Nussbaum Chapters 2 and 3 - Questions

Chapter 2

a) Nussbaum states that the reason for her preferring the capabilities approach over the
human development one is that she is “concerned with the capabilities of nonhuman animals
as well as human beings.” (p.18) which, in and of itself is barely self-explanatory. What she
means by this however, is two things: First, that the human development approach doesn’t
take into account any other animals that aren’t human, which the capabilities approach does,
and second, that the capability approach is inherently linked to the organism of the Human
Development Report Office of the UN.

b) As to Kant, Nussbaum directly quotes his categorical imperative by saying that “the
approach takes each person as an end” (p.18), a direct comparison to Kant’s idea. With this,
she is stating that the capabilities approach is mainly Kantian in nature. As to utilitarianism
and Rawlsian approaches, she deems the capabilities approach superior, the reason for
which can be assumed to be that it takes into account every person’s necessities and
desires equally unlike the previous two systems are designed to.

c) This question is directly responded to by the author with the following phrase: “What are
capabilities? They are the answers to the question, What is this person able to do and to
be?” (p. 20). To put it simply, what Nussbaum means is that capabilities are the possibilities
and open doors people have in their lives, in a certain way it is measuring their liberty to live
comfortable and prosperous lives. This is exemplified later with some of the core capabilities
Nussbaum proposes, which demonstrates what she deems people should be able to do and
to be.

d) The core difference at the heart of this distinction is, to put it simply, that internal
capabilities depend only on one’s own abilities and characteristics, which may change over
time, while combined capabilities depend not only on oneself but also on the “political, social,
and economic environment” (p. 20) of that person. For Nussbaum, these capabilities must
be distinguished between because, in her own words “A society might do quite well at
producing internal capabilities but might cut off the avenues through which people actually
have the opportunity to function in accordance with those capabilities” (p. 21), simply put,
that a society with good personal development avenues doesn’t necessarily have a decent
political environment in which one may actually use them.

e) Rabindranath Tagore, who Nussbaum directly quotes as one of the influences that shaped
the capabilities approach (“the approach is influenced by philosophical views that focus on
human flourishing or self-realization, from Aristotle to John Stuart Mill in the West and
Rabindranath Tagore in India” (p. 23)), was a bengali poet, writer and philosopher. He was
centered mostly in metaphysics and anthropology, and commonly spoke about the “abilities”
that humans had and how that provides them with freedom, from where it is easy to draw a
parallel with Nussabum’s capabilities and views on freedom.

f) Nussbaum herself says that the main issue and danger of basic capabilities is that the
concept itself “must be used with much caution, since we can easily imagine a theory that
would hold that people’s political and social entitlements should be proportional to their
innate intelligence or skill” (p. 24). Simply put, what she is saying is that capabilities shouldn’t
in any way depend on the characteristics of the person that harnesses them, and that the
main challenge is imagining a system in which everyone truly has the same capabilities to
their disposal.

g) The description given of functionings in relation to capabilities is that “a functioning is an

active realization of one or more capabilities.” (p. 24-25). In short, capabilities are distinct
from functionings simply because the latter depends on the former, being the actual applied
value of the capabilities that a person has. One cannot reach functionings if they don’t have
certain capabilities before.

h) Since human dignity is in itself a controversial a very debated topic, Nussbaum tries to
answer where its place inside the capabilities theory lies thoroughly throughout the book. A
concise answer to this can be found in the following quote: “Some living conditions deliver to
people a life that is worthy of the human dignity that they possess, and others do not” (p. 30).
It can be easily inferred from this that the capabilities that allow for dignity are those that
provide those living conditions that are necessary for this.

i) Nussbaum directly responds to the question by saying that “at a bare minimum, an ample
threshold level of ten Central Capabilities is required” (p. 32). Dissecting this phrase, one
can understand that what Nussbaum believes is that first of all, to achieve dignity one must
outline a threshold in which everyone’s integrity is protected, and that this must be done by
selecting a number of ten or higher central capabilities that mark this threshold. She later
goes on to describe what these ten core capabilities should, in her opinion, be.

j) In my opinion, the ten central capabilities that Nussbaum proposes do in a broad way
cover the threshold that she believes necessary for a life in which humans may have dignity,
and it does a specifically good job not only at outlining those capabilities which are obvious
and simply biological in nature (ones like capabilities one, two and three), but also those that
are more related to political and social wellbeing inside a society. There are, however,
criticisms to be made, such as the fact that this list is drawn out from a Western, social
democratic point of view and as such some of the more political-related capabilities reflect
only that way of life, or that narrowing it down to simply ten capabilities may be too little and
there shouldn’t be a hard cap on how many core capabilities there should be. Overall,
however, it does serve its purpose and it has very concise and logical ideas.

k) The ones that are more related to physical wellbeing are easy to extrapolate to other
animals, as their needs would fundamentally be the same as ours. Since obviously animals
aren’t able to participate in politics or in human society, or necessarily even have practical
reason, those capabilities wouldn’t apply to them, but many other more abstract ones like
Capability #9: Fun and Capability #7: Affiliation could apply to them, albeit in much less
sophisticated ways. That being said, Capability #8, Other Species, which Nussbaum
describes as “Being able to live with concern for and in relation to animals, plants, and the
world of nature” (p. 33), is designed specifically for the needs and wants of other species to
be met and as such make them not require another special list of capabilities.
l) The “tragic choice” is a situation in which one person may need to decide between two
options, choosing one and sacrificing the other even if both would be important. In the
context of capabilities, Nussbaum exemplifies it again with the Vasanti situation: “For
example, poor parents in Vasanti’s state may feel that they need to keep their children out of
school in order to survive at all, since they need the wages from the child’s labor to eke out
an existence” (p. 36-37). In this situation, those parents would be sacrificing the capability for
their children to go to school so that they all can meet Core Capability #1: Life. While Sen
argues that in cases like this, no choice would be better than the other, Nussbaum argues
that while these situations should not occur, it would be possible to determine which choice
would be the better one.

m) Nussbaum’s idea of the threshold is that it “specifies a rather ample social minimum” (p.
40) in relation to capabilities. For Nussbaum, the concept of a threshold is something that
even she has many questions about, however her conclusion appears to be that the
threshold should be “aspirational but not utopian” (p. 43), meaning that it should be ample
enough to allow for good living, but not hard enough to achieve that it becomes impossible.
The question of universality between nations is also something she ponders a lot, arguing
that while idyllically, it would be better if this threshold became universal, the allocation of
resources needed for it would depend on richer countries giving off resources to poorer
countries, giving those rich countries a level of decision-making which could be dictatorial
and dangerous. While I do believe that it should be universal, the problems related to its
implementation are real and, in a case where making the threshold universal would lead to
bigger political inequality, it should be weighed upon very carefully.

Chapter 3

The Big Questions:

a) A decent quality of life, is, according to Nussbaum, “what people in every nation are
striving for” (p. 46), with that meaning the way of life and the minimum conditions that should
be upheld for people to be content with their lives. This question has already been tackled
throughout the past two chapters, and one could argue that a decent quality of life is that
which completely meets the ten core capabilities that are proposed by Nussbaum, leading to
bodily integrity, political equality and freedom.

b) For most people, a decent life is one in which they can pursue their goals without worrying
about their basic political and physical needs being met, and as such that is the threshold
that needs to be passed for that decent quality of life to be met. This is why, in the last
question, I proposed the ten core capabilities as the necessary threshold that needs to be
met.

c) What Nussbaum argues is that development economics have become that paradigm that
measures and influences the decisions taking by those in political positions to strive for that
decent quality of life, turning it into the main paradigm through which this is measured.
Nussbaum directly says that “Indeed, the ways of thinking that they embody are used
whenever nations plan to improve their quality of life, or maintain that they have done so” (p.
46). What this means is that, inherently these forms of measurement (influenced by
development economics) are what decides what a decent life is or isn’t, and as such it is the
dominant paradigm for that measurement.

d) The phrase itself, “real opportunity”, implies that it must be reasonably attainable and
achievable, thus making it real. Opportunities which are incredibly rare and unpredictable
would not count. We all have the “opportunity” to win the lottery, for example, but that doesn’t
mean it’s a viable one and, most importantly, you could spend your whole life spending
money on lottery tickets and not win it once. Real opportunities are those that could be
achieved with almost complete security if one strives for it.

e) In some cases, certain rights are enough to achieve this (justice-related rights, the right to
trials and presumption of innocence and so on), however in others this is not enough and
there needs to be a tangible support for people to achieve these capabilities. The simplest
one, Core Capability #1: Life, requires not only the right to public healthcare for everyone but
also the infrastructure necessary for it and the workers and science/technology that supports
it. In many cases, just declaring people have the right or opportunity for something does not
mean it is truly achievable.

The GDP Approach:

a) GDP stands for “Gross Domestic Product”, which is exactly what it measures – that being
the amount of monetary value that is attributed to a country. The GDP per capita is the GDP
distributed equally between the number of population (without accounting for the actual
economic disparity between inhabitants). Nussbaum herself says that “For many years, the
reigning model in development economics measured the progress of a country by looking at
economic growth as measured by GDP per capita” (p. 47), which means that, simply put, the
growth in GDP has many times been viewed as a country’s total development.

b) There are multiple problems that Nussbaum can view in the GDP approach. Her main
issue seems to be that “the comparative studies of Indian states carried out by Jean Drèze
and Amartya Sen [...] have shown that increased economic growth does not automatically
improve quality of life in important areas such as health and education” (p. 47), basically
meaning that the GDP only measures economic growth but not any other kind of
development, unlike other measurement systems like the HDI which Nussbaum herself
references when talking about the United States: “the United States, for example, slips from
number 1 in GDP to number 12 in the HDI, and it is even lower on other specific capabilities”
(p. 48). Another issue is that the GDP isn’t even an obvious way to measure development in
relation to economics, and for example measuring the “average real household income
seems more pertinent to people’s actual living standard” (p. 48), which is important to
consider because it would take into account economic disparity. The third and final issue is
that it’s far too simplified, “suggesting that a single number will tell us all we need to know
about quality of life” (p. 49). Apart from being a simple average, it is also one that doesn’t
truly represent anything but how much money the government has at its disposal.
The Utilitarian Approach:

a) For Nussbaum, one of the main issues of this approach is the fact that the “pleasure” that
this approach wants to achieve is not necessarily universal, much less unchangeable, and is
in fact malleable by society. To quote Nussbaum directly: “When society has put some things
out of reach for some people, they typically learn not to want those things; they form what
Elster and Sen call adaptive preferences.” (p. 54). Fundamentally, what this means is that
many times people won’t report any sort of dissatisfaction because they don’t strive for their
living condition to become better even if it very well could. These adaptive preferences are
dangerous, and are a clear issue with this approach.

b) In Nussbaum’s own words, “, the utilitarian approach undervalues freedom” (p. 55). This
concern is extremely important because it’s easy to understand exactly why – an approach
that’s measured in satisfaction only takes into account the perception of said satisfaction by
people and not any of the external forces in that person’s life. With the example of the
experience machine, given by Nussbaum in the book, one can easily see how this sort of
approach could be problematic; yes, one may indeed be satisfied with their life, but not at all
free, not providing a clear idea for how people’s life could potentially improve.

Resource-Based Approaches:

a) For this approach, there are various challenges it may face. The idea behind the
approach, the equalitarian distribution of resources, does have its merits, however again like
with the GDP one of the main issues is that the distribution of resources, specifically on
economical terms, does not correctly represent wellbeing. Nussbaum says that “People have
differing needs for resources if they are to attain a similar level of functioning, and they also
have different abilities to convert resources into functionings” (p. 57), which is a clever
observation that must be thought about heavily, because it implies that even if resources are
distributed equally, not everyone’s needs are equally met (Nussbaum puts the example of a
child that needs more protein based food than an adult, for example). This does, in short,
make it so that there isn’t truly a threshold in which everyone’s needs are meant, but more
so a threshold that may exclude some whose needs are more expensive than the majority of
the population.

Capabilities and the Measurement Question:

a) Nussbaum proposes an issue with all measuring systems in and of themselves by saying
that “People tend to succumb to what might be called “the fallacy of measurement”; that is,
noting that a certain thing (let’s say GDP) is easy to measure, they become convinced that
this thing is the most pertinent or the most central thing” (p. 60). What she ultimately means
by this is, all measurement systems are designed to be simple, however that doesn’t mean
they are necessarily as important as, in this case, measuring the capabilities available in a
country. Nussbaum does argue that there should be a measuring system for capabilities, but
it doesn’t necessarily need to be numerical. The court system in most democratic countries
could be considered a measuring system of whether something meets the threshold of
what’s legal or not, which would be a much more accurate way of measuring this.
b) Nussbaum herself says that “ If we thought that a numerical scale would have been
helpful in cases involving the freedom of speech, or the freedom of religion, we would
probably have used one. Instead, the discursive form of analysis that has evolved seems
appropriate for at least some questions involving a threshold level of a fundamental
entitlement” (p. 62). This is a very logical way of thinking, the idea that measuring something
through a threshold is necessary in cases like this because it provides an idea of whether
something is being met or not. I do believe that, in these cases, this sort of measurement is
needed, however the implementation of one is a complicated issue to tackle. One could
argue for a democratic election of these sort of policies, which is practically how it’s done
today, however the identification of the policies themselves seems like a complicated issue
to decide upon – still, the democratic option seems like the best one available.

Human Rights Approaches

a) Human rights, in many ways, seek to meet the definition of human dignity given in the last
chapter – that is, the protection of people’s individual liberties and agency over themselves
and their environment. To quote Nussbaum, she says that “The common ground between
the Capabilities Approach and human rights approaches lies in the idea that all people have
some core entitlements just by virtue of their humanity” (p. 62), herself saying that human
rights defend the entitlements people have because of their humanity alone, something very
closely related to that definition of dignity.

b) Of course, there should be a basic standard of human rights that provides everyone a
comfortable and decent life standard, however the upholding of these rights can prove
complicated at times. Declarations and laws are effective but only if they are enforced and if
the people that decide them truly care about the well-being of other people (democracy is a
clear solution to this last issue). According to upholding a global and fundamental rights,
Nussbaum says that “Domestically, those duties belong in the first instance to the nation’s
basic political structure, which is responsible for distributing to all citizens an adequate
threshold amount of all entitlements. But poor nations cannot meet all their capability
obligations without aid from richer nations. Richer nations consequently have such
duties of aid.”. (p. 63-64). Simply put, she advocates for richer nations to help poorer
countries meet those rights when the poor nation itself isn’t able to.

c) Nussbaum brings up an example related to this question: “Nehru’s law minister B. R.

Ambedkar, himself a dalit (formerly called “untouchable”), repeatedly pointed out that the
assertion of equal rights meant nothing for the excluded unless accompanied by a range of
positive state programs to ensure that they could enjoy their rights”. (p. 66). This serves as a
perfect ground through which to explain the difference between positive and negative rights:
Negative rights are those that defend people against certain issues (the right not to starve,
not to be murdered), while positive rights are those that benefit people in order to get them to
a better situation (the right to three meals a day, for example.