ABSTRACT
How should we assess a person’s well-being and quality of life? In what sense, as a matter of justice, should a person be judged as equal or unequal in society? These are two distinct questions demanding different levels of inquiry. We can for example, consider a wide range of things to be valuable for a person’s well-being – from a life of bare survival to scientific and social achievements to leisure, luxury, emotional maturity and spiritual realization. Yet we might not find all of them to be relevant to judge whether or not the person’s standing in society is equal. A theory of justice cannot be tantamount to a theory of well-being. Judgments regarding claims of justice invariably require not only identifying and delineating certain aspects of well-being, but also finding the appropriate normative principles by which to treat people as equals in society. Even though the capability approach, advocated by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum, originated as providing a unique answer to the first question, the question about well-being and the quality of life particularly in the context of poverty and deprivation, it is also now envisaged by extension as a distinct approach to issues of social justice.
