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Capabilités. Comment créer les conditions d'un monde plus juste?
If a country’s Gross Domestic Product increases each year, but so does the percentage of its people deprived of basic education, health care, and other opportunities, is that country really making progress? If we rely on conventional economic indicators, can we ever grasp how the world’s billions of individuals are really managing?
In this powerful critique, Martha Nussbaum argues that our dominant theories of development have given us policies that ignore our most basic human needs for dignity and self-respect. For the past twenty-five years, Nussbaum has been working on an alternate model to assess human development: the Capabilities Approach. She and her colleagues begin with the simplest of questions: What is each person actually able to do and to be? What real opportunities are available to them?
The Capabilities Approach to human progress has until now been expounded only in specialized works. Creating Capabilities, however, affords anyone interested in issues of human development a wonderfully lucid account of the structure and practical implications of an alternate model. It demonstrates a path to justice for both humans and nonhumans, weighs its relevance against other philosophical stances, and reveals the value of its universal guidelines even as it acknowledges cultural difference. In our era of unjustifiable inequity, Nussbaum shows how—by attending to the narratives of individuals and grasping the daily impact of policy—we can enable people everywhere to live full and creative lives.
304 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2011
169 people are currently reading
2207 people want to read
About the author
Martha C. Nussbaum
177 books1,372 followersMartha C. Nussbaum is Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago, appointed in the Law School and the Philosophy Department. Among her many awards are the 2018 Berggruen Prize, the 2017 Don M. Randel Award for Humanistic Studies from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the 2016 Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 95 reviews
November 16, 2021
Incredibly interesting but probably not the best at being the first book on the topic. The author refers to other books on the subject frequently, assuming reader's familiarity with earlier consepts/conclusions and I felt that it was more important for her to have that conversation than present the topic of capabilities.
She often refers to the work of Amartya Sen, maybe I should have started there.
But there are extremely interesting parts in the book - the part where she discusses the shortcomings of the GDP and other methods of measuring the quality of life and a brilliant part where she tracks the origins of this approach in the work of Aristotel, the Stoics and Adam Smith.
My favorite quotes:
"A long tradition, beginning in the West at least with Aristotle, has argued that a key task of government, and a reason for the existence of government, is to secure to people their most central entitlements."
"Capability theorists need to learn all they can from experimental work in psychology, but they also need to become readers of novels, biographies, autobiographies, and psychological case histories-anything that can enhance their grasp of those complicated elements of human experience on which our hope of political achievement and stability depends."
"The purpose of global development, like the purpose of a good domestic national policy, is to enable people to live full and creative lives, developing their potential and fashioning a meaningful existence commensurate with their equal human dignity. In other words, the real purpose of development is human development;"
She often refers to the work of Amartya Sen, maybe I should have started there.
But there are extremely interesting parts in the book - the part where she discusses the shortcomings of the GDP and other methods of measuring the quality of life and a brilliant part where she tracks the origins of this approach in the work of Aristotel, the Stoics and Adam Smith.
My favorite quotes:
"A long tradition, beginning in the West at least with Aristotle, has argued that a key task of government, and a reason for the existence of government, is to secure to people their most central entitlements."
"Capability theorists need to learn all they can from experimental work in psychology, but they also need to become readers of novels, biographies, autobiographies, and psychological case histories-anything that can enhance their grasp of those complicated elements of human experience on which our hope of political achievement and stability depends."
"The purpose of global development, like the purpose of a good domestic national policy, is to enable people to live full and creative lives, developing their potential and fashioning a meaningful existence commensurate with their equal human dignity. In other words, the real purpose of development is human development;"
April 20, 2024
second and last time ive read this shit. can i be released from the shackles of ib philosophy finals pls
December 9, 2024
Nussbaum's theoretical framework for understanding human nature and her principles for how states should allocate resources is pretty cool. Her philosophy exemplifies some of the virtues of an Aristotelian theory of human nature.
I think it also offers helpful resources for identifying inequalities in a society, culture, or sub-culture. To talk about inequality and offer a vision for a better world we have to first have an anthropology that unpacks some framework of what it means to be human. I think there's a lot of good here.
Nussbaum's writing itself in this book isn't anything impressive. And she tends to drop names and references without much description or introduction.
I think it also offers helpful resources for identifying inequalities in a society, culture, or sub-culture. To talk about inequality and offer a vision for a better world we have to first have an anthropology that unpacks some framework of what it means to be human. I think there's a lot of good here.
Nussbaum's writing itself in this book isn't anything impressive. And she tends to drop names and references without much description or introduction.
October 12, 2025
" No obstante, la explicación no es difícil de hallar: la miseria y la pobreza son tan degradantes que ejercen un efecto paralizador sobre la naturaleza del ser humano, a tal punto que ninguna clase es realmente consciente de su propio sufrimiento" - Óscar Wilde ( el alma del hombre bajo el Socialismo).
January 5, 2014
Nussbaum has a cutting mind and is on the forefront of modern ethics. This book is a fine example of her well-contextualized, practical, thinking.
December 19, 2025
Begon sterk, werd toen erg academisch, werd toen vernield toen ik er koffie overheen gooide, maar denk dat ik met de eerste drie hoofdstukken wel de rode lijn heb
September 30, 2012
This book is a difficult to read introduction to the liberal/progressive approach to solving sociopolitical issues in developing nations. My experiences in poverty and developing nations leads me to disagree with her assumptions and suggested solutions.
Without going into great depth, my disagreements with Nussbaum on the topic is fundamental and philosophical. Nussbaum's approach to problems are generally to pursue larger government involvement in personal lives and affairs, and in particular with government passing values to its people. The logic is quite dizzying and unconvincing in its attempts to dissuade the reader from seeing her suggestions as unethical social engineering. In some cases she blatantly applies liberal Western social values to judge cultures with quite different roots, while at the same time trying to make the case that her value system is neutral and globally applicable.
I do not believe that it is a sustainable venture for government to mandate values onto its people. So while I did enjoy the book to the extent that it does a decent job of exposing holes in the state of a people, I find her solutions not only poorly explained, but sociologically dangerous to implement. A people must find their own path, with their own set of guiding principles, and their own metrics of social valuation rather than blindly receiving subtly injected values from a strong, centralized, social engineering government.
Do some countries judge and rank other countries in terms of GDP per capita? Yes. Do some countries judge and rank themselves in terms of GDP per capita? Yes. Is that wrong? It can, but it can also be completely benign. Let each decide their own condition.
Without going into great depth, my disagreements with Nussbaum on the topic is fundamental and philosophical. Nussbaum's approach to problems are generally to pursue larger government involvement in personal lives and affairs, and in particular with government passing values to its people. The logic is quite dizzying and unconvincing in its attempts to dissuade the reader from seeing her suggestions as unethical social engineering. In some cases she blatantly applies liberal Western social values to judge cultures with quite different roots, while at the same time trying to make the case that her value system is neutral and globally applicable.
I do not believe that it is a sustainable venture for government to mandate values onto its people. So while I did enjoy the book to the extent that it does a decent job of exposing holes in the state of a people, I find her solutions not only poorly explained, but sociologically dangerous to implement. A people must find their own path, with their own set of guiding principles, and their own metrics of social valuation rather than blindly receiving subtly injected values from a strong, centralized, social engineering government.
Do some countries judge and rank other countries in terms of GDP per capita? Yes. Do some countries judge and rank themselves in terms of GDP per capita? Yes. Is that wrong? It can, but it can also be completely benign. Let each decide their own condition.
June 24, 2024
l'approche des capabilités de martha c. nussbaum, une philosophe contemporaine américaine, est une approche super attirante sur papier, surtout en prenant compte des grands changements entre 2011, la publication et aujourd'hui en 2024. cependant, l'essai n'est pas sans critique selon moi. j'étudie cette approche dans le cadre de mon cours d'éthique et philosophie politique cet été. j'ai un examen sur cette approche demain :)
pour le contenant même de l'essai, je trouve que nussbaum jacassait beaucoup - lots of yapping and there were roundabouts. je trouve que une partie plutôt signifiante aurait pu être rasée et condensée. une question de clarté. parlant de clarté, je crois que nussbaum aurait pu être décisive et 'à l'heure' sur ses définitions.
lorsqu'elle a commencé à faire la distinction entre fonction et capabilité, j'ai dû passer à travers une paire de pages avant d'avoir une définition solide et distinct. mais bien sûr parce que dans l'entre-temps, elle expliquait des détails de sa théorie sans cette définition essentielle, j'ai dû reprendre ma lecture afin de réellement comprendre ce qu'elle me partageait. le sujet de cette lecture n'est pas simple donc il est essentielle que l'explication qu'on en fait suit un sens naturel du développement d'une nouvelle idée. contexte, introduction, thèse, précisions de la thèse, définitions pertinentes et finalement allez dans le reste - comme une entonnoir. plus tard, sur la dignité humaine, le concept immensément essentielle reste un mystère, sa définition est laissé à l'individu à préciser. elle parle de la dignité humaine mais il y a un ? flagrant dans tout cela sans propre définition. "la notion de dignité est étroitement liée à l'idée d'efforts actifs. c'est donc un proche parente du concept de capabilité de base" ou "la dignité humaine, dès le départ, est la même chez tous les agents" " insister sur la dingité dictera des choix politiques qui protègent et soutiennent l'autonomie" -- tous ces qualitatifs de ce qu'est cette dignité humaine, mais pas de définition claire! je trouve que c'est un géant trou dans sa théorie simplement parce qu'on ne peut pas laisser les vérités de plusieurs autres personnes venir définir une notion très importante dans sa propre théorie politique. j'argumenterais que l'espace invite un certain relativisme dans son approche des capabilités à ce niveau...
encore sur le point de la clarté, à plusieurs moments, j'ai dû lire à voix haute ce que je lisais pour comprendre. je comprends que les philosophes doivent être incroyablement précis (j'ai déjà argumenté que c'est plus du blah-blah à certains endroits mais bon), mais les précisions ajoutés ne peuvent jamais être aux coûts de la clarté et alors de la compréhension. est-ce que cette remarque peut être un testament que je suis possiblement neurodivergente? peut-être, mais je ne suis pas diagnostiquée donc c'est du hearsay jusqu'au jour je suis proprement reconnu par un médecin.
pour ce qui en est du contenu, j'ai une affinité pour plusieurs des idées qu'elle supporte: absolument, il faut tous les ressources possibles pour le succès; je suis d'accord avec le fonctionnement (pas du sense de nussbaum) et la liberté d'un individu devraient être possibles et accordés naturellement - je suis totalement pour l'épanouissement de l'être humain dans les humanités et les arts comme les sciences pratiques. nussbaum à son essence, défend une social-démocratie - une forme de progrès politique, comparativement à notre modèle politico-économique courant au canada et surtout aux états-unis. pensons une modèle économique comme celle de la finlande. mon issue sur l'approche est à sa base même - l'approche des capabilités s'inscrit dans les principes du libéralisme politique... c'est une approche qui cohabite bien avec un système capitaliste. étant de gauche, j'ai la conviction de fer que le modèle de capitalisme est dans sa nature contre les aspirations et le bien-être des travailleurs, des exploités. le libéralisme politique va toujours se ranger du côté des corporations et il ne va jamais réellement représenté l'intérêt collectif d'une population donnée. aux états-unis, le libéralisme des américains spécifiquement n'était pas crée avec le bien collectif de tous les personnes qui se professeraient américains mais avec le bien des hommes blancs riches propriétaires - cette conclusion se trouve dans une analyses basique de l'histoire américaine (ce n'est pas pour rien que les élections sont basés sur les multiples territoires couverts plutôt qu'avec un pluralisme politique). le libéralisme aujourd'hui reste un système qu'il fait justement de cela, sauf que les hommes riches n'ont plus de perruques blanches. même avec la liberté 'réelle et matérielle' de martha nussbaum et l'application de l'approche des capabilités, cela ne change pas la base du modèle économique. comme l'histoire le démontre, les capitalistes vont trouvés un moyen d'effriter cela. l'approche des capabilités selon moi manque à la vraie source de nos problèmes sociétaux. la social-démocratie n'est qu'un capitalisme un peu plus 'gentil'. je ne refuserais pas vraiment l'application de l'approche des capabilités de nussbaum si le jour le présenterait, mais je sais qu'il serait ultimement dépourvu d’un acte véritablement révolutionnaire pour le peuple. l'intersection du capitalisme et du libéralisme est construit d'une telle façon que du vrai changement doit être radical à ses os et son squelette. tant que aussi longtemps que le changement professé et promis est soumis au capital, il ne sera pas vraiment au service et pour des intérêts du peuple.
être de gauche n'est pas une question d'organisation la plus efficace, mais c'est une vocation morale. c'est incrusté dans mon éthique. je ne peux réellement accepté l'approche de nussbaum comme la mienne en tant qu'un philosophie politique appliquée, contrairement à hannah arendt et son rapport sur la banalité du mal qui se réfère plutôt selon moi au domaine l'éthique en sortant d'un cas politique.
selon moi, c'est tout simple en vrai: le problème est radical. il faut une solution radicale.
"i will never say that progress is being made. if you stick a knife in my back 9 inches and pull it out 6 inches, there's no progress. if you pull it all the way out, that's not progress either. the progress is healing the wound that's below, that the blow made. and they haven't even begun to pull the knife out. much less pull and heal the wound... some, they won't even admit trhe knife is there."
- malcolm x
pour le contenant même de l'essai, je trouve que nussbaum jacassait beaucoup - lots of yapping and there were roundabouts. je trouve que une partie plutôt signifiante aurait pu être rasée et condensée. une question de clarté. parlant de clarté, je crois que nussbaum aurait pu être décisive et 'à l'heure' sur ses définitions.
lorsqu'elle a commencé à faire la distinction entre fonction et capabilité, j'ai dû passer à travers une paire de pages avant d'avoir une définition solide et distinct. mais bien sûr parce que dans l'entre-temps, elle expliquait des détails de sa théorie sans cette définition essentielle, j'ai dû reprendre ma lecture afin de réellement comprendre ce qu'elle me partageait. le sujet de cette lecture n'est pas simple donc il est essentielle que l'explication qu'on en fait suit un sens naturel du développement d'une nouvelle idée. contexte, introduction, thèse, précisions de la thèse, définitions pertinentes et finalement allez dans le reste - comme une entonnoir. plus tard, sur la dignité humaine, le concept immensément essentielle reste un mystère, sa définition est laissé à l'individu à préciser. elle parle de la dignité humaine mais il y a un ? flagrant dans tout cela sans propre définition. "la notion de dignité est étroitement liée à l'idée d'efforts actifs. c'est donc un proche parente du concept de capabilité de base" ou "la dignité humaine, dès le départ, est la même chez tous les agents" " insister sur la dingité dictera des choix politiques qui protègent et soutiennent l'autonomie" -- tous ces qualitatifs de ce qu'est cette dignité humaine, mais pas de définition claire! je trouve que c'est un géant trou dans sa théorie simplement parce qu'on ne peut pas laisser les vérités de plusieurs autres personnes venir définir une notion très importante dans sa propre théorie politique. j'argumenterais que l'espace invite un certain relativisme dans son approche des capabilités à ce niveau...
encore sur le point de la clarté, à plusieurs moments, j'ai dû lire à voix haute ce que je lisais pour comprendre. je comprends que les philosophes doivent être incroyablement précis (j'ai déjà argumenté que c'est plus du blah-blah à certains endroits mais bon), mais les précisions ajoutés ne peuvent jamais être aux coûts de la clarté et alors de la compréhension. est-ce que cette remarque peut être un testament que je suis possiblement neurodivergente? peut-être, mais je ne suis pas diagnostiquée donc c'est du hearsay jusqu'au jour je suis proprement reconnu par un médecin.
pour ce qui en est du contenu, j'ai une affinité pour plusieurs des idées qu'elle supporte: absolument, il faut tous les ressources possibles pour le succès; je suis d'accord avec le fonctionnement (pas du sense de nussbaum) et la liberté d'un individu devraient être possibles et accordés naturellement - je suis totalement pour l'épanouissement de l'être humain dans les humanités et les arts comme les sciences pratiques. nussbaum à son essence, défend une social-démocratie - une forme de progrès politique, comparativement à notre modèle politico-économique courant au canada et surtout aux états-unis. pensons une modèle économique comme celle de la finlande. mon issue sur l'approche est à sa base même - l'approche des capabilités s'inscrit dans les principes du libéralisme politique... c'est une approche qui cohabite bien avec un système capitaliste. étant de gauche, j'ai la conviction de fer que le modèle de capitalisme est dans sa nature contre les aspirations et le bien-être des travailleurs, des exploités. le libéralisme politique va toujours se ranger du côté des corporations et il ne va jamais réellement représenté l'intérêt collectif d'une population donnée. aux états-unis, le libéralisme des américains spécifiquement n'était pas crée avec le bien collectif de tous les personnes qui se professeraient américains mais avec le bien des hommes blancs riches propriétaires - cette conclusion se trouve dans une analyses basique de l'histoire américaine (ce n'est pas pour rien que les élections sont basés sur les multiples territoires couverts plutôt qu'avec un pluralisme politique). le libéralisme aujourd'hui reste un système qu'il fait justement de cela, sauf que les hommes riches n'ont plus de perruques blanches. même avec la liberté 'réelle et matérielle' de martha nussbaum et l'application de l'approche des capabilités, cela ne change pas la base du modèle économique. comme l'histoire le démontre, les capitalistes vont trouvés un moyen d'effriter cela. l'approche des capabilités selon moi manque à la vraie source de nos problèmes sociétaux. la social-démocratie n'est qu'un capitalisme un peu plus 'gentil'. je ne refuserais pas vraiment l'application de l'approche des capabilités de nussbaum si le jour le présenterait, mais je sais qu'il serait ultimement dépourvu d’un acte véritablement révolutionnaire pour le peuple. l'intersection du capitalisme et du libéralisme est construit d'une telle façon que du vrai changement doit être radical à ses os et son squelette. tant que aussi longtemps que le changement professé et promis est soumis au capital, il ne sera pas vraiment au service et pour des intérêts du peuple.
être de gauche n'est pas une question d'organisation la plus efficace, mais c'est une vocation morale. c'est incrusté dans mon éthique. je ne peux réellement accepté l'approche de nussbaum comme la mienne en tant qu'un philosophie politique appliquée, contrairement à hannah arendt et son rapport sur la banalité du mal qui se réfère plutôt selon moi au domaine l'éthique en sortant d'un cas politique.
selon moi, c'est tout simple en vrai: le problème est radical. il faut une solution radicale.
"i will never say that progress is being made. if you stick a knife in my back 9 inches and pull it out 6 inches, there's no progress. if you pull it all the way out, that's not progress either. the progress is healing the wound that's below, that the blow made. and they haven't even begun to pull the knife out. much less pull and heal the wound... some, they won't even admit trhe knife is there."
- malcolm x
October 26, 2022
I like how this approach is flexible enough to adapt to different cultures, belief systems, etc. What I struggle with is that in allowing people to self-determine what human dignity looks like and how a capability is ensured or enacted, you leave copious room for internalized sexism, racism, homophobia, etc. to limit someone's self-advocacy. If you don't know how much freedom you could have, the limited freedom you do have seems like all there is to reach for.
December 22, 2021
This book contains really interesting ideas about development but focuses a lot on the abstract. Nussbaum assumes that the reader is familiar with basic philosophy, ethics, and political economy, so the text reads much like academic papers in those fields which can be rather dull. I did enjoy the first 50 pages or so as well as some ideas in the last chapter, but the philosophical critiques weren't particularly moving.
June 15, 2022
Incredibly important to the capability approach and yet so incredibly hard to read. I still haven’t learnt to expect the immense pain of reading modern philosophy
Read
October 10, 2024yuh 2.0
June 3, 2024
I read this to understand perspectives related to flourishing in society and it is now a foundational piece constellating many of the ideas I’ve been holding in a disconnected way; it is going to be a brilliant bridge theory for the thinking I’m doing around flourishing.
It is a treatise on social Justice whose position begins from the question: What are people really able to do and to be? It lays out the philosophical framework and then proceeds to place it in context historically and in the modern world. Strong connections to Amartya Sen and Thomas Rawls before it and into individuals like Danielle Allen and Ai-Jen Poo after.
An essential read for anyone concerned with human (our and living being) suffering
I am left asking myself the question, "Is what I’m doing cultivating internal, combined, or both capabilities?"
*below are my notes while reading*
--
NOTES
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The real wealth of a nation is its people and the purpose of its development is to create an enabling environment for those people to enjoy long healthy and creative lives
Development economics needs a new theoretical approach if it is going to respond to people’s pressing problems
The central capabilities
Amartya Sen
Comparison of life quality
The notions of plurality and non reducibility
The capabilities of non human animals as well as human beings
The capabilities approach == an approach to comparative quality of life assessment and for theorizing about social Justice and holds that the key question to ask when comparing societies is “What is each person able to do and to be?”
The crucial God societies should be promoting for their people is a set of opportunities or substantial freedoms
thus commits Irene’s to peoples’ power of self definition
Resolutely pluralist about value
Notions: human dignity, the threshold, political liberalism
Refrains from offering a comprehensive assessment of the quality of life in a society
Capability the most pertinent space of comparison for quality of life assessment
Prescends(?)
Variability failure
Deliberative aims
Shared contours
Capability is a kind of substantive freedom to achieve alternative functioning alternatives
Totally of opportunities one has for action in their political, social, and economic situation
Support the development of internal capabilities
Internal capabilities as distinct from combined capabilities
Combined capabilities == internal capabilities plus the social, political, and economic conditions in which functioning can actually be chosen
Capability approach suggests the unfolding of powers humans bring into the world
Basic capabilities == innate powers that are either nurtured or not
innate faculties that make further training or development possible
Substantial freedom to choose and act
Act of striving
On the other side of capability is functioning; functioning == act of realization of one or more capabilities
the beings or doings that are an outgrowth of capabilities
Capability == opportunity to select
***spheres of freedom and choice
To promote capabilities is to promote areas of freedom
Departs from a tradition in economics that measures the real value of a set of options by the best use that can be made of them
Freedom has intrinsic value
***Capabilities, not functionings, are the appropriate political goals because room of thereby left for the exercise of human freedom
There is a huge difference in policies that promote health from those that promote health capabilities because the latter honors the person’s lifestyle choices
Respect for a plurality of different religious and secular views of life and thus to the idea of political liberalism
Refuse to humiliate
Amartya Sen - “doings and beings”
The human capabilities approach is evaluative and ethical from the start
which capabilities are the really valuable ones, which are the ones that a minimally just society will endeavor to nurture and support?
It tells us what to value
***Dignity needs to be given content by placing it in a network of related ideas
The notion of dignity is related to the notion of active striving
What does a life worthy of human dignity require?
Ten central capabilities
life; being able to live to the end of a human life or normal length
Bodily health; healthy, including reproductive health, and to be adequately nourished and have adequate shelter
Bodily integrity: being able to move freely from place to place and to be secure from bodily attack; choice in matters of reproduction
Senses, imagination, and thought
Emotions: to love, to grieve, to experience longing gratitude and justified anger; support forms of human association that can be shown to be crucial to their development
Practical reason: being able to form a conception of the good and engage in the critical planning of one’s life
Affiliation
Play
Control over one’s environment (political, material)
Basic claim of account of social Justice: human dignity requires that human beings be placed above an ample threshold of capability in all ten of these areas
To be put on the list the capability needs to be not merely instrumental but constitutive of a worthwhile human life
Two of the capabilities play a distinctive and architectonic role (they organize the others): affiliation and practical reason
Good policy in the area of the are of each of the capabilities is policy that respects and individual’s practical reason
Centrality of choice in the whole notion of capability
John Rawls - inequalities can be justified only when they raise the level of the worst off
The theoretical apparatus of the capabilities approach
The importance of security about the future for all of the capabilities on the list
CONNECTION: the dimensions of flourishing that are basic needs and psychological Safety
Capabilities security
Fertile functioning: a functioning the promotes other capabilities
the opposite is ‘corrosive disadvantage’
The importance: select for fertile functionings (privilege them; they are essentially feedbacks toward capabilities)
Development is a normative concept
Sarkozy commission
Jeremy Bentham is the founder of the utilitarian approach
John Stuart mill was his student
Diversity and incommensurability
There is a great difference between between public policy that aims to take care of people and a public policy that aims to honor choice
Adaptive preferences
social malleability of preferences and satisfactions
Utilitarian- John Stuart mill
Resources approach - Thomas Rawls
The policy goal: give people the ability to function
Society has proceeded unjustly in the past so we must allocate resources unequally to provide for people’s functioning
Income and wealth are not adequate proxies for how people are able to function and May be particularly bad for social respect, inclusion, and non-humiliation
***The heterogeneity and incommensurability of all the important opportunities or capabilities, the salience of distribution, and the unreliability of preference as indices of what is really worth pursuing
The disaggregated data are where the action lies
The fallacy of measurement: that just because a thing can be measured it is a good indicator
The right response to the complexity is to work harder at identifying and measuring the pertinent factors
it is the government, a society’s basic political structure, that bears the ultimate responsibility for securing capabilities
Positive liberties: right to do or be something
An incoherent idea
CHAPTER FOUR
Capabilities approach was made to be the right way to compare nations on development achievement
The very idea of freedom involves the concept of constraint
Is freedom a coherent political aim?
There is a connection here to Danielle Allen’s work into what freedoms have been privileged and what that has produced
All societies that pursue a reasonably just political conception have to evaluate human freedoms
Reflective equilibrium as the goal of the process of scrutiny
Overlapping consensus
In a working democracy the liberation takes place at several levels and in many distinct contents
Capabilities approach brings moral philosophy into development economics, and this is already progress
Socratic deliberation
A live in accordance with human dignity
What life conditions are you able to imagine?
Adaptive preferences
Treats desire as an intelligent interpretive part of the personality
Social contract tradition
***classical theory of the contract begins from the observation that all existing social structures have been dictated by artificial hierarchies of wealth, class, and prestige. If we strip human beings of these artificial advantages, what sort of society world they choose?
Capabilities must be studied not in isolation but in their network of relations to other capabilities; capabilities are not isolated units but a set of opportunities that shape one another and most ultimately be realized as a set
***An account of the emotions of the citizens in a decent society is urgently needed
ASIDE as we have learned more about emotions, it seems all areas are taking them more seriously
Much work is needed in the area of institutional structure
***one of the major avenues of implementation of the central capabilities is a nation’s system of constitutional adjudication involving fundamental rights
***emphasis on choice certainly shapes the strategies of implementation that policy makers should consider
***context-specific: recipes for moving people above the threshold on the central capabilities will probably be useless unless they are informed by deep detailed knowledge of the social, political, and historical context of their choices
A goal of education: create the ability to grasp with imagination and information the nature of one’s historical and political situation
CHAPTER FIVE
Value imperialism
Capabilities as political goals
CHAPTER SIX
Redistribution to remediate past injustices
Adam smith - corporations like a standing army coerce the political processes in ways that are not even wise domestically but that are most unfair to poorer nations
Redistributive action to overcome imbalances
***Solution to inequalities at national scale: political structure, scheme of institutions, and assignment of duties
Collective action problems
The right level of governance, a tradeoff between capacity and responsiveness to needs
CHAPTER SEVEN
Aristotle: political planners need to understand what human beings require for a flourishing life
Pleasure and the satisfaction of desire are utterly unreliable as guides as to what is to be promoted within society
Importance of choice and of vulnerability
***Aristotle: the role of government is to make capable all people to lead a flourishing life in accordance with their choice
Stoics: every human being has dignity and is worthy of reverence just by virtue of being human
I extend this to all life
Stoic idea of the equal worth of all human beings and the Aristotelian idea of human vulnerability (and thus some things must be protected by the society; human beings need help from the world in order to life well)
Primary task of republicanism in stoic terms is that of preventing domination and hierarchy
Adam smith
his writing is suffused with stoic thought
What forms of action by government permits human ability to develop and human equality to be respected?
Ideas around the fragility of human dignity
***An understanding that human abilities come into the world in a nascent and undeveloped form and require support from the environment, including the support for physical health and for mental development if they are to mature in a way that is worthy of human dignity (CONNECTION the importance and centrality of education to a democracy)
Thomas Paine
support families to send children to school
Public works to relieve unemployment (he wanted a lot more government in area of support for basic human welfare and a lot less in area of elite self Enrichment)
John Stuart mill and ideas of freedom
TH Green
repudiated utilitarianism and libertarianism
Ernest barker
Huge: Amartya Sen
I think after Sen the history then must go into ethics of care and individuals like ai Jen poo, landing it squarely in the modern world (+Danielle Allen)
CHAPTER EIGHT - capabilities approach and modern issues
Migration, the internet, and global warming
Sen: poverty is a failure of capabilities
Income is not even a good proxy for capabilities
The value of unpaid domestic work
CONNECTION ai Jen poo and care Work
Need to understand and address capability failures (think of disadvantage as capability failure)
Liberalism (equal liberty and opportunity for all) is subversive of all hierarchies based on birth right or status
Disability, aging, and the importance of care:
requires a new account of social cooperation and the human motivations for it (not merely mutual advantage as the social contract theories begin from)
Note on the practice of philosophy: one should always assume the weakest premises from which one’s conclusion can be drawn
Put pressure on your theories
At the heart of the capabilities approach is education
Forms people’s existing capacities into developed internal capabilities of many kinds
A fertile functioning of the highest form for addressing disadvantage and inequality
Aside: how important it is to address/overcome isolation (think: researchers doing some work thinking they are the only ones)
Educational achievement is one of the most crucial elements of gauging national success
Skills from the humanities and the arts that are essential for responsible democratic citizenship (CONNECTION: Danielle Allen what is education for? Participatory readiness)
critical thinking
Ability to imagine and understand another person’s situation from within
A grasp of world history and current global economic order
Animal entitlements:
whose capabilities count?
***Five positions one can take
Only human capabilities count as ends in themselves, although other capabilities may turn out to be instrumentally valuable in the promotion of human capabilities
Human capabilities are the primary focus, but since human beings form relationships with nonhuman creatures, those creatures may enter into the description of the goal to be promoted, not simply as means, but as members of intrinsically valuable relationships
The capabilities of all sentient creatures count as ends in themselves, and all should attain capabilities above some specified threshold
The capabilities of all living organisms, including plants, should count, but as individual entities, not as parts of ecosystems
The individualism of 1-4 is dropped: the capabilities of systems (ecosystems in particular, but also species) count as ends in themselves
***The idea of social Justice is inherently bound up with at least minimal sentience, the capacity to experience pain especially, and the accompanying capacity for striving and some type of agency
The living individual, not the species, is the locus of concern
Utilitarians: Bentham, mill, singer
***we need an expanded notion of dignity (lives that are worthy of the dignity of a large range of sentient beings)
capabilities to live and act according to that species’ Way of life
All animals are entitled to a threshold level of opportunity characteristic of their kind
Environmental quality:
Health of ecosystems is crucial to human well being
Human well being involves commitment to future generations (Rawls)
***Getting clear about how to count the interests of subsequent generations of humans is of the highest importance for future work if the capabilities approach is going to factor seriously into the environmental arena
That is the way our constitutional system works: incrementally, as the court gradually builds a set of railroad tracks, progressively elaborating for implementing the capability in question, and *gradually articulating the contours of a right*
Thus the abstract idea of a threshold becomes the increasingly specific definitions of constitutional language and of the interpretive language that has been used to articulate it
The contextualism of good interpretation
Extrinsic and intrinsic value of democracy by public debate
literature on deliberative and participatory democracy
The role of social norms in shaping emotions
We need to learn from anything that can enhance our grasp of those complicated elements of human experience on which our hope of political achievement and stability depends
The human development and capability association
——
SOME CONCEPTS
——
—
Care
—
Historical setting
Philosophical views that focus on human flourishing or self realization
Aristotle
John Stuart mill
Tagore
Amartya Sen
(See notes from chapter seven)
—
Important people and places
Amartya Sen
—
Threshold of capabilities
Setting the threshold adequately is a matter for each nation
—
Metrics
The heterogeneity and incommensurability of all the important opportunities or capabilities, the salience of distribution, and the unreliability of preference as indices of what is really worth pursuing
—
Incommensurability
Like irreducibility
Irreducibly plural
Some connection to not being able to reduce to a number and James c Scott’s reason that efforts to improve the human condition have failed
—
Language
Overlapping consensus
Reflective equilibrium
Gradually articulating the contours
It is a treatise on social Justice whose position begins from the question: What are people really able to do and to be? It lays out the philosophical framework and then proceeds to place it in context historically and in the modern world. Strong connections to Amartya Sen and Thomas Rawls before it and into individuals like Danielle Allen and Ai-Jen Poo after.
An essential read for anyone concerned with human (our and living being) suffering
I am left asking myself the question, "Is what I’m doing cultivating internal, combined, or both capabilities?"
*below are my notes while reading*
--
NOTES
--
The real wealth of a nation is its people and the purpose of its development is to create an enabling environment for those people to enjoy long healthy and creative lives
Development economics needs a new theoretical approach if it is going to respond to people’s pressing problems
The central capabilities
Amartya Sen
Comparison of life quality
The notions of plurality and non reducibility
The capabilities of non human animals as well as human beings
The capabilities approach == an approach to comparative quality of life assessment and for theorizing about social Justice and holds that the key question to ask when comparing societies is “What is each person able to do and to be?”
The crucial God societies should be promoting for their people is a set of opportunities or substantial freedoms
thus commits Irene’s to peoples’ power of self definition
Resolutely pluralist about value
Notions: human dignity, the threshold, political liberalism
Refrains from offering a comprehensive assessment of the quality of life in a society
Capability the most pertinent space of comparison for quality of life assessment
Prescends(?)
Variability failure
Deliberative aims
Shared contours
Capability is a kind of substantive freedom to achieve alternative functioning alternatives
Totally of opportunities one has for action in their political, social, and economic situation
Support the development of internal capabilities
Internal capabilities as distinct from combined capabilities
Combined capabilities == internal capabilities plus the social, political, and economic conditions in which functioning can actually be chosen
Capability approach suggests the unfolding of powers humans bring into the world
Basic capabilities == innate powers that are either nurtured or not
innate faculties that make further training or development possible
Substantial freedom to choose and act
Act of striving
On the other side of capability is functioning; functioning == act of realization of one or more capabilities
the beings or doings that are an outgrowth of capabilities
Capability == opportunity to select
***spheres of freedom and choice
To promote capabilities is to promote areas of freedom
Departs from a tradition in economics that measures the real value of a set of options by the best use that can be made of them
Freedom has intrinsic value
***Capabilities, not functionings, are the appropriate political goals because room of thereby left for the exercise of human freedom
There is a huge difference in policies that promote health from those that promote health capabilities because the latter honors the person’s lifestyle choices
Respect for a plurality of different religious and secular views of life and thus to the idea of political liberalism
Refuse to humiliate
Amartya Sen - “doings and beings”
The human capabilities approach is evaluative and ethical from the start
which capabilities are the really valuable ones, which are the ones that a minimally just society will endeavor to nurture and support?
It tells us what to value
***Dignity needs to be given content by placing it in a network of related ideas
The notion of dignity is related to the notion of active striving
What does a life worthy of human dignity require?
Ten central capabilities
life; being able to live to the end of a human life or normal length
Bodily health; healthy, including reproductive health, and to be adequately nourished and have adequate shelter
Bodily integrity: being able to move freely from place to place and to be secure from bodily attack; choice in matters of reproduction
Senses, imagination, and thought
Emotions: to love, to grieve, to experience longing gratitude and justified anger; support forms of human association that can be shown to be crucial to their development
Practical reason: being able to form a conception of the good and engage in the critical planning of one’s life
Affiliation
Play
Control over one’s environment (political, material)
Basic claim of account of social Justice: human dignity requires that human beings be placed above an ample threshold of capability in all ten of these areas
To be put on the list the capability needs to be not merely instrumental but constitutive of a worthwhile human life
Two of the capabilities play a distinctive and architectonic role (they organize the others): affiliation and practical reason
Good policy in the area of the are of each of the capabilities is policy that respects and individual’s practical reason
Centrality of choice in the whole notion of capability
John Rawls - inequalities can be justified only when they raise the level of the worst off
The theoretical apparatus of the capabilities approach
The importance of security about the future for all of the capabilities on the list
CONNECTION: the dimensions of flourishing that are basic needs and psychological Safety
Capabilities security
Fertile functioning: a functioning the promotes other capabilities
the opposite is ‘corrosive disadvantage’
The importance: select for fertile functionings (privilege them; they are essentially feedbacks toward capabilities)
Development is a normative concept
Sarkozy commission
Jeremy Bentham is the founder of the utilitarian approach
John Stuart mill was his student
Diversity and incommensurability
There is a great difference between between public policy that aims to take care of people and a public policy that aims to honor choice
Adaptive preferences
social malleability of preferences and satisfactions
Utilitarian- John Stuart mill
Resources approach - Thomas Rawls
The policy goal: give people the ability to function
Society has proceeded unjustly in the past so we must allocate resources unequally to provide for people’s functioning
Income and wealth are not adequate proxies for how people are able to function and May be particularly bad for social respect, inclusion, and non-humiliation
***The heterogeneity and incommensurability of all the important opportunities or capabilities, the salience of distribution, and the unreliability of preference as indices of what is really worth pursuing
The disaggregated data are where the action lies
The fallacy of measurement: that just because a thing can be measured it is a good indicator
The right response to the complexity is to work harder at identifying and measuring the pertinent factors
it is the government, a society’s basic political structure, that bears the ultimate responsibility for securing capabilities
Positive liberties: right to do or be something
An incoherent idea
CHAPTER FOUR
Capabilities approach was made to be the right way to compare nations on development achievement
The very idea of freedom involves the concept of constraint
Is freedom a coherent political aim?
There is a connection here to Danielle Allen’s work into what freedoms have been privileged and what that has produced
All societies that pursue a reasonably just political conception have to evaluate human freedoms
Reflective equilibrium as the goal of the process of scrutiny
Overlapping consensus
In a working democracy the liberation takes place at several levels and in many distinct contents
Capabilities approach brings moral philosophy into development economics, and this is already progress
Socratic deliberation
A live in accordance with human dignity
What life conditions are you able to imagine?
Adaptive preferences
Treats desire as an intelligent interpretive part of the personality
Social contract tradition
***classical theory of the contract begins from the observation that all existing social structures have been dictated by artificial hierarchies of wealth, class, and prestige. If we strip human beings of these artificial advantages, what sort of society world they choose?
Capabilities must be studied not in isolation but in their network of relations to other capabilities; capabilities are not isolated units but a set of opportunities that shape one another and most ultimately be realized as a set
***An account of the emotions of the citizens in a decent society is urgently needed
ASIDE as we have learned more about emotions, it seems all areas are taking them more seriously
Much work is needed in the area of institutional structure
***one of the major avenues of implementation of the central capabilities is a nation’s system of constitutional adjudication involving fundamental rights
***emphasis on choice certainly shapes the strategies of implementation that policy makers should consider
***context-specific: recipes for moving people above the threshold on the central capabilities will probably be useless unless they are informed by deep detailed knowledge of the social, political, and historical context of their choices
A goal of education: create the ability to grasp with imagination and information the nature of one’s historical and political situation
CHAPTER FIVE
Value imperialism
Capabilities as political goals
CHAPTER SIX
Redistribution to remediate past injustices
Adam smith - corporations like a standing army coerce the political processes in ways that are not even wise domestically but that are most unfair to poorer nations
Redistributive action to overcome imbalances
***Solution to inequalities at national scale: political structure, scheme of institutions, and assignment of duties
Collective action problems
The right level of governance, a tradeoff between capacity and responsiveness to needs
CHAPTER SEVEN
Aristotle: political planners need to understand what human beings require for a flourishing life
Pleasure and the satisfaction of desire are utterly unreliable as guides as to what is to be promoted within society
Importance of choice and of vulnerability
***Aristotle: the role of government is to make capable all people to lead a flourishing life in accordance with their choice
Stoics: every human being has dignity and is worthy of reverence just by virtue of being human
I extend this to all life
Stoic idea of the equal worth of all human beings and the Aristotelian idea of human vulnerability (and thus some things must be protected by the society; human beings need help from the world in order to life well)
Primary task of republicanism in stoic terms is that of preventing domination and hierarchy
Adam smith
his writing is suffused with stoic thought
What forms of action by government permits human ability to develop and human equality to be respected?
Ideas around the fragility of human dignity
***An understanding that human abilities come into the world in a nascent and undeveloped form and require support from the environment, including the support for physical health and for mental development if they are to mature in a way that is worthy of human dignity (CONNECTION the importance and centrality of education to a democracy)
Thomas Paine
support families to send children to school
Public works to relieve unemployment (he wanted a lot more government in area of support for basic human welfare and a lot less in area of elite self Enrichment)
John Stuart mill and ideas of freedom
TH Green
repudiated utilitarianism and libertarianism
Ernest barker
Huge: Amartya Sen
I think after Sen the history then must go into ethics of care and individuals like ai Jen poo, landing it squarely in the modern world (+Danielle Allen)
CHAPTER EIGHT - capabilities approach and modern issues
Migration, the internet, and global warming
Sen: poverty is a failure of capabilities
Income is not even a good proxy for capabilities
The value of unpaid domestic work
CONNECTION ai Jen poo and care Work
Need to understand and address capability failures (think of disadvantage as capability failure)
Liberalism (equal liberty and opportunity for all) is subversive of all hierarchies based on birth right or status
Disability, aging, and the importance of care:
requires a new account of social cooperation and the human motivations for it (not merely mutual advantage as the social contract theories begin from)
Note on the practice of philosophy: one should always assume the weakest premises from which one’s conclusion can be drawn
Put pressure on your theories
At the heart of the capabilities approach is education
Forms people’s existing capacities into developed internal capabilities of many kinds
A fertile functioning of the highest form for addressing disadvantage and inequality
Aside: how important it is to address/overcome isolation (think: researchers doing some work thinking they are the only ones)
Educational achievement is one of the most crucial elements of gauging national success
Skills from the humanities and the arts that are essential for responsible democratic citizenship (CONNECTION: Danielle Allen what is education for? Participatory readiness)
critical thinking
Ability to imagine and understand another person’s situation from within
A grasp of world history and current global economic order
Animal entitlements:
whose capabilities count?
***Five positions one can take
Only human capabilities count as ends in themselves, although other capabilities may turn out to be instrumentally valuable in the promotion of human capabilities
Human capabilities are the primary focus, but since human beings form relationships with nonhuman creatures, those creatures may enter into the description of the goal to be promoted, not simply as means, but as members of intrinsically valuable relationships
The capabilities of all sentient creatures count as ends in themselves, and all should attain capabilities above some specified threshold
The capabilities of all living organisms, including plants, should count, but as individual entities, not as parts of ecosystems
The individualism of 1-4 is dropped: the capabilities of systems (ecosystems in particular, but also species) count as ends in themselves
***The idea of social Justice is inherently bound up with at least minimal sentience, the capacity to experience pain especially, and the accompanying capacity for striving and some type of agency
The living individual, not the species, is the locus of concern
Utilitarians: Bentham, mill, singer
***we need an expanded notion of dignity (lives that are worthy of the dignity of a large range of sentient beings)
capabilities to live and act according to that species’ Way of life
All animals are entitled to a threshold level of opportunity characteristic of their kind
Environmental quality:
Health of ecosystems is crucial to human well being
Human well being involves commitment to future generations (Rawls)
***Getting clear about how to count the interests of subsequent generations of humans is of the highest importance for future work if the capabilities approach is going to factor seriously into the environmental arena
That is the way our constitutional system works: incrementally, as the court gradually builds a set of railroad tracks, progressively elaborating for implementing the capability in question, and *gradually articulating the contours of a right*
Thus the abstract idea of a threshold becomes the increasingly specific definitions of constitutional language and of the interpretive language that has been used to articulate it
The contextualism of good interpretation
Extrinsic and intrinsic value of democracy by public debate
literature on deliberative and participatory democracy
The role of social norms in shaping emotions
We need to learn from anything that can enhance our grasp of those complicated elements of human experience on which our hope of political achievement and stability depends
The human development and capability association
——
SOME CONCEPTS
——
—
Care
—
Historical setting
Philosophical views that focus on human flourishing or self realization
Aristotle
John Stuart mill
Tagore
Amartya Sen
(See notes from chapter seven)
—
Important people and places
Amartya Sen
—
Threshold of capabilities
Setting the threshold adequately is a matter for each nation
—
Metrics
The heterogeneity and incommensurability of all the important opportunities or capabilities, the salience of distribution, and the unreliability of preference as indices of what is really worth pursuing
—
Incommensurability
Like irreducibility
Irreducibly plural
Some connection to not being able to reduce to a number and James c Scott’s reason that efforts to improve the human condition have failed
—
Language
Overlapping consensus
Reflective equilibrium
Gradually articulating the contours
September 14, 2025
a deontological approach meets consequentiality measurements for combined capabilities, with an associational view ? Making me think hard about benevolent paternalism :/
First full book of grad school ! Who let me get a joint degree in philosophy with no philosophy background ?
First full book of grad school ! Who let me get a joint degree in philosophy with no philosophy background ?
May 11, 2019
I came to this book looking for context on human rights: theoretical bases, and how have have been developed since the Universal Declaration of Human rights was drafted in 1947-48. It's not quite the primary purpose of this book -- which is more to describe the capabilities approach to human development that Nussbaum developed with Amartya Sen, and in some ways Sen feels like a ghost co-author to the book since he's mentioned so many times. Nevertheless did not disappoint.
To really explain her/Sen's capabilities approach, Nussbaum has to briefly explain everything about human rights. Unlike many academic philosophers, she is good at explaining briefly. She describes the Aristotelian, utilitarian, and Indian (Ashoka primarily) origins for human rights (and others), and then the intersections with Kantian/Rawlian notions of justice in the 19th/20th century. She also summarizes the capabilities approach to human rights (Nussbaum and Sen) as a sort of late 20th century development, which seems to be mostly an effort to make human rights (as declared in the UDHR and various subsequent treaties and national constitutions) more developed and grounded, and to give it a sense of internationalization and universality, and to make a slight shift from "rights" language towards the development of capabilities of individuals, and dealing with the weeds of, for example, how to address the development of women when that seems to clash with religious beliefs.
Two key concepts I got from this book about human rights, which I did not have before, are:
(1) They are primarily a political construct, not a philosophical one. There are ways to construct human rights philosophically, but that's not the only way in.
(2) As a political construct, human rights can be an "overlapping consensus", as a conclusion that can be arrived at as an Aristotelian classicist, a Mill-style utilitarian, from various religious traditions, as a Marxist, et cetera. This is a product of looting the concept of human rights (in the process of drafting the declaration) into Rawls's "original position"/ "overlapping consensus" frameworks, which seems to me is a better application of Rawls ideas to historical reality then he managed himself.
The additional brilliance of this book is in the editing. It's short, and tells you enough about many/most of the philosophical aspects of human rights to get the general idea of where they came from and where they are going. Nussbaum has an academic's sense of attribution and leaves trails off in all directions that an interested reader could follow. And while I'm sure she has an academic's sense of how to explain something exhaustively, she knows how to shut it off (unlike, say, Chomsky or Rawls who both seem to have trouble explaining anything in less than total detail), which she does here. If you are looking for a book to teach a course on human rights with a strong sense of history and theoretical bases, you could definitely do worse than this. It does of course have a lot of emphasis on the Nussbaum-and-Sen ideas, more than a pure summary ever would, but the Capabilities Approach seems, you know, worth learning about as a major thread of 21st century human rights thought.
The other kind of . . . not omission, really, but bit that gets a shorter shrift here is human rights in developed countries. Nussbaum and Sen both have a primary interest in India. And the overall professional frame for the Capabilities Approach is international development; a sort of UNDP/USAID state of mind. So there is not a lot of emphasis on the United States. In particular I would have been curious to read some history on the divergence between the EU and the USA on human rights, and how they became such a core part of EU thought and political life but not the United States.
To really explain her/Sen's capabilities approach, Nussbaum has to briefly explain everything about human rights. Unlike many academic philosophers, she is good at explaining briefly. She describes the Aristotelian, utilitarian, and Indian (Ashoka primarily) origins for human rights (and others), and then the intersections with Kantian/Rawlian notions of justice in the 19th/20th century. She also summarizes the capabilities approach to human rights (Nussbaum and Sen) as a sort of late 20th century development, which seems to be mostly an effort to make human rights (as declared in the UDHR and various subsequent treaties and national constitutions) more developed and grounded, and to give it a sense of internationalization and universality, and to make a slight shift from "rights" language towards the development of capabilities of individuals, and dealing with the weeds of, for example, how to address the development of women when that seems to clash with religious beliefs.
Two key concepts I got from this book about human rights, which I did not have before, are:
(1) They are primarily a political construct, not a philosophical one. There are ways to construct human rights philosophically, but that's not the only way in.
(2) As a political construct, human rights can be an "overlapping consensus", as a conclusion that can be arrived at as an Aristotelian classicist, a Mill-style utilitarian, from various religious traditions, as a Marxist, et cetera. This is a product of looting the concept of human rights (in the process of drafting the declaration) into Rawls's "original position"/ "overlapping consensus" frameworks, which seems to me is a better application of Rawls ideas to historical reality then he managed himself.
The additional brilliance of this book is in the editing. It's short, and tells you enough about many/most of the philosophical aspects of human rights to get the general idea of where they came from and where they are going. Nussbaum has an academic's sense of attribution and leaves trails off in all directions that an interested reader could follow. And while I'm sure she has an academic's sense of how to explain something exhaustively, she knows how to shut it off (unlike, say, Chomsky or Rawls who both seem to have trouble explaining anything in less than total detail), which she does here. If you are looking for a book to teach a course on human rights with a strong sense of history and theoretical bases, you could definitely do worse than this. It does of course have a lot of emphasis on the Nussbaum-and-Sen ideas, more than a pure summary ever would, but the Capabilities Approach seems, you know, worth learning about as a major thread of 21st century human rights thought.
The other kind of . . . not omission, really, but bit that gets a shorter shrift here is human rights in developed countries. Nussbaum and Sen both have a primary interest in India. And the overall professional frame for the Capabilities Approach is international development; a sort of UNDP/USAID state of mind. So there is not a lot of emphasis on the United States. In particular I would have been curious to read some history on the divergence between the EU and the USA on human rights, and how they became such a core part of EU thought and political life but not the United States.
May 7, 2016
Martha Nussbaum is one of the twenty-first century’s most influential ethicists, feminists, and political philosophers. Her capabilities approach to human development, first championed by Amartya Sen, another prominent economist and philosopher, provided the theoretical foundation for the United Nations’ Human Development Index, which accounts for non-monetary developmental factors like life expectancy, education, and adult literacy, in addition to per-capita income. Ultimately, Nussbaum, like many ethicists and economists, is frustrated with conventional economic indicators like Gross Domestic Product that simply fail to tell the whole story when it comes to human development. The capabilities approach, Nussbaum asserts, offers a much more colorful, and helpful, picture, as it assesses a broad spectrum of “substantive freedoms”—rather than, say, basic needs, happiness, or income—that all human persons should possess. Nussbaum outlines ten “central capabilities,” which include: life, bodily health, bodily integrity, senses, imagination, and thought, emotions, practical reason, affiliation, the ability to live with other species, play, and control over one’s environment. Deprivation of any one of these capabilities, which cover numerous qualitative and quantitative aspects of individuals’ lives, thereby constitutes poverty.
Creating Capabilities, then, is a primer for laypersons interested in the human development debate and welfare economics. As an introductory text, with its clear prose and concise justifications, it undoubtedly succeeds. Nussbaum not only familiarizes readers with the capabilities approach, but also outlines the pitfalls of other human development approaches rooted in utilitarianism and the aforementioned Gross Domestic Product. She also traces the philosophical history of the approach, and helpfully introduces readers to Aristotle, Stoicism, Bentham’s utilitarianism, and Rawls’s political philosophy. In the end, I only find fault with the fact that Nussbaum fails to make a persuasive case for the capabilities approach’s practicality as a tool for measurement, especially in individual countries. While the human development index has no doubt been successful, it cannot simply replace the Official Poverty Measure in the United States, for example, without modification. On the other hand, while the Supplemental Poverty Measure accounts for many of the capabilities Nussbaum is concerned with, it too falls short as an adequate measure of capabilities. Nevertheless, simply because there may be difficulty in transforming the capabilities approach into an operational poverty measure does not mean that it cannot or should not be done. I am confident that more work on the approach by Nussbaum, Sen, and others will yield more effective ways of empirically measuring those qualitative capabilities that thus far have proven difficult to evaluate.
Creating Capabilities, then, is a primer for laypersons interested in the human development debate and welfare economics. As an introductory text, with its clear prose and concise justifications, it undoubtedly succeeds. Nussbaum not only familiarizes readers with the capabilities approach, but also outlines the pitfalls of other human development approaches rooted in utilitarianism and the aforementioned Gross Domestic Product. She also traces the philosophical history of the approach, and helpfully introduces readers to Aristotle, Stoicism, Bentham’s utilitarianism, and Rawls’s political philosophy. In the end, I only find fault with the fact that Nussbaum fails to make a persuasive case for the capabilities approach’s practicality as a tool for measurement, especially in individual countries. While the human development index has no doubt been successful, it cannot simply replace the Official Poverty Measure in the United States, for example, without modification. On the other hand, while the Supplemental Poverty Measure accounts for many of the capabilities Nussbaum is concerned with, it too falls short as an adequate measure of capabilities. Nevertheless, simply because there may be difficulty in transforming the capabilities approach into an operational poverty measure does not mean that it cannot or should not be done. I am confident that more work on the approach by Nussbaum, Sen, and others will yield more effective ways of empirically measuring those qualitative capabilities that thus far have proven difficult to evaluate.
March 21, 2016
El abordaje del desarrollo humano desde las "capacidades" ha cobrado relevancia en los últimos años ,sus dos principales han sido Amartya Sen y Martha Nussbaum. En este libro Nussbaum replantea la teoría de capacidades ahondado en ciertos temas que son de su particular interés y que generan ciertas diferencias con Sen. La autora parte del caso de Vasanti una mujer India que se encuentra en un circunstancias de pobreza, y maltrato por parte de su pareja, y a través de una institución que la capacita y la educa logra salir de dicho entorno. De este perfil se desprende su argumentación sobre el enfoque de capacidades y como es un enfoque que bajo los principios de la dignidad y de la libertad supera otras visiones comunes en la teoría del desarrollo como el enforque del crecimiento PIB, el utilitarismo, e inclusive el enfoque desde los derechos humanos.
Para esto la autora cita diferentes referentes teóricos como Mill, Kant y Rawls; y dedica una buena parte del libro a plantear ciertos grupos de análisis que son de especial manejo en este enfoque: mujeres, derechos de animales, derechos ambientales, las instituciones rectoras y la ley, entre otros.
Para esto la autora cita diferentes referentes teóricos como Mill, Kant y Rawls; y dedica una buena parte del libro a plantear ciertos grupos de análisis que son de especial manejo en este enfoque: mujeres, derechos de animales, derechos ambientales, las instituciones rectoras y la ley, entre otros.
April 24, 2014
Lecture agréable et fort pertinente. J’ai particulièrement aimé la façon dont l’auteur a su lier la théorie à la pratique, entre autre en se référant à de multiples reprises à l’histoire de Vasanti qu’elle présente en introduction.
«L’objectif du développement mondial, tout comme l’objectif d’une bonne politique intérieure, est de permettre aux individus de mener des vies pleines et créatives en développant leur potentiel et en créant une vie sensée, qui exprime la dignité humaine, égale pour tous. En d’autres termes, le véritable objectif du développement est le développement humain; les autres approches et mesures [dont le PIB] ne fournissent au mieux que des approximations pour le développement [et la qualité] de la vie humaine (…)»
«L’objectif du développement mondial, tout comme l’objectif d’une bonne politique intérieure, est de permettre aux individus de mener des vies pleines et créatives en développant leur potentiel et en créant une vie sensée, qui exprime la dignité humaine, égale pour tous. En d’autres termes, le véritable objectif du développement est le développement humain; les autres approches et mesures [dont le PIB] ne fournissent au mieux que des approximations pour le développement [et la qualité] de la vie humaine (…)»
August 27, 2013
On my second read I found less to love, more to question -- because, between reads, I've lived more life and witnessed more lofty theories mooted by messy realities. Nussbaum's well-intended ideas have pushed research in promising directions. BUT. Many devilish details occupy the space between her idealized policy goals and their actual implementation in diverse contexts. Thus her proposals are less practically helpful, and less globally exportable, than she lets on.
(Originally read in June 2012.)
(Originally read in June 2012.)
May 15, 2017
Excellent summary of Nussbaum's conception of the capabilities approach, clearly set out for the general reader, but with careful attention to how the approach in general relates to other theories of welfare (historic and contemporary) and how her version aligns or differs with those of other scholars, particularly Amartya Sen. This context alone makes it essential for anyone with an interest in this area, but there is also a very clear summary of her work, an honest evaluation of its current limitations and indications of what research and practice now needs to be prioritised. Compelling.
July 5, 2017
An interesting account of fundamental rights, and a good effort to outline a solid list of them from a single starting point. Nussbaum takes a lot of inspiration from Rawls and Mill, and it shows in her analysis. One noticeable flaw is her reluctance to take her ideas to their logical conclusion, which seem to point up and out from the standard boundaries of the liberal democratic tradition. It's definitely a good work to read to establish a baseline idea of human rights, but that hesitation ultimately makes it feel incomplete.
January 19, 2021
3.5 and it was a solid 4 for the first 5 chapters, but then gets a little tedious. Overall an good overview of the philosophy, history, and usefulness of the capability approach. In her own words, as I couldn’t put it better myself, the approach is a contribution to debate, not dogma, as “Our world needs more critical thinking and more respectful argument. The distressing common practice of arguing by sound bite urgently needs to be replaced by a mode of public discourse that is itself more respectful of our equal human dignity.”
November 9, 2012
Considering I read this for a module at university, it was actually really interesting. Nussbaum makes some great points and I found myself agreeing with her a lot. It is also written for the general reader so the language is not too technical and it is easy to understand. This is a great book for all those interested in learning a bit more about the human development approach in developmental theories.
June 30, 2017
A little dry in some places ( not uncommon in philosophy) and there are some points I disagree with, but her central claim of what rights people should have protected, what duties this implies on behalf of the state and institutions, and that all humans ( and non- human animals) deserve divinity is solid. Also she is very clear in her writing ( somewhat uncommon in philosophy) - this makes her work accessible to even a lay audience.
August 12, 2024
“What are people actually able to do and to be? What real opportunities are available to them?”
A ground-breaking work on human development which not only effectively retires GDP as an adequate measure of socioeconomic progress but recognizes that there is no such thing as a “developed” country. All countries are developing countries, because the work of human development is and will always be an evergreen endeavor.
A ground-breaking work on human development which not only effectively retires GDP as an adequate measure of socioeconomic progress but recognizes that there is no such thing as a “developed” country. All countries are developing countries, because the work of human development is and will always be an evergreen endeavor.
August 15, 2015
I appreciate this way of thinking about the world, and had hoped this would be a short, accessible way to share them with my friends, but the conversation here is too internal. Look for other Nussbaum books to get a better view of what she is arguing.
April 16, 2023
i dont think i understood a single page of this
June 13, 2023
idealista empedernida y muy repetitiva, no recomendado
March 5, 2024
Le doy un 1 porque no le puedo poner un 0
March 16, 2024
like yeah but this could’ve been so much shorter
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