Abstract
In Frontiers of Justice, Martha Nussbaum applies the “Capabilities Approach,” which she calls “one species of a human rights approach,” to justice issues that have in her view been inadequately addressed in liberal political theory. These issues include rights of the disabled, rights that transcend national borders, and animal rights issues. She demonstrates the weakness of Rawlsianism, contractualism in general, and much of the Kantian tradition in moral philosophy and shows the need to move beyond the limitations of narrow rationalism, nationalism, and speciesism. Nevertheless, Nussbaum fails to elaborate adequately the grounds for her own capabilities position or to face fundamental theoretical questions about the nature and implications of that position.
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Notes
It is true that that if we look at contemporary political theory, post-structuralist thought has been of growing importance and radical political theory (including various Marxisms and post-Marxisms) has certainly not disappeared. However, the focus here is on the dominant options in contemporary ethics and their application to Anglo-American political theory, the theoretical world to which Nussbaum largely restricts her attention.
“Virtue Ethics” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy; online at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-virtue/
The text of the “Declaration” can be found at http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html.
The text of the “Charter” can be found at http://www.earthcharterinaction.org/2000/10/the_earth_charter.html.
Though the Capabilities Approach is most closely identified in the fields of philosophy and political theory with Nussbaum’s work, it is more generally attributed to both Nussbaum and the economist Amartya Sen. In fact, the first major statement of the approach is found in Sen’s (1985) book, Commodities and Capabilities.
To the extent that Nussbaum pursues such a project, there is an analogy with Naess and Sessions, “Deep Ecology Platform,” which has been rather influential in environmental ethics. Naess and Sessions would not, I think, assert that principles such as that “the well-being and flourishing of human and nonhuman life on Earth have value in themselves” are free of metaphysical implications. However, they argue that individuals with diverse comprehensive metaphysical perspectives (coming, for example, out of Hindu, Buddhist, or Christian religious traditions and Spinozistic, Heideggerian, or Whiteheadian philosophical traditions) can support the platform. The platform is widely available, as, for example, at http://www.deepecology.org/platform.htm.
We might add “and epistemological issues,” but the difficulties in that area are precisely parallel to those under discussion and need not be discussed explicitly.
Whether or not one agrees with Rawls’s position on the issue, it must be admitted that he does exert considerable effort in explaining what “reasonableness” means in relation to his theory, and he explores the distinction between claims of reasonableness and claims of truth.
To assume so would be to fall into the kind of fallacious reasoning that Mill seems to have lapsed into when he claims in “Utilitarianism” that the only evidence for something being desirable is that it is in fact desired.
He states that later a consideration of “the law of nations” might require a different conception, but “for the time being” this one will be used.
Even if one does not adhere to contractualism as an adequate approach in political theory, one can recognize the merits of the original contract as a thought experiment that can help us overcome our unreflective acceptance of elements of the status quo as the invariable nature of things, so that we can begin to imagine what just institutions might be like. The requirement for using it in this provisional way is that we must in fact set aside our unreflective acceptance of what is and open ourselves to possible alternatives that may be more just. The function of the hypothetical contract might be looked upon as analogous to that of utopian literature. It is a means of subverting reified thinking, of liberating the imagination, and of creating one useful variation of the parallax view.
This refers only to traditional strategies such as consumer boycotts. Were consumers in very large numbers to shift their consumption from one system of economic production to another, their effective power as consumers would be seen to be enormous. However, they would then not be acting merely as consumers in a certain market sector but as active citizens and participants engaged in a political movement with a clearly focused and socially transformative goal.
Her depiction is shaped by the example she presents of mistreated circus animals. Presumably, the pursuit of these goals will not require benevolent humans to teach nocturnal animals to enjoy the light and marine animals to enjoy the air.
See Annie Dillard’s (1999) unexcelled depiction (and affirmation) of how the natural world operates in Chapter 10, “Fecundity,” of her classic work, The Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, pp. 161–183. Dillard concludes wisely that “it is true that many of the creatures live and die abominably, but I am not called upon to pass judgment” (p. 181).
References
Ackerman Bruce (1980) Social Justice and the Liberal State. Yale university Press, New Haven and London, p 11
Buber Martin (1958) Paths in Utopia. Beacon Press, Boston
Dillard Annie (1999) The Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. HarperCollins, New York, pp 161–183
Karatani Kojin (2005) “Toward Transcritical Counteractions,” in Transcritique: On Kant and Marx, Ch. 7. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA and London, pp 265–306
Melman Seymore (2001) After Capitalism: From Managerialism to Workplace Democracy. Knopf, New York
Rawls John (1971) A Theory of Justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, p 126
Sen Amartya (1985) Commodities and Capabilities. Oxford University Press, Oxford
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Martha C. Nussbaum, Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership (Cambridge, MA and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University, 2006), 487 pp. References to this work will be indicated through page numbers in parentheses in the text.
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Clark, J.P. Capabilities Theory and the Limits of Liberal Justice: On Nussbaum’s Frontiers of Justice . Hum Rights Rev 10, 583–604 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12142-008-0109-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12142-008-0109-8