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

3. Clarifications
157
2010; Pogge 2008). The point is rather that philosophical puzzles, such
as the issue of expensive tastes (for expensive wine, caviar, fast cars, or
you name it), are simply beyond the radar of the child labourer or the
poor peasant. However, while this may perhaps justify the absence of
any discussion about personal responsibility among capability scholars
concerned with poverty, it does not absolve theorists of justice who deal
with justice in affluent societies (or affluent sections of poor societies)
from discussing the just division between personal and collective
responsibility (Pierik and Robeyns 2007, 148–49).
This brings us to a related issue: a theory of justice generally specifies
rights, but also duties. However, capability theorists have remained
largely silent on the question of whose duty it is to expand the selected
capabilities. Nussbaum passionately advocates that all people all over
the world should be entitled, as a matter of justice, to threshold levels
of all the capabilities on her list, but apart from mentioning that it is the
governments’ duty to guarantee these entitlements (Nussbaum 2006b,
70), she remains silent on the question of who precisely should bear
the burdens and responsibilities for realizing these capabilities. Yet as
Onora O’Neill (1996, 122–53) has argued, questions of obligations and
responsibilities should be central to any account of justice.
This section makes clear that a capability theory of justice is
theoretically much more demanding than the basic presupposition of
the capability approach that ‘functionings’ and ‘capabilities’ are the
best metric for most kinds of interpersonal evaluations. While much has
been written on the capability approach in recent years by an increasing
number of scholars, including philosophers, much of the philosophical
work needed for turning the open-ended capability approach into a
specific theory of justice remains to be done.
Note, however, that not all capability theorists working on issues
of justice believe that such a fully worked-out theory is required. Sen
(2009c) himself has argued at length that we don’t need a theory that
describes a utopian ideal, but rather we need theorising to help us with
making comparisons of injustice, and to guide us towards a less unjust
society. Similarly, Jay Drydyk (2012) has argued that the capability
approach to justice should focus on reducing capability shortfalls, for
which a utopian account of perfect justice is not needed. Some capability
theorists may want to work out a full theory of justice by addressing the