ABSTRACT
The Capability Approach (CA), developed by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum, defines a person’s well-being in terms of the beings and doings (the functionings) a person achieves and her capability to choose among different combinations of such functionings. The ‘doings and beings’ a person achieves are constitutive of her well-being and can be used to describe her life situation. 1 Examples of functionings range from elementary ones like being adequately nourished to rather complex ones like being able to take part in the life of the community and having self-respect (Sen 1999a: 75). The achievement of a functioning typically presupposes on the one hand the availability of certain commodities and on the other hand the ability of the individual to use these commodities accordingly. Take as an illustration the functioning to move about (Figure 3.1). It presupposes the availability of a bike (or a car) or of the money for public transport on the one hand and on the other hand the ability to ride a bike (or drive a car) or to go by bus, i.e. the ability to convert a resource into a functioning. The individual budget set comprises all commodity bundles feasible for a person and the set of conversion functions is composed of all modes of utilization a person is able to exercise. Hence, the feasibility of functionings for a person depends on (a) the budget set and on (b) the set of (individual) conversion functions (Sen 1985a: 11; Robeyns 2005: 98–99). An illustration of capability and functionings: two modes of moving about. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203839744/d0ab3c53-bbd5-4856-9793-33e996405ca9/content/fig3_1_C.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>
