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LIT-283: The Capability Approach

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Properties5
StatusActive — read in full 2026-09-28 (NOTE-260); worth reading as the definitional spine of the approach, with its concepts, its specification choices and the list of what a capability theory of justice still lacks. Use it for Sen's paywalled texts only as a pointer to them, not as a substitute. Its retelling of Sen's 1979 disability argument conflates two of his arguments and inverts who the "pleasure wizard" is.
Version2
Tagsethics, society-and-governance, social-science, agency
Cited as “paper” byNOTE-260 — The Capability Approach
Cited as “source” byTHEORY-025 — Neither utility information nor resource holdings, alone or together, can register claims that arise from how differently people convert resources into what they can do and be: equal resources leave unequal capabilities, and utility adapts to deprivation

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Robeyns & Byskov (2011), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman, eds.); first published 14 Apr 2011 (Robeyns alone); substantive revisions 3 Oct 2016, 10 Dec 2020 (Byskov added) and 17 Apr 2025 (the version read); archived as https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2025/entries/capability-approach/ — https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/capability-approach/

Standing in the record

Filed on 2026-09-28 at the owner’s request, as one of nine texts assembled to represent Amartya Sen’s capability approach without a full reading of The Idea of Justice. published: is the first appearance (ADR-002).

It was filed Deferred, unread. NOTE-260 is the close reading of 2026-09-28, and it placed the work: Active — worth reading as the definitional spine of the approach, with its concepts, its specification choices and the list of what a capability theory of justice still lacks. Use it for Sen’s paywalled texts only as a pointer to them, not as a substitute. Its retelling of Sen’s 1979 disability argument conflates two of his arguments and inverts who the “pleasure wizard” is.

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