Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

A Capability Approach to Justice as a Virtue

  • Published:
Ethical Theory and Moral Practice Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In The Idea of Justice, Amartya Sen argues for an approach to justice that is comparative and realization-based rather than transcendental and institutional. While Sen’s arguments for such an approach may not be as convincing as he thought, there are additional arguments for it, and one is that it provides a unique and valuable platform on which an account of justice as a virtue of social and political actors (including institutions and social movements) can be built. Hence new dimensions of comparison are opened up: some actors are better disposed and more successful than others at leading social change in the direction of greater justice. The main objective of this article is to use the capability approach to construct such an account. Six dimensions of acting justly are identified: (1) reducing capability shortfalls; (2) expanding capabilities for all; (3) saving the worst-off as a first step towards their full participation in economy and society, (4) which is also to be promoted by a system of entitlements protecting all from social exclusion; while (5) supporting the empowerment of those whose capabilities are to expand; and (6) respecting ethical values and legitimate procedures. I conclude by sketching some underlying moral psychology.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Arguably there is a Rawlsian conception of the virtuous citizen, namely one who has and exercises the second moral power (reasonably seeking terms of cooperation acceptable to others), and who accepts the authority of public reason. However, Rawls did not discuss this explicitly as a virtue of acting justly.

  2. See Wood 1980. I wish to sidestep the debate about whether Marx rejected all concerns for justice. On this debate, see Geras 1989. Marx was clearly critical of some justice concerns, and these criticisms apply usefully to TI approaches to justice.

  3. Sen does not provide any reasons for this expectation. I have argued that the expectation of convergence is justifiable to the extent that public reasoning is guided by what I have called ‘responsible pluralism’. See Drydyk 2011.

  4. Sen’s primary concern in this regard is neither the interests over which one is impartial nor one’s ideas of impartiality should be restricted to those shared within a closed decision-making community (Sen 2009, 124–52).

  5. The same considerations apply to arguments based on historical responsibilities or indeed personal responsibilities. The insight here (which would need to be developed further) is that social actors who manage to reduce inequalities and to discharge these responsibilities exhibit greater justice that those who do not.

  6. On another interpretation, nemesis is one emotion among a cluster of four that jointly dispose a person to being pleased by deserved fortune and pained by the undeserved. Indignation is being pained by undeserved good fortune, while pity is being pained by undeserved bad fortune. There are no names for the two others: being pleased or unmoved by deserved bad fortune, and being pleased by deserved good fortune (Sokolon 2006, 147–50). For a somewhat different categorization of ‘desert-based emotions’ see Kristjánsson 2006, 88–103.

  7. Hamid Dabashi, ‘Bury Gaddafi with Dignity’, Aljazeera, October 22, 2011; ‘Gaddafi’s Death: Growing Revulsion at Treatment of the Dictator’s Body’, The Guardian, October 22, 2011; David D. Kirkpatrick, ‘Qaddafi’s Death Places Focus on Arab Spring’s “Hard Road”’, The New York Times, October 20, 2011.

References

  • Adams JS (1965) Inequity in social exchange. In: Berkowitz L (ed) Advances in experimental social psychology. Academic, New York, pp 267–299

    Google Scholar 

  • Alkire S (2008) Concepts and measures of agency. OPHI working paper series, working paper no. 9. Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, Oxford

  • Aristotle (1941) Nicomachean ethics. Trans. Ross WD. In: McKeon R (ed) The basic works of Aristotle. Random House, New York, pp 927–1112

    Google Scholar 

  • Arneson R (2006) Distributive justice and basic capability equality; “good enough” is not good enough. In: Kaufman A (ed) Capabilities equality; basic issues and problems. Routledge, New York, pp 15–43

    Google Scholar 

  • Bartky S (2002) “Sympathy and solidarity” and other essays. Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham MD and Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Blader SL, Tyler TR (2002) Justice and empathy: what motivates people to help others? In: Lerner M, Ross M, Miller D (eds) The justice motive in everyday life: essays in honor of Melvin J. Lerner. Cambridge University Press, New York, pp 226–250

  • Crocker D (2008) The ethics of global development: agency, capability, and deliberative democracy. Cambridge University Press, New York

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Crocker D, Robeyns I (2010) Capability and agency. In Morris C (ed) Amartya Sen. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 60–90

  • Curzer H (1995) Aristotle’s account of the virtue of justice. Apeiron 28:207–238

    Google Scholar 

  • De Cremer D, van den Bos K (2007) Justice and feelings: toward a new era in justice research. Soc Justice Res 20:1–9

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Deutsch M (1975) Equity, equality, and need: what determines which value will be used as the basis for distributive justice? J Soc Issues 31:137–149

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Doyal L, Gough I (1991) A theory of human need. Guilford Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Drydyk J (2008) Durable empowerment. J Global Ethics 4:231–245

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Drydyk J (2011) Responsible pluralism, capabilities, and human rights. J Hum Dev 12(1):39–61

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Estlund D (2011) The best and the rest: optimizing and comparing in theories of justice. Symposium on Amartya Sen’s The idea of justice, Rutgers University, April 15–16

  • Gaus G (2011) Social contract and social choice. Symposium on Amartya Sen’s The idea of justice, Rutgers University, April 15–16

  • Geras N (1989) The controversy about Marx and justice. In: Callinicos A (ed) Marxist theory. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 211–267

    Google Scholar 

  • Haidt J, Graham J (2007) When morality opposes justice: conservatives have moral intuitions that liberals may not recognize. Soc Justice Res 20:98–116

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hardie W (1968) Aristotle’s ethical theory. Oxford University Press, Oxford

  • Hoffman M (2000) Empathy and moral development: implications for caring and justice. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Ibrahim S, Alkire S (2007) Agency and empowerment: a proposal for internationally comparable indicators. Oxford Dev Stud 35:380–403

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kazemi A, Törnblom K (2008) Social psychology of justice: origins, central issues, recent developments, and future directions. Nordic Psych 60:209–234

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kraut R (2002) Aristotle: political philosophy. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Kristjánsson K (2006) Justice and desert-based emotions. Ashgate, Aldershot and Burlington VT

    Google Scholar 

  • Lerner M (1980) The belief in a just world. Plenum, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Lerner M, Clayton S (2011) Justice and self-interest: two fundamental motives. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Marx K (1875) Critique of the Gotha programme. In: Marx K, Engels F (eds) Selected works in one volume (1968). International Publishers, New York, pp 311–31

    Google Scholar 

  • Mill JS (1861) Considerations on Representative Government. Parker, son, and Bourn, London, http://openlibrary.org/books/OL14001765M/Considerations_on_representative_government

  • Mill JS (1863) Utilitarianism. Parker, son, and Bourn, London. http://openlibrary.org/books/OL7196800M/Utilitarianism

  • Montada L, Lerner M (1998) Responses to victimizations and a belief in a just world. Plenum, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Nussbaum M (1996) Compassion: the basic social emotion. Soc Phil Policy 13:27–58

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nussbaum M (1998) Cultivating humanity: a classical defense of reform in liberal education. Harvard University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Nussbaum M (2000) Women and human development; the capabilities approach. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Nussbaum M (2001) Upheavals of thought: the intelligence of the emotions. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Nussbaum M (2006) Frontiers of justice; disability, nationality, species membership. Harvard University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Rawls J (1951) Outline of a decision procedure for ethics. Phil Rev 60:177–197

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rawls J (1971) A theory of justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Rawls J (2001) Justice as fairness: a restatement. Harvard University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Robeyns I (2010) Amartya Sen’s Redundancy and priority claims in the idea of justice. Crooked timber (weblog, http://crookedtimber.org): April 29, 2010

  • Sen A (1992) Inequality reexamined. Harvard University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Sen A (1993) Capability and well-being. In: Nussbaum M, Sen A (eds) The quality of life. Oxford University Press, New York, pp 30–53

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Sen A (1999) Development as freedom. Knopf, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Sen A (2009) The idea of justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Slote M (2007) The ethics of care and empathy. Routledge, London and New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Sokolon M (2006) Political emotions: Aristotle and the symphony of reason and emotion. Northern Illinois University Press, Dekalb

    Google Scholar 

  • Thibaut J, Walker L (1975) Procedural justice. Erlbaum, Hillsdale NJ.

  • Tyler T (2001) Social justice. In: Brown R, Gaertner SL (eds) Blackwell handbook of social psychology: intergroup processes. Blackwell, Malden MA and Oxford, pp 344–63

    Google Scholar 

  • Urmson JO (1988) Aristotle’s ethics. Blackwell, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams B (1980) Justice as a virtue. In: Rorty A (ed) Essays on Aristotle’s ethics. University of California Press, Berkeley, pp 189–199

    Google Scholar 

  • Wood A (1980) The Marxian critique of justice. In: Cohen M, Nagel T, Scanlon T (eds) Marx, justice, and history. Princeton University Press, Princeton, pp 3–41

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada

    Jay Drydyk

Authors
  1. Jay Drydyk
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jay Drydyk.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Drydyk, J. A Capability Approach to Justice as a Virtue. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 15, 23–38 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-011-9327-2

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-011-9327-2

Keywords

Search

Navigation