Capabilities and Personal Identity: Using Sen to explain personal identity in Folbre's 'structures of constraint' analysis

Folbre's 'structures of constraint' analysis treats women as socially embedded in 'multiple, often contradictory positions, because they belong to multiple groups'. This paper addresses the problem of women's multiple collective identities by arguing that Sen's capability framework offers a means of explaining how women can maintain coherent personal identities. Using Sen's real opportunities sense of capabilities, the paper argues that women can acquire personal identities apart from their multiple collective identities if they acquire the specific capability of being able, freely and successfully, to negotiate their multiple group involvements. Folbre's list of policies for a more egalitarian family is reconsidered from this perspective.     

CAPABILITIES AS FUNDAMENTAL ENTITLEMENTS: SEN AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

Amartya Sen has made a major contribution to the theory of social justice, and of gender justice, by arguing that capabilities are the relevant space of comparison when justice-related issues are considered. This article supports Sen's idea, arguing that capabilities supply guidance superior to that of utility and resources (the view's familiar opponents), but also to that of the social contract tradition, and at least some accounts of human rights. But I argue that capabilities can help us to construct a normative conception of social justice, with critical potential for gender issues, only if we specify a definite set of capabilities as the most important ones to protect. Sen's "perspective of freedom" is too vague. Some freedoms limit others; some freedoms are important, some trivial, some good, and some positively bad. Before the approach can offer a valuable normative gender perspective, we must make commitments about substance.     

DEVELOPMENT AS EMPOWERMENT

Amartya Sen's capability approach to human welfare recognizes the impact of social institutions on human capabilities. But as an evaluative framework, it does not analyze the role of institutionalized power in causing or perpetuating inequalities in individual opportunities to achieve. Drawing on authors who are receptive to the capability approach and who have examined the political aspects of advancing human capabilities, this paper presents a view of social power and its exercise that is congruent with the capability approach. This examination of power continues the exploration of intergroup relationships that Sen has advocated, and it can be expected to yield new criteria for policy evaluation as well as new policy options.     

Review Essay

Sen's capability approach has a culturally specific side, with capabilities influenced by social structures and institutions. Although Sen acknowledges this, he expresses his theory in individualistic terms and makes little allowance for culture or social structure. The present paper draws from recent social theory to discuss how the capability approach could be developed to give an explicit treatment of cultural and structural matters. Capabilities depend not only on entitlements but on institutional roles and personal relations: these can be represented openly if capabilities are disaggregated into individual, social and structural capacities. The three layers interact, and a full analysis of capabilities should consider them all. A stratified method implies that raising entitlements will not on its own be enough to enhance capabilities and that cultural and structural changes will be needed.     

Justifying Human Rights: Economics and the Individual

This paper examines the relationship between the individual conception in economics and the justification of economic rights as human rights. It briefly describes the nature of economic rights, and argues that the Homo economicus conception constitutes a barrier to justifying them. The paper then offers an alternative conception of the individual as socially embedded, and argues that it offers an adequate basis for the justification of economic rights. On this alternative conception individuals are enduring beings who have personal identities.     

Justifying Human Rights: Economics and the Individual

This paper examines the relationship between the individual conception in economics and the justification of economic rights as human rights. It briefly describes the nature of economic rights, and argues that the Homo economicus conception constitutes a barrier to justifying them. The paper then offers an alternative conception of the individual as socially embedded, and argues that it offers an adequate basis for the justification of economic rights. On this alternative conception individuals are enduring beings who have personal identities.     

Social Economics and Evolutionary Learning

The major premise of this paper is that social and individual well-being depends significantly on people's capacity to learn and unlearn in communication with each other. This paper builds on social economic traditions that see communication and conversation as evolutionary generative and adaptive mechanisms through which individual and social learning occurs. Drawing on educational psychology and organizational behavior scholarship, five dynamic processes of conversational learning are introduced with the contention that they can help social economists understand at a micro level more deeply and more concretely how learning happens in the give-and-take of conversation. The paper explores the role of the state, organizations, and communities in fostering individual freedom and dignity, human rights, and economic democracy and concludes that the investment of value in people and their capability for purposeful action as social economic stakeholders can be enhanced through conversation as learning.     

产业技术创新联盟中企业联盟能力的构建——一个多层面互动的模型

在新的竞争环境下,产业技术创新联盟成为了企业实施技术创新战略的主要形式,而对创新联盟以及创新联盟网络的管理能力也因此成为了企业竞争优势的关键来源。文章超越了现有大多数联盟能力研究所采取的单一分析层面的做法,着重探索了影响产业技术创新联盟中企业联盟能力的组织和个体两个层面的多因素互动机制。在案例研究的基础上,建立了一个联盟能力的多维动态框架,包括组织维度的战略和结构以及个体维度的能力等因素,分别从战略锚定、支持结构和联盟思维等方面阐述了企业联盟能力构建的途径和方法,强调组织层面的因素与个体层面的因素之间的互动是创新联盟中企业联盟能力构建的关键,联盟能力是企业组织层面的战略-结构因素与个体层面的认知结构和能力因素交互作用的函数,从而为企业构建联盟能力以更好地从技术创新联盟中获益提供了一定的指导和借鉴。     

Are modern philosophical accounts of well-being excessively ‘individualistic’?

Do modern accounts of well-being which have influenced, or been adopted by, some economists encourage excessive ‘individualism’? I suggest that this question can be answered by considering two objections to modern views of welfare: (1) that they involve an impoverished view of persons and (2) that they decompose all goods into goods for individuals and do not give intrinsic value to collective goods. I argue that two influential views of well-being—the informed desire view and the capability approach—can convincingly respond to these objections. Both views allow for our distinct social roles and identities: the ways in which social norms and institutions shape values and a concern for others. Neither view sees goods as goods only of specific individuals, nor do they require us to separate out neatly the realisation of values in the lives of various individuals. But that does not imply that goods such as friendship are collective rather than individual goods or that collective goods have intrinsic value. Nonetheless, accounts of well-being may need to be more explicit than they have been in incorporating the social dimension.     

数字化情境下创业动态能力有效前因组态研究

为探究数字化情境下创业动态能力前因变量协同作用机制，以江浙沪地区初创企业为研究对象，采用fsQCA和NCA方法，探讨先前经验、社会网络、创业学习和数字技术对创业动态能力的影响路径与作用机制。研究发现，数字化情境下创业动态能力存在多种前因组态，其中高创业机会能力存在数据驱动型、主观能动型、经验基础型3种组态，非高创业机会能力存在数据缺位型、经验缺失型、主动不足型3种组态，高创业资源能力存在数据助力型、传统模式型、主观能动型3种组态，非高创业资源能力存在数据缺位型、学习不足型、网络欠缺型3种组态；另外，数字技术和创业学习是高创业机会能力的重要前因变量，数字技术和网络行为是高创业资源能力的重要前因变量。研究结论有助于拓展数字技术创业和创业动态能力相关研究，对于提升数字技术能力、指导数字创业实践具有一定启示意义。     

Book Reviews

The evaluative function of local public actors has been exacerbated in recent years with the individualisation of social policies. One of their tasks is to select the appropriate informational basis in order to assess welfare claimants. Amartya Sen's capability approach offers a theoretical and normative framework to analyse this evaluative function. In particular, it insists on the importance of “objectivating” people's preferences with reference to their capabilities. The weight that is to be attached to individual preferences in the course of public action can be a matter of controversy. Claimants “capability for voice”, we argue, should be developed. This capability refers to their effective possibility to express their concerns with regard to the choice of the informational basis. It is argued that local institutions prohibiting capability for voice will produce adaptive preferences, whereas procedural institutions promoting reflexive public evaluation and capability for voice will result in a fairer wording of individual preferences. At a situated level, the way to connect subjective and objective information when assessing people very much depends on the position of the evaluator. Several illustrations show that the fairness of evaluation, and its impact on the people's capability set, depend on this positional perspective.     

Perfectionism,Paternalism and Liberalism in Sen and Nussbaum's Capability Approach

The aim of the paper is to analyse the theoretical foundations of human development policies as found in Sen's and Nussbaum's capability approach to development, and to examine to what extent undertaking policies according to the capability approach respects people's freedom to pursue their own conception of the good. The paper argues that policies undertaken according to the capability approach have to be guided by a perfectionist conception of the good; that is, they cannot avoid promoting one certain conception of the human good. Such a perfectionist conception of the human good, and the policies ensuing from it, has often been qualified as paternalist, depriving the human being of choosing her own conception of the good. The paper examines to what extent those fears of paternalism that seem to underlie policies guided by a perfectionist account of the good are legitimate, and to what extent the capability approach can escape those charges of paternalism and respect each person's freedom to pursue the human good as she conceives it.     

Gender Differences in Italian Children's Capabilities

This paper analyzes children's well-being using the capability approach, with a special focus on gender differences. The two areas analyzed are the capability of senses, imagination, and thought; and the capability of play. Using data from the 2008 Multipurpose Survey on Daily Life released by the Italian National Institute of Statistics, a structural equation model is estimated in which the capabilities are defined as latent variables that are intrinsically interrelated. For each capability, a set of indicators of functionings is utilized and the effects of individual and social conversion factors – including parents’ unpaid work, their level of education, and employment status – are analyzed. The model is applied to Italian girls and boys ages 6–10 in 2008. The analysis confirms that the two capabilities are interrelated. Policies aimed at improving children's achievements in education also improve the capability of play and vice versa. Differences by gender occur in the factors’ effects.     

What the Welfare State Left Behind—Securing the Capability to Move for the Vulnerable

The purpose of the present paper is to measure the disadvantage of the vulnerable in contemporary Japan, focusing on their capabilities in moving both outside and inside the home. Our research interest is to find a new informational base other than consumption expenditure, which provides a strong clue about how to assess the eligibility for social support. We examine theoretical methods to apply the capability approach empirically, extending existing multidimensional poverty measurements. We find that people with disabilities and nursing care users are significantly restricted in their capabilities. The elderly in general, whom we have used as a reference group, are also in a precarious situation.     

动态能力与环境动态的实证研究:批判性综述

首先界定了动态能力概念,梳理了其构成维度与测量。然后通过整理和总结2010—2015年国外动态能力相关文献中的主要模型,对比分析了动态能力和环境动态对企业绩效和竞争优势的影响。结果如下:动态能力的内涵存在于企业层面、团队层面和个体层面;学习并不属于动态能力;将环境动态作为动态能力的调节变量有待检验。最后对未来研究方向提出建议。     

农民对农村社会养老保险的心理预期及其影响因素——对武汉市J区农民的调查分析

以问卷调查所得的462份调查资料为基础,对农民社会养老保险的心理预期及其影响因素进行了实证分析。农民对农村社会养老保险的心理预期相对比较低,年龄等个人特征和家庭子女数、家庭年净收入等家庭特征对农民社会养老保险的心理预期影响显著。提出了增加政府对农村社会养老保险的投入、在完善农村社会养老保险制度的同时有步骤地构建多支柱的农村养老体系、将当前正在实施的"农村部分计划生育家庭奖励扶助养老制度"逐步过渡到"普惠型"的农村养老保障制度等对策。     

Capabilities and Constraints

Sen’s capability approach emphasises the importance of freedom and choice in leading the life that one values. This paper seeks to argue that, nonetheless, the capability approach is fully cognisant of the constraints that restrict individuals from achieving capabilities. Since the achievement of capabilities is set within a social context, and also because the constraints to capability-achievement are often of a social nature, it is useful to keep in mind the social context. An account of the capability approach that places adequate stress on the constraints that confront individuals and the institutional context will describe their situation more accurately; it will also be of more use for policy purposes.     

Capabilities and Constraints

Sen’s capability approach emphasises the importance of freedom and choice in leading the life that one values. This paper seeks to argue that, nonetheless, the capability approach is fully cognisant of the constraints that restrict individuals from achieving capabilities. Since the achievement of capabilities is set within a social context, and also because the constraints to capability-achievement are often of a social nature, it is useful to keep in mind the social context. An account of the capability approach that places adequate stress on the constraints that confront individuals and the institutional context will describe their situation more accurately; it will also be of more use for policy purposes.     

Making real money in virtual worlds: MMORPGs and emerging business opportunities, challenges and ethical implications in metaverses

Today, millions of people from around the globe play online role playing games (MMORPG), in which a large number of players interact with one another in a virtual world, either using their existing identities in the physical world, or more often than not, through new virtual identities that might not even be remotely linked to the identities of the players in the physical world. The number of users is growing at an exponential rate and we are probably on the verge of a new development that is going to be as significant as the Internet itself. This positioning paper will discuss the business opportunities and challenges of such a virtual world, that of Second Life, and will examine the resultant corporate social responsibility implications focusing on the ethical and policy-related ones. This will help to identify important research questions that need to be systematically addressed.     

SOCIAL COMPARISON AND SUBJECTIVE WELL‐BEING: DOES THE HEALTH OF OTHERS MATTER?

The importance of social comparison in shaping individual utility has been widely documented by subjective well‐being literature. So far, income and unemployment have been the main dimensions considered in social comparison. This paper aims to investigate whether subjective well‐being is influenced by inter‐personal comparison with respect to health. Thus, we study the effects of the health of others and relative health hypotheses on two measures of subjective well‐being: happiness and subjective health. Using data from the Italian Health Conditions survey, we show that a high incidence of chronic conditions and disability among reference groups negatively affects both happiness and subjective health. Such effects are stronger among people in the same condition. These results, robust to different econometric specifications and estimation techniques, suggest the presence of some sympathy in individual preferences with respect to health and reveal that other people's health status serves as a benchmark to assess one's own health condition.