Who chooses the capability list?
A public account of central capabilities risks paternalism unless its authority and revision remain genuinely democratic.
Contemporary philosophy · 1947–
Martha Nussbaum
Nussbaum asks what people are actually able to do and be, shifting justice from equal resources on paper to the real conditions of a dignified life.
Martha Nussbaum is an American philosopher and classicist whose work connects ancient ethics with contemporary questions of justice. She helped develop the capabilities approach and has written extensively on emotion, education, disability, gender and animal life.
JusticeEthics
The question she enters
The question Martha Nussbaum enters
What does an equal resource mean when people have radically different powers to turn it into a life they can choose?
The central move
Measure real opportunity, not the pile of goods
The capability approach evaluates social arrangements through substantive freedoms: the genuine opportunities people have for bodily health, practical reason, affiliation, play, political participation and other central human functions. Resources matter, but their value depends on bodies, environments and social relations.
Key ideas
Terms that carry the argument.
- Capabilities
- Real opportunities to achieve valuable doings and beings rather than resources or satisfaction alone.
- Functionings
- The activities and states a person actually realises, such as being nourished, learning or participating politically.
- Human dignity
- A threshold idea grounding claims to the conditions of a life worthy of equal respect.
- Conversion factors
- Personal, social and environmental differences affecting how resources become genuine opportunities.
Where the view strains
Objections and limits.
Thresholds leave distribution above them open
Securing a decent minimum does not by itself settle how inequality beyond that threshold should be judged.
Sources and routes
Read the work. Follow the argument.
Primary texts
Where to meet the position.
- Open LibraryWomen and Human DevelopmentWebA systematic defence of the capabilities approach through gender and global justice.Work-level library catalogue record for Women and Human Development; select a listed edition on the record. · Bibliographic record with edition, library-location, borrowing or preview links where available; this row is bibliographic or sample-only unless the selected edition states otherwise. Checked Aug 2026.
- Harvard University PressCreating CapabilitiesWebAn accessible statement of the approach and its use in development and public policy.Belknap Press of Harvard University Press edition, 2011, ISBN 9780674050549. · Publisher edition record and purchase route; no open full text is represented. Checked Aug 2026.
- Open LibraryFrontiers of JusticeWebDisability, nationality and species membership as limits of contractarian theories.Work-level library catalogue record for Frontiers of Justice; select a listed edition on the record. · Bibliographic record with edition, library-location, borrowing or preview links where available; this row is bibliographic or sample-only unless the selected edition states otherwise. Checked Aug 2026.
On this site
Continue in a usable resource.
InjusticeRelevantUnit · Structural barriers and the gap between formal rights and usable opportunity.Does fairness mean equality or equity?RelevantInquiry · Equal resources may require unequal support to create comparable capabilities.No Good OptionsRelevantGame · See when real opportunity and human capability guide public decisions.Philosophy ProfileAppears hereGame · Compare capability with fairness, entitlement and total welfare.