Martha Nussbaum

The “capabilities approach”

PHIL 102, UBC

Christina Hendricks
Spring 2017

Except images licensed otherwise, this presentation is licensed CC BY 4.0

 Overall course theme: The
examined life and why it matters
What is Examined life Examining lives as social
examined -> happiness beings: our responsibilities
life? (self & others) towards others
Plato Epicureans Thomson: sacrifice some for
(Socrates Mill the sake of others?
)
Singer: focus on helping
suffering all can agree is bad

Nussbaum: ensure that all

have what need to live a life
with human dignity.
 Vasanti
Starts her book Creating Capabilities: The Human
Development Approach (2011) with the story of
Vasanti

India 2011-07-18 at 07-24-

24, Flickr photo by José
Antonio Morcillo, licensed
CC-BY
 Common approaches to
considering quality of life
“Capabilities Human and Rights” (1997)

What do you think might be good ways to

measure people’s quality of life around the
world?
 GNP or GDP (280-281)

Problems:

• Need to focus also

on distribution

• Too narrow a
measure of quality
of life
 Utilitarian approaches based on
preference satisfaction (281-283)

Problems:
• Distribution again; focus on aggregate rather
than individuals
• “adaptive preferences”—can reinforce
inequalities
 Distribution of basic rights and
resources (283-284)
John Rawls: focus on
distribution of basic rights &
resources that all rational
individuals would desire, so
that even the least well off
have a minimum level

Problem:
Having the rights & resources
is not enough; social
circumstances differences
in ability & opportunity to use
them
The capabilities approach

What Nussbaum advocates

 Basics of this approach
Asks: what are people “actually able to do
and to be?” (285)

There are certain

capabilities that
are required to
live well/flourish
as a human, to
live a life with
human dignity
 How differs from
utilitarianism?
Distribution: all must have these
capabilities

Living a fully human life rather than

focusing just on preferences or pleasures
 Suggested list of
ten central capabilities (287-288)
Life Emotions Other species

Bodily health Practical reason Leisure/pl

ay

Bodily integrity Affiliation

Control over
environment:
Senses, imagination, thought political & material

Connect to Vasanti’s
story
 Capabilities vs. Functioning
Combined capabilities
• Internal abilities: our own internal ability to act (289)
• Social opportunities & freedoms to express those
internal abilities (290)

Functioning: “active realization of one or more

capabilities” (Creating Capabilities book, p. 25 (not
assigned))
• See, e.g., p. 289 of our reading