Over the last 30 years the Indian philosopher-economist Amartya Sen has developed an original normative approach to the evaluation of individual and social well-being. The foundational concern of this ‘capability approach’ is the real freedom of individuals to achieve the kind of lives they have reason to value. This freedom is analysed in terms of an individual’s ‘capability’ to achieve combinations of such intrinsically valuable ‘beings and doings’ (‘functionings’) as being sufficiently nourished and freely expressing one’s political views. In this (...) account, ‘development’ is conceived as the expansion of individuals’ capability, and thus as a concept that goes beyond the economic growth of third world countries. My thesis is a philosophical examination of Sen’s capability approach. In the first part (chapters 1-3) I present and defend my interpretation of Sen’s work. (shrink)

What people are realistically able to do and be in their lives, their capabilities, are of central moral importance according to the capability approach of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum. Examples are the capabilities to be healthy or to be part of a community. The CA has become an influential normative framework for reflecting on justice, equality, well-being and development. In the past decades it has been successfully applied to areas such as education and health care. Only quite recently have (...) scholars started to use the CA to reflect on technology, for example on the contribution of ICT to development in the Global South. Much of this work is empirical. This dissertation contributes to the theoretical foundations for future empirical and ethical work by providing a philosophical exploration of how the CA can be brought to bear on technology. It discusses the applicability and added value of the CA for the design of technical artifacts, for the evaluation of technological development projects, and for the assessment of technology from the perspective of the good life. One main question addressed in this dissertation is which technology theories and design approaches could fruitfully supplement the CA, in order to ‘operationalize’ it in this new area. For this purpose participatory design, value sensitive design, the use plan account of technical artifacts, inclusive/universal design, actor-network theory, appropriate technology, pluralist theories of technology and the system/network view of technology are discussed. Another guiding question is what the exact nature is of human capabilities as discussed in the CA, and technology in the sense of technical artifacts, and how we can then conceptualize the relation between them. It is argued that we need to regularly move back and forth between ‘zooming in’ and ‘zooming out’. The former allows us to see the details of design of technical artifacts, the latter how exactly technical artifacts are embedded in broader socio-technical networks. Both, it is claimed, are crucial for the expansion of human capabilities. (shrink)