enjoy the corresponding well-being achievements” to be the best indicator of welfare
(Sen, 1985). This perspective shifts the analysis of development to the vector of not only
attributes (as is the more traditional utilitarian or even the original basic needs view of
human welfare, see Streeten, 1979), e.g. income, education, health, but also the vector of
possible opportunities available to individuals in a particular state. Naturally, there is a
link between the two--these opportunities are affected by certain attributes of the
individual: a starving or uneducated person would have fewer choices than a healthy,
educated person. Yet the capabilities approach goes far beyond individual attributes to
analyze the role of the social environment on human choice and agency: an individual in
an open, free society would enjoy a larger set of potential functionings than one in a
closed, oppressive society. However, while capabilities make an appealing goal for
development, they are notoriously difficult to measure in that the full set of possible
human functionings is almost by definition unobservable.