What goods do to (and for) people: duality and ambiguity in Sen’s capabilities approach?

Amartya Sen’s capabilities approach offers an account of the aspects of a person’s condition that should count in a fundamental way in assessing the well-being that persons experience. Two aspects of the person’s condition, Sen argues, are most fundamentally important to his or her well-being: what the person is able to be and what the person is able to do. Goods enhance well-being precisely to the extent that they enhance these abilities. Moreover, Sen argues, each of these abilities is of equally fundamental concern. The capabilities approach therefore “sees persons from two different perspectives” (Sen 1985b: 169).