Priority, solidarity, and egalitarianism in the capability approach

Abstract

We examine resource allocation in the context of the capability approach with multi-dimensional human functioning outputs. We aim to provide an egalitarian foundation for human development indices (HDIs) using Parfit's (1997) priority principle, which says that when a person becomes more disabled, ceteris paribus, he should receive more resources. An HDI-egalitarian rule allocates resources in such a way that all individuals attain an equal HDI-index value. Using the priority principle or its variant, we provide axiomatic characterizations of the whole family of HDI-egalitarian rules, the weighted arithmetic mean HDI-egalitarian rules, and the weighted geometric mean HDI-egalitarian rules.