Conference Agenda

Contemporary discussions of abilities account for someone’s ‘agential possibilities’ –what she can do as an agent– in terms of different types of abilities possessed by the agent. So they distinguish between “robust” and “simple” abilities to account for what an agent can do ‘reliably’ vs what she does (can do) through luck; between “general” vs “specific” abilities to mark the distinction between what an agent can do in general, and what she can do at a particular time; and some authors also invoke more or less “global” or “local” abilities; “object-specific” abilities, etc.. In this paper, I propose a different account of agential possibilities in terms of two fundamentally different factors: abilities and opportunities. Abilities are relatively stable and intrinsic (non-relational) properties of agents. Opportunities are extrinsic (relational) properties of agents, and include both enabling factors and the absence of impeding conditions. Abilities alone determine and explain someone’s general agential possibilities; and together with opportunities, they determine particular (that is, occasion-specific) agential possibilities. After developing some details of the account, I explain the attractions of this, over the ‘types of ability’ approach.

Agents cannot break the laws of physics. Babies cannot solve maths problems. A person with a broken arm cannot lift heavy objects. Someone living in poverty cannot buy a house. There are many things that agents cannot do, and it seems that there are different types of limitations on an agent’s abilities depending on the factors involved (e.g. physical, mental, social or normative). Some limits apply to humans in general and some only to individuals. Some limits can be overcome, while others cannot. Some are viewed as deficiencies, while others are not. This raises various questions, such as: What types of factors limit an agent’s abilities? How do these factors limit our abilities, e.g. are they external or internal to these abilities? How do normative factors come into play? Do they constrain our abilities, or affect how they are evaluated? The limits of abilities and the corresponding questions and challenges have not yet been systematised. In my talk, I will make a first attempt to do so.

Our money, our bike, our computer programs, and our right to enter a library are all parts of our wealth — assets we possess. But what about our abilities? Are they pieces of wealth too? Economists have long struggled with this question. Some define wealth as a kind of ability, while others exclude abilities altogether from the concept of wealth.

In this presentation, I aim to reconcile two seemingly incompatible theses:

1. The more abilities we have, the wealthier we are.

2. Abilities are not themselves pieces of wealth.

To that end, I will draw on two distinctions. First, the distinction between entities that are pieces of wealth and entities that, while not themselves pieces of wealth, confer value on pieces of wealth. Second, inspired by Hernando de Soto, the distinction between dead and living wealth.

My claim is that our abilities increase our wealth not by adding new items to what we own, but by activating or transforming existing assets — turning dead wealth into living wealth. For example, learning to play a violin we have inherited does not increase the number of things we own, but it does increase the value of what we own.

I will conclude by suggesting that the distinction between dead and living capacities has broader implications beyond economic ontology — in particular, for how we understand the nature of artifacts.