Human Rights and Capabilities

“It ought to take into account each society’s particular values and material conditions, and may even change across time as societies develop and reassess their political positions (Sen, 2005, 2009).”

“Many states and regions, for example, take a perspective on rights that frames them as inseparable from corresponding duties, and also addresses the individual as part of the larger collective (Sen, 2005).”

“Indeed, in a recent paper Sen refers to ‘‘the need for open valuational scrutiny for making social judgements’’ (Sen, 2005).”

“Sen 2005, 158.”

“If citizens do not have sufficient resources to employ their capacities for civic action, this should be considered a form of structural inequality (Sen,2005).”

“Sen (2005) argues that, just as his capabilities approach emphasizes the importance of ‘what a person is able to do or be’ (p. 153), ‘human rights are best seen as rights to certain specific freedoms’ (p. 152).”

“Such objective indicators commonly re fl ect capabilities, which include both an individual ’ s functioning and the opportunities provided in a given environment, as argued by Sen [13].”

“The humanitarian sustainability-approach has been recently theorised via the so-called ‘‘capability approach’’ (CA) (Sen 1999, 2005; Nussbaum 2003, 2006; Robeyns 2005; for critical debate see Ott 2014).”

“While human rights and human development are distinct conceptual frameworks, each with its own intellectual origins and histories, they are closely related6 (UN OHCHR 2006; Sen 2005; Vizard, Fukuda-Parr, and Elson 2011).”

“The ability to cultivate and look after the urban soil is also constrained by a number of ‘dis-abilities’ that emerge from a capability justice perspective, as developed by Sen (2005) and Nussbaum (2006).”

“‘A functioning is an achievement of a person: what he or she manages to do or to be, and any such functioning reflects, as it were, a part of the state of that person’ (Sen 2005: 5).”

“Sen AK. 2005.”

“Such an approach argues that, when promoting human development, the focus should be on ‘functioning’ in terms of ‘being and doing’, consistent with what people are able to achieve.(151) This has been hugely influential in social justice(152) and human rights(151) and has been applied to understanding thresholds of dep…”

“Supporters of this approach argue that this removes the value judgement that might lead to this determinant being misleadingly reported due to the low expectations of the individual, or society (Robeyns, 2005; Sen, 2005).”

“…of literacy ’ (from Hoggart 1957) as opposed to seeing (digital) literacy as an end in itself, and we propose putting such uses in dialogue with Sen ’ s capability approach (2005, 2008), so as to articulate the extent to which digital literacy might offer a bridge from resources to…”

“Based on the argument of Sen (1999, 2005) and Alkire (2007), the conditions and opportunities of human well-being should be defined in a deliberative process that incorporates individual opinions and values.”

“In an important interpretative interpretation, Sen (2005) argued that whilst many human rights can be captured in the language of capabilities, there are important limitations to this approach, and certain process freedoms (such as a fair trial) cannot be adequately captured in the language of…”

“Indeed, as emphasised by Sen, in order to adequately apply the CA, there is a need for public scrutiny and reasoning (Sen, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2009 ).”

“…and functionings where capabilities comprise the opportunities available to a person to live a flourishing life or, stated differently, ‘‘what a person is able to do or be’’ (Sen, 2005, p. 153) and functionings represent what a person actually does and the life that a person actually lives.”

“The term focuses on the opportunities component of justice and supports Rawl’s “Difference Principle” (which promotes propoor distribution of social and economic benefits) as described by Sen (49).”

“COAG reforms points to the influence on Australian policymakers of Sen’s work on capabilities (Sen, 2005), and the capabilities approach has also underpinned the Federal Treasury’s economic well-being framework.”

“In developing these arguments, we apply Sen ’ s (2005) human capabilities approach and thereby reframe the digital divide as a digital inclusion problem that can be addressed with service inclusion practices.”

“Equity from below seems to align with the emphasis in the capability approach on agency and process freedoms and in Sen’s interest in deliberative democracy ( Sen 2005 ).”

“Amartya Sen himself has had some ostensible influence on the United Nations Development Programme, contributing to recent Human Development Reports.”

“Capabilities are conceptualized as functional substantive freedoms (e.g. ability to live to old age, engage in economic transactions, or participate in political activities), and are construed in terms of the freedoms people value (Nussbaum, 2003; Sen, 2005).”

“For this reason, frameworks such as the capabilities approach [51] can be very helpful to translate the general requirements of human rights into actionable and shared international policy goals that promote human flourishing, human dignity and well-being in the context of brain data processing.”

“Sen (2005) argued that advances in recognition of human rights and capabilities occur, in part, through reasoning within and across communities: “The viability and universality of human rights and of an acceptable specification of capabilities are dependent on their ability to survive open critical…”

“But when it comes to comparing the lives of many people, a further aspect of freedom gains importance that cannot be subsumed under the capabilities perspective: the process aspect of freedom (Sen 2005).”

“The capabilities approach is “a species of a human rights approach” and has been employed by the United Nations Development Program in its annual development reports since the 1990s in order to evaluate the attainment of human rights (Nussbaum, 2007: 21; see also Sen, 2005).”

“Consequently, as Sen forcefully stresses, “To insist on a ‘fixed forever’ list of capabilities would deny the possibility of progress in social understanding, and also go against the productive role of public discussion, social agitation, and open debates” (Sen 2005, 160).”

“The capabilities approach frames health and well-being as having opportunities to do what a person chooses to do and to be what they value.(105) A central tenet of the model is the concept that people should have the freedom to achieve well-being.”

“Sen has deliberately refrained from providing a list of relevant capabilities necessary for policy evaluation, claiming that different capabilities are relevant to different contexts (Sen, 2005).”

“Studies suggests that SRH may act as a proxy for other covariates that are known to predict health [1, 3]; it may reflect experiential knowledge grounded in both bodily experience and social interaction [35, 36]; it may be associated with serum inflammatory markers [37], or it may reflect perceived declines in health,…”

“This assumption also holds for households in poor and resource constrained countries (Sen, 1988; 2005; see also Barrett et al., 2001).”

“What constitutes an important capability is open to debate, and is potentially dependent on the context (Sen, 2005).”

“2 Thus, serendipity has to be considered also as a capability (de Rond 2014), intended as being capable of making use of the opportunities that the environment provides (Sen 2005).”

“(Sen, 2004, p. 390) Furthermore, Sen sees them as emerging from collective discussions, with their plausibility ‘dependent on their ability to survive and flourish when they encounter unobstructed discussion and scrutiny’ (Sen, 2005, p. 160).”

“The capacities/capabilities approach has been proposed by Reitinger et al. (2011), and, referring to the works by Sen (2000, 2005), it proposed an impact assessment based on the kind of capabilities (set of alternative lives) that people can freely chose; here, the philosophical perspective of…”

“In one context, Sen refers to conversion factors by using the term parametric variability in the relationship between the means, on the one hand, and the actual opportunities on the other (Sen, 2005: 154).”

“A recurring debate in the theory of empowerment is whether empowerment should be defined in terms of ‘direct’ or ‘indirect’ freedom (Iversen 2003; Sen 2005; Alkire 2008).”

“The CA distinguishes between capabilities and functionings (Nussbaum 2001b, 2002, 2014; Robeyns 2005; Sen 1985, 2001, 2005).”

“The links between the capability approach and human rights are discussed in Sen (2000, 2004b, 2005, 2009).”

“6 In a recent paper Sen (2005) argues that although human capabilities and rights go well with each other (i.e. that many human rights can be regarded as right so certain capabilities) the capability framework does not encompass the human rights approach in the sense that human rights cannot be…”

“…commitment is strictly connected with a person’s moral principles and can also diverge from personal wellbeing: it can modify a person’s goals and his or her rational choice, by giving importance to other people’s aims that cannot be included in the pursuit of personal interest (Sen, 2005b, p. 7).”

“Moreover, assessments of self-care abilities are of little value unless accompanied by assessments of capabilities: whether people have the opportunities to use their abilities to do what they value doing (Sen, 1999, 2005).”

“Broad conceptualizations of development as the expansion of people’s real opportunities to be able to do or be what they have reason to value (Sen 2005) illustrate the importance of non-monetary elements of well-being.”

“Amartya Sen, capability approach, John Rawls, primary goods, public reasoning Introduction: justice in planning or planning for justice?”

“Nussbaum recommends developing a single set of capabilities that are important in all situations [46], while Sen and his supporters indicate that they do not endorse the approach of a single list [49,57,58], with Alkire suggesting that ‘no one set will do for every evaluation’ (Alkire, p.”

“Successful implementation of strategies such as mhGAP in LMICs can be enhanced by adopting Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach [10, 11].”

“As we know, Amartya Sen defines “capability” as “the opportunity to achieve valuable combinations of human functionings—what a person is able to do or be” (Sen, 2005, p. 153).”

“…capital people possess: • Economic capital pertaining to wealth, human capital endowments and skills (Becker 1975) • Social capital (Putnam 2000, 2005) pertaining to the level of trust in other people and the social networks people are involved in, indicated by the frequency of contact with…”

“…engagement in terms of capabilities encourages occupational therapists and scientists to focus not solely on whether people have the abilities to do the things they would value doing but on whether their circumstances actually allow them to choose and to do what they would like to do (Sen, 2005).”

“But the problem with list-based approaches, as Sen (2005), generator of one of the most famous of such approaches, the HDI, acknowledges is that the areas on the list and the weights given are always arbitrary.”