Among the most fundamental underpinnings of Nussbaum’s capabilities approach are the twin ideas of human dignity and inviolability. Together, these ideas form the foundation for Nussbaum’s view that every individual is worthy of a fully human life. At least in principle, she holds, every individual should be capable to flourish as a human being. To this end, Nussbaum identifies ten central human capabilities that each individual should be able to exercise and develop so as to be able to live a fully human life. This list includes such capabilities as the capability of life, bodily health, bodily integrity, imagination and thought, emotion, play, affiliation and control over one´s environment. These capabilities are inextricably bound up with Nussbaum’s view of human nature; that is, it is informed by the activities, capacities and endowments she deems essential to human beings as a species. This is not, however, a biological view of man’s nature—it is an ethically evaluative view; that is, out of all the capabilities that are characteristically human, she thinks these are the most important ones. Although Nussbaum does not believe that human beings should develop all of these capabilities in order to flourish, she does hold that they should be able to do so if they so desire. The choice of what capabilities to develop, however, is ultimately one that individuals will have to make for themselves. This emphasis on choice may raise some problems for her theory, especially as regards its pretension of universality.
Nussbaum is well aware of the fact that not everyone will want to fully develop each of the capabilities she listed. Individuals in different societies and with different beliefs will have different ideas of what constitutes a fully human life, or of what can be called a flourishing life. “The claim that is made by the use of this single list,” she writes, “is not that there is a single type of flourishing for the human being, but, rather, that these capabilities can be agreed by reasonable citizens to be important prerequisites of reasonable conceptions of human flourishing (p. 182).” These capabilities are important insofar as they enable people with widely different conceptions of the humanly good to live worthy lives. They enable individuals who think political participation is essential to human flourishing as well as those who think it is wrong to do so to live out their own conception of the good life simultaneously. In this way, Nussbaum makes a distinction between human functioning and capability. Capabilities are potentialities, options that are (or should be) offered to every individual. Should an individual choose to realise these potentialities, he has brought them down to the level of functioning; that is, he has not only affirmed their value as general capabilities or entitlements, but has affirmed their value as abilities that are important to him personally. This choice of which capability to develop and which one to leave aside, a choice that Nussbaum holds human beings should have, enables her to generalize her theory of justice and make it range over diverse groups of people.
There appears to be a slight discrepancy here. On the one hand, Nussbaum’s list of capabilities purports to be a list of the ten capabilities that are essential to human flourishing. This idea is given such weight in her theory that when it is the case that these capabilities are almost wholly absent we have reason to doubt one is capable of living a human life at all, and that when it is the case that not all of them are guaranteed to at least a minimum extent it is impossible to live a dignified human life. On the other hand, Nussbaum allows for the possibility that individuals will choose not to realize certain individual capabilities so as to be able to pursue their own conception of the humanly good. An Amish citizen, for instance, may well believe that it is better not to participate in political life—that it is not essential to human flourishing to participate in politics. This raises the question of just how universal Nussbaum’s capabilities are.
One may object to this question, as Nussbaum does, by pointing out that there is a difference between having the choice to develop a certain capability and actually developing this capability. An Amish citizen may choose not to develop his capability to “control his own environment” by engaging in political life, while still affirming the value of having the choice to do so. He may well believe it is best for him not to be politically active, but not for everyone else. Certainly we have reason to believe he will prefer choice to non-choice, democracy to dictatorship, insofar as he “has chosen to live in a pluralistic democracy and to show respect for its values” (p. 184). After all, this implies that “[he] does after all think that these values are very important political values, even though the associated function is something they will not use” (p. 184). Capabilities are potentialities that may or may not be realised—but they should at least be possible to realise.
This objection, however, does not speak to my point directly. Even if it were the case that this Amish citizen affirmed the value of the right to vote regardless of his choice not to exercise it, we have reason to believe he might still be able to flourish – live a fully human life in his sense of the word – deprived of this right. It is not necessarily essential to his conception of human dignity (even though it may be). Similarly, a strictly religious individual who holds that religion is fundamental to human flourishing may be able to flourish even in a society where only his form of religion is allowed and the freedom of religion is otherwise curtailed. Of course, most religious individuals will think that freedom of religion is essential—but my point is that it is not sure that all of them will. Thus, it is not clear that the capabilities approach is as universal as Nussbaum needs it to be. At any rate, it would seem that these capabilities are not as essential to human flourishing as she takes them to be.
At this point, one may remind me of the fact that Nussbaum thinks the capabilities are only the “prerequisites of reasonable conceptions of human flourishing,” and not of all conceptions. There is this further distinction between reasonable and unreasonable conceptions. But where will we draw the line? Does human dignity entitle us to flourish in a reasonable way only? Is one way of flourishing better than the other? How would you justify this difference? And what does it imply for persons who are not capable of rational thought? These are some questions that may be difficult to answer, but they are essential to a full and correct understanding of Nussbaum’s theory. It appears to me, therefore, that her theory needs some further refinement here.
Source: Martha Nussbaum, Frontiers of Justice (Harvard University Press, 2006), pp. 155-223.
By Barend de Rooij (Third Year Student, LUC ... presently at Rutgers)
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