How Nussbaum's Capabilities Approach Values the Environment: Extrinsically But as an End?

Jessica van Jaarsveld

Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 2021, vol. 22, issue 3, 468-485

Abstract: How Nussbaum’s capabilities approach engages with non-human nature is a topic of growing interest, though such work tends to focus on Nussbaum’s proposal to expand her approach to conceive of the flourishing of non-human animals. Less explored but still worth investigating is how her approach, insofar as it applies to humans, relates to the environment. I consequently ask, what kind of value does Nussbaum’s approach, as a conception of human flourishing, ascribe to the natural environment? Though widely assumed to value the natural environment instrumentally, I argue that it is instead plausible, and perhaps even more in keeping with certain commitments of the approach, to see it as valuing the environment extrinsically but as an end. I focus on Nussbaum’s eighth capability, “Other Species,” which refers to living with concern for and in relation to the world of nature, and argue that the value attributed to the environment by this capability may be extrinsically located, but should not be assumed to only be instrumental. By using Christine Korsgaard’s work on distinguishing between different kinds of valuing, I suggest a new way to understand how Nussbaum’s approach values the environment that has not been defended at length before.

Date: 2021
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DOI: 10.1080/19452829.2021.1879747

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