Social choice and the capability approach

Abstract

Social choice is concerned with the selection of an ideal (or social) option, which can be a so-called 'social state', or a social 'utility', or a social 'preference', or a social choice 'set', on the basis of individual utilities, or individual utility functions, or individual preferences, or individual choice sets, or individual choice functions. A number of scholars have outlined the limited aspect of the notion of utility, including, notably and pre-eminently, Amartya Sen and Martha C. Nussbaum. Although they did not put it in such a strong phrase, the basic idea is to replace the notion of utility by the notion of capability (leaving aside 'happiness', a notion which for many is hardly distinguishable from utility). As has been remarked by Mozaffar Qizilbash, the development of the capability approach has been focused on the capability of an individual; and the idea of amalgamating or aggregating individual data is consubstantial with social choice. The purpose of this text is to propose some preliminary ideas regarding the aggregation of individual capabilities. © 2021 Cambridge University Press.