Kirby: Capability, Social Cooperation, & The International Stage: Sen’s “Freedom and the Foundations of Justice”

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In his third chapter of Development as Freedom, Amartya Sen describes the varied “capability sets” people should have to express freedom in their own “alternative functioning combinations.” (75) In this argument, Sen notes how without the capability to choose otherwise, functioning may remain, but freedom does not. Functioning is considered as the “various things a person may value doing or being.” (75) Sen brings up the example of those enduring starvation vs. another who is fasting: both have the same function (not eating), but not the same capability to do so. Without the existence and access to a capability function, there is no representative freedom to achieve. Whether or not one materializes those options does not matter so much, rather  it is a question of whether they have the option to do so. The notion of capability sets play directly into preference fulfillment, in such that our preferences are affected by what opportunities for actualization we possess.


This combination of preference and capabilities often play out in democratic deliberations. Sen illustrates the fraught process of finding common ground amidst a fully participatory democracy. Technocrats, he writes, have turned from the chaos of a democratic agreement to supporting a streamlined, metric evaluation of choice. Specifically disagreeing with T.N. Srinivasan’s approach, Sen postulates that a “real-income” metric analysis would be limiting. With it, there is little room for “interpersonal comparisons” of social cooperation. (79) Oftentimes, we mistakenly evaluate others (be it person or State) by their income holdings instead of their uniquely formed perceptions of life quality, goals, and the means of freedom to achieve those ends. 


Sen provides three variants within the capability of preference considerations, hoping to remedy the limited viewpoint of “real-income” or other technical and narrow rubrics. I found the supplementary approach to be the most reasonable of his three variants, of which I think Sen would agree. Such an approach considers “interpersonal comparisons in income spaces, but supplements them by capability considerations.” (82) Examples such as gender-based or race-based biases would factor into the evaluation of success via freedom as a means and an end. In so many words: how does the experience of a female refugee in starting a new bakery compare to that of a privileged, caucasian, local business rival? Their income earnings would be approached with a wider understanding than merely monetary parameters. The variant chosen here–1.2–allows us to consider the socialization aspects of each individual or state by way of their environment, identity, and the more technical measures. It is an approach that recognizes the consequences and/or achievements of each actor, and how their experience lends itself to their pursuit of freedom as means and an end. 


This battle between capability considerations and real-income “prestige” crops up often in the transnational legal framework. Two examples prove relevant in this: 1. Western power states will often conduct their geopolitical dialogue through a metric approach. They see developing nations as “lesser” because of perceived income-related inadequacies, ignoring the fundamental questions, concerns, and/or celebrations of those State’s freedoms of capability. 2. Conversely, allowances of rights violations will sometimes be granted based on socialization aspects - but some nations are more allowed leniency than others. Socialization means to achieve and exercise freedom is reasoned for those who run or are allied with the leaders, and dismissed as rudimentary for those not. A metric stance is co-opted by those more powerful in the geopolitical sphere because of purchasing power and a rejection of community-based rights in favor of capitalistic sovereignty. (There are specific examples in UN criminal proceedings I can bring up in class to exemplify these two points.)

Comments

  1. Paul HurleyMarch 30, 2023 at 9:52 AM

    First, your two potential bakery entrepreneurs is an excellent example. You could also bring it closer to home; two CMC students, male and female, starting out in LA at Deloitte with the same salary. How much will the female employee have to spend on housing to be as safe as the male employee? How much more restricted will her freedom of movement be? Without as much discretionary income, how capable will she be, compared to her male counterpart, to advance her goals in other ways?

    For your international case, notice that capabilities go way beyond income-level snobbery. If one country is capable of overpowering another with military might, or bringing the other to its knees economically, such capabilities can, and arguably are, exploited to enhance further the capabilities of the nations with such capabilities.

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