The Social Background of Capabilities for Freedoms

Henry S. Richardson

Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 2007, vol. 8, issue 3, 389-414

Abstract: Martha Nussbaum has recently argued that “the language of capabilities … gives important precision and supplementation to the language of rights.” This claim raises the question whether the idea of capabilities, as she or as Amartya Sen has developed it, provides a basis for capturing or deriving basic liberties such as the liberty of employment or the freedom of movement. In this essay, I argue that the idea of capabilities is not useful in this way, because it cannot well capture the social, institutional, and deontic aspects of basic liberties. Sen's interpretation of capability is particularly limited in this regard, on account of its incorporation of the idea of dispositive freedom (the idea that someone's free choice will determine an outcome). While Nussbaum's interpretation of capability lacks that limitation, it lacks a way of modeling the kind of guaranteed social status of which basic liberties consist.

Keywords: Capabilities; Liberties; Freedom; Sen; Nussbaum (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14649880701462213 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:jhudca:v:8:y:2007:i:3:p:389-414

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/CJHD20

DOI: 10.1080/14649880701462213

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Human Development and Capabilities is currently edited by Kathryn Rosenblum

More articles in Journal of Human Development and Capabilities from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().