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Needs and Capabilities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 April 2017

Sabina Alkire
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How should actions to redress absolute human deprivation be framed?1 Current international coordinated actions on absolute poverty are framed by human rights or by goals such as the Millennium Development Goals. But appropriate, effective and sustained responses to needs require localized participation in the definition of those rights/goals/needs and in measures taken to redress them. Human rights or the MDGs do not seem necessarily to require such processes. For this reason some argue that no universal framework can describe economic, social, or cultural rights. Yet to address absolute poverty purely from the local perspective still requires the identification and prioritization of capabilities or needs, and often requires actions by greater-thanlocal institutions, so in practical terms a framework is not rejected without cost. This paper argues that the identification and prioritisation of rights or MDGs can and should be done at an international level, but that they might be framed as capabilities, and that far greater attention need be given to the iterative specification of these rights, and to the ongoing protection of certain agency freedoms. The paper explores how Wiggins' account of need can fruitfully inform the specification of needs claims. It also draws significantly on Sen's work to identify the intrinsic importance of process and opportunity freedoms, and to identify how these can relate to universal priorities.

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Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 57 , December 2005 , pp. 229 - 251
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Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 2005

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References

2 I am grateful to David Wiggins, Soran Reader, Melissa Lane, Ian Gough, Ingrid Robeyns, and participants at the Needs conference in Durham for their comments. Errors remain my own.

2 United Nations Millennium Declaration (8 September 2000), General Assembly Resolution 55/2.

3 The goals are to:

i. eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

ii. achieve universal primary education

iii. promote gender equality and empower women

iv. reduce child mortality

v. improve maternal health

vi. combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases

vii. ensure environmental sustainability

viii. develop a global partnership for development

4 Annan, Kofi, ‘Implementation of the United Nations Millennium Declaration’ A/511210 (31 07, 2002).Google ScholarWiggins, David, ‘Claims of Need’ in Needs, Values, Truth (Oxford: Clarendon Press,1998) 1–57.Google ScholarNussbaum, Martha C., Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).Google Scholar

5 Hart Lecture (17th June 2004), 32, fn 23. Doyal, Len and Gough, Ian, A Theory of Human Need (Basingstoke: MacMillan, 1991)Google Scholar. Fitzgerald, Ross (ed.), Human Needs and Politics (Sydney: Pergamon, 1977)Google Scholar. Springborg, Patricia, The Problem of Human Needs and the Critique of Civilisation (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1981)Google Scholar.

6 Sen Forthcoming Mimeo p. 6.

7 Wiggins and Sen both follow H.L.A. Hart in viewing a purely legal account of human rights as too narrow. This paper will not, however, explore further the similarities and dissimilarities in their accounts.

8 Wiggins op. cit., paragraphs 1–11, and postscript 2, 319–328. It would perhaps be a more obvious comparison to use Nussbaum's account of the capabilities approach as she also argues that the state should support a ‘threshold’ of central human capabilities (Nussbaum 2000). But as this paper turns on the role of freedom and agency, I use Sen's writings as they consider the role of freedom rather carefully.

9 Hart Lecture (17th June 2004), 32, fn 23.

10 Wiggins op. cit.: 45

11 Op. cit., 4. This argument is common in basic needs literature: see also Doyal and Gough, op. cit., Fitzgerald, op. cit., and Springborg, op. cit.

12 Op. cit., 6

13 Op. cit., 16

14 Op. cit., 16

15 Op. cit., 10.

16 Op. cit., 14.

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18 Op. cit., 22.

19 Op. cit., 23.

20 Op. cit., 14 both quotes.

21 Op. cit., 15.

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24 Op. cit., 60 where Wiggins discusses the epistemological role consensus can play.

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28 ‘Needs are states of dependency (in respect of not being harmed), which have as their proper objects things needed (or, more strictly, having or using …x)’. Op. cit., 16.

29 Op. cit., 16.

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31 Op. cit., 10.

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33 Alkire, Sabina, Valuing Freedoms: Sen's Capability Approach and Poverty Reduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002b)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Chapters 5 and 7.

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36 Sen 1999: 75.

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38 Agency refers to the freedom to bring about achievements one considers to be valuable, whether or not these achievements are connected to one's own well-being or not. See Sen 1992: 56–7, 1999: 191, and Sen's third Dewey lecture 1985: 203–221.

39 See Sen 1982a, 1982b, 1988b, 1992, 1999, 2002. Alkire, Sabina, ‘Dimensions of Human Development’, World Development (02, 2002a)Google Scholar.

40 Sen 1992: 40.

41 Sen 1992: 31, see 1999: 74 and 2002: 596. Alkire Valuing Freedoms.

42 Veenhoven et al. 1994, Smith and Bond 1993, Hofstede 1980, Inglehart 1997, Inglehart and Baker 2000, Kahneman et al. 1999. However see Ryan's empirical studies of autonomy (2000, 2002, 2004), that invoke concepts closely related to Sen. Nussbaum, Martha C., ‘Flawed Foundations: The Philosophical Critique of (a Particular Type of) Economies’, University of Chicago Law Review (1997), 1197–1214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

43 Sen 1992: 63.

44 Sen 1992: 59. See Sen 1985b, 1991, 1997d and t h e references therein.

45 Sen forthcoming ‘Elements of a Theory of Human Rights’, Philosophy and Public Affairs (Expected Fall 2005).

46 Sen 1993a: 36.

47 Sen 1984: 514.

48 Op. cit., 327.

49 In addition to the eight goals of the MDGs, there are 18 targets and 48 indicators that do track changes in particular ‘satisfiers’.

50 Stewart, referring to Streeten et al. 1981, Lederer 1980, I LO 1976 and others notes that BN always included ‘certain standards of nutrition, and the universal provision of health and education services’. They sometimes included ‘shelter and clothing and non-material needs such as employment, participation and political liberty’ (1985:1). See Drèze and Sen 1989, 1995, 1997, 2002 and Sen 1999, all of which view political participation as a basic capability.

51 Op. cit., 328.

52 Particularly Streeten 1984 and Stewart 1985.

53 This argument is developed in Sen's Arrow lectures, Sen 2002 Chapters 19–21.

54 Sen 2002: 585.

55 I have tried to explore some of these ideas elsewhere in ‘Valuing Freedoms 2002 and ‘Dimensions of Human Development’ (2002).

56 With Nussbaum I also think it significant ‘that the endogeneity of preferences has been recognized by almost all the major writers on emotion and desire in the history of Western philosophy, including Plato, Aristotle, the Epicureans, the Stoics, Thomás Aquinas, Spinoza, and Adam Smith, not to mention countless contemporary writers in philosophy and in related fields (such as anthropology and cognitive psychology)’. Nussbaum (1997).