Wellbeing, Freedom and Social Justice The Capability Approach Re-Examined, 2017a

3. Clarifications
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In the previous section I gave a very brief account of the philosophical
literature on theories of justice. What contribution can the capability
approach make to this field? The first thing to note is that Martha
Nussbaum has written at great length developing a capabilities theory
of justice (e.g. Nussbaum 1988, 1992, Nussbaum 2000, 2002a; Nussbaum
2006b). Her capabilities theory is the most detailed capability theory of
justice that has been developed up till now. Her theory is comprehensive,
in the sense that it is not limited to an account of political justice, or to
liberal democracies. Her account holds for all human beings on earth,
independently of whether they are living in a liberal democratic regime,
or of whether they are severely disabled. However, Nussbaum’s theory
of social justice doesn’t amount to a full theory of social justice. The
main demarcation of Nussbaum’s account is that it provides only “a
partial and minimal account of social justice” (Nussbaum 2006b, 71)
by specifying thresholds of a list of capabilities that governments in all
nations should guarantee to their citizens. Nussbaum’s theory focuses
on thresholds, but this does not imply that reaching these thresholds is
all that matters for social justice; rather, her theory is partial and simply
doesn’t discuss the question of what social justice requires once those
thresholds are met. Not discussing certain things is not necessarily a
flaw of a theory: this may be theoretical work that Nussbaum will do
in the future, or it may be work that will be done by other scholars.
Moreover, it is quite possible that Nussbaum’s account of partial justice
is consistent with several accounts of what justice requires above the
thresholds.
Yet, while Nussbaum’s theory of justice has been worked out in
great detail and has received a lot of attention, it would be a grave
mistake to think that there can be only one capability theory of justice.
On the contrary, the open nature of the capability framework allows
for the development of a family of capability theories of justice. This
then prompts the question: what is needed if we want to create such a
capability theory of justice? 22
22 I have presented this overview of steps that need to be taken in earlier publications
(e.g. Robeyns 2016d).