The Capability Approach, Technology and Design

257 Pages·2012·4.88 MB·English

by  Ilse Oosterlaken (auth.)

The Capability Approach, Technology and Design
Philosophy of Engineering and Technology
VOLUME 5
Editor-in-chief
Pieter E. Vermaas (Delft University of Technology): analytic research, general
topics and overarching topics
Associated Editors
David E. Goldberg (University of Illinois): practitioners’ research
Ibo van de Poel (Delft University of Technology): ethics of engineering
and technology
Evan Selinger (Rochester Institute of Technology): research in continental
philosophy and science and technology studies
For further volumes:
http://www.springer.com/series/8657
Ilse Oosterlaken (cid:129) Jeroen van den Hoven
Editors
The Capability Approach,
Technology and Design
Editors
Ilse Oosterlaken Jeroen van den Hoven
Faculty of TPM, Philosophy section Faculty of TPM, Philosophy section
Delft University of Technology Delft University of Technology
Jaffalaan 5 Jaffalaan 5
2628 BX Delft 2628 BX Delft
Netherlands Netherlands
ISSN 1879-7202 ISSN 1879-7210 (electronic)
ISBN 978-94-007-3878-2 ISBN 978-94-007-3879-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-3879-9
Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg New York London
Library of Congress Control Number: 2012934159
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Contents
Part I Introduction
1 The Capability Approach, Technology and Design:
Taking Stock and Looking Ahead ......................................................... 3
Ilse Oosterlaken
2 Human Capabilities and Technology .................................................... 27
Jeroen van den Hoven
Part II Technology
3 Liberation from/Liberation within: Examining One
Laptop per Child with Amartya Sen and Bruno Latour .................... 39
Kim Kullman and Nick Lee
4 Evaluating Emerging ICTs: A Critical
Capability Approach of Technology ...................................................... 57
Yingqin Zheng and Bernd Carsten Stahl
5 “How I Learned to Love the Robot”: Capabilities,
Information Technologies, and Elderly Care ....................................... 77
Mark Coeckelbergh
6 Towards a Sustainable Synergy: End-Use Energy
Planning, Development as Freedom, Inclusive
Institutions and Democratic Technics ................................................... 87
Manu V. Mathai
7 Marrying the Capability Approach, Appropriate Technology
and STS: The Case of Podcasting Devices in Zimbabwe .................... 113
Ilse Oosterlaken, David J. Grimshaw, and Pim Janssen
v
vi Contents
8 From Individuality to Collectivity: The Challenges
for Technology-Oriented Development Projects .................................. 135
Álvaro Fernández-Baldor, Andrés Hueso, and Alejandra Boni
9 Technology Choice in Aid-Assisted Parliamentary
Strengthening Projects in Developing Countries:
A Capability Approach ........................................................................... 153
Malik Aleem Ahmed
Part III Design
10 Design, Risk and Capabilities ................................................................ 173
Colleen Murphy and Paolo Gardoni
11 Re-conceptualizing Design Through the Capability Approach .......... 189
Crighton Nichols and Andy Dong
12 Processes for Just Products: The Capability
Space of Participatory Design ................................................................ 203
Alexandre Apsan Frediani and Camillo Boano
13 Inappropriate Artefact, Unjust Design? Human Diversity
as a Key Concern in the Capability Approach
and Inclusive Design ............................................................................... 223
Ilse Oosterlaken
Author Biographies ......................................................................................... 245
Author Index.................................................................................................... 249
Subject Index ................................................................................................... 255
Part I
Introduction
Chapter 1
The Capability Approach, Technology
and Design: Taking Stock and Looking Ahead
Ilse Oosterlaken
1.1 Introduction
T he capability approach has gained popularity as a powerful conceptual framework
for analyzing and discussing matters of justice, development and well-being.
Technology and design are phenomena that have a tremendous infl uence on such mat-
ters. Scholars from different disciplines have been refl ecting on these phenomena for
decades, but only recently are they increasingly turning to the capability approach in
order to do so. In June 2011, for example, the journal Ethics and Information
Technology published a special issue on the capability approach and ICT. 1 This book
is the fi rst to bring together a number of papers that explore how the capability
approach can be brought to bear on design and technology more broadly and – vice
versa – how this may in turn feed general debates taking place within the literature on
the capability approach.
In this introduction I would like to do the following. First (Sect. 1 .2 ) I will briefl y
introduce the capability approach and the main concepts used in it. Readers who are
new to the capability approach may fi nd this section helpful, as it presents general
theoretical background for the chapters in this edited volume. It will also provide
them with some suggestions for further reading. Secondly I will – in an extensive
literature review – take stock of what has been published so far on the capability
approach, technology and design – what are the most interesting themes, discussions
and ways of applying the approach? This will be divided in two sections: one on
technology in general (Sect. 1.3 ) and one, more specifi cally, on ICT (Sect. 1 .4 ). This is
1 A concise overview of the articles in that special issue (volume 13, number 2) can be found in the
editorial by Oosterlaken and van den Hoven (2 011 ) .
I. Oosterlaken (*)
Philosophy Section , Delft University of Technology , P.O. Box 5015, 2600 GA Delft ,
The Netherlands
e-mail: [email protected]
I. Oosterlaken and J. van den Hoven (eds.), The Capability Approach, Technology 3
and Design, Philosophy of Engineering and Technology 5,
DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-3879-9_1, © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012
4 I. Oosterlaken
not only meant to put the current book into perspective, but also to help new researchers
in this area on their way. Thirdly (Sect. 1.5 ) I will introduce the chapters in this edited
volume in some detail. The chapter will end (Sect. 1.6 ) with some refl ections on the
future of this new research area.
1.2 The Capability Approach
The capability approach, for which philosopher Martha Nussbaum (e.g. 2 000, 2006,
2011a ) and economist Amartya Sen (e.g. 1992, 1999, 2009 ) have done the ground
work, has become an infl uential framework for investigating and discussing topics
in the area of justice, equality, well-being and development. According to the capa-
bility approach, a key evaluative space in these areas is not income, not resources,
not primary goods, not utility (i.e. happiness or the sum of pains and pleasures) or
preference satisfaction. Its proponents argue that the focus should rather be on
human capabilities. Capabilities are often described as what people are effectively
able to do and be or the positive freedoms that people have to enjoy valuable ‘beings
and doings’. These beings and doings are called ‘functionings’ by Sen. Functionings
“together constitute what makes a life valuable” (Robeyns 2 005 ) and are “constitutive
of a person’s being” (Alkire 2 005a ) . Examples of functionings are such diverse
things as working, resting, being literate, being healthy, being part of a community,
being able to travel, and being confi dent. “The distinction between achieved
functionings and capabilities,” so Robeyns (2 005 ) explains, “is between the realized
and the effectively possible; in other words, between achievements on the one hand,
and freedoms or valuable options from which one can choose on the other.”As
Alkire explains, one reason to focus on capabilities instead of functionings is that
we value free choice and human agency:
A person who is fasting is in a state of undernutrition, which may seem very similar to a person
who is starving. But in the one case, the fasting person could eat and chooses not to; whereas
the starving person would eat if she could. (Alkire 2 005b )
The capability approach thus acknowledges that people pursue not only their
own well-being, but may also choose to pursue other ends; for example, the
well-being of others, living up to religious ideals, or following moral norms. Hence,
policies should – according to the capability approach – aim at expanding people’s
capabilities and not force people into certain functionings (like being well-fed).
Why should we focus on these capabilities in our developmental efforts, rather
than utility or resources – including technological resources? The reason to prefer
capabilities over resources as the main evaluative space is that the relationship
between a certain amount of goods and what a person can do or can be varies, as Sen
and others have often illustrated:
… a person may have more income and more nutritional intake than another person, but less
freedom to live a well-nourished existence because of a higher basal metabolic rate, greater
vulnerability to parasitic diseases, larger body size, or pregnancy. (Sen 1 990 )
1 The Capability Approach, Technology and Design: Taking Stock and Looking Ahead 5
Sen occasionally refers to a technical artefact to explain the same point,
namely a bicycle. All bicycle owners are equal in terms of their possession of this
resource, but people with certain disabilities will not gain an increased capability to
move about as a result of this bicycle (Sen 1 983, 1985 ) . One could also think of
other things obstructing the creation of human capabilities, such as the absence
of roads – a bicycle in the Netherlands will probably add more to the owner’s
capabilities than a bicycle in the Sahara. One of the crucial insights of the
capability approach is thus that the conversion of goods and services into func-
tionings is infl uenced by personal, social, and environmental conversion factors.
The reason why capability theorists prefer these capabilities over utility or pref-
erence satisfaction is the existence of a phenomenon which Sen has called “adaptive
preferences”:
Our desires and pleasure-taking abilities adjust to circumstances; especially to make life
bearable in adverse situations. The utility calculus can be deeply unfair to those who are
persistently deprived […] The deprived people tend to come to terms with their deprivation
because of the sheer necessity of survival; and they may, as a result, lack the courage to
demand any radical change, and may even adjust their desires and expectations to what they
unambitiously see as feasible. (Sen 1 999 )
T hus, if the deprived are happy with their lot in life we can, according to the
capability approach, not conclude from this that there is no injustice in their
situation. Because of these and other issues, the capability approach conceptualizes
well-being in terms of a person’s capabilities and development as a process of
expanding these capabilities.
It should be noted here that Sen and Nussbaum use ‘human capabilities’ as an
ethical category; the term refers to those capabilities of an individual that are
ultimately or intrinsically valuable. Of course not all capabilities that a person may
have belong to this category – many capabilities will only be of instrumental impor-
tance to these valuable human capabilities. Furthermore, some capabilities may be
trivial from the perspective of justice and development. Sen (1 987 ) , for example, is
highly skeptical about a new brand of washing powder expanding our human capa-
bilities, as advertisers tend to claim. Moreover other capabilities may be outright
undesirable to promote – Nussbaum ( 2000 ) , for example, gives the example of the
capability for cruelty. In short, Sen and Nussbaum agree that an ethical evaluation
of capabilities is necessary – which is good to keep in mind, as quite a number of
technologies may fi rst and foremost expand undesirable, trivial or instrumental
capabilities. In the latter case we should always ask to which ultimately valuable
capabilities they contribute.
Not surprisingly, then, one important debate within the capability approach is
about which capabilities matter and who (how, when) is to decide this. This is
actually one of the main topics on which Sen and Nussbaum differ of opinion.2
2 For an analysis of the differences between the capability approach of Nussbaum and Sen, see for
example Robeyns (2 005 ) and part II of Crocker (2 008 ) .