Cultural Diversity and the Capability Approach

In this chapter I turn to one specific interpretation of the framework considered so far: the capability approach. By drawing on the analysis conducted in this book I shall discuss the question whether the capability approach can account for cultural diversity. In a first step, I explore how cultural differences may affect the construction of capability sets. In a second step, I turn to their ranking, and draw on discussions about the value of alternatives in freedom rankings in order to explore how different ways to identify valuable functionings can affect the extent to which capability rankings can account for differences in the conception of well-being across different cultures. In a last step, I draw on Sen’s contributions in rational choice theory in order to illustrate how certain norms can render the value of functionings dependent on the capability set of which they form a part. I illustrate that existing contributions fail to account for such cases of context-dependency, and propose a way to refine the framework such that they can be taken into account. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the role of freedom’s agency value in allowing the capability approach to find a delicate balance in the evaluation of well-being across different cultures: namely to avoid the problem of preference adaptation it was meant to address, without becoming paternalistic. This chapter is a modified version of Binder (Context dependency of valuable functionings: how culture affects the capability framework. In: Chiappero-Martinetti E (ed) Debating global society: reach and limits of the capability approach. Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, Milan, pp 205–232, 2009).