Nussbaum, The Capabilities Approach to Quality of Life
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Transcript of Nussbaum, The Capabilities Approach to Quality of Life
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Martha NussbaumThe “capabilities approach”
PHIL 102, UBCChristina HendricksSpring 2017
Except images licensed otherwise, this presentation is licensed CC BY 4.0
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Overall course theme: The examined life and why it matters
What is examined life?
Examined life -> happiness (self & others)
Examining lives as social beings: our responsibilities towards others
Plato (Socrates)
EpicureansMill
Thomson: sacrifice some for the sake of others?
Singer: focus on helping suffering all can agree is bad
Nussbaum: ensure that all have what need to live a life with human dignity.
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VasantiStarts her book Creating Capabilities: The Human Development Approach (2011) with the story of Vasanti
India 2011-07-18 at 07-24-24, Flickr photo by José Antonio Morcillo, licensed CC-BY
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Common approaches to considering quality of
life“Capabilities Human and Rights”
(1997)What do you think might be good ways to measure people’s quality of life around the
world?
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GNP or GDP (280-281)
Problems:
• Need to focus also on distribution
• Too narrow a measure of quality of life
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Utilitarian approaches based on preference satisfaction (281-283)
Problems: • Distribution again; focus on aggregate
rather than individuals• “adaptive preferences”—can reinforce
inequalities
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Distribution of basic rights and resources (283-284)
John Rawls: focus on distribution of basic rights & resources that all rational individuals would desire, so that even the least well off have a minimum level
Problem: Having the rights & resources is not enough; social circumstances differences in ability & opportunity to use them
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The capabilities approach
What Nussbaum advocates
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Basics of this approachAsks: what are people “actually able to do and to be?” (285)
There are certain capabilities that are required to live well/flourish as a human, to live a life with human dignity
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GroupsPlease discuss and write on the doc:
Start generating a list of things you think people should be able to do, what capacities they should have, to live a full human life.
http://is.gd/phil102nussbaum
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Nussbuam’s list of ten central capabilities (287-288)
Life
Bodily health
Emotions
Affiliation
Leisure/play
Other species
Bodily integrity
Practical reason
Senses, imagination, thought
Control over environment:
political & material
Connect to Vasanti’s story
Your views…?
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Capabilities vs. Functioning
Combined capabilities • Internal abilities: our own internal ability to act (289)• Social opportunities & freedoms to express those
internal abilities (290)
Functioning: “active realization of one or more capabilities” (Creating Capabilities book, p. 25 (not assigned))• See, e.g., p. 289 of our reading
Why is it important to focus on capabilities rather than functioning?
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How differs from utilitarianism?
Distribution: all must have these capabilities
Living a fully human life rather than focusing just on preferences or pleasures
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Capabilities and Human Rights
How might you explain the concept of “human rights”?
Any problems with considering quality of life in terms of human rights?
Eleanor Roosevelt & the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (1948); public domain on Wikimedia Commons
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Capabilities and Human Rights
• Nussbaum’s definition of human rights (292)
• We can clarify what “human rights” means by thinking of (many of) them as combined capabilities (293-294)
How better than rights/resources approach to
quality of life noted above?