Kotan. Freedom or Happiness- Agency and Subjective Well-Being in the Capability Approach. Journal of Socio-Economics 39(3). 2010

8/4/2019 Kotan. Freedom or Happiness- Agency and Subjective Well-Being in the Capability Approach. Journal of Socio-Econo

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The Journal of Socio-Economics 39 (2010) 369375

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The Journal of Socio-Economics

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Freedom or happiness? Agency and subjective well-being in the capabilityapproach

Murat Kotan

University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam School of Economics, The Netherlands

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Received 2 November 2009Accepted 9 November 2009

JEL classication:A130D630B590

Keywords:Subjective well-beingAgencyFreedom

a b s t r a c t

Human agency is a pivotal part of freedom and happiness. This article outlines two aspects of agency power and control and self-establishment of goals and situates it in the capability approach and vis avis SWB. One can view the CA as an integration of agency and outcome oriented approaches. Whenagency is possible, it has primacy. When not,it is valued achievements (among others SWB) that acquireimportance. Therefore agency is key for understanding how SWB ts in the general policy framework asa valued outcome. Two important functions of SWB information in this respect are outlined: as a frameof problem and as a signalling device on the effectiveness of policy.

2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Both the subjective well-being and the capabilities approachto well-being take individuals who are the beneciaries or thevictims of policy outcomes and the workings of social structuresserious. Both take an interest in how individuals are actuallydoing and their actual circumstances, as opposed to the arcaneand abstract structures of neo-classical welfare economics. TheSubjective well-being approach does so by investigating and prop-agating the antecedents and facilitators of positive psychologicalfunctioning and human happiness and satisfaction. The capabilityapproach prioritizes human freedom: the ability and liberty to livethe life one wants to live.

These are two prominent recent approaches to well-being and

important contenders as basesfor policy thinking. Bothapproachestouch upon dimensions of human life and well-being that are fun-damentally important for and to individuals, and no researcherworking within one of these elds would deny the relevance forhuman well-being of the concerns of researchers working in theother eld. Yet Comim (2005: 162) notes: this seemingly obviousoverlap in their object of research does not appear to be accompa-nied by any considerable acknowledgment of the vast work thathas been produced in the two elds. It is in fact quite remarkablehow both CA and SWB theories seem to turn their backs on each

Correspondence address.E-mail address: [email protected] .

others contributions. How are we to understand this gulf? Howmight we bring these two approaches into closer contact with oneanother?

The aim of this paper is to integrate the concerns of bothapproaches.It does so bytaking agency asa focal pointof departure.Once the meaning and place of agency is established, it becomesmore straightforward to see howthe work done under the headingof these two approaches caninform and complement each other ina constructive way.

Section 2 sets out to determine the necessary elements of theconcept of human agency. The aim here is to present a reason-able concept of agency that is capable of sustaining consensuson the necessary elements of human agency. This working de-nition will then be used in Section 3 to situate agency within the

general framework of the CA. It is argued that the CA is an inte-gration of an agency and outcome oriented approaches, amongthe latter is the happiness approach. Finally Section 4 establishesthe place of SWB in the CA with reference to agency. Two impor-tant functions of SWB information in this respect are outlined:as a frame of problem and a context of discovery and as a sig-nallingdevice ontheeffectivenessof policy. Section 5 concludesthearticle.

2. What is agency?

The concept of human agency involves consideration of threedistinct elements: (a) action, power and causality, (b) purposive-ness and (c) the determination of objectives.

1053-5357/$ see front matter 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.doi: 10.1016/j.socec.2009.11.003


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370 M. Kotan / The Journal of Socio-Economics 39 (2010) 369375

2.1. Action, power and causality

Therstnecessary element of agency or beingan agentis tied upwiththe notions of action,power andcausality. Standarddictionarydenitions of agent and agency capture this aspect:

Oxford Dictionary :

Agent: A person or thing that takes an active role or produces aspecied effect.Grammar the doer of an action.

Agency: action or intervention so as to produce a particularresult.

Merriam-Websters Online Dictionary:Agent: One that acts or exerts power.Agency: The capacity, condition, or state of acting or of exerting

power.In these denitions an agent takes action, exerts inuence or

power, andtherebycausessomethingto happen.The ideas of actionand power areindispensableto the concept of agency in identifyingthe source of a causal chain of events. Playing a mere role in thecausal chain of events, by for example happening to be in a certain

place on a certain moment, is not sufcient to classify somethingas an agent. It is by being the cause of an event through action thatexerts an inuence or power that agency is established. Thus onenecessary element of being an agent or of agency is:

1. The ability to act to inuence or affect the state of the world.

2.2. Purposiveness and ones goals as ones own

The ability to inuence or affectthe state of the world, however,is not sufcient to characterize human agency. Another aspect of agency, contained also in the Oxford Dictionary denition, is thataction, inuenceor poweris directed purposefully. The inclusionof purposiveness in the concept of agency rules out mere accidentaloutcomes, and helps distinguish human agency from the agency of non-human agents.

But purposiveness also, although a necessary aspect, is not asufcient condition to distinguish human agency from non-humanagency. Consider a denition of agency in computer science:

An agent is an encapsulated . . . system that is situated in someenvironment and that is capable of exible, autonomous actionin that environment in order to meet its design objectives.( Jennings, 2000 : 280)

In this denition purposeful action is also a necessary conditionfor a system or entity to be called an agent. Indeed an arti-cially intelligent system is often said to act according to somepurpose for which it was designed. But purposiveness in humanagents means something different. An AI system cannot chooseits objectives; its objectives are constructed for it by its design-ers. AI systems do determine their sub-goals, and are capable of acting in this way. But they do not decide about their ends them-selves. Sub-goals are not ends; they are means to some other nalgoal. Human individuals as agents, then, are seen as having thecapacity to choose, determine or negotiate ends in a way that an AIsystem cannot. Purposiveness and self-determination of ones rea-sons for purposeful action are necessary aspects of the concept of agency. Therefore we note as a secondnecessary element of humanagency:

2. The ability to judge and reect upon goals and situations andto determine ones own goals and objectives as reasons for action.

2.3. Necessary conditions for human agency

We have thus established power to act and inuence the stateof the world and the ability to act purposefully onthe basis of onesown objectives as necessary elements of the concept of human

agency. Combining these we write down the following denitionof agency:

A human agent is a person or collection of persons having theability to exert power so as to inuence the state of the world,do so in a purposeful wayand in line with self established objec-tives.

3. Freedom, agency and outcome

3.1. Freedom is a mixture of agency and achievement

One of the important distinctions made within the CA is thatbetween freedom and achievement, or in other terms, betweencapability and achieved functionings. Functionings reect in Senswords: the various things a person may value doing or being. Achieved Functionings refers to the actual occurrence of a state of affairs: the particular beings or doings a person enjoys at a givenpoint intime ( Alkire, 2005 : 2). Capability than refers to the: alter-native combinations that are feasible . . . to achieve. Capability isthus a kind of freedom: the substantive freedom to achieve alter-

native functioning combinations (or, less formally put, the freedomto achieve various lifestyles). (1999: 75) Capability thus refers totheoption, thepossibility, theliberty,the ability etc., or in short the freedom , to reach a state of affairs.

Where in this conceptual scheme does agency t? The con-ception of agency in the CA incorporates the necessary aspects of agency outlined in Section 2. Agency in the CA literature involvesaction and active choice, or more generally the power to inuencethe state of the world (e.g. Sen, 1999 : 189; Sen, 1999 : 190), and itrequires that the goals and objectives of an agent are his own (seefor example Sen, 1999 : 12, where he contrast agency with the useof the term in theprinciple-agent literature).Thus an agent in Senswords is someone who acts and brings about change, and whoseachievements can be judged in terms of her own values and objectives

[my italics] ( Sen, 1999 : 12).This conception of agency informs the capability approachthroughout. Indeed the freedom to do andto be canbe conceptual-ized wholly in terms of the level of agency one possess, were it notthough that agency considerations themselves necessitate a con-cept of freedom that includes not only the power to act on the basisof self-establishedgoals butalsotoexperiencebeingsanddoingsthatdo not require one s active participation in their coming about (Sen,1985 : 210; 1993: 4344). For example a crime-free environment iscountedas greater freedom comparedto muggers haven takenoverthe streets, even if this does not require any specic action on thepart of the individual enjoying the crime-free environment. Free-dom or capability includes both agency, which requires action andcontrol, it requires that one has the levers of control in ones handsand that these levers can be used to generate the desired outcome;as well as achieved functionings which do not necessarily requireanyactivity or inuence on thestateof affairs by the personexperi-encing the functioning. 1 In situations wherecontrolis lacking, so toagency is lacking. Whether we in this case evaluate one situationas affording greater freedom than another, depends on the pref-erences of the individual regarding the outcomes. 2 Thus it should

1 Sen (1993: 43/44) : . . . Cohen [has the] . . . conviction that the exercise of capa-bility must be a rather active operation . . . . . . . Cohen gives examples (e.g. smallbabies being well nourished and warm as a result of the activities of their parents)that clearly show that . . . enjoying functionings . . . need not be a particularly ath-letic activity. I see no reason to object to this, since athleticism was never intended,despite the fact that Cohen has obviously been misled by my use of such words ascapability and achieving.

2 Freedom is thus determined by agency as well as achieved functionings. Evenwhen in Sens CA one is concerned with outcomes, however, the framework is stillone of respecting the person as an agent. Sen only denes outcomes as part of the


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be clear that both agency and achieved functionings are importantwithin the CA. The more interesting question then is about theirspecic situationwithin theapproachandvis--viseachother. Thisis answered in the next section.

3.2. Agency comes rst in the normative hierarchy of the CA, and

outcome second

We sawabove that freedom consists of agency (power & controland self-determination of objectives) and achieved functionings(the actual occurrence of a state of being or doing). It readily tsin with the spirit of the CA to reason in terms of the following hier-archy: when agency and choice are possible, then capability andfreedom understood as involving agency has primacy. When not,then it is functionings(the valued ones) that are next in line. Seeingthecapabilitiesapproachnot onlyas a freedomof choiceapproach,but as an approach bound up with this hierarchy, it becomes notcontradictory or problematic for the CA to admit that under spe-cic circumstances notably where freedom of choice, or moregenerally agency, is notpossible or unlikely it is indeed outcomes

that should acquire importance as the informational base. Puttingit boldly: unless agency is impossible, toocostly, unlikely etc., thereis no reason within the CA to target or measure welfare in terms of achieved functionings.

4. The place of subjective well-being in policydetermination and evaluation from a freedom andcapability perspective

4.1. Informational limitations of SWB measures from the point of view of freedom

That SWB is an intrinsically important goal in peoples livesand that it is an essential element of the good life is practically

undisputed.SWBas a measure ofwell-beingis inits turn oftenlegit-imated by reference to agency; to individuals as judges over theirown goals and objectives in life (for example Diener et al. (1998:35, 37)) . Below I elaborate on the important function that SWB hasto play as a guide and signalling device in policy conception andimplementation. Here however, I point to some shortcomings of SWB as a basis for policy and evaluative analyses.

The CA literature acknowledges the importance of SWB tohuman life and as part of the basis for welfare evaluations, but itrecognizes also that SWB is informationally too limiting for wel-fare evaluations from the perspective of agency and freedom. SWBis only onepart of ones well-being andones well-being is only onepart of ones overall goals ( Sen, 1993 ).

Veenhoven(2004) , however,seems to dispute the informational

limitations of SWB. He argues that SWB is an inclusive measure of the well-being of individuals:Happiness and longevity indicate how well a persons life-

abilities t the conditions in which that person lives, and as such,reects more value than is found in each of the top quadrants [liv-ability of environment and life-ability of the person 3 ] separately.

freedom/capabilityspace because and if theindividualhimselfis knownto value thisoutcome.In all exampleshe gives(for example Sen,1985 : 22011)of achieved func-tioningsas contributing to capability,the agency of thepersonis respectedby optingforthe outcome thathe wouldhave chosen himselfif hehad thepossibilityto choosetodo soand because of thefactthathe would have chosenit himself.Althoughfree-dom consists of agency and achieved functionings, it is nevertheless agency in itsgoal/preference aspect that determines whether an action by another party thatleads to a result for a person, is increasing her freedom or not.

3 Veenhoven (2004: 4) though mistakenly equates capability with what he callsinner life-chances (that is, how well we are equipped to cope with the problemsof life).

Happiness is a more inclusive merit than most other values, sinceit reects an optimal combination. ( Veenhoven, 2004 : 13).

There is much merit to this argument, as it rightly draws atten-tion to the signalling function of SWB. Indeed, as will be arguedbelow, this is one of the important roles that SWB measures haveto play. But although Veenhoven shows that life-satisfaction is

tied up with many factors which one would regard as importantin life, this argument is insufcient nevertheless in light of free-dom and agency. In part this is because one has to distinguishthe space of information from the weights attached to elementsin that space. For example, having a body that can perform all of its ordinary functions is important to people. In so far as SWB mea-sures are sensitive to this, the measures indeed would pick upon this information. But the in so far part of the argument is cru-cial, because it means that the importance that people attach totheir health need not show up to the same degree in SWB mea-sures. Paraplegics, for example seem on average not to experiencethe decrease in SWB that one would expect because people adapt their goals and redirect their attentions so that self-reported SWBbounces back from itsinitially lowlevel (see Kahnemanand Sugden

(2005) . Easterlin (2004: 28/29) argues that although adaptationdoesoccur,disabledpeople arenevertheless lesshappy thanpeoplewho are not disabled). Whether adaptation is complete or par-tial, the impact of being disabled on average self-reported SWBdoes not necessarily provide reliable information on the strengthof ones legitimate wish not to be disabled. Similarly, Veenhoven(1993: 3) reports: Manning-Gibbs (1972) inspected whether 20years of Black emancipation had resulted in a greater apprecia-tion of life among Black Americans. He found the reverse to be thecase. 4 And Lane (1991: 522) for example, cites a study by Abbeyand Andrews 5 : Experiencing high levels of both social supportand internal control seems to be no more benecial than experi-encing high levels of either one alone. Again, in Lanes example,the fact that social support and internal control seems to be nomore benecial to subjective well-being than experiencing highlevels of either one alone, does not mean that one has no rea-son to lament the fact that one lacks one of these elements of SWB, or that one would consider a situation in which one hadboth social support and internal control instead of only eitherof these as one in which one is equally well off. Or, in Veen-hovensexample, thatelements of black emancipation aredeemeddesirableby the individuals themselves apart fromsubjective well-being.

More generally, even if SWB measures pick up information onall or most of the important elements of life, information on therelative importance of goals and circumstances gets lost or trans-formed in the translation of life circumstances and abilities intoSWB. Thus although Veenhoven (1993: 9) maintains: Happiness is. . . sufciently sensitive for amelioration or deterioration of life; itisnotclearonwhichexactgroundsheconcludesthatitis sufcientlysensitive.

In fact no single informational base is sufcient to capture thecomplexitiesthat go into theprocess of moral andsocial evaluationand of policy implementation. The merit of the CA as a frameworklies in the fact that it does not preclude any functioning, any stateof being and doing. Stemming from this, one argument in favour of agency and freedom as the basis for welfare evaluation and policy

4 Thereference fromVeenhoven is to: Manning Gibbs,R.A. (1972). Relative depri-vation and self-reported happiness of blacks: 19461966. Unpublished doctoraldissertation, University of Texas at Austin.

5 Abbey, Antonia and Frank M. Andrews. 1986. Modelling the psychological deter-minants of Life Quality . In: Frank M. Andreas (Ed). Research on the quality of life.Ann Arbor, MI: Institute for Social Research. p. 110.


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Scheme 2. SWB as a frame of problem in the CA and as a signalling device: The Whitehall study.

(agency can not bring about the specic condition or facilitator of SWB), thantargetingSWB, or more generallyfunctionings, directlyhas to be considered. In summary, the problem then is to exam-inewhether andhow agency is hindered, whether andhow agencyis a possible solution, and if agency is impossible, unlikely or toocostlywhether andhowwell-beingor happinesscan be facilitatedby other means.

Scheme 1 illustrates SWB as a frame of problem and context of discovery in the CA. SWB identies the problem and the question

becomes: does the problem hint at a failure of agency, is there away that agency can be increased to solve the problem, and if sohow? If yes: aim to effect agency as a solution. If not: nd what

other means are possible and appropriate to increase SWB and tar-get those. A feedback loop feeds information on ex post SWB andfunctioning back into the problem investigation and policy settingprocess.

4.3. Policy: an illustration

One such example ofdifferencesin averagesof SWBthatis expli-cable (and thereforecan be tackled)in terms of agency and freedom

comes from the well-known Whitehall II studies, which containndings on the relation between job conditions and indicators of well-being. The study, which gathers data on the health and men-


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talwell-beingof 10,308 civil servants working in London, nds thatsocialeconomic circumstances are associatedwith a range of dif-ferent diseases: heart disease, some cancers, chronic lung disease,gastrointestinaldisease, depression, suicide, sickness absence,backpain and general feelings of ill-health and it attempts to explainthis social gradient ( Ferrie, 2004 : 4) The researchers note that this

nding is quite general:The social gradient in health is not a phenomenon connedto the British Civil Service. Throughout the developed world,wherever researchers have had data to investigate, they haveobserved the social gradient in health. ( Ibid .)

The Whitehall II studies do not only establish that there exists adiscrepancy in achieved functionings (doings and beings) betweenindividuals occupying different position in the social strata. Thestudies also establish that one important mechanism throughwhichthis discrepancy arises is control on the job or occupationalself-direction. Control on the job 6 is found to affect mental andphysical well-being:

The degree of control that individuals enjoy over their work

decreases with lower position in the organizational hierarchy.. . . Low control at work makes an important contribution to thesocial gradient in mental and physical ill health. ( Ferrie, 2004 : 6)And Stansfeld et al. (1999: 305) summarize their analysis of theWhitehall data as:In summary, in this occupational cohort of mid-dle aged civil servants, demands at work increase risk, whereasdecision authority and support at work protect against future psy-chiatric morbidity [my italics]. And for example Marmot et al.(1997) nd that employment grade is inversely associated with therisk for coronary heart disease (CHD) and that job control accountssubstantially for this association.

Thus behind the differential levels of functioning and SWBof individuals in different socio-economic strata, lie differentiallevels of control and power to inuence ones job circum-stances. That is, lie differential levels of agency and freedom. Theimplication of these ndings is that the socio-economic orga-nization of life as a cause of ill-being and well-being requireschanges:

These [evidences from the Whitehall II study] lead to theuncomfortable (forsome)ndingthat inequalities inhealth can-not be divorced from inequalities in society. The inescapableconclusion is that to address inequalities in health it is neces-sary both to understand how social organisation affects healthand to nd ways to improve the conditions in which peoplework and live. ( Ferrie, 2004 : 4)

Specically the authors trace out a number of policy implica-tions that aim to increase control: Policy implications: 1. Improvedconditions of work could lead to a healthier work force andgreater productivity. 2. Appropriate involvement in decision mak-

6 Job control (alternatively termed: decision latitude) is in the Whitehall studymade up of decision authority (theamountof control overwork) and skilldiscretion (ameasure of job variety andopportunitiesfor use of skills; Stansfeldet al.,1999 : 303).Itis operationalizedas follows:Nine ofthe 15 itemsfor job controlcovereddecisionauthority and six covered skill discretion; these subscales were equally weighted.. . . Thenineitems fordecision authoritywere: Doyou have a choicein decidinghowyoudo your job? Doyou have a choicein deciding what youdo atwork?Others takedecisions concerning my work; I have a good deal of say in decisions about work;I have a say in my own work speed; my working time can be exible; I can decidewhento takea break;I havea say inchoosing withwhomI work; and I havea greatdeal of sayin planning my work environment.The sixitemsforskilldiscretionwereDo you have to do the same thing over and over again? Does your job provide youwith a variety of interesting things? Is your job boring? Do you have the possibilityof learning new things through your work? Does your work demand a high level of skill or expertise? Does your job require you to take the initiative? ( Bosma et al.,1997 : 564).

ing is likely to benet employees at all levels of the workplace 3.Redesigning practices in ofces and other workplaces, to enableemployees to have greater control, benets health. 4. Introduc-ing mechanisms for measuring and monitoring employees levelof control over their work provides evidence for making improve-ments in conditions of work. ( Ferrie, 2004 : 7)

This example forms an illustration of SWB-data functioning asa frame of problem and context of discovery (different positions inthe occupational hierarchy correspond to different levels of well-being) being translated into a question of agency [occupationalcontrol]. At the same time, not all remedies to correct for the well-being reducing aspects of the economic space need to be tackledthrough an increase in agency.

Scheme 2 illustrates this schematically. SWB identies a prob-lem or discrepancy and the question becomes one of nding waysto increase individualspower to correct forthis situationor to oth-erwise provide in the facilitators of well-being under question. Asindicated in Scheme 2 , the use of SWB-data (and other well-beingdata) does not stop here. Since any policy can experience inter-pretation and implementation problems, it is imperative to have a

check on policy outcomes.An illustration of this signalling function of SWB is providedby efforts to increase employee empowerment and participationin organisations and rms. If empowerment increases peoplesagencypower, oneexpects (inthe absenceof adaptation)that it alsoincreases satisfactionor SWBin general. We noted earlier that SWBis bounded up with agency in both itsaspects.Givendesires, needs,goals objectives etc., an increase in power and control should leadto an increase in (atleast domain and aspectif notlife) satisfaction.Empowerment practices that fail in this respect usually will provenot to be empowering at all (in their net effects). Although SWBinformation is in itself not a substitute for information on agency,as argued earlier, ndings on SWB can prompt us to delve deeperinto the determinants of agency or can give more condence inhavingincreasedagencyin a certain setting.This is the more impor-tant since empowerment seems to be multi-facetted and context,role and person depended. Foster-Fishman et al. (1998) underlinethat empowerment dened as the process of gaining inuenceover events and outcomes of importance to an individual or group[ . . . ] canmean different things to different people and vary in formacross settings and time and that thus the desires for, pathwaystowards, and manifestations of empowerment will vary signi-cantly depending upon the population we target, the setting weexamine, and the point of time we witness. (508) An empower-ment practice that raises SWB andsatisfaction canbe more trustedto be empowering than an empowerment practice that has a neg-ative effect on SWB.

5. Conclusion

In libertarian thought, freedom is procedural. In the CA free-dom is substantive: what can an individual actually do and be?For example the liberty of freedom of speech is certainly part of ones freedom,but the capabilities frameworkwould also acknowl-edge that if one can not read or write or if one lacks access to themedia and the means for having ones voice heard, that there isnot much freedom of speech. So freedom of speech, for example,involves inter alia among others the freedom to enjoy education.It is this awareness that freedom is more than liberty alone, thatit requires means, processes and abilities that gives the capabili-ties approach its power. In dening development as an increase infreedom, in the real options onehas forexperiencingvalued doingsand beings, the CA breaks with an idea of development that sees

people in poverty as cattle that need to be feed. The same goes forsubjective well-being: by accepting and integrating the emotionalandmental experience of life in policysetting andthe evaluation of


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social structures it potentially opens up to a more human centeredeconomy.

The merit of the CA as a framework lies in the fact that it doesnot preclude any functioning, any state of being and doing, andthereby not legitimizing any status quo or inequality in advance. Afreedom approach that integrates subjective well-being explicitly

is furthermore less likely to introduce distortions in policy for-mulation and implementation. To put it shortly: a freedom plushappiness approach is better than either alone. The way to goabout this is to use SWB-data as a context of discovery, namely thediscovery of inequalities in options for experiencing valued doingsand beings, the discovery of the lack of power and control to inu-ence ones situation in line with ones preferences. And also to useSWB-data after policy implementation, as a check whether poli-cies have had the intended consequence. The idea behind whichis that an increase in the power to inuence ones circumstancesin line with self-established goals, that is an increase in agency,will on average increase subjective well-being. This is however nota necessity within the freedom approach, as long as the situationis in line with whatever individuals have reason to value. Still, a

decrease in SWB would signal serious negative consequences forthe freedom of individuals. Subjective well-being coupled to free-domand agency forms a powerful tool for better policyand againstfalse promise.

Acknowledgements

I am very grateful for the support and comments provided by John B. Davis and the support and facilities provided by GeertReutenattheUniversityofAmsterdamthatmadewritingthispaperpossible.

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Documents

Kotan. Freedom or Happiness- Agency and Subjective Well-Being in the Capability Approach. Journal of Socio-Economics 39(3). 2010