Constanze Binder

In this book I have explored how opportunity sets can be compared in terms of freedom’s agency value. For this purpose I drew on three different areas of the literature: the philosophical literature on (overall) freedom provided the conceptual depth and motivation of the concern with freedom’s agency value. The freedom ranking literature and its axiomatic apparatus was employed to gain a clearer understanding of the conditions under which problems of value-based approaches might occur, and the informational requirements needed to compare states in terms of the agency value of freedom they offer to a person. Last but certainly not least, the capability framework provided the ‘link to the ground’. It enabled me to illustrate how the insights gained in this book can shed light on possible pitfalls related to the evaluation of well-being in a culturally diverse world, and to point to cases of high relevance in the evaluation of a person’s freedom across different societies and cultures which are not captured by existing contributions in the freedom ranking literature.

In Chap. 2 I argued that the availability of particular freedoms contributes to the agency value of a person’s freedom in virtue of enabling a person to make significant choices. In this chapter I explore how the differences between alternative choice options can enhance the faculties constitutive for a person’s agency and therefore increase the agency value of a person’s freedom. Information about the differences between the alternatives open for choice is commonly considered to increase the significance of choice and thereby the freedom of choice a person enjoys. One class of contributions in the formal freedom ranking literature explores ways to incorporate information about the differences between alternatives available in a set: the more diverse the range of choice available to a person, the more significant it is and therefore the more freedom of choice she enjoys. A question which is hardly addressed in the formal literature, though, is which differences are relevant for the significance of a person’s choices. In this chapter I propose and analyse a way by which information about those differences among alternatives which matter to a person, and which are thus relevant for (significant) choice and freedom’s agency value, can be revealed from preference information. This chapter is based on Binder (Ration Mark Morals 5:120–132, 2014; A measure of choice-relevant diversity, Working Paper, 2017).

In this chapter I argue for the importance of freedom’s agency value and the need to adopt a refined value-based approach to freedom in order to capture it. I focus on the debate between proponents of a value-neutral approach to overall freedom (Carter, A Measure of Freedom, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999; van Hees, Legal Reductionsim and Freedom, Kluwer, Dordrecht, 2000), and scholars who defend value-based approaches to overall freedom (Sen, J Econ 50:15–29, 1991; Oxf Econ Pap 45:519–541, 1993). In this debate value-neutral approaches are commonly motivated by a rejection of value-based approaches. I show that the most prominent arguments that reject a value-based approach to overall freedom in favour of a value-neutral one are implicitly or explicitly based on the importance of freedom’s agency value. More specifically, I examine three prominent arguments raised against value-based approaches: the problem of preference dependency in subjective value-based approaches, the impossibility of paternalism, a problem of objective value-based approaches, and the non-specific value neglect, a general shortcoming of value-based approaches to overall freedom raised by Carter (A measure of freedom, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999). In contrast to the way these problems are commonly employed in the literature, which is to motivate the rejection of value-based approaches and make the move to a value-neutral approach to overall freedom, I argue that these problems in fact make a case for a (refined) value-based approach. More precisely, all of the three problems are, as I argue, implicitly or explicitly based on the failure of the respective value-based approach to take freedom’s agency value into account, that is the value freedom has for being a necessary condition of a person’s agency. As opposed to existing contributions Carter (A measure of freedom, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999) though, I argue that freedom’s agency value can only be captured by a (refined) value-based approach. This is an approach to overall freedom that takes account of the value of particular freedoms in terms of the various values and motives a person deliberates on before making choices. The chapter concludes with a more specific discussion of freedom’s agency value and how the availability of choice options can contribute to it.

In this chapter I turn to one specific interpretation of the framework considered so far: the capability approach. By drawing on the analysis conducted in this book I shall discuss the question whether the capability approach can account for cultural diversity. In a first step, I explore how cultural differences may affect the construction of capability sets. In a second step, I turn to their ranking, and draw on discussions about the value of alternatives in freedom rankings in order to explore how different ways to identify valuable functionings can affect the extent to which capability rankings can account for differences in the conception of well-being across different cultures. In a last step, I draw on Sen’s contributions in rational choice theory in order to illustrate how certain norms can render the value of functionings dependent on the capability set of which they form a part. I illustrate that existing contributions fail to account for such cases of context-dependency, and propose a way to refine the framework such that they can be taken into account. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the role of freedom’s agency value in allowing the capability approach to find a delicate balance in the evaluation of well-being across different cultures: namely to avoid the problem of preference adaptation it was meant to address, without becoming paternalistic. This chapter is a modified version of Binder (Context dependency of valuable functionings: how culture affects the capability framework. In: Chiappero-Martinetti E (ed) Debating global society: reach and limits of the capability approach. Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, Milan, pp 205–232, 2009).

In Chap. 2 I argued that an approach that aims to capture freedom’s agency value has to account for the value the availability of choice options has for a person’s deliberation about her values and goals before making decisions. Before addressing this question in greater detail in Chap. 5, I pose the question how this picture of a person reflecting upon a plurality of motives, as widely employed in the philosophy of action, relates to the assumption that a person’s (rational) choices can be represented by a transitive, all-things-considered preference over the alternatives, as is commonly assumed in rational choice theory and the freedom ranking literature. Under which conditions can a person indeed form a transitive, all-things-considered preference from a set of plural (possibly conflicting) values, or as I call it, from her plural identities? I make use of a social choice framework in order to explore this question and illustrate the task the person is facing as an intra-personal aggregation problem: a person has to derive his (transitive) all-things-considered preference from a profile of preference relations reflecting his plural identity. This chapter is a slightly modified version of Binder (Soc Choice Welf 42:959–976, 2014).

In this chapter I turn to the question of how the value of alternatives can be incorporated in freedom rankings such that freedom’s agency value is captured. I do so in a two step approach. In the first step I identify the formal and interpretational conditions under which a freedom ranking suffers the problem of desire dependency or the impossibility of paternalism. Given that the occurrence of these problems, as I have argued in Chap. 2, indicates a failure to take freedom’s agency value into account, this allows me to rule out approaches that fail to capture that value. The somewhat puzzling finding, however, is that nearly all existing freedom rankings fail to capture freedom’s agency value. That is, given a widely accepted (formal) condition, both ways to interpret the preferences invoked to identify the valuable alternatives in a set face either the problem of desire dependency or the impossibility of paternalism. In the second step I suggest a way to capture freedom’s agency value. For this purpose I define freedom’s agency value more precisely, taking it to be the value freedom has in virtue of allowing a person to reflect and deliberate upon the relative priority of her plural identities at the moment of choice. I use a procedural criterion of ‘reasonableness’ to identify the valuable alternatives in a set on the basis of a person’s identity profile. It turns out that the same condition that -as it was shown in Chap. 4 – restricts the conflict among a person’s plural identities and allows for the transitivity of her all-things-considered preference, provides a way to account for the value the availability of options has for a person’s agency without suffering the problems of desire dependency or the impossibility of paternalism.

In this book, Binder shows that at the heart of the most prominent arguments in favour of value-neutral approaches to overall freedom lies the value freedom has for human agency and development. Far from leading to the adoption of a value-neutral approach, however, ascribing importance to freedom’s agency value requires one to adopt a refined value-based approach. Binder employs an axiomatic framework in order to develop such an approach. She shows that a focus on freedom’s agency value has far reaching consequences for existing results in the freedom ranking literature: it requires one to move beyond a person’s given all-things-considered preferences to the values underlying a person’s preference formation. Furthermore, it requires, as Binder argues, one to account for those differences between choice options which really matter to people. Binder illustrates the implications of her analysis for the evaluation of public policy and human development with the capability approach: only if sufficient importance is ascribed to freedom’s agency value can the capability approach keep its promises. ​