While income and commodities undoubtedly contribute to wellbeing, there is
no obvious or straightforward link between material things and the ability to
function for various reasons. Notably people typically differ in their capacity
to convert a given bundle of commodities into valuable functionings (ceteris
paribus, a rickshaw cyclist requires a higher intake of calories than those he
pulls who have a more sedentary lifestyle). Similarly, the other pole of
welfare or utility ultimately reduces wellbeing to mental states such as
pleasure or proxies for mental states, namely desire fulfilment or the fact of
choice. Other valuable achievements, particularly in the physical, social or
political sphere of life (such as avoiding malnutrition, being able to move
around, achieving self respect, having civil liberties, etc) only matter insofar
as they influence utility levels. The crucial problem here is that utility ‘can be
easily swayed by mental conditioning or adaptive expectations’ (Sen 1999:
62) . The ability of people to adapt to harsh environments and unforgiving
situations means that expressed satisfactions may be a poor guide to