The Capabilities Approach | Martha Nussbaum | Examined Life

The Capability Approach, proposed by Amartya Sen, measures human development based on people's capabilities and freedoms. This approach considers what people are able to do and be, not just what they have. The Human Development Index (HDI) considers three dimensions: (1) Health - measured by life expectancy at birth, (2) Education - measured by adult literacy rate and school enrollment ratio, (3) Standard of Living - measured by GDP per capita. These dimensions reflect the human capital of a country and help identify which countries need more development assistance.

HDI is based on the capabilities approach, which focuses on what people are able to do and be, rather than just what they have. This approach emphasizes expanding human capabilities and freedoms as the ultimate goal of development. HDI is connected to human rights, as it measures dimensions essential for human dignity and freedom. The framework recognizes that development should enable people to live lives they value and have the freedom to choose their own paths.

The Human Development Index (HDI), developed by the United Nations Development Programme (PNUD) starting in 1990, measures a nation's true wealth through three dimensions: health (life expectancy at birth), education (average and expected years of schooling), and income (per capita income), using a scale from 0 to 1 where values closer to 1 indicate greater human development; this multidimensional approach has influenced public policies globally, including Mexico's creation of the Regional Fund (FONREGIÓN) in 2007 and the establishment of multidimensional poverty measurement in the General Law on Social Development.

The Human Development Index (HDI) is published by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). It measures human development based on three dimensions: Life Expectancy, Literacy Rate, and Per Capita Income. HDI was first published in 1990.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) provides a more comprehensive assessment through the Human Development Report, which considers three pillars: per capita income, educational levels, and health status. This is superior to the World Bank's income-only approach. The Human Development Index (HDI) ranks countries based on Gross National Income per capita, life expectancy, and mean years of schooling. For example, Sri Lanka ranks highest among neighboring countries because it performs well across all three dimensions. This multi-dimensional approach better captures true human welfare.

Nussbaum's capabilities approach measures quality of life by what people can be and do, rather than resources or utilities. Ten central capabilities constitute minimum requirements for dignified life: life, bodily health, integrity, senses, imagination, practical reason, emotions, affiliation, other species, play, and control over environment. This approach is explicitly feminist, recognizing specific ways women have been excluded. She criticizes postmodern feminism for remaining trapped in speculative discourse without addressing concrete political needs. Her position is that universalism can include specific protections for women, and that philosophy must start from actual stories of women's lives and provide political responses to those concrete experiences.

Martha Nussbaum proposes extending her capabilities approach—a framework originally developed for human welfare—to non-human animals, arguing that justice for animals requires protecting their opportunities to flourish according to their species-specific ways of life, rather than applying utilitarian pain-avoidance principles or Kantian passive citizenship models that fail to account for the diverse forms of intelligence and agency across the animal kingdom.

The capabilities approach, originally developed by Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen for human rights and development, proposes that justice should be measured by what individuals can actually do and be, rather than by goods allocated to them; this framework extends to animals by recognizing that all sentient beings possess core capacities for flourishing that deserve protection, challenging traditional contractualist theories that exclude non-human animals from political justice and offering a more comprehensive ethical framework that integrates compassion, dignity, and relational duties across species boundaries.

Martha Nussbaum proposed a capabilities approach to equality focusing on what people are actually able to do and be, rather than on resources or welfare. She identified ten central capabilities: life, bodily health, bodily integrity, senses and imagination, practical reason, affiliation, other species, play, control over one's environment, and political participation. Feminist philosophers like Cynthia Enloe have criticized the tourism industry for exploiting women, treating them as objects of consumption rather than individuals with rights and dignity.

Martha Nussbaum, an internationally acclaimed American philosopher holding the Ernest Freund Chair at the University of Chicago, developed the capabilities approach in collaboration with economist Amartya Sen. Building upon John Rawls's principles of justice while incorporating Greek philosophy and Mill's liberal thought, Nussbaum advocates for philosophy's practical utility in achieving the good life—a long, healthy, and meaningful existence through respect for human dignity and community. The framework proposes ten essential capacities: life, health, sensory experience, thought, emotional expression, practical reason, affiliation, nature interaction, leisure, and environmental control. Unlike GDP-focused metrics, this approach evaluates whether governments enable genuine human flourishing. Rather than mandating specific behaviors, governments must ensure citizens have genuine choice options and reasoning capacity. The framework adapts to diverse cultural contexts while maintaining core principles, addressing sustainability concerns including intergenerational responsibility and the role of emotions in sustaining political systems beyond mere procedural correctness.

A common criticism of the capability approach is that it involves paternalism - who decides which capabilities are important for quality of life? This criticism conflates three distinct problems: (1) Whether freedom and capabilities are important at all (some argue only actual outcomes matter), (2) How to measure capabilities when they are hard to measure (involving questions of cardinality, ordinality, partial ordering, and fuzzy sets), and (3) Who determines which capabilities are important and how to weight them. These are separate issues that should be addressed separately. The criticism that the approach is unfeasible to operationalize at the aggregate level stems from conflating these distinct challenges.

A key concern about the capability approach is whether it risks paternalism by determining what functionings individuals ought to have without sufficient regard for their own preferences. While basic functionings (like adequate nutrition and water) are relatively uncontroversial at a biological level, more complex questions about what constitutes a good life become highly contextual. Critics argue that even at the biological level, specifying minimum requirements may impose external judgments about what people need. The capability approach responds by emphasizing that while basic functionings can be specified objectively, moving beyond them requires involving subjects and groups in the process, incorporating their agency and freedom. This creates a balance between objective standards and subjective input.

The capability approach faces interconnected critiques requiring nuanced responses. Accusations of individualism are partially valid—the approach values individual lives but does not ignore collective factors; individuals are nested within families, communities, national systems, and global structures that shape capabilities. Concerns that multi-dimensionality reduces focus on income redistribution are addressed by recognizing income as a means to an end, not an end itself; different people need different incomes to achieve equivalent valuable outcomes. Ideological criticisms range from calling it hopelessly idealistic to accusing it of apologizing for capitalism—the truth lies in interpretation: the approach can justify market inequalities but also has radical implications when structural constraints are examined. Practical challenges include significant informational demands for multi-dimensional analysis across domains while systematically disaggregating by multiple characteristics. The approach is underspecified in Sen's original formulation, offering flexibility for local adaptation and participatory approaches, yet comprehensive frameworks provide concrete implementation tools. Balancing academic rigor with accessibility, maintaining focus on legally enforceable rights while embracing multi-dimensional analysis, and ensuring meaningful public engagement remain key challenges for advancing the capability approach in policy and practice.

The lecture examines the problem of neoliberal paternalism, which involves the imposition of particular forms of living as the only acceptable or progressive ones. The speaker argues that this approach is problematic because it ignores the diversity of legitimate forms of living and imposes a particular vision of the good life on all individuals. The lecture also discusses the problem of authoritarian liberalism, which involves the imposition of particular forms of living as the only acceptable or progressive ones. The speaker argues that this approach is problematic because it ignores the diversity of legitimate forms of living and imposes a particular vision of the good life on all individuals.

One critique of the capability approach is that it failed to provide a list of minimum capabilities that people should have. Martha Nussbaum and other scholars attempted to provide lists of minimum capabilities. Another critique is that the approach is too individualistic and pays little attention to groups and social structures. When writing about social policy, students should clearly state the aim of the policy being analyzed and describe the content and implementation.