DR APR-2

Encountering Martha C. Nussbaum for the first time in 1987, she was a guest on Bryan Magee’s BBC television series The Great Philosophers. The show featured discussions with leading contemporary philosophers on the seminal thinkers of the past, and Nussbaum was invited to elucidate Aristotle’s ideas. In her thirties at the time, she was both the youngest guest and the sole female participant in the entire fifteen-episode series, an anomaly that underscored her pioneering role in the philosophical domain. The discipline then had far fewer women than today, and her emergence as a public intellectual was as remarkable as her intellectual prowess. Yet, what truly distinguished her was not merely her demographic uniqueness but her incisive, articulate, and engaging manner of exposition, breathing vitality into concepts over two millennia old. This distinctive style has remained the hallmark of her extensive and influential career.

Nussbaum’s prose is characterized by lucidity and elegance, offering not only intellectual depth but also literary pleasure—a rarity in academic philosophy. She has significantly contributed across multiple domains, including ethics, political philosophy, international development, feminist philosophy, animal rights, philosophy of emotion, and global justice. Among her vast oeuvre, comprising at least twenty-eight books and over five hundred papers, three key areas stand out: the capabilities approach, her exploration of emotions, and her analysis of anger. Each of these areas exemplifies her commitment to challenging entrenched doctrines and proposing innovative frameworks of thought.

The capabilities approach (CA), when stated in simplistic terms, might appear as intuitive common sense. However, it constitutes a nuanced and expansive framework that fundamentally reshapes conceptions of human needs. At its core, the CA posits that the role of governments—or analogous policy-making entities—is to ensure that all citizens possess the necessary capabilities to lead flourishing lives. This notion, deeply rooted in Aristotelian philosophy, builds upon the premise that all organisms seek to flourish according to their nature. The CA is predicated upon three foundational propositions: all humans possess an inherent right to flourish; human flourishing can be universally delineated; and it is the obligation of governing bodies to equip citizens with the requisite capabilities for flourishing.

However, the CA does not equate to a simplistic model wherein governments merely furnish individuals with what they claim to need. Individuals, particularly those subjected to systemic deprivation, may develop adaptive preferences—an intellectual construct wherein desires are reshaped by constraints, much like Aesop’s fox who dismisses the unattainable grapes as sour. Nussbaum highlights that individuals in disadvantaged circumstances often recalibrate their expectations downward, resigning themselves to deprivation. Consequently, rather than accepting expressed preferences at face value, the CA mandates that governments actively construct opportunities that foster genuine agency. Nussbaum has especially emphasized the necessity of such measures for women, not due to greater deservingness, but because gender-based disparities render capabilities disproportionately inaccessible.

A capability, in this framework, denotes more than a nominal entitlement; it signifies a substantive, actionable opportunity. The distinction between capabilities and functionings is critical: capabilities refer to real opportunities, whereas functionings represent the actualized choices individuals make. For instance, a person provided with adequate nourishment may choose to fast, but this is categorically different from involuntary starvation. The CA’s non-paternalistic ethos thus lies in its commitment to ensuring capabilities without mandating functionings. As Nussbaum articulates in Women and Human Development (2000):

For political purposes it is appropriate that we shoot for capabilities, and those alone. Citizens must be left free to determine their own course after that. The person with plenty of food may always choose to fast, but there is a great difference between fasting and starving, and it is this difference that I wish to capture.

The CA evolved through Nussbaum’s collaboration with Amartya Sen, the distinguished economist and philosopher with whom she shared both intellectual and personal ties. Sen originally pioneered the approach in Commodities and Capabilities (1985), critiquing conventional metrics such as opulence or utility as inadequate measures of well-being. Instead, he advocated for assessing human development through the lens of accessible opportunities. While Sen refrains from an exhaustive taxonomy of capabilities, Nussbaum advances a more structured framework, delineating ten specific capabilities necessary for a life of dignity. These encompass life expectancy, bodily health, integrity, intellectual and imaginative development, emotional engagement, practical reason, social affiliations, interaction with nature, recreational engagement, and political as well as material autonomy. These capabilities, in Nussbaum’s vision, transcend cultural relativism; they represent universal entitlements intrinsic to human dignity.

Notably, the CA neither mandates that individuals utilize these capabilities nor imposes prescriptive roles upon them. Rather, it seeks to dismantle barriers that curtail individual potential, affording people the freedom to determine their own trajectories. By emphasizing genuine choice rather than coerced conformity, Nussbaum's framework achieves a delicate equilibrium between fostering societal well-being and safeguarding personal autonomy. The CA thus remains a seminal contribution to contemporary thought, challenging entrenched paradigms and advocating for a model of justice that is at once equitable and empowering.

Difficult Words and Their Meanings:

  • Elucidate – To explain or clarify.

  • Anomaly – Something that deviates from the norm.

  • Oeuvre – The collective works of an author.

  • Entrenched – Deeply established and difficult to change.

  • Delineated – Described or outlined precisely.

  • Paternalistic – Managing individuals in a manner akin to a father dealing with children.

  • Taxonomy – A classification system.

  • Autonomy – Self-governance or independence.

  • Opulence – Great wealth or luxuriousness.

  • Relativism – The idea that views depend on context rather than absolute truths.

Word Count: 599

Flesch-Kincaid Readability Level: 14

 

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