Reflective evaluation demands reasoning regarding relative importance, not just counting. This is an exercise in which we are constantly engaged. To that general understanding has to be added the possible importance of public reasoning as a way of extending the reach and reliability of valuations and making them more robust.

The necessity of scrutiny and critical assessment is not just a demand for self-centred evaluation by secluded individuals, but a pointer to the fruitfulness of public discussion and of interactive public reasoning. Social evaluations may be starved of useful information and good arguments if they are entirely based on separated and sequestered cogitation. Public discussion and deliberation can lead to a better understanding of the role, reach and significance of particular functionings and their combinations.

To illustrate, public discussion of gender-based inequalities in India has helped to bring out, in recent years, the importance of certain freedoms that did not receive adequate acknowledgement earlier. Examples include the freedom to depart from fixed and time-honoured family roles that limit the social and economic opportunities of women.

These traditional antecedents of gender inequality in well-established, male-dominated societies demand not only individual concern but also informative public discussion and, often enough, agitation. The connection between public reasoning and the choice and weighting of capabilities in social assessment is important to emphasize. It also points to the absurdity of the argument, sometimes presented, which claims that the weights on the distinct functionings should be fixed in some given list of relevant capabilities.