ABSTRACT
Capabilities are important human entitlements, inherent in the idea of basic social justice, and can be viewed as one species of a human rights approach. This chapter explores this relationship, expanding on earlier publications, notably Capabilities and Human Rights, Women and Human Development, Capabilities as Fundamental Entitlements, and Frontiers of Justice. The relationship between capabilities and human rights is, then, one of inclusion—the capabilities approach (CA) is a type of human rights approach—but also one of both supplementation and critique. The chapter argues that ten 'central capabilities', are important human entitlements, inherent in the idea of basic social justice. The history and philosophical background of the notion of rights has made this a difficult struggle, given the traditional association of rights talk with the public-private distinction. The family of human rights approaches looks distinctly deontological: it says that overall good social consequences may not be pursued in ways that violate the items on the list of rights.
