Collectivist Capabilitarianism

Claudio D’Amato

Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 2020, vol. 21, issue 2, 105-120

Abstract: The individualistic features of the capability approach (CA) have been thoroughly analysed in recent literature. While many authors have been critical of a perceived methodological bias, little attention has been given to the supposedly non-optional ethical individualism that lies at the liberal heart of the approach. This paper proposes to relegate ethical individualism to optional status and to bolster the approach with an extremely thin and minimally normative ethical relativism, based on the work of Michael Walzer on ethical objectivity. This new version of the approach, which I call collectivist capabilitarianism, allows capabilitarian theorising in explicitly non-liberal socio-political contexts. Currently the CA is burdened by a conception of the Good that unnecessarily singles out the individual person as the exclusive locus of ultimate moral worth. The inclusion of collectives as also inherently morally worthy, along with the weakening of egalitarian and universalist moral constraints in favour of a moderately relativistic ethic, yields a more malleable, pragmatic, and culturally respectful approach whose character is still distinctly capabilitarian.

Date: 2020
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DOI: 10.1080/19452829.2020.1732887

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