At the core of the capability approach is a normative commitment to conceptualize well-being in terms of capabilities and functionings. Functionings are ‘doings and beings’, that is, various states of human beings and activities that a person has achieved, such as being well-nourished, getting married, being educated, and travelling, while capabilities are the real, or substantive, opportunity that they have to achieve these doings and beings. (See section 2.2 for a discussion of real/substantive freedom.) A person’s ‘capability-set’ denotes the set of capabilities that he or she can choose from, while the term ‘basic capabilities’ refers either to “the innate equipment of individuals that is necessary for developing the more advanced capabilities”, such as the capability of speech and language, which is present in a newborn but needs to be fostered (Nussbaum 2000, 84), or to the freedom to do some basic things considered necessary for survival and to avoid or escape poverty or other serious deprivation (Sen 1992, 45, fn. 19). The relevance of basic capabilities is “not so much in ranking living standards, but in deciding on a cut-off point for the purpose of assessing poverty and deprivation” (Sen 1987b, 109).