Abstract :
Ever since the late seventies, AmartyaSen has been promoting an alternative conception of
welfare economics, his Capability Approach (CA). The CA tries to reconcile two seemingly
adverse positions: utilitarianism and Rawls’ theory of social justice. For Sen, for many
evaluative purposes, the appropriate space is that of ‘the substantive freedoms-the capabilities-to
choose a life one has reason to value’. It is crucial to note that he does not say ‘one values’ but
‘one has reason to value’, the difference being that the latter allows for external scrutiny,
whereas the former is hyper-individualistic. Since 1990, UNDP based loosely on Sen’s CA,
developed a suite of measures which capture key capabilities, particularly health and longevity,
education, as well as access to nutrition, shelter, clothing and related capabilities. The HDI
(Human Development Index) captures this using a standardized index for life expectancy,
literacy and enrolment, and a logarithmic transformation of per capita incomes. In 1995, the
Gender-RelatedDevelopment Index (GDI) and the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) were
added to capture the gender dimensions of human development. In 1996, two Human Poverty
Measures were introduced, to capture poverty in developing and industrialized countries
respectively.
