Capabilitarian Well-Being and the Limits of Contextualism: Against Pluralism and Proceduralism

Abstract

This paper examines recent challenges to traditional philosophical theories of well-being and proposes a revised framework grounded in the capability approach. Classical theories (hedonism, desire-fulfillment, and objective list accounts) have long dominated philosophical discourse on what constitutes a good life. However, these theories have come under increasing criticism for their abstractness and limited applicability to empirical research and policy-making. Anna Alexandrova (2017) argues that philosophical theories of well-being are too general and removed from real-life concerns, advocating instead for a contextual and pluralist understanding of the concept. Ingrid Robeyns (2020) incorporates this critique into the capability approach, claiming that it is particularly suited to reflect pluralism, contextual variation, and interdisciplinary use. In response, this paper accepts the contextual sensitivity of well-being but rejects the idea that it is a fundamentally plural concept. Drawing on Fletcher (2019) and Hawkins (2019), I argue that different applications of the concept still rely on a unified underlying notion of well-being. Thus, the goal should not be to abandon philosophical theorizing but to develop a context-sensitive yet normatively robust account. The capability approach provides a promising structure for this purpose, but it cannot remain procedurally open-ended. I argue for a monistic version of capabilitarian well-being, grounded in a normatively justified set of capabilities. The paper proceeds by reviewing standard theories of well-being, analyzing Alexandrova’s contextual critique, assessing Robeyns’s proceduralism, and finally defending a unified, normatively grounded version of capabilitarian well-being that retains contextual sensitivity without sacrificing philosophical coherence.