These slides are for an Introduction to Philosophy course at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC, Canada. They focus on an article by Nussbaum from 1997 called "Capabilities and Human Rights" (Fordham Law Review Vol. 66, No. 2).
1. Martha Nussbaum
The “capabilities approach”
PHIL 102, UBC
Christina Hendricks
Fall 2015
Except images licensed otherwise, this presentation is licensed CC BY 4.0
2. Overall course theme:
Philosophy of life and death
How ought
we to live?
How ought we
to think of our
own deaths?
What are our duties towards
others’ lives and deaths?
Plato
Epicureans
Stoics
Sartre
Camus
Epicureans
Stoics
Nagel
Rosenbaum
Camus
Mill
Singer
Thomson
Nussbaum: What are the
crucial aspects to living a
life with human dignity? We
should ensure all have
those.
3. Vasanti
Starts Creating Capabilities: The Human
Development Approach (2011) with the story of
Vasanti
India 2011-07-18 at 07-24-
24, Flickr photo by José
Antonio Morcillo, licensed
CC-BY
4. Common approaches to
considering quality of life
“Capabilities Human and Rights”
(1997)
What do you think might be good ways to measure
people’s quality of life around the world?
5. GNP or GDP (280-281)
Problems:
• Need to focus also
on distribution
• Too narrow a
measure of quality
of life
6. Utilitarian approaches based on
preference satisfaction (281-283)
Problems:
• Distribution again; focus on aggregate rather
than individuals
• “adaptive preferences”—can reinforce
inequalities
7. Distribution of basic rights and
resources (283-284)
John Rawls: focus on
distribution of basic goods that
all rational individuals would
desire, ensuring that even the
least well off have a decent
level
Problem:
Having the rights & resources
is not enough; social
circumstances differences
in ability& opportunity to use
9. Basics of this approach
Asks: what are people “actually able to do
and to be?” (285)
There are certain
capabilities that
are required to live
well/flourish as a
human, to live a
life with human
dignity (not in this
article)
10. Definitions
Combined capabilities
• Internal abilities: our own internal ability to act (289)
• Social opportunities & freedoms to express those
internal abilities (290)
Functioning: “active realization of one or more
capabilities” (Creating Capabilities p. 25 (not assigned))
11. Suggested list of
ten central capabilities (287-288)
Life
Bodily health
Emotions
Affiliation
Leisure/pl
ay
Other species
Bodily integrity
Practical reason
Senses, imagination, thought
Control over
environment:
political & material
Connect to Vasanti’s
story
13. Capabilities and Human
Rights
• Nussbaum’s definition of human rights
(292)
• Better to think of human rights in terms of
combined capabilities (293-294)
14. Your thoughts
Groups: please answer one of these
questions on the document linked below
• Does this list capture what is required to
live well as a human? Anything missing?
Anything there that is not required?
• Any comments on the capabilities
approach generally?
http://is.gd/PHIL102Nussbaum