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  • 11 - Individualism and the Capability Approach

  • from Part I - Historical Antecedents and Philosophical Debates
  • Edited by Enrica Chiappero-Martinetti, Siddiqur Osmani, Mozaffar Qizilbash, University of York
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Handbook of the Capability Approach
    Published online:
    11 November 2020
    Print publication:
    19 November 2020, pp 206-226

  • Summary

    This chapter critically reviews the debate on individualism and the capability approach, arguing for the need to account for those capabilities that result from social interaction and collective action and are unachievable by single individuals. The first section explains how the capability approach adopts ethical individualism with its emphasis on the individual as the only unit of moral concern. Drawing on Sen’s and Nussbaum’s works, the second section explains how the approach accounts for the instrumental role of social structures in affecting individual freedoms, agency, identities and affiliations. The third section presents different concepts, such as irreducibly social goods, structures of living together, group capabilities and collective capabilities that aim to emphasize the intrinsic importance of collectivities and societal structures. The last section presents Sen’s responses to these critiques and highlights the need to account for a new type of capabilities that are generated at the collective level without necessarily sacrificing the primary focus on individual capabilities.