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client: ea_forum
project_id: curated
narrator: pw
qa: mds
narrator_time: 1h00m
qa_time: 0h30m
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This post outlines the capability approach to thinking about human welfare. I think that this approach, while very popular in international development, is neglected in EA. While the capability approach has problems, I think that it provides a better approach to thinking about improving human welfare than approaches based on measuring happiness or subjective wellbeing (SWB) or approaches based on preference satisfaction. Finally, even if you disagree that the capability approach is best, I think this post will be useful to you because it may clarify why many people and organizations in the international development or global health space take the positions that they do. I will be drawing heavily on the work of Amartya Sen, but I will often not be citing specific texts because I’m an academic and getting to write without careful citations is thrilling.

Original article:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/zy6jGPeFKHaoxKEfT/the-capability-approach

Narrated for the Effective Altruism Forum by TYPE III AUDIO.

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