The capability approach is a theoretical framework that entails twonormative claims: first, the claim that the freedom to achievewell-being is of primary moral importance and, second, that well-beingshould be understood in terms of people’s capabilities andfunctionings. Capabilities are the doings and beings that people canachieve if they so choose – their opportunity to do or be suchthings as being well-nourished, getting married, being educated, andtravelling; functionings are capabilities that have been realized.Whether someone can convert a set of means – resources andpublic goods – into a functioning (i.e., whether she has aparticular capability) crucially depends on certain personal,sociopolitical, and environmental conditions, which, in the capabilityliterature, are called ‘conversion factors.’ Capabilitieshave also been referred to as real or substantive freedoms as theydenote the freedoms that have been cleared of potential obstacles, incontrast to mere formal rights and primary social goods.

Within philosophy, the capability approach has been employed to thedevelopment of several conceptual and normative theories within, mostprominently, development ethics, political philosophy, public healthethics, environmental ethics and climate justice, and philosophy ofeducation. This proliferation of capability literature has led toquestions concerning what kind of framework it is (section 1); how itscore concepts should be defined (section 2); how it can be furtherspecified for particular purposes (section 3); what is needed todevelop the capability approach into an account of social anddistributive justice (section 4); how it relates to non-Westernphilosophies (section 5); and how it can be and has been applied inpractice (section 6).

• 1. Introducing the capability approach
  • 1.1 Background: Critique of other accounts
  • 1.2 Capability framework or capability theory?
• 2. Core concepts and commitments of the capability approach
  • 2.1 Functionings and capabilities as doings and beings
  • 2.2 Capabilities as real freedoms
  • 2.3 Conversion factors
  • 2.4 The means-ends distinction
  • 2.5 Acknowledging human diversity and agency
  • 2.6 A metric for interpersonal comparisons
• 3. Specifying the capability approach
  • 3.1 Purpose and application
  • 3.2 Functionings or capabilities?
  • 3.3 Selecting and aggregating of capabilities?
  • 3.4 Are capabilities binary or incremental?
  • 3.5 Additional commitments
• 4. The possibility of a capability theory of justice
• 5. The capability approach and non-Western philosophies
• 6. Philosophical applications of the capability approach
• Bibliography
• Academic Tools
• Other Internet Resources
• Related Entries

1. Introducing the capability approach

1.1 Background: Critique of other accounts

Although we can trace some aspects of the capability approach back to,among others, Aristotle, Adam Smith, and Karl Marx (see Nussbaum 1988,1992, 2020; Sen 1993a, 1999: 14, 24; Walsh 2000 and 2003), it iseconomist-philosopher Amartya Sen who pioneered the approach andphilosopher Martha Nussbaum and a growing number of other scholarsacross the humanities and the social sciences who have significantlydeveloped it. The capability approach purports that freedom to achievewell-being is a matter of what people are able to do and to be, andthus the kind of life they are effectively able to lead.

The capability approach has its origins in a number of articles inwhich Sen (1974; 1979a; 1979b; see also Walsh 2003 and Sen 2005b)criticizes the limited informational bases of the traditional economicmodels and evaluative accounts (i.e., utilitarianism and resourcism).What is missing from these traditional models, Sen argues, is a notionof what activities we are able to undertake (‘doings’) andthe kinds of persons we are able to be (‘beings’). Sencalls this notioncapabilities. Capabilities are therealfreedoms that people have to achieve their potential doings andbeings. Real freedom in this sense means that one has all the requiredmeans necessary to achieve that doing or being if one wishes to. Thatis, it is not merely the formal right or freedom to do or besomething, but the substantial opportunity to achieve it.

In this way, the capability approach changes the focus from means (theresources people have and the public goods they can access) to ends(what they are able to do and be with those resources and goods). Thisshift in focus is justified because resources and goods alone do notensure that people are able to convert them into actual doings andbeings. Two persons with similar sets of goods and resources maynevertheless be able to achieve very different ends depending on theircircumstances.

One of the most prominent illustrations within the capabilityliterature of the need to move beyond a focus on goods and resourcesis found in Sen’s (1979a) “Equality of What?” Tannerlecture. Here, Sen asks us to consider two persons with the same setof resources. Yet, one person suffers from a disability. Thisdisability makes her unequal to the able-bodied person in two regards,which cannot be captured by a sole focus on resources. First of all,the disabled person is unequal in terms of what she can do or be withher resources compared with the physically able person. She may, forexample, be confined to a wheelchair and thus restricted to placesthat are wheelchair-accessible. Secondly, the disabled person may evenbe doubly worse off because she only gets the same amount of resourceseven though she has more expenses because of her disability. That is,because the disabled person needs to spend a considerable amount ofher resources on a wheelchair merely to move around, she has fewerresources available to pursue other goals than the able-bodied personwho can spend all her resources on pursuing her valued ends. Thus, inorder to evaluate people’s well-being, we need to consider notonly the amount of resources they have, but also what they are able todo and be with those resources.

In “Equality of What?” Sen also objects to utilitarianmeasures of well-being. According to a utilitarian measure,someone’s well-being should be evaluated in terms of the amountof utility, such as pleasure or happiness, that they derive from theresources and goods that they have. Consequently, a utilitarian mayargue that the above example only shows that we ought to distributemore resources, goods, and freedoms to the disabled person upto the point where she experiences the same amount of well-being asthe able-bodied person. As Sen (1979a) has shown, however, thisresponse is inadequate. The disabled person may be a pleasure wizardwho gains a lot of utility from very little input. Conversely, theable-bodied person may be very hard to please and thus requires alarge input of resources and freedoms in order to detect an increasein well-being. In this case, Sen notes, the amended utilitarianposition would actually direct more resources and freedoms to theable-bodied person and less to the disabled one. But surely it cannotbe right to provide less help to those with greater needs, merelybecause they are easier to satisfy. As Sen himself has documented,people living in deprivation may actually tend to lower theirexpectations as a coping mechanism (e.g., Kynch and Sen 1983). Butjust because they experience a bigger increase in well-being fromfewer resources, it does not mean that the situation is justified orjustifiable in the first place.

Philosophical accounts of well-being, freedom, and justice should thusrecognize the diversity of human needs and personal contexts. This isexactly what the notions of capabilities and functionings do. Byfocusing on what people are able to do and be, rather than merely onthe distribution of goods and resources, the capability approachrecognizes the diversity of people’s ability to convert thoseresources and goods into real opportunities and achievements –the kind of life they are effectively able to lead - withoutnecessarily relying on an account of their preferences and values.

1.2 Capability framework or capability theory?

The capability approach is generally conceived as a flexible andmulti-purpose framework, rather than a precise theory of well-being ordistributive justice (Qizilbash 2008; Robeyns 2005, 94–96; Sen1992; 2009). This open-ended and underspecified nature partly explainswhy the term ‘capability approach’ was chosen and is nowused in the philosophical literature rather than, say,‘capability theory’. The terms ‘capabilityapproach’ and ‘capabilities approach’ are both usedin the literature to refer to the same thing, though the latter isoften considered to refer more specifically to Nussbaum’spartial theory of justice. Some philosophers have started to use theterm ‘capabilitarianism’ (Robeyns 2016; Nielsen andAxelsen 2017). The proliferation of literature on the capabilityapproach has engendered a discussion about how to exactly define andunderstand it.

Despite some philosophical disagreements about the best description ofthe capability approach, it is generally understood as a conceptualframework for a range of normative exercises, including mostprominently the following: (1) the assessment of individualwell-being; (2) the evaluation and assessment of social arrangements;and (3) the design of policies and proposals about social change insociety. In all these normative exercises, the capability approachprioritizes certain of peoples’ beings and doings and theiropportunities to realize those beings and doings (such as theirgenuine opportunities to be educated, their ability to move around orto enjoy supportive social relationships). This stands in contrast toother accounts of well-being, which focus exclusively on subjectivecategories (such as happiness) or on the material means to well-being(such as resources like income or wealth).

Nussbaum (2011a) has described the general capability approach (nother own specific theory) as consisting of two clusters of work, onefocussing on comparative quality of life and the other on theorisingabout justice. The two clusters share a focus on what people are ableto do and be as well as a commitment to five principles: treating eachperson as an end; a focus on choice and freedom rather thanachievements; pluralism about values; being deeply concerned withentrenched social injustices; and ascribing an urgent task togovernment. However, it has been argued that only two of those(namely, treating each person as an end and pluralism about values)are genuinely essential to each and every capability theory, and thatin addition there exists work in the capability approach that does notneatly fit into one of the two clusters that Nussbaum proposes(Robeyns 2016).

In contrast to Nussbaum’s narrow understanding of the capabilityapproach, Robeyns (2017) argues that we can and should distinguishbetween, on the one hand, the capability approach as an underspecifiedand open-ended framework and, on the other hand, the capabilityapproach as more specific capability theories. The capability approachshould be defined as a normativeframework, which can host awide variety of more specific theories and applications, such as, forexample, Nussbaum’s partial capability theory of justice,Crocker’s capability theory of deliberative democracy, andcapabilitarian econometrics. Likewise, Qizilbash (2012) argues thatthe capability approach should be seen as a ‘thin’framework, which can be filled in by ‘thicker’ theoriesand applications. While all of these accounts may differ greatly intheir specific structure, purpose, and normative commitments, they alladhere to the same normative core, namely a normative commitment toconceptualize well-being in terms of capabilities andfunctionings.

This core can then be supplemented through certain choices (seesections2 and3), such as a particular purpose, methodological and meta-theoreticalcommitments, and additional normative values to develop moreparticular theories, such as a capability theory of justice ordemocracy, or applied to particular tasks, such as empirical studiesor the conceptualization of education, health, and so on.

Confusingly, within the literature the term ‘the capabilityapproach’ has also often been used to refer not to this overallframework, but rather to a more specific capability theory, namelyNussbaum’s (2000; 2011a) partial capability theory of justice,Sen’s (2006; 2008; 2009) theory of transitional justice, orSen’s (1999) theory of development as freedom. Many capabilitytheorists have long believed that the capability approach has anormative commitment to expand certain doings and beings that peoplehave reason to value, as Sen has proposed. However, it is possible todevelop capability theories that differ significantly fromNussbaum’s and Sen’s capability theories. For example,empirical applications of the capability framework do not necessarilyhave to be committed to the political liberalism of Nussbaum’sapproach or the expansion of valuable capabilities, while a theory ofeducational justice, such as the one developed by Walker andUnterhalter (2007), will differ quite drastically from a theory ofhealth justice, like the ones developed by Venkatapuram (2011) or PrahRuger (2009; 2010). Moreover, the capability framework can and hasbeen used for non-normative purposes, including the conceptualizationof various phenomena, such as sharing of urban space, and themeasurement of capabilities through both qualitative and quantitativeresearch. These non-normative applications differ widely in theirmethodological approaches and are not (necessarily) committed to theexpansion of capabilities.

A commitment to conceptualizing well-being in terms of capabilitiesoften providesone element in the development of an accountof justice, social progress, development, or something else. Forexample, Crocker (2008) has extended the capability approach withaccounts of agency and participation into a more detailed account ofdevelopment ethics, but discusses at length that not all versions ofthe capability approach are embracing agency so explicitly. Similarly,the capability approach can be developed into an alternativeevaluative tool that can replace traditional social cost-benefitanalysis (Alkire 2002). Or it can be used as a normative frameworkwithin which to evaluate and design policies and social institutions,ranging from welfare-state design in relatively affluent societies(Wolff and de-Shalit 2007), to governmental and nongovernmentaldevelopment policies in poor countries, to policies that affluentcountries and international institutions employ (or are advised toemploy) in their efforts to aid poor countries, such as theUNDP’s Human Development Reports.

2. Core concepts and commitments of the capability approach

Although the capability approach should be considered a framework thatencompasses several more specific capability theories, these theoriesstill share some core commitments. In this section, we explain theseconcepts and and commitments in more detail. This includes (i) thecommitment to conceptualize well-being in terms of the capability todo or be certain things (section 2.1); (ii) the notion that capabilities are real, or substantive, freedoms (section 2.2); (iii) the concept of conversion factors as enabling and disablingconditions of capabilities (section 2.3); the distinction between means and ends (section 2.4); the importance of acknowledging human diversity and agency (section 2.5); and how the capability approach constitutes a metric forinterpersonal comparison (section 2.6).

2.1 Functionings and capabilities as doings and beings

At the core of the capability approach is a normative commitment toconceptualize well-being in terms of capabilities and functionings.Functionings are ‘doings and beings’, that is, variousstates of human beings and activities that a person has achieved, suchas being well-nourished, getting married, being educated, andtravelling, while capabilities are the real, or substantive,opportunity that they have to achieve these doings and beings. (Seesection 2.2 for a discussion of real/substantive freedom.) A person’s‘capability-set’ denotes the set of capabilities that heor she can choose from, while the term ‘basiccapabilities’ refers either to “the innate equipment ofindividuals that is necessary for developing the more advancedcapabilities”, such as the capability of speech and language,which is present in a newborn but needs to be fostered (Nussbaum 2000,84), or to the freedom to do some basic things considered necessaryfor survival and to avoid or escape poverty or other seriousdeprivation (Sen 1992, 45, fn. 19). On the latter understanding, therelevance of basic capabilities is “not so much in rankingliving standards, but in deciding on a cut-off point for the purposeof assessing poverty and deprivation” (Sen 1987b, 109).

Functionings areconstitutive of a person’s being, andan evaluation of well-being has to take the form of an assessment ofthese constituent elements (Sen 1992: 39). To say that functioningsare constitutive of a person’s being means that one cannot be ahuman being without having at least a range of functionings: they makethe lives of human beings bothlives (in contrast to theexistence of innate objects) and alsohuman (in contrast tothe lives of trees or tigers). Human functionings are those beings anddoings that we take to constitute a human life, and which are centralin our understandings of ourselves as human beings. This implies thatthe range of potentially relevant functionings is very broad, and thatthe capability approach will in some respects be close to bothsubjective metrics (for example, by including the capability to behappy), or resources-based metrics (since most functionings requiresome resources as inputs). In contrast, capabilities are the set ofpotential functionings open for someone to achieve. Yet not all beingsand doings are functionings; for example, being able to fly like abird or reaching an age of 200 like an oak tree, are not humanfunctionings. The relevant capabilities and functionings can vary fromsuch elementary things as being adequately nourished, being in goodhealth, avoiding escapable morbidity and premature mortality, to morecomplex achievements such as having a decent and valuable job, notsuffering from lack of self-respect, taking active part in the life ofthe community, and so on.

There has been a discussion within the capability literature aboutwhether capabilities and functionings should be limited to onlyencompass positively valued doings and beings – such asaccording to a normative theory, those that we have reason to value,or those which promote some ultimate normative aim, such as humandignity or agency – or whether capabilities and functionings arevalue-neutral concepts that encompass not only normatively positivebut also negative and neutral doings and beings (Byskov 2020; Robeyns2017).

Why is the value-laden definition of capabilities problematic,according to its critics? First, if what counts as a capability is–by definition – normatively valuable then itrisks ignoring that the value of a certain set of capabilities andfunctionings may also crucially depend on what itdoes notallow one to do or be or if it allows one to realize morally badfunctionings, such as committing murder or polluting (Carter 2014;Dowding and Van Hees 2009). The value-laden conception of capabilitiesanalytically excludes such normatively non-valued doings and beingsfrom consideration, even though they may be just as important for thevaluation of a capability-set as positively valued doings andbeings.

The second reason why the value-laden definition might be problematicis because it excludes applications of the capability framework thatare not concerned with what is valuable or not, and in some cases areconcerned with morally bad capabilities. Two such capabilityapplications are the conceptualization of phenomena and empiricalpurposes. For example, an empirical study that investigates theprevalence of domestic violence in a society would be concerned withwhether husbands have the capability (and functioning) of exercisingsuch violence – a clear-cut case of a morally bad, yet highlyrelevant, capability. Thus, if the definition of capabilities andfunctionings is limited to only encompass normatively valuable orpositive doings and beings, it excludes applications of the capabilityapproach that are concerned with morally bad doings and beings andcapability applications that are not concerned with whethercapabilities are valuable or not.

In contrast to the value-laden definition, proponents of thevalue-neutral definition of capabilities and functionings hold thatdoings and beings can be both positively and negatively valued as wellas normatively neutral. A capability, according to this definition, issimply the freedom that people have to do or be certain things.Examples of capabilities that are usually evaluated positively arebeing well-nourished, sheltered, and educated, while examples ofcapabilities that are usually negatively valued are the ability tokill (Stewart and Deneulin 2002, 67), the ability to rape, and beingable to pollute (Holland 2008, 418; Nussbaum 2006, 166). Because bothpositively and negatively valued capabilities determine how well-offwe are, it is necessary that capabilities are defined in a way thatincludes both.

Other capabilities, meanwhile, are morally ambiguous or morallyneutral. An example of a morally ambiguous capability is thecapability to care or provide care, which can at different timeseither be rewarding, for example for parents caring for a child, and aburden, especially for women who often face societal pressure to takeon the brunt of care activities. An example of a morally neutralcapability is the ability to choose between two equally effective andsustainable brands of washing liquid (Williams 1987). On the face ofit, whether we can choose between different brands of washing liquidis of little relevance if our purpose is to conceptualize healthcareor if we are interested in measuring a rural community’s accessto infrastructure. However, that is not to say thatprimafacie irrelevant doings and beings cannot become relevant. If,for example, one brand of washing liquid were shown to have a positiveor negative effect on health, then it would be relevant for acapabilitarian conceptualization of health to include the capabilityto choose between different brands of washing liquid. No doings andbeings area priori irrelevant and, according to itsproponents, only a value-neutral definition of capabilities canaccommodate for this fact.

Lastly, it should be noted that it is only necessary to adopt thevalue-neutral definition at the level of the capability approach as ageneral framework. Although theconcept of capabilities isvalue-neutral, for more particular purposes and theories it will beuseful and probably necessary to further specify by which criteria wemake a selection of capabilities, according to that purpose or theory,and whether it will only focus on valuable doings and beings or alsotake bad capabilities into account (seesection 3.2 for a discussion of the selection of capabilities).

2.2 Capabilities as real freedoms

It has been mentioned above that capabilities are defined as the real,or substantive, freedoms that people have to achieve certain doingsand beings. A frequent misunderstanding in the secondary literatureconcerns the use of the term ‘freedom’. Especially in hislater work, Sen often equates capabilities with freedoms, withoutalways specifying in more detail what kind of freedoms he is referringto. Yet this can easily be misunderstood since, as Sen himselfacknowledges, there are many kinds of freedom (some valuable, somedetrimental, and some trivial) and ‘freedom’ means verydifferent things to different people.

One important misunderstanding to get out of the way is thatcapabilities as freedoms refer exclusively to the “freemarket.” Sen (1993b) does argue that people have reason to valuethe freedom or liberty to produce, buy, and sell in markets. Thispoint, however, is part of his more general work on development, andis a very different matter than the highly disputed question ineconomics and politics regarding the benefits and limits of the marketas a system of economic production and distribution. Functionings andcapabilities are conceptualizations of well-being achievements andwell-being freedoms, and the question which economic institutions arethe best institutional means to foster functionings and capabilitiesis both analytically but also politically a question that can only besettled after we first agree what economic outcomes we should beaiming at–and this is a question to which the capabilityapproach gives a (partial) answer.

Yet if Sen and other capability scholars label capabilities asfreedoms, then what kind of freedoms are capabilities? As Kaufman(2006a) has shown, understanding capability as an opportunity conceptof freedom, rather than some other kind of freedom, may underminemistaken critiques on Sen’s work. A careful reading ofSen’s work clarifies that capabilities are freedoms conceived asreal, or substantive, opportunities (Sen 1985a, 3–4; 1985d, 201;2002, chapter 20; Byskov et al. 2024).

Real freedom in this sense means that one has all the means necessaryto achieve that doing and being if one wishes to. That is, it is notmerely the formal freedom to do or be something, but the substantialopportunity to achieve it. Someone might, for example, have the formalfreedom to vote in elections in the sense that she has the right to doso and that no one will stop her from doing so, but she might lack thesubstantial possibility to vote because the closest voting station is200 kilometers away and she does not own a car and does not haveaccess to other means of transportation. Conversely, someone may beliving close to the voting station but still may not have the realfreedom to vote because females are not permitted to vote in thatparticular society or they risk bodily harm if exercising their formalvoting rights. Capabilities are thus real freedoms in the sense thatthey are corrected for potential impediments – that is, theenabling conditions are present and all disabling factors are absent(Byskov et al. 2024).Functionings simply denotes thosecapabilities that have been achieved whether voluntarily or by chance.For example, someone might have the real freedom to vote but choosesnot to do so and thus does not have the functioning of voting. (Seesection 3.4 for a discussion of whether or not real freedom in this senserequiresall enabling conditions to be present.)

Another question about freedom in the capability approach concernswhether, or the extent to which, it corresponds to other concepts offreedom within the philosophical literature, such as positive andnegative freedom. While more research is needed in this regard, somescholars have argued that the concept of freedom in the capabilityapproach most resembles the concept of freedom as non-dominationwithin republicanism, albeit with some notable caveats anddisagreement (Alexander 2010; Byskov et al. 2024; List 2004; Pettit2001; 2009; Sen 1983; 2001).

2.3 Conversion factors

Whether someone has the capability to achieve a certain doing or beingdepends on so-called ‘conversion factors’ (Sen 1992,19–21, 26–30, 37–38). Resources, such as marketablegoods and services, but also goods and services emerging from thenon-market economy, including household production, have certaincharacteristics that make them of interest to people. For example, wemay be interested in a bike not because it is an object made fromcertain materials with a specific shape and color, but because it cantake us to places where we want to go, and in a faster way than if wewere walking. These characteristics of a good or commodity enable orcontribute to a functioning. A bike enables the functioning ofmobility, to be able to move oneself freely and more rapidly thanwalking. The relation between a good and the achievement of certainbeings and doings is captured with the term ‘conversionfactor’: the degree in which a person can transform a resourceinto a functioning. For example, an able bodied person who was taughtto ride a bicycle when he was a child has a high conversion factorenabling him to turn the bicycle into the ability to move aroundefficiently, whereas a person with a physical impairment or someonewho was never taught to ride a bike has a very low conversion factor.The conversion factors thus represent how much functioning one can getout of a good or service; in our example, how much mobility the personcan get out of a bicycle.

Note that on the most plausible reading of Sen (1985a), he isconcerned with the conversion of more tangible resources. There is noreason, however, that we should not be equally concerned with theconversion of more intangible resources, such as human capital andpublic goods. In distinguishing between human capital and humancapabilities, for example, Sen (1997) seems to acknowledge thatintangible resources (such as human capital) are merely means tocapabilities in the relevant sense.

There are several different types of conversion factors, and theconversion factors discussed are often categorized into three groups.All conversion factors influence how a person can be or is free toconvert the characteristics of the resources into a functioning, yetthe sources of these factors may differ. Take the example of thebicycle. How much a bicycle contributes to a person’s mobilitydepends on that person’s physical condition (a personalconversion factor), the social norms, including whether women aresocially allowed to ride a bicycle (a social conversion factor), andthe available of decent roads or bike paths (an environmentalconversion factor).

• Personal conversion factors are internal to the person,such as metabolism, physical condition, sex, reading skills, orintelligence. If a person is disabled, is in bad physical condition,or has never learned to cycle, then the bike will be of limited helpin enabling the functioning of mobility.
• Social conversion factors are factors from the society inwhich one lives, such as public policies, social and cultural norms,practices that discriminate, societal hierarchies, or power relationsrelated to, for example, class, gender, race, or caste. If one livesin a society where women are not allowed to bike, then women are lessable to convert the resource of a bike into the function of bikingthan men in that society or women in societies with moregender-egalitarian norms.
• Environmental conversion factors concern the physical orbuilt environment in which a person lives. Among aspects ofone’s geographical location are climate, pollution, theproneness to earthquakes, and the presence or absence of seas andoceans. Among aspects of the built environment are the stability ofbuildings, roads, and bridges, and the means of transportation andcommunication. Someone living in a place with ample infrastructure forbicycles, such as the Netherlands, is better able to realize thefunctioning of safely riding a bike than someone living in a citybuilt primarily for car-traffic.

The three types of conversion factors all stress that it is notsufficient to know the resources a person owns or can use in order tobe able to assess the well-being that he or she has achieved or couldachieve; rather, we need to know much more about the person and thecircumstances in which he or she is living. Sen uses“capability” not to refer exclusively to a person’sabilities or other internal powers but to refer to an opportunity madefeasible, and constrained by, both internal (personal) and external(social and environmental) conversion factors. Therealfreedom someone has to ride a bicycle is thus dependent onwhether these conditions are fulfilled and, in this sense, conversionfactors also shape theneeds of the individuals in question:in a society in which the capability of riding a bicycle is important(e.g., in order to get to work), it becomes crucial to provide decentroads and an adequate infrastructure (Crocker and Robeyns 2009,68).

Note, though, that the extent to which a capability is substantive, orreal, depends on therobustness of the enabling (ordisabling) conversion factors (Byskov et al. 2024), including whetherthe capability in question is exclusive (i.e., the capability will nolonger be available to you if someone else choose to realize theircapability to that same thing, such as two siblings having to sharethe same bike) or if the conversion factors are likely to perish(e.g., the capability to ride a bike in warzone may be less robustinsofar as crucial infrastructures, such as roads, are more at risk ofbeing destroyed).

Lastly, whereas the capability approach usually focuses on theconversion of resources into individual capabilities and functionings,some scholars have argued that this is too individualistic (Evans2002; Gore 1997; Lessmann 2022; Stewart 2005). In fact, it is argued,many capabilities can only be held or achieved through collectiveaction. This has resulted in the notion of ‘collectivecapabilities’ (Ibrahim 2006; 2020). For example, thecapabilities for friendship, assembly, and political speech can onlybe held or realized in collaboration with other individuals (Ibrahim2020, 210). Likewise, Binder (2009; 2019) argues that culturalcontexts influence individual agency goals and thus the capabilitiesthat we choose to pursue. In these ways, social relations,collectives, and the larger social, cultural, and institutionalcontext function as conversion factors for some capabilities. Robeyns(2017, section 4.6), however, argues that the collectivist critiqueconflates the capability approach’s commitment to normative, orethical, individualism (i.e., “that individuals, and onlyindividuals, are the units ofultimate moral concern”)with a commitment to methodological, or ontological, individualism– that “all social phenomena are to be explained wholly orexclusively in terms of their properties” (Bhargava 1992, 19).Although the capability approach, according to Robeyns, is committedto the former, it does not necessarily follow that collectives andsocial relations have no bearing on how those capabilities arerealized.

2.4 The means-ends distinction

As the notion of conversion factors show, the capability approachexplicitly endorses and relies upon a key analytical distinction inpractical philosophy, namely the means-ends distinction. The approachstresses that we should always be clear, when valuing something,whether we value it as an end in itself, or as a means to a valuableend. For the capability approach, the ultimate ends of interpersonalcomparisons are people’s capabilities. This implies that thecapability approach evaluates policies and other changes according totheir impact on people’s capabilities as well as their actualfunctionings. It asks whether people are able to be healthy, andwhether the means or resources necessary for this capability, such asclean water, adequate sanitation, access to doctors, protection frominfections and diseases, and basic knowledge on health issues, arepresent. It asks whether people are well-nourished, and whether themeans or conditions for the realization of this capability, such ashaving sufficient food supplies and food entitlements, are being met.It asks whether people have access to a high-quality education system,to real political participation, and to community activities thatsupport them, that enable them to cope with struggles in daily life,and that foster caring and warm friendships.

Much of the critique that capability theorists have advanced againstalternative normative frameworks (such as Dworkinian resourcism, orthe Rawlsian social primary goods approach), can be traced back to theobjection that alternative approaches value particular means towell-being rather than the ends. The main reason why the capabilityapproach holds that it is better to focus on the ends rather than themeans, is that people differ in their ability to convert means intovaluable opportunities (capabilities) or outcomes (functionings) (Sen1992: 26–28, 36–38). (Seesection 1.1.) Since ends are what ultimately matters when thinking about well-beingand the quality of life, means can only work as reliable proxies ofpeople’s opportunities to achieve those ends if they all havethe same capacities or powers to convert those means into equalcapability sets. Capability scholars believe that theseinter-individual differences are far-reaching and significant, andthat theories that focus on means tend to downplay their normativerelevance. In the theoretical framework of the capability approach,these inter-individual differences are captured by the notion of‘conversion factors’ (seesection 2.3).

One could argue, however, that the capability approach does not focusentirely on ends, but rather on the question whether a person is beingput in the conditions in which she can pursue her ultimate ends. Forexample, being able to read could be seen as not an ultimate end initself, since people’s ultimate ends will be more specific, suchas reading street signs, the newspaper, or the Bible or Koran. It istherefore somewhat more precise to say that the capability approachfocuses on people’s ends in terms of beings and doings expressedin general terms: being literate, being mobile, being able to hold adecent job. Whether a particular person then decides to translatethese general capabilities into more specific capabilities,such as reading street signs, reading the newspaper, or reading theBible, is up to them. Whether that person decides to stay put, ortravel to the US rather than China, is not normatively relevant forthe capability approach: the question is rather whether a person hasthese capabilities in more general terms.

Of course, the normative focus on ends does not imply that thecapability approach does not at all value means such as material orfinancial resources. Instead, a capability analysis will typicallyalso focus on resources and other means, such as human capital (Sen1985a; 1997). For example, in their evaluation of development inIndia, Drèze and Sen (2002: 3) have stressed that workingwithin the capability approach in no way excludes the integration ofan analysis of resources, such as food, or other resources. In sum,all the means of well-being, like the availability of commodities,legal entitlements to them, other social institutions, and so forth,are important, but the capability approach presses the pointthat they are not the ends of well-being, only their means. Food maybe abundant in the village, but a starving person may have nothing toexchange for it, no legal claim on it, or no way of preventingintestinal parasites from consuming it before he or she does. In allthese cases at least some resources will be available, but it willstill leave that person hungry and, after a while, undernourished.

Yet one could wonder: would it not be better to focus on means only,rather than making the normative analysis more complicated and moreinformationally demanding by also focusing on functionings andcapabilities? Capability scholars would respond that starting anormative analysis from the ends rather than means has at least twoadvantages, apart from the earlier mentioned fundamental reason that afocus on ends is needed to appropriately capture inter-individualdifferences. First, the valuation of means will retain the status ofan instrumental valuation rather than take on the nature of anintrinsic valuation. For example, money or economic growth will not bevalued for their own sake, but only in so far as they contribute to anexpansion of people’s capabilities. Second, by starting fromends, we do nota priori assume that there is only oneoverridingly important means to those ends (such as income), butrather explicitly ask the question which types of means are importantfor the fostering and nurturing of a particular capability, or set ofcapabilities. For some capabilities, the most important means willindeed be financial resources and economic production, but for othersit may be particular political practices and institutions, such aseffective guarantees and protections of freedom of thought, politicalparticipation, social or cultural practices, social structures, socialinstitutions, public goods, social norms, and traditions and habits.As a consequence, an effective capability-enhancing policy may notexist in increasing disposable income, but rather fighting ahomophobic, ethnophobic, racist or sexist social climate.

2.5 Acknowledging human diversity and agency

A strong acknowledgment of human diversity is one of the keytheoretical driving forces of the capability approach. Its criticismof other normative approaches is often fueled by, and based on, theclaim that the full human diversity among people is insufficientlyacknowledged in many normative theories, such as theories ofdistributive justice. This also explains why the capability approachis often favorably regarded by feminist philosophers, or philosophersconcerned with care and disability issues (e.g. Khader 2008, Terzi2008, 2010), since one of their main complaints about mainstream moraland political philosophy has precisely been the relative invisibilityof the fate of those people whose lives do not correspond to that ofan able-bodied, non-dependent, caregiving-free individual who belongsto the dominant ethnic, racial and religious group. People of color,marginalized people, the disabled, and many women do not fit thatpicture.

The capability approach thus takes account of human diversity in atleast three ways. First, by its focus on the plurality of functioningsand capabilities as important evaluative spaces. By including a widerange of dimensions in the conceptualization of well-being andwell-being outcomes, the approach broadens the so-called‘informational basis’ of assessments, and thereby includessome dimensions that may be particularly important for some groups butless so for others. For example, in standard outcome assessments,women as a group virtually always end up being worse off than men. Butif the selection of outcome dimensions is shifted to also include thequality and quantity of social relations and support, and being ableto engage in hands-on care, then the normative assessment of genderinequality becomes less univocal and requires much further argumentand normative defense, including being explicit about how to aggregatedifferent dimensions (Robeyns 2003b).

Second, human diversity is stressed in the capability approach by theexplicit focus on personal and socio-environmental conversion factorsthat make possible the conversion of commodities and other resourcesinto functionings, and on the social, institutional, and environmentalcontext that affects the conversion factors and the capability setdirectly. Each individual has a unique profile of conversion factors,some of which are body-related, others of which are shared with allpeople from her community, and still others of which are shared withpeople with the same social characteristics (e.g., same gender orclass or race characteristics).

Third, human diversity within the capability approach is captured byan acknowledgement of human agency and the diversity of goals peoplehave in life. Sen distinguishes between two kinds of freedom, namelywhat he callswell-being freedom andagency freedom(Sen 1985d). Both of these can also be analyzed in terms of whetherthey have been achieved. In that case they are calledwell-beingachievement andagency achievement. Well-being freedomsare those freedoms that promote our well-being generally. Beingwell-nourished, for example, is part of our well-being. But we mayalso value freedoms that do not promote our well-being, such as givingup a promising career in order to fight for global justice. Myfighting global justice may not provide me with anything in terms ofwell-being as it requires me to travel to some of the most insecureplaces on earth and does not provide a steady income. I am worse offin terms of well-being compared to the alternative of pursuing apromising career. Yet, I value this freedom because it is anexpression of my agency. The recognition of agency freedom, inaddition to well-being freedom, allows people to pursue a diversity ofdoings and beings.

2.6 A metric for interpersonal comparisons

Interpersonal comparisons of well-being are important for thedevelopment of fair social and economic policies, including taxation,social security, and redistribution. By evaluating and comparing thelevels of well-being between different individuals and groups, we canassess whether and why some are better- or worse-off than others and,accordingly, whether we need to enact certain social and economicpolicies. In that regard, it is important to decide on the appropriatemetric of interpersonal comparison because it can givedifferent results and recommendations for policy depending on whatmetric that we use. Consider, again, Sen’s (1979a) comparison ofthe able-bodied and the disabled person and how to fairly distributeresources among them. A resourcist comparison would lead us to saythat they are equally well-off as long as they have the same amount ofresources and goods, even if the disabled person has more expenses.Moreover, some metrics of interpersonal comparison, such as utility,are subjective and thus difficult to measure and compare. As Senargues, the disabled person may, for example, be a‘pleasure-wizard’ that derives a lot of satisfaction fromvery little, as compared to the able-bodied person, who is harder toplease. Accordingly, we should give more the the able-bodied and lessto the disabled. Both of these conclusions are counter-intuitive,according to Sen.

According to the capability approach, ‘functionings’ and‘capabilities’ are the best metric for most kinds ofinterpersonal evaluations since they concern the range of doings andbeings that are available to them. These beings and doings togetherare held to constitute what makes a life valuable. Whereas‘functionings’ are the proposed conceptualization forinterpersonal comparisons ofachieved well-being,‘capabilities’ are the conceptualization for interpersonalcomparisons of thefreedom to pursue well-being, which Sencalls “well-being freedom” (Sen 1992: 40). Acapabilitarian metric of interpersonal comparison avoids the issues ofresourcist and utilitarian metrics. First, resources are merely ameans to achieve these doings and beings: an equal amount of resourcesdoes not mean that two people are equally well-off if one of them,such as in the case of the disabled person, needs more resources tohave the same range of capabilities as the other person. Second, acapabilitarian metric avoids the issue of subjective evaluations ofthe same thing: just because two people subjectively evaluate the samecapability-set differently, it does not mean that they are not equallywell-off since they both have access to the same range of doings andbeings to choose from.

We can compare the well-being of different (groups of) individuals bylooking at the functionings and/or capabilities that they have. Eitherfocus may be useful for different purposes and may compare differentaspects of people’s well-being. Consider, for example, how tocompare the health of two people, one of whom is a smoker. A focus ontheir functioning of being healthy would evaluate the smoker to beless healthy than the non-smoker. Comparing functionings may thus beuseful assessing how well-off different (groups of) individualsare relative to each other. However, a focus on theircapabilities may reveal that they have the same opportunities to behealthy, such as access to healthcare services, support programmes forquitting smoking, and the adequate education and information to knowthat smoking is bad for one’s health – in short, thesmoker chooses to smoke. In contrast to a focus on their functionings,then, on a capability-comparison, the two people may be equallywell-off. A focus on capabilities may thus be especially useful forcomparing the freedom of choice that (groups of) individuals have todo or be certain things. (Seesection 3.2 for a discussion of whether capabilities or functionings should bethe appropriate well-being metric.)

This is especially relevant when considering that what is important isnot only which opportunities are open to me each by themselves, hencein a piecemeal way, but rather which combinations or sets of potentialfunctionings are open to me. For example, suppose I am a low-skilledpoor single parent who lives in a society without decent socialprovisions. Take the following functionings: (1) to hold a job, whichwill require me to spend many hours on working and commuting, but willgenerate the income needed to properly feed myself and my family; (2)to care for my children at home and give them all the attention, careand supervision they need. In a piecemeal analysis, both (1) and (2)are opportunities open to me, but they are notboth togetheropen to me. The point about the capability approach is precisely thatwe must take a comprehensive or holistic approach, and ask whichsets of capabilities are open to me, that is: can Isimultaneously provide for my family and properly care for andsupervise my children? Or am I rather forced to make some hard,perhaps even tragic choices between two functionings which bothreflect basic needs and basic moral duties?

Note that while most types of capability analysis requireinterpersonal comparisons, one could also use the capability approachto evaluate the well-being or well-being freedom of one person at onepoint in time (e.g., evaluate her situation against acapability-yardstick), or to evaluate the changes in her well-being orwell-being freedom over time. The capability approach could thus alsobe used by a single individual in her deliberate decision-making orevaluation processes, but these types of uses of the capabilityapproach are much less prevalent in the philosophical literature, letalone in the social sciences.

3. Specifying the capability approach

Building on its core of central concepts and normative commitments,the capability approach can be developed into more specific capabilitytheories. As Robeyns (2017, chapter 1) argues, some specifications arenecessary to make, such as what the purpose of the theory is, whatcapabilities or functionings are normatively relevant, and whether tofocus on capabilities or functionings. Other specifications areoptional in the sense that whether we need them depends on theparticular capability theory we are developing, including how to weighdifferent capabilities against each other and what other normativeconcerns that the theory should take into consideration. In thissection, we explain some of the choices that need to or can be madewhen developing a capability theory.

3.1 Purpose and application

The capability approach can be applied to many different purposes andthe choice of purpose, or application, of the theory matters for otherspecifications that are made.

Some purposes introduce additional normative, descriptive, and/ormeta-theoretical commitments. For example, a capability theory ofenvironmental justice that is grounded in the Western philosophicaltradition might struggle to account for the protection of non-humanentities, such as animals, forests, and rivers, in ways that acommitment to non-Western and holistic ontologies might not (Watene2016).

The choice of purpose also influences the selection of relevantcapabilities and functionings and how this selection should be done.For example, applying the capability approach to developing an accountof health justice invariably entails a focus on those capabilities andfunctionings that are relevant for health (Prah Ruger 2009;Venkatapuram 2011).

Lastly, the choice of purpose affects whether one needs to make someof the optional specifications. For example, capabilitarian accountsof policy-making should explain how the different capability-sets thatdifferent policy choices yield can be compared and traded off againsteach other.

3.2 Functionings or capabilities?

Scholars interested in the capability approach have debated thequestion of whether the appropriate well-being metric should becapabilities or functionings, hence opportunities or achievements.What considerations have been argued to be relevant for thischoice?

The first consideration is normative, and this is the argument Sen andNussbaum most often offer: by focusing on capabilities rather thanfunctionings, we avoid privileging a particular account of the goodlife but instead aim at a range of possible ways of life from whicheach person can choose. Thus, it is Nussbaum’s and Sen’scommitment to a liberal version of the capability approach, or ananti-paternalist consideration, that motivates a principled choice forcapabilities rather than functionings. Obviously, the strength of thisargument depends on how bad one takes paternalism to be. There may begood reasons to believe that some paternalism is unavoidable, or evendesired (Nussbaum 2000, 51–56). To some extent, the promotion offunctionings (rather than capabilities) may be unavoidable in acapabilitarian political theory, yet this tendency to paternalism canbe stronger or weaker, depending on several specific choices made inthe theory (Claassen 2014).

A second normative consideration stems from the importance given topersonal responsibility in contemporary political philosophy. If onebelieves that one should strive for equality of capability, then eachperson should have the same real opportunity (capability), but oncethat is in place, each individual should be held responsible for hisor her own choices. This responsibility-sensitivity principle iswidely endorsed not only in political philosophy but also in themathematical models being developed in normative welfare economics. Ifone wants to endorse and implement this principle ofresponsibility-sensitivity, then specifications and applications ofthe capability approach should focus on capabilities, rather thanfunctionings. Yet even at a highly abstract theoretical level,philosophers disagree on whether we should endorseresponsibility-sensitivity in developing the capability approach(e.g., Fleurbaey 2002; Vallentyne 2005; Wolff and de-Shalit 2007).Moreover, for applied work, serious epistemological hurdles mayultimately lead us to drop the responsibility-sensitive principle forpractical reasoning about the actual world.

Third, there are cases in which a capability is available to a personbut only if other people do not also want to realize that capability(Basu 1987: 74). For example, two spouses may each have the capabilityof holding demanding jobs which are each on their own incompatiblewith large caring responsibilities. However, if these spouses alsohave infants or relatives with extensive care needs, then at best onlyone of them may effectively realize that capability. Since capabilitysets may therefore include freedoms that are conditional (because theydepend on the choices of other people), it might be better to focusboth on the individual’s capability set and also on what peoplehave been able to realize from their own capability sets, that is,their functionings or well-being achievements. The question of whodecides orshould decide this sort of spousal questionhighlights the importance of agency and procedural fairness, which aregenerally taken to be part of the capability approach in its broaderuse (Crocker 2008).

It should also be mentioned that the concept of functioning hasparticular relevance for our relations to those human beings who arenot yet able to choose (infants), who will never be able to make someparticular choices (severely mentally disabled individuals), or whohave lost this ability through advanced dementia or serious braindamage. Whether or not these persons can decide to be well nourishedand healthy, it is generally held that we (through families,governments, or other institutions) have the moral obligation topromote or protect their nutritional and healthy functioning.

Finally, the choice between functionings and capabilities can also bebridged by a conceptual move. Sen (1987b: 36–7) has proposed theconcept of ‘refined functioning’ to designate functioningthat takes note of the available alternatives. Sen (1992: 52) notes:“‘fasting’ as a functioning is not just starving; itischoosing to starve when one does have otheroptions.” That is, one could focus on achieved functioningslevels but – where appropriate – include the exercise ofchoice as one of the relevant functionings (Fleurbaey 2002; Stewart1995).

In addition to these normative and conceptual arguments, there arealso concerns related to the application and measurability thatinfluence the choice of capabilities, functionings, or a combinationof the two (Robeyns 2006). It is, for example, almost always easier toobserve and measure functionings than capabilities (Sen 1992:52–3).

3.3 Selecting and aggregating of capabilities?

Other major points of debate in the capability literature are thequestions of which capabilities should be selected as relevant and whoshould decide (or how a decision should be made) on the aggregation ofthe various dimensions into an overall assessment (Claassen 2020). Atthe level of ideal theories of justice, some have argued that each andevery capability is relevant and should count in our moral calculus(Carter 2014; Vallentyne 2005). Others have argued that considerationsof justice require that we demarcate morally relevant from morallyirrelevant and morally bad capabilities (Nussbaum 2003; Pogge 2002).This demarcation could be done in various ways, and most capabilityscholars think that different answers are appropriate in differentnormative exercises. In other words, the selection of relevantcapabilities would be different when the question is how to arrange asociety’s basic structure, versus when the question is how tospend the donations Oxfam has collected, or when the normativequestion is how to raise one’s child. Anderson (1999) arguesthat, for purposes of political justice, the only relevantcapabilities are those needed for a person to participate as acitizen. Nussbaum endorses a well-defined list of capabilities, which,she argues, should be enshrined in every country’s constitution(Nussbaum 2000, 2003, 2006). Sen has been somewhat vague in respondingto the question of how to select and weight capabilities, yet in thesecondary literature it has been argued that he draws on his ideal ofagency to argue that each group should itself select, weight, tradeoff, and sequence or otherwise aggregate capabilities as well asprioritize them in relation to other normative considerations, such asagency, efficiency, and stability (Crocker 2008).

Moving from ideal theory to non-ideal theory and empiricalapplications makes the selection of relevant capabilities even morecomplicated, for other concerns such as feasibility, dataavailability, practical relevance, and even parsimony may playsignificant roles. Several proposals are on offer, ranging fromsubstantive accounts with elaborate theoretical underpinnings, throughseveral procedural methods, to theatheoretical practice thatan investigator should simply conduct a survey in order to collectrich data (or use an existing survey) and let a statistical technique,such as factor analysis, “decide.” At one end of thisspectrum is Nussbaum’s well-known list, which containsprescribed capabilities that are grouped together under ten“central human capabilities”: life; bodily health; bodilyintegrity; senses, imagination and thought; emotions; practicalreason; affiliation; other species; play; and control over one’senvironment (Nussbaum 2006: 76–78).

Nussbaum (2000: 70–77; 2006: 78–81) justifies this list byarguing that each of these capabilities is needed in order for a humanlife to be “not so impoverished that it is not worthy of thedignity of a human being” (2000: 72). She defends thesecapabilities as being the moral entitlements of every human being onearth. She formulates the list at an abstract level and advocates thatthe translation to implementation and policies should be done at alocal level, taking into account local differences. Nussbaum arguesthat this list can be derived from a Rawlsian overlapping consensusand stresses that her list remains open-ended and always open forrevision (Nussbaum 2000: 77), yet other philosophers have taken issuewith her claim that this would result in a form of politicalliberalism (Barclay 2003; Begon 2017) or have argued that this leavesinsufficient scope for democratic deliberation and respect for agencyin her capability approach (e.g., Crocker 2008; Robeyns 2003b; Sen2004a, 2004b). Yet this strand of critique has itself been criticizedfor not understanding the proper role of philosophy and the normativeand political status of Nussbaum’s proposal (Claassen 2011).

Sen consistently and explicitly refuses to defend “onepre-determined canonical list of capabilities, chosen by theoristswithout any general social discussion or public reasoning” (Sen2005a: 158). Of course, groups and theorists might construct lists forvarious purposes, and lists need not be “pre-determined”or “canonical,” however we might understand these terms.And Sen’s refusal to endorse Nussbaum’s list has notprevented him from using – for various purposes –particular selections of capabilities in his empirical as well as hisnormative work. However, beyond stating in general terms that somedemocratic process and public reasoning should be involved, Sen hasnever explained in detail how such a selection could and should bedone. Sen (2005a) has been reluctant to specify a substantive list ofcapabilities and functionings in order to avoid paternalism –holding that communities should decide for themselves, whichcapabilities should apply – and the imposition of a particularconception of the good life. Consequently, Sen (1987b; 1992; 2002;2009) has repeatedly stated that capabilities should be defined as thereal freedom to achieve those doings and beings that we ‘havereason to value’. The ‘having reason tovalue’-formulation of capabilities and functionings is widelyregarded within the capability literature as the correct, only, ormost popular account of how functionings and capabilities should beselected.

On the one hand, the ‘having reason to value’ definitionhighlights the importance of taking into account what peoplethemselves value doing and being when evaluating their well-being.This is contrary to more objective measures of well-being, such asutilitarianism or resourcism, which hold that people’swell-being can and should be evaluated according to some objectivemeasure, such as the amount of resources that they have or the amountof utility they derive from having these resources. On the other hand,Sen’s definition also breaks with more subjective approaches towell-being and the idea that people’s subjective evaluation oftheir well-being is all that matters. Sen (1985a; 1985c; 1987a) arguesthat people may be mistaken about their own well-being. For example,someone might be destitute, yet evaluate their own subjectivewell-being quite highly or value certain things, such as smoking, thatare actually bad for her. In order to avoid such counter-intuitiveconclusions, Sen invokes the notion of reasonableness as an objectivecriterion: we need to submit our values to a process of scrutiny and(public) reasoning and only those valued capabilities that can survivethis procedure can be said to be reasonable.

However, it has often been a matter of interpretation and contentionwithin the capability literature what Sen means exactly with‘having reason to value.’ Khader and Kosko (2019) arguethat there are three interpretations of Sen’s ‘havingreason to value’ definition. On theprocedural autonomyinterpretation, an individual Y has reason to value doing orbeing X if Y has reasoned that X is valuable; on theprocessinterpretation, what we have reason to value is not necessarilywhat wedo value, but rather what wewould value ifwe had gone through the proper process of individual reflection(Alkire and Deneulin 2009; Bonvin and Farvaque 2005, 282; Ibrahim andAlkire 2007; Nussbaum 2000; Sen 2002, 16) or public deliberation(Alkire 2013, 91; Sen 1999, 152–153; Crocker 2008, 270); and ontheperfectionist interpretation, what people have reason tovalue is what is objectively valuable: Y simply has reason to value Xbecause X is valuable, even if Y does not herself value X (e.g.,Arneson 2020).

The disagreement between Nussbaum and Sen on how to select relevantcapabilities has led many capability scholars to conclude that thereare only two strands of selecting capabilities, namely thephilosophical approach favored by Nussbaum or the procedural approachadvanced by Sen. However, as Byskov (2018a; 2018b, chapter 6) argues,this is too simple and ignores many possible and already used methodsfor the selection of capabilities and functionings. Byskov identifies14 different methods for the selection of capabilities within theliterature, which he categorizes intoad hoc methods, whichbase their selection of capabilities on pragmatic considerations;foundational methods, which select capabilities according tosome ultimate normative value or principle;proceduralmethods, which employ open-ended empirical or deliberativeexercises to determine relevant capabilities; andmixed (ormulti-stage) methods, which combine two or more foundationaland/or procedural methods.

The theoretical debate on the selection of dimensions has beencomplicated by the fact that there are different views on the statusof the selection. Is that selection a truth-claim, or should it ratherbe seen as a contribution to democratic-decision making? Is thescholar proposing a selection of capabilities akin to aphilosopher-king, or rather to a philosopher-citizen or aphilosopher-mediator? Depending on how one sees these issues, it mayaffect how justified one believes a certain selection or selectionprocedure to be (Claassen 2011, Byskov 2017; Östlund 2023 and2024).

What about weighting different capabilities to come to an aggregateevaluation? If we have a list of relevant capabilities, we would stillbe left with the question of whether the capabilities should beaggregated and, if so, what their relative weights and the formula toaggregate them will or should be. A closely related question is howdifferent capabilities should be traded off against one another whenthey cannot all be realized fully. Some have argued against trade-offson the basis that the different capabilities are incommensurable orthat each capability is an absolute entitlement that never should beoverridden by another entitlement or other normative consideration.For example, Nussbaum argues that the ten capabilities on her list,being incommensurable, cannot be traded off against one another (and,hence, have no relative weights), and also that the state shouldprovide each citizen with a minimum level of each capability.

One possible system of weighting or aggregating is to use a democraticor some other social choice procedure (Chakraborty 1996). The basicidea would be to encourage or prescribe that the relevant group ofpeople decide on the weights. In some contexts, such as small-scaleprojects or evaluations, such capability weighting (and selection)could be done by participatory techniques. It has also been suggestedthat we may determine the weights of capabilities as a function of howmuch they contribute to overall life satisfaction or happiness(Schokkaert 2007). Yet this raises the question to what extentfunctionings are taken to be merely instrumental to another end, suchas happiness, or indeed any other ultimate good or ideal.

Much of the existing literature refers to the issue of‘weighting’, but this is only one particular form of themore general ‘aggregating’, since aggregation may take adifferent functional form than simply adding up. For example, if youhave no food, your other capabilities will be worth very little. Somecapabilities may thus be complementary capabilities, implying thattheir value to a person depends on the presence (or absence) of othercapabilities. (Note the similarity with the notion of‘complementary goods’ in consumer theory in economics,where it is argued that the utility of some goods is dependent on thequantity of some other goods, as in the case of pencils and erasers,or shoe polish and shoes of the same color).

3.4 Are capabilities binary or incremental?

What usually distinguishes the capability approach from otherconceptualizations of well-being – such as Rawlsian primarysocial goods, Dworkian resourcism, and utilitarian welfarism –is the idea that well-being should be considered in terms ofcapabilities (Sen 1979) or what we have referred to as real, orsubstantive, freedoms (seesection 2.2): the doings and beings that someone can achieve if they choose to. Inother words, what makes something a real freedom – a capability– is the fact that there is nothing that impedes her from doingthat thing. This is different from Rawlsian social goods and Dworkianresourcism because these conceptualizations of well-being focus on theinput rather than the outcome: having the resource of a bicycle, oreven the infrastructure to ride it, does not ensure that one isactually able to – has the real freedom to – ride abicycle. Assection 2.2 andsection 2.3 show, this depends on a lot of other things that make the opportunityreal or substantive, such as whether the good in question is exclusiveor the conversion factors are at risk perishing (e.g., crucialinfrastructures in a war zone).

What this shows is that not all capabilities – that is,substantive opportunities – are equally substantive: somecapabilities might be more easily achievable than others and somecapabilities might be more permanently available than others dependingon the robustness of their constitutive conversion factors. Thisraises the question of what the threshold is for someone to have aparticular capability or not. Byskov et al. (2024) argue that whenconsidering whether someone has a particular capability, such as beingable to ride a bicycle or not, we can take either of two views. Onthe binary view, a person has a capability to do or besomething only if a set of conditions that are jointly sufficient todo or be that thing is met: capabilities require that all relevantobstacles to someone’s achieving a doing or being – ifthey so choose – are cleared (and that all enabling conditionsare present). If that is not the case, then one does not have thatcapability. Onthe incremental view, capabilities are treatedas a gradual concept in which a capability can be more or lessavailable to be realized: the more conditions that are met to do or besomething, the more opportunity the person has to realize that doingor being. In other words, one can still have a capability in therelevant sense, even if that opportunity is not entirely achievableyet. If none of the relevant jointly sufficient conditions are met,then the opportunity is closed off.

Note that either view may be useful for different applications of thecapability approach. For example, the binary view is especially usefulfor developing capabilitarian theories of ideal justice because itestablishes the ideal conditions under which someone has a capabilityor not, while the incremental view could be useful for the analysis ofpublic programs and policies and the extent to which they promotepeople’s capabilities and the development of distributiveprinciples in the face of limited resources.

3.5 Additional commitments

When developing a capability theory it is often necessary to specifywhat additional descriptive, normative, metaphysical, and/ormeta-theoretical commitments are made. As mentioned, the purpose ofone’s theory might determine some of the commitments that thetheory must adhere to, however in other cases this is not necessarilyso. For example, while a capability theory of distributive justice– more on which insection 4 – is committed to conceptualizing justice primarily in terms ofthe fair distribution of capabilities and functionings, it is an openquestion whether the distribution of other normative concerns, such asutility, happiness, or resources, should play a secondary role.Likewise, the choice of distributive principle is also open and onemay develop sufficientarian, strict egalitarian, or prioritariantheories of justice, all of which are committed to the distribution ofcapabilities and functionings, while the notion of responsibility thatis employed may rely on different descriptive theories of human beingsas either fully or only partially rational beings. A capability theoryof justice may also include metaphysical commitments that extendrights and responsibilities to non-human animals and entities.

4. The possibility of a capability theory of justice

The capability approach is often taken to be an egalitarian theory ora theory of social or distributive justice. This reading is mistaken,even though it is entirely understandable given the specific debatesto which the main philosophers defending the capability approach havecontributed. The capability approach only specifies what should countfor interpersonal evaluations and while this is an important aspect ofa theory of social or distributive justice, more is needed in order todevelop a capabilitarian theory of justice.

Nussbaum’s work comes closest to offering us a capability theoryof justice. Her theory of social justice is comprehensive, in thesense that it is not limited to an account of political justice, or toliberal democracies. Rather, her account holds for all human beings onearth, independently of whether they are living in a liberaldemocratic regime, or of whether they are severely disabled. However,her theory does not amount to afull theory of social justicebut only “a partial and minimal account of social justice”(Nussbaum 2006: 71) that specifies the thresholds of a list ofcapabilities that governments in all nations should guarantee to theircitizens. Nussbaum’s theory focuses on thresholds, but this doesnot imply that reaching these thresholds is all that matters forsocial justice and her theory leaves unaddressed the question of whatsocial justice requires once those thresholds are met.

Note, that not all capability theorists working on issues of justicebelieve that aiming for such a fully worked-out theory of justice iswhat thinking about justice requires. Sen (2006; 2008; 2009) himselfhas argued at length that we do not need a theory that describes autopian ideal, but rather we need theorising to help us with makingcomparisons of injustice, and to guide us towards a less unjustsociety. Similarly, Drydyk (2012) has argued that the capabilityapproach to justice should focus on reducing capability shortfalls,for which a utopian account of perfect justice is not needed, whileHolland (2008b) and Robeyns (2019) focus on theupper limitsof what capabilities that we are owed as a matter of justice. Somecapability theorists may want to work out a full theory of justice byaddressing the various specifications outlined above, while others maywant to change the nature of theorising about justice, moving it moreto applied, non-ideal or grounded theories (Watene and Drydyk 2016).Moreover, it would be a mistake to think that there can be only onecapability theory of justice; on the contrary, the open nature of thecapability approach allows for the development of a family ofcapability theories of justice, including accounts proposed byAnderson (1999) and Claassen (2018).

This prompts the question: what is needed to develop a full capabilitytheory of justice, and which of these aspects have already beendeveloped by theorists of justice?

First, a theory of justice needs to explain on what basis it justifiesits principles or claims of justice. For example, while the earlyNussbaum (1992) justifies her list of capabilities through an analysisof what can be considered essential human traits, the later Nussbaum(2011a) holds that her list of capabilities is justified because theypromote human dignity. Anderson (1999, 316) argues that people shouldbe entitled “to whatever capabilities are necessary to enablethem to avoid or escape entanglement in oppressive socialrelationships” and “to the capabilities necessary forfunctioning as an equal citizen in a democratic state.” Claassen(2017, 2018) argues that the capabilities relevant for social justicecan be derived from society’s ultimate concern with navigationalagency.

Second, as indicated above (section 3.2), in developing a capability theory of justice we must decide whetherwe want it to be an outcome or an opportunity theory, that is, whetherwe think that we should assess injustices in terms of functionings, orrather in terms of capabilities, or a mixture. At the level of theoryand principles, most theorists of justice endorse the view thatjustice is done if all have equal substantial opportunities, or if allreach a minimal threshold of capability levels. Translated to thecapability language, this would imply that at the level of theory andprinciples, capabilities are the relevant metric of justice, and notfunctionings. However, not everyone subscribes to this view. Phillips(2004) has been a prominent voice arguing for equality of outcome,rather than opportunities. In the capability literature, Fleurbaey(2002) has argued against the view to take only capabilities intoaccount and has defended a focus on ‘refined functionings’(being the combination of functionings and capabilities).

Relatedly, some scholars have debated whether the capability approachis consequentialist in nature, compatible with consequentialism, ornon-consequentialist (Qizilbash 2022). While Sen has been critical ofthe utilitarian welfare calculus, his critique seems to be mainlyaimed at utility-maximization views and not moral views that arefocused on the goodness or rightness of outcomes (Sen 1979c). AsQizilbash (2022, 8) argues, Sen often references consequences whenevaluating the goodness or badness of individual actions of societalarrangements. Other capability scholars, however, argue that thecapability approach is non-consequentialist in nature (Kanbur 2021;Suzumura 2021).

Third, just as all other theories that are derived from the generaland underspecified capability approach, a capability theory of justicewill need to address the issue of selecting, quantifying, andaggregating of dimensions. For the case of theories of justice, theproblem of selecting, quantifying and aggregating turns into thequestion: in which dimensions should we evaluate justice, how shouldwe construct metrics in these dimensions, and how should we aggregateall the dimensions for overall assessments of justice? The generalchallenge of selecting and aggregating which was discussed above (section 3.3) therefore also applies here.

Fourth, a capability theory of justice may need to address other‘metrics of justice.’ Within theories of justice, onestrand of debate has been between those defending capabilities andfunctionings, on the one hand, and those defending Dworkian resources(see Dworkin 2000, 299–303; Kaufman 2006b, 125–128; Pierikand Robeyns 2007; Sen 1985b; 2009, 264–268; Williams 2002).Functionings and capabilities have also been proposed by capabilityphilosophers as an alternative for, and improvement on, the Rawlsiansocial primary goods metric, which focuses on general purpose goods,such as income and wealth, opportunities and liberties, and the socialbasis of self-respect (Rawls 1971). Sen (1979a: 215–216) arguesthat a focus on primary goods is inherently inflexible as a metric ofjustice because it “seems to take little note of the diversityof human beings” and the fact that “people seem to havevery different needs,” which results in “overlooking verywidespread and real differences.” Consider, for example, thecase of the disabled person who, Sen argues, would not have a claim toadditional resources grounded in his impairment under Rawls’stwo principles of justice because Rawls is not concerned with what thedisabled person can, or cannot, do or be with their primary socialgoods.

Yet, while capability scholars initially seemed rather sure of theircase against Rawls (Sen 1979a, Nussbaum 2006), some scholars havehighlighted how complicated the comparisons between Rawls’stheory of justice and the capability view are (Pogge 2002, Robeyns2009, Brighouse and Robeyns 2010). One reason is that the capabilitymetric is a general metric of well-being and well-being freedom,whereas the social primary goods metric emerges as one element of anintegral and complex theory of political justice (rather than socialjustice more broadly, let alone the even wider category of moralevaluations). As Arneson (2010) rightly notes, the unit of assessmentideally should be the moral theory, and not merely one part of it,such as the metric of interpersonal comparison. Also, Rawls’stheory of justice is anideal theory of justice, in contrastto the capability approach. This means that it is very hard to compareRawls’s work on justice with the philosophical work on thecapability approach, since their scope and theoretical aims are notthe same. Moreover, Rawlsians have argued that proponents of thecapability approach overstate Sen’s critique of Rawls, inparticular highlighting that Rawlsdoes take into accountspecial needs in the distribution of primary goods and is thus, likethe capability approach, sensitive to differences in what people canachieve with the same goods (Freeman 2006; Kelly 2010; Pogge 2002,Richardson 2006). Not all of these critiques have been sufficientlyrebutted.

Fifth, a capability theory of justice needs to take a position on the‘distributive rule’ (Anderson 2010: 81) that it willendorse: will it argue for plain equality, or for sufficiency, or forprioritarianism, or for some other (mixed) distributive rule? BothNussbaum’s (2006) and Andersons’s (1999; 2010) theoriesare sufficiency accounts (see also Nielsen and Axelsen 2017), but fromthis it does not follow, as one sometimes reads in the secondaryliterature, that the capability approach entails a sufficiency rule.Sen may have given the (wrong) impression of defending straightequality as a distributive rule, by asking the question‘Equality of what?’ (Sen 1979a), though a careful readingshows that he was merely asking the question ‘If wewant to be defending equality of something, then what would thatbe?’ In fact, Sen has remained uncommitted to one singledistributive rule, which probably can be explained by the fact that heis averse to building a well-defined theory of justice but ratherprefers to investigate how real-life unjust situations can be turnedinto more just situations, even if perfect justice is unattainable(Sen 2009). As mentioned, it may also be necessary to set out a rulefor the limits of distribution. As Holland (2008b and 2014a) argues,for example, environmental justice concerns may lead us to limitaccess to some capabilities, such being able to engage in pollutingpractices.

Sixth, a capability theory of justice needs to specify where the linebetween individual and collective responsibility is drawn; how it willbe decided where this line will be drawn; and/or who will decide onhow these responsibilities should be distributed. There is aremarkable absence of any discussion about issues of responsibility inthe capability literature. In part this might be explained by the factthat much of the work on capabilities deals with global poverty, whereissues of individual responsibility seem to be less relevant becauseit would seem outrageous to suggest that the world’s mostdestitute people are personally responsible for the situation they arein. That does not mean that the responsibility question is notimportant: it is indeed of utmost importance to ask who is responsiblefor global poverty reduction or the fulfilling of the MillenniumDevelopment Goals, on which political philosophers have written agreat deal (e.g., Pogge 2008, Singer 2009). The point is rather thatphilosophical puzzles, such as the issues of expensive tastes (forexpensive wine, caviar, fast cars, or you name it), are simply beyondthe radar screen of the child laborer or the poor peasant.

This brings us to a related issue: a theory of justice generallyspecifies not only rights, but also duties. However, capabilitytheorists have remained largely silent on the questions of who shouldbear the duties for the expansion of the selected capabilities.Nussbaum passionately advocates that all people all over the worldshould be entitled, as a matter of justice, to threshold levels of allthe capabilities on her list, but apart from mentioning that it is thegovernments’ duties to guarantee these entitlements (2006: 70),she remains silent on the question of who precisely should bear theburdens and responsibilities for realizing these capabilities. Yet, asO’Neill (1996: chapter 5) has argued, questions of obligationsand responsibilities should be central to any account of justice.

Seventh, it is often assumed that procedural or democratic justice isan intrinsic or necessary part of the capability approach and thus ofa capability theory of justice. This assumption is supported bySen’s (1999) defense of the critical role that (deliberative)democracy should play in selecting capabilities. However, it isimportant to note that Sen does not give a full account of democraticjustice (Srinivasan 2007) and that a capability theory of justice neednot offer such an account (Claassen 2011; Khader and Kosko 2019).Although Robeyns (2003a) offers a capabilitarian rebuttal toFraser’s (1996; Fraser and Honneth 2003) critique ofdistributive justice frameworks, it is unclear whether, and how, thecapability approach can account for procedural aspects of justice,most significantly the notion of recognition advanced. For example,should democratic representation and recognition be conceptualized asa conversion factor or as a capability/functioning in itself? Moreresearch needs to be done on the role and relation of proceduraljustice within a capability theory of justice.

Lastly, many theories of justice are also concerned with justiceacross generations. Whether, and how, the capability theory of justicecan be applied to intergenerational justice is an open question. Giventhat the capability approach is underspecified as a theory of justice,at minimum a capability theory of intergenerational justice must beable to address common issues related to intergenerational justice,such as the non-identity problem, issues of representation, and whatclaims future generations can make on current generations (Gutwald etal. 2014; Sacco 2024; Watene 2013 and 2014).

This section makes clear that a capability theory of justice istheoretically much more demanding than the basic presupposition of thecapability approach that ‘functionings’ and‘capabilities’ are the best metric for most kinds ofinterpersonal evaluations. While much has been written on thecapability approach in the last decades by an increasing number ofscholars, including philosophers, much of the philosophical workneeded for turning the open-ended capability approach into a specifictheory of justice remains to be done.

5. The capability approach and non-Western philosophies

While most of the philosophical contributions to thecapability-literature has taken place within the Western philosophicaltradition (Nussbaum 2020, section 1.1) – however one definesthis tradition – some more recent literature has begun toexplore how non-Western philosophies, such as Māori philosophy,Ubuntu, and Buen Vivir, can contribute to the development of thecapability approach andvice versa (Bockstael and Watene2016).

Some of this literature employs the capability approach toconceptualize the rights of Indigenous peoples. Panzironi (2012), forexample, introduces the notion of ‘Indigenous capabilityrights,’ while Murphy (2014) argues that Indigenousself-determination can be conceptualized as a collective capability.Similarly, Binder and Binder (2016) argue that the recognition thatthe value of capabilities is culture- and context-specific, within (atleast Sen’s version of) the capability approach, can help groundIndigenous rights to autonomous self-governance andself-determination.

Another part of this literature aims to show how Indigenousphilosophies and concepts can help particular applications of thecapability approach, in particular in relation to sustainable humandevelopment and environmental justice. Schlosberg and Carruthers(2010) argue that environmental justice for Indigenous peoples mustinclude a concern for developing their capabilities. Watene (2016)argues that the capability approach in its present form is unable tocapture the physical and spiritual relation to nature that manyIndigenous peoples, in particular the Māori, have. As a possiblesolution, Watene and Yap (2015) show how Indigenous values andworldviews, such as a holistic relationship to nature, can contributeto developing notions of sustainable development. The notion ofinterconnectedness – between human individuals and betweenhumans and nature – is also prominent in work that relates thecapability approach to the African philosophy of Ubuntu and it hasbeen argued it can even be seen as an ‘architectoniccapability,’ which highlights the interdependency ofcapabilities (Hoffmann and Metz 2017; Metz 2016).

However, given the panoply of non-Western philosophies, more researchis needed to explore the capability approach in relation to, forexample, Chinese and Buddhist philosophy (see though Nussbaum 2020,section 1.2). Argenton and Rossi (2013), however, questions whetherthe commitment to scrutiny, reasoning, and deliberation of valueswithin most philosophical applications of the capability approach doesnot, in fact, run contrary to the ambition of representing theplurality and context-specificity of values that individuals havebecause this commitment relies on a substantively liberalunderstanding of what it means to be a reasonable and deliberativeagent found in the Western philosophical tradition.

6. Philosophical applications of the capability approach

As mentioned, most of the philosophical capability literature takesplace within the practical strand of philosophy with the aim ofaddressing real-life issues. For readers interested in how thecapability approach is applied to particular sub-branches ofphilosophy, this section provides a short overview of some of the mostprominent contributions. This overview does not aim at completeness,but rather wants to give a sense of the wide range of practicalconcerns to which the capability approach is applied.

One of the most prominent contributions of the capability approach isto the field of development ethics (Drydyk and Keleher 2018). Mostimportantly, the capability approach has been central to thedevelopment of the notion of human development (Fukuda-Parr 2002;2003; 2011a; 2011b; Fukuda-Parr and Kumar 2003) and themulti-dimensional measures used to evaluate countries’development levels in the annual Human Development Reports (ul Haq2003). Scholars who apply the capability approach to development havetended to highlight the necessity of taking into account issues offreedom (Sen 1999), agency (Crocker 2008; Keleher and Kosko 2019),empowerment (Drydyk 2013), and self-determination (Binder and Binder2016; Byskov 2018b; Murphy 2014).

Another influential application of the capability approach has beenwithin the field of public health ethics and health justice (Marmot2022). Both Prah Ruger (2009) and Venkatapuram (2011) have articulatedcomprehensive theories of health justice, the latter of which hasinfluenced the work of the World Health Organization. Nielsen (2015)provides an argument for why capability theorists should care abouthealth, namely because of its constitutive role in human well-beingand agency. Byskov (2019) argues that the capability approach requiresa qualitative rather than quantitative interpretation of the principleof the least restrictive means, which is central to public healthethics (Beauchamp and Childress 2001). Applied to healthcare ethics,Entwistle and Watt (2013a; 2013b) argue that a capability approachrequires the adoption of person-centred care, while Millar (2013)argues that the capability approach can be used to evaluate thejustice of infectious disease control measures within healthcareinstitutions. The capability approach has also been widely adopted byphilosophers as a framework to analyze aspects of the ethics andphilosophy of disability (Begon 2021, 2022, and 2024; Harnacke 2013;Nussbaum 2006; Riddle 2013; 2014; Terzi 2010; Wynne Bannister andVenkatapuram 2020).

The capability approach has also been applied to a wide variety ofaspects of environmental ethics and climate justice. Several editedcollections have focused on the concept of sustainable developmentfrom a capability perspective, also linking to questions of global andintergenerational justice (Gutwald et al. 2014; Lessmann andRauschmayer 2014). Holland (2008a; 2008b; 2014a; 2014b) argues thatenvironmental justice entails limits to the kinds of capabilities thatpeople can choose to realize. Schlosberg and Carruthers (2010;Schlosberg 2012) argue that environmental justice must include aconcern for developing capabilities, an argument which Kronlid (2014)extends to climate adaptation planning. Voget-Kleschin (2013; 2015)uses the capability approach to investigate reasons for ecologicallysustainable consumption patterns and lifestyles, while Kramm (2020)shows that the capability approach can be used to conceptualize thewell-being of natural entities, which is needed in order to groundclaims to legal personhood, such as in the case of the Whanganui Riverin Aoearoa/New Zealand,

Building on this, Nussbaum (2011b and 2023) has been influential inextending the capability approach to animal ethics and the rights ofof non-human animals (Bendik-Keymer 2014; Holland 2021; Palmer 2010).She departs from the Rawlsian view that we owe animals compassion butnot justice: while Rawls’ view of justice is contractarian andthus excludes animals, Nussbaum’s focus on flourishing anddignity allows her emphasize the similarities between human andanimals as subjects of justice. Other scholars, meanwhile, highlightthe special relationship, such as friendship, between humans andanimals as central to establishing interspecies duties and rights(Holland 2021; Nussbaum Wichert and Nussbaum 2021; Linch 2021;Bendik-Keymer 2021 and 2022). That said, Nussbaum’s animalethics has been criticized for not addressing obstacles to using thecapability framework to develop a theory of interspecies justice(Cripps 2010; Hailwood 2021).

The capability approach has also been influential in developing theright to education and educational justice (Walker and Unterhalter2007). Most prominently, Walker (2003; 2006) and Unterhalter (2005;2007; 2013) have been at the forefront of conceptualizing socialjustice within education, while Terzi (2008) argues that socialjustice and equality in education require particular attention tospecial educational needs and disability. A related literature hascontributed to the conceptualization of childrens’ rights anddevelopment (Brando and Schweiger 2019; Ferracioli and Terlazzo 2014;Hart and Brando 2018), including the notion of linguistic justice(Brando and Morales-Gálvez 2023) and efforts to decolonize thecurriculum (Talbot 2023).

The potential applications of the capability approach are wide-rangingand possible areas where nascent research has begun, or more researchis needed, include the philosophy of technology and the ethicalaspects of artificial intelligence and surveillance (Oosterlaken 2011;2015); business ethics and corporate social responsibility (Bertland2009; Giovanola 2009; Sferrazzo and Ruffini 2021); the ethics of debt(Padgett Walsh and Lewiston 2022); and professional ethics and therights of employees (Ghirlanda 2025).

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