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Sen starts ch. 3 with a parable. Annapurna has one indivisible garden job and three candidates: Dinu (the poorest), Bishanno (psychologically most distressed/unhappiest), and Rogini (debilitated from a chronic ailment) (54). If each of their situations had been considered in isolation, and Annapurna “knew nothing else,” she would have excellent reasons to hire each of them. Considered together, however, they compete. Sen uses this parable to introduce the concept of an “informational base,” the information that is needed to make judgements for using that approach, and the information that is excluded. However, I thought it would be interesting to apply his own capability approach to the parable. Capability, defined by Sen, is “thus a kind of freedom: the substantive freedom to achieve alternative functioning combinations (... the freedom to achieve various lifestyles)” which can be either on “realized functions (what a person is actually able to do)” or “on the capability set of alternatives she has (her real opportunities)” (75).

I’d like to explore this lens on Annapurna’s decision. 

Let’s start with Dinu. If we were only focused on income, then his case would be the strongest. Through the capability lens, poverty restricts what Dinu is able to do and be, and giving him the job would expand her capability set. But the capability set isn’t adding much extra to what the income lens said. 

Bishanno’s case is more complicated. Under utilitarianism, his claim would be the strongest because he is the unhappiest and would gain the most pleasure from the job. The capability approach would also recognize that Bishanno is poor too and his poverty restricts his capability set just as Dinu’s does. However, what distinguishes his claim under utilitarianism is his psychological state. The capability approach would ask whether that distress actually constrains what he is to do and be. 

Now Rogini. She is neither the poorest or unhappiest. Under income and utilitarian metrics, her claim is weakest. But Sen tells us that she bears her deprivation cheerfully because she has been “trained to reconcile herself to the general belief that, as a young woman, she must neither grumble nor entertain much ambition” (55). Her contentment is proof of adaptive preferences shaped by the conditions that deprive her, and her chronic illness directly constrains her functionings, and her socialization constrains what she can even imagine wanting. The capability approach shows deprivations that the other approaches either ignored or counted as evidence against her claim to the job. 

The capability approach reorganizes what Annapurna sees when she looks at each candidate. Given Sen’s suggestive claim that “I shall present some arguments for the third [Rogini]” (55) , I was wondering, given what the capability lens reveals, who do we think has the strongest claim? If the capability approach reveals Rogini as the most severely deprived, does it also commit to prioritizing her? Can Sen’s alternative help answer who Annapurna should hire? 


Comments

  1. Nethra MahendranApril 9, 2026 at 8:55 AM

    Tonalli, I think this is a very interesting application of the capability lens to the parable – and I agree with your interpretation, specifically regarding Rogini. However, I still think the capability approach fails to accurately identify who would require the most assistance, revealed by your own analysis.

    The capability approach is essentially a measure which allows someone to enter into a certain “playing field” or starting point (a foundation from which one can begin to achieve the various lifestyles described as the “freedom to achieve alternative functioning combinations”) (75). But how is it even possible to determine what that threshold is, in order to make sure everyone is on the same playing field? Sen acknowledges that “there can be substantial debates on the particular functionings that should be included in the list of important achievements and the corresponding capabilities” and that “this valuational issue is inescapable in an evaluative exercise of this kind” (75). So when Sen openly admits that there’s no response for what such a baseline threshold looks like, how can the approach reliably tell Annapurna who is the farthest from it?

    Starting with Dinu. How do we know that Roginin is most severely deprived? What if this unemployment made sure that Dinu had the same monetary capabilities as Rogini, because he is that much poorer? We know that everyone agrees Dinu is the poorest, and Sen notes that “the inadequacy of income is often the major cause of deprivations that we standardly associate with poverty” (72). So if his poverty is so extreme that this job would put him at the same capability set as Roginin, then it’s possible that his capability set is more constrained than Rogini’s. So how does the capability approach solve this?

    Similarly, Bishanno. What if Bishanno is so unhappy that this money would also put him at par with Rogini’s current physical state? Sen even warns that focusing only on mental characteristics “can be particularly restrictive when making interpersonal comparisons of well-being and deprivation”, and that “the mental metric of pleasure or desire is just too malleable to be a firm guide to deprivation and disadvantage” (62 & 63). But that means we can’t trust Rogini’s cheerfulness as a genuine indicator of her well-being, just like we shouldn’t trust Bishanno’s psychological distress. So what exactly can we use as an indicator of well-being?

    So yes, Sen identifies five distinct sources of variation between income & well-being–but these can be dispersed simultaneously across all three characters in the story. The capability approach gives us a more nuanced understanding and perspective on their situations, but still fails to offer a solution. Annapurna is probably still just as confused!

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