Chapter Twenty-Four. Freedom, Opportunity, and Well-Being

This paper reexamines key results from the measurement of opportunity freedom , or the extent to which a set of options offers a decision maker real opportunities to achieve. Three cases are investigated: no preferences, a single preference, and plural preferences. The three corresponding evaluation methods—the cardinality relation, the indirect utility relation, and the effective freedom relation—and their variations are considered within a common axiomatic framework. Special attention is given to representations of freedom rankings, with the goal of providing practical approaches for measuring opportunity freedom and the extent of people's capabilities.