ABSTRACT
In Sex and Social Justice, Martha Nussbaum develops an argument in favour of a capabilities approach to human development. Nussbaum’s theory of justice and human rights is developed from her reading of Amartya Sen’s concept of substantial freedoms or capabilities, which he developed to address questions of justice and human development (Sen, 1999). The capabilities approach identifies ‘a kind of basic human flourishing’ based on a list of central capabilities drawn up by Nussbaum, from which she generates some specific political principles. The list includes the following 10 central human functions: to live for a normal human life span; to have good reproductive health, nourishment, and adequate shelter; to have bodily integrity, which is the ability to move freely from place to place and be free from sexual violence; to have integrity of the senses, imagination, and thought, that enable one to think and reason in a ‘truly human way’; to have the ability to express emotions, which includes the ability to love, grieve, experience longing, gratitude and justified anger; to have practical reason, which is the ability to form a conception of the good and reflect critically on how to plan one’s life; to live for and in relation to others and have a social basis of self-respect and non-humiliation; to live with a concern for and in relation to animals, plants and nature; to play, which includes laughing and enjoying recreational activities; and finally, to have control over one’s political and material environment (Nussbaum, 1999, pp 40-41; Nussbaum, 2000). The capabilities approach emphasises that the central goal of public policy must be to promote the capabilities of each citizen to perform these important human functions. Each capability must be equally promoted by society in order to ensure an individual’s claim to a good life in which ‘the dignity of the human being is not violated by hunger or fear or the absence of opportunity’ (Nussbaum, 1999, p 40). The capabilities approach considers people one by one, and does not lump them together in families or communities. It can lead to the emergence of new communities which are embedded in the local context, and are not submerged in the aims and wants of the husband and family. Nor is it an approach concerned with the distribution of resources, because resources, as Nussbaum argues, do not have value in themselves when they are disconnected from their promotion of human functioning – that is, what humans actually do and are. The capabilities approach is also based on choice, where the government does not direct the citizen into acting in a specific way, but simply makes sure that the citizen has all the resources and conditions that are required for acting in those ways. Thus, the central feature of the capabilities approach is that it shifts governmental action from what individuals should think or do, which can be oppressive and tyrannical, to a focus on how to assist individuals to think and do what they want. Society is obliged to provide individuals with the basic infrastructure in order to enable them to make choices. ‘Once the stage is fully set,’ Nussbaum states, ‘the choice is up to them’ (Nussbaum, 1999, p 45). Nussbaum advocates this capabilities approach for all members of humanity – a liberal
internationalism, that is not just confined to one’s own context. As she writes, ‘I believe that individuals have moral obligations to promote justice for people outside their national boundaries and that their governments do also’ (Nussbaum, 1999, p 6).
