Ableness

The term ableness was introduced into the literature by Peter Morriss to describe a refinement in the ability account of power. The idea is that there is an ambiguity in how we normally talk of abilities. Abilities can refer to what you can, in general, do: you can, let us say, read English. But we are often interested, not in such generic abilities, but in what you can do now. Or more generally, we are often interested in your abilities at some specified time, t.

What you can do at time t will depend on the particular circumstances that exist at t, and those circumstances might be unusual. So, although you are able (generically) to read English, you would not be able to do so at time t if, at that time, you do not have your reading glasses with you. Without your glasses, let us suppose, you are not able to read anything.

To mark this distinction, Morriss used the word ability to refer to the generic sense, and ableness for the time-specific sense. So, without your glasses, you have the ability to read, but lack the ableness. Confusion can arise if we do not mark this distinction. If, at a time when you do not have your glasses, someone were to ask you if you are able to read, you might not know how to reply: if the questioner is conducting a literacy survey, he or she will be enquiring after the ability to read, but if he or she needs you to read something right now, then he or she is asking after your ableness. Here the context makes clear which is meant; in more abstract academic work, there is no context, and so clarity requires us to state which sense is to be understood.

Similarly, lack of power can be either lack of ability or lack of ableness. The poor have the ability to dine on caviar and champagne (because they could consume them if they were provided), but they lack the ableness (for they are not provided, and the poor cannot get them). This example suggests that for most political purposes, ableness is more important than is ability: usually what people are able to do with the goods they do have is what interests us, rather than what they would be able to do with a “standard” allocation of goods. This example shows why Morriss used the term ableness rather than time-specific ability. For the distinction does not rest on whether a time is specified: the poor can never afford champagne. What the distinction does rest on is that ableness refers to a set of actually existing background conditions, whereas abilities are established by reference to some set of hypothetical, standardized, background conditions.