibility of a Weighting System for Functionings’, p. 250. One reason for worrying about incompleteness is that in its absence rationalchoice is not possible, because alternatives cannot be compared. Sen himself hasforcefully argued that incompleteness need not undermine rationality. See A.K. Sen,‘Maximization and the Act of Choice’, Econometrica 65 (1997): 745–99. He hasadvanced a ‘maximization’ view of rationality which allows for suchincompleteness. On this, see also Qizilbash, ‘Rationality, Comparability andMaximization’.

40. S. Anand and A.K. Sen, ‘The Income Component of the Human DevelopmentIndex’, Journal of Human Development 1 (2000): 83–106.

41. A.K. Sen, ‘A Decade of Human Development’, Journal of Human Development 1(2000): 22.

42. In other applications of the capability approach, comparability of the components ofadvantage is also implicitly assumed, since a capabilities or functionings index istaken to exist which allows for multidimensionality. See, notably, C. Herrero,‘Capabilities and Utilities’, Economic Design 2 (1996): 71–2; Bossert et al.,‘Deprivation and Social Exclusion’, p. 3.

43. In discussing applications of the capability approach, he also refers to, anddistinguishes between, various forms and degrees of interpersonal comparability(such as ‘non-comparability’, ‘unit comparability’, and ‘full comparability’) as well


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as referring to his work on social choice. Relevant parts of that work assume,however, that there is a numerical representation of welfare. For this work to berelevant to interpersonal comparisons of overall advantage, one would have toassume comparability of the components of advantage. Without such comparability,the relevant results about interpersonal comparability would only be relevant tocomparisons in terms of specific components of advantage (such as literacy). SeeSen, Inequality Reexamined, pp. 48–9; Sen, Rationality and Freedom, pp. 307–8.

44. Sen, Inequality Reexamined, pp. 46–9.45. M.C. Nussbaum, Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); M.C. Nussbaum, ‘Capabilities asFundamental Entitlements’, Feminist Economics 9 (2003): 33–59; M.C. Nussbaum,Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership (Cambridge, MA:Belknap, 2006).

46. See S. Alkire, Valuing Freedoms: Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach and PovertyReduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002); I. Robeyns, ‘Sen’s CapabilityApproach and Gender Inequality: Selecting Relevant Capabilities’, FeministEconomics 9 (2003): 61–92. Lists of the components of well-being have also beenadvanced in related accounts. See J. Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979); J. Griffin, Value Judgment: Improving ourEthical Beliefs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996); M. Qizilbash, ‘The Concept ofWell-Being’, Economics and Philosophy 14 (1998): 51–73.

47. M.C. Nussbaum, ‘Aristotelian Social Democracy’, in Liberalism and the Good,edited by B. Douglass, G. Mara and H. Richardson (London: Routledge, 1990);M.C. Nussbaum, ‘Human Functioning and Social Justice: In Defence of AristotelianEssentialism’, Political Theory 20 (1992): 202–46; M.C. Nussbaum, ‘HumanCapabilities, Female Human Beings’, in Women, Culture and Development, editedby M.C. Nussbaum and J. Glover (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), pp. 61–104;M.C. Nussbaum, ‘Aristotle on Human Nature and the Foundations of Ethics’, inWorld, Mind and Ethics, edited by J.E.J. Altham and R. Harrison (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 86–131.

48. For example, Nussbaum, Women and Human Development: The CapabilitiesApproach.

49. Nussbaum, ‘Human Capabilities, Female Human Beings’; Nussbaum, Women andHuman Development: The Capabilities Approach.

50. Nussbaum, Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach, p. 77.51. Sen, ‘Capability and Well-Being’, p. 47.52. A.K. Sen, ‘Human Rights and Capabilities’, Journal of Human Development 6

(2005): 159.53. Sen, ‘Capability and Well-Being’, p. 31.54. Sen has discussed the use of a minimal list of components in the context of the HDI

and given his reasons for not advocating any ‘overarching’ list (of which theminimal list might be a part). These include the wish not to set himself against otherlists which might be relevant in other contexts. See Sen, ‘Human Rights andCapabilities’, pp. 157–9.

55. Sen, Development as Freedom, pp. 80–1.56. Ibid., pp. 78–9.57. In earlier work, Sen listed three different categories of social choice exercise: (1)


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committee decision, (2) social welfare judgement, and (3) ‘normative indication’.See A.K. Sen, ‘Social Choice Theory: A Re-examination’, Econometrica 45 (1977):53–89. Category (3) includes ‘measurement of national income . . . “poverty” andother “indicators” defined with normative motivation incorporating interpersonalweighting in some easily tractable way’. See A.K. Sen, Choice, Welfare andMeasurement (Oxford: Blackwell, 1982), pp. 158–9. Clearly, weighting issuesrelating to capabilities and functionings can fall under categories (2) and (3), but acommittee might also be set up to deliberate the selection of weights (for example,in the context of a measure such as the HDI), so that these issues might also fallunder (1).

58. Chakraborty, ‘On the Possibility of a Weighting System for Functionings’, p. 245.59. Ibid., p. 247.60. Sen, Development as Freedom, p. 79.61. A.K. Sen, The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture and

Identity (London: Penguin, 2005), pp. 14, 182.62. J. Rawls, Political Liberalism (Columbia, NY: Columbia University Press, 1993),

pp. 212–13.63. Ibid., p. 214.64. Cass Sunstein has advanced a view which is also concerned with agreement amid

pluralism and which does not require that people share a political conception ofjustice. He suggests that when people ‘disagree on an abstraction, they move to agreater level of particularity’. Sunstein’s views are broadly compatible with Sen’swritings on public reasoning. See C. Sunstein, ‘Incompletely TheorizedAgreements’, Harvard Law Review 108 (1995): 1736.

65. Ibid., p. 224.66. Ibid.67. Ibid., p. 225.68. Ibid.69. Ibid., p. 240.70. This point is important because social choice theory and public reasoning or

deliberative democracy views can be seen as alternatives. On this, see Elster, ‘TheMarket and the Forum: Three Varieties of Political Theory’ and Sen’s riposte inA.K. Sen, ‘Foundations of Social Choice: An Epilogue’, in Foundations of SocialChoice Theory, edited by J. Elster and A. Hylland (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1986), pp. 232–6.

71. A.K. Sen, ‘Democracy and Its Global Roots: Why Democratization Is Not the Sameas Westernization’, The New Republic, 6 October 2003, p. 29.

72. Sen stresses the importance of participation in his co-authored work on developmentin India. See J. Drèze and A.K. Sen, India: Participation and Development (Oxford:Oxford University Press, 2002). He also stresses this in his recent writings on Indianhistory, culture, and identity in which he discusses the importance of publicdiscussion and heterodoxy for the sciences. See Sen, The Argumentative Indian:Writings on Indian History, Culture and Identity, pp. 26–8.

73. A.K. Sen, ‘Rationality and Social Choice’, American Economic Review 85 (1995):16–17; Sen, ‘Democracy and Its Global Roots: Why Democratization Is Not theSame as Westernization’, p. 35; Sen, The Argumentative Indian: Writings on IndianHistory, Culture and Identity, p. 14.


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74. J. Buchanan, ‘Social Choice, Democracy and Free Markets’, Journal of PoliticalEconomy 62 (1954): 120.

75. Ibid.76. Ibid., p. 121. Ian Little had earlier shown how this worry could be addressed within

Arrow’s framework. While Little notes that ‘Arrow does not face’ these difficulties,‘they can be side-stepped . . . we can suppose that we can have as much revolting,or rearrangement of individual orders, as the individuals want when they learn theopinions and verdicts of each other. Accordingly each order is, so to speak, adeadlock order. It is the individual order resulting when all persuasion has beenused, and after an indefinite number of straw votes.’ See I. Little, ‘Social Choiceand Individual Values’, Journal of Political Economy 60 (1952): 428.

77. Sen, Development as Freedom, p. 153.78. J.S. Mill, Utilitarianism. On Liberty. Essay on Bentham. Together with Selections

from the Writings of Jeremy Bentham and John Austin, edited by M. Warnock(Glasgow: Fontana, 1962), p. 146.

79. For a related discussion of ‘laundered preferences’, see R. Goodin, ‘LaunderingPreferences’, in Foundations of Social Choice Theory, edited by J. Elster and A.Hylland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 75–101.

80. J. Cohen, ‘Deliberation and Democratic Legitimacy’, in The Good Polity:Normative Evaluation of the State, edited by A. Hamlin and P. Pettit (Oxford:Blackwell, 1989), p. 22.

81. Ibid., pp. 22–3.82. Ibid., p. 25.83. Sen, Development as Freedom, p. 63.84. Cohen, ‘Deliberation and Democratic Legitimacy’, p. 25.85. Ibid.86. Ibid., p. 26.87. While he does not focus on the issue of adaptive preferences, David Crocker also

argues at greater length that ‘recent work on deliberative democracy has much tooffer the capability approach’. See D. Crocker, ‘Sen on Deliberative Democracy’, inCapabilities Equality: Basic Issues and Problems, edited by A. Kaufman (Londonand New York: Routledge, 2005), pp. 155–97.

88. Sen, Development as Freedom, p. 18.89. See Sen, ‘Human Rights and Capabilities’, p. 159. One might add that if it were

divorced from this reality, social choice theory could hardly get far in this taskeither.

90. S. Freeman, ‘Deliberative Democracy: A Sympathetic Comment’, Philosophy andPublic Affairs 29 (2000): 384–5.

91. McLean and Hewitt, Condorcet: Foundations of Social Choice and PoliticalTheory, p. 132.

92. Sen, The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture and Identity,pp. 26–8.

93. Rawls, Political Liberalism.94. Sen, ‘Democracy and Its Global Roots: Why Democratization Is Not the Same as

Westernization’ and Sen, The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History,Culture and Identity.

95. Some argue that results in social choice theory (including Condorcet’s


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observations about majority voting and Arrow’s theorem) can undermine certainnotions of democracy. See W.H. Riker, Liberalism Against Populism (SanFrancisco, CA: W.H. Freeman, 1982); J. Coleman and J. Ferejohn, ‘Democracyand Social Choice’, Ethics 97 (1986): 6–25. David Miller has argued thatdemocratic deliberation might lessen this potential conflict, because, to the extentthat such deliberation leads to consensus, it may lead to voters having single-peaked preferences. See D. Miller, ‘Deliberative Democracy and Social Choice’,Political Studies 40 (1992): 54–67. For Sen, however, the impossibility results ofsocial choice theory clarify the conditions under which social choice is possible.For this reason, Sen does not discuss the worry that social choice theory posesdifficulties for democracy. See Sen, ‘The Possibility of Social Choice’.

96. F. Stewart and S. Deneulin, ‘Amartya Sen’s Contribution to DevelopmentThinking’, Studies in Comparative International Development 37 (2002): 66.

97. Sen, Development as Freedom, p. 280.98. See, among other works, A.K. Sen, ‘Open and Closed Impartiality’, Journal of

Philosophy 99 (2002): 445–69; A.K. Sen, ‘What Do We Want from a Theory ofJustice?’, Journal of Philosophy 103 (2006): 215–38.

99. Sen, ‘What Do We Want from a Theory of Justice?’, p. 216.100. Rawls, Political Liberalism, p. 223.101. Sen, ‘What Do We Want from a Theory of Justice?’, pp. 228–36.102. Ibid., p. 237.103. Ibid.104. See Ibid., p. 219. At the same time, it is well known that Rawls’s view has been

axiomatized within social choice theory. See, among others, W. Gaertner, APrimer in Social Choice Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006); C.D’Aspremont and L. Gevers, ‘Equity and the Informational Basis of CollectiveChoice’, Review of Economic Studies 44 (1977): 199–209.

105. J. Rawls, The Law of Peoples (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), p. 145.

106. See J. Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972); Rawls,Political Liberalism; Rawls, The Law of Peoples; J. Rawls, Justice as Fairness: ARestatement (Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 2001).

107. Sen, Development as Freedom, pp. 286–7.108. So Sen’s writings on justice (including his writings on capability) do not generate

principles of justice in the way that Rawls’s do. Indeed, this feature of his writingsalso differentiates Sen’s approach from Nussbaum’s variation of the capabilityapproach (the ‘capabilities approach’) which includes certain principles and comescloser to providing a ‘political conception of justice’ in Rawls’s terms. See, inparticular, Nussbaum, Women and Human Development: The CapabilitiesApproach; Nussbaum, Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, SpeciesMembership.

109. Sen, ‘What Do We Want from a Theory of Justice?’, p. 223.110. Ibid., p. 225.111. Sen, Development as Freedom, p. 287.112. Sen, ‘What Do We Want from a Theory of Justice?’, p. 228.


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