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

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3. Clarifications 167 seeing a capability-based human rights theory as a capability theory, for which various theoretical additions and choices are possible, it becomes clear that more is needed than the mere reference to ‘capabilities’. Note also that we can, of course, ask the question the other way around — what is needed to make a capability theory? — and use the human rights framework as the theory of value that is used to make the selection of capabilities. This route has been developed by Polly Vizard, and has led to the “human rights based capability set” (Vizard 2006, 2007). Finally, we need to ask whether there are any disadvantages in using the capability approach to further our thinking, policy making and activism on human rights, and — ultimately — in letting a capabilities-based human rights theory compete with the existing human rights accounts. The first thing to note is that there is a long-standing human rights discourse that is used by activists all over the world, and often very effectively so. Clearly there are costs involved for these activists to become familiarized with the capability language. If the human rights discourse delivers to them what they need, why would we change it? Second, there is a worry about legitimacy. The current human rights declarations and treaties have been the result of actual political processes, and the treaties were drafted by a large number of people, drawn from all over the world. For the capability approach, this is different. Given the prominence of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum, and also the many publications that (wrongly) reduce the capability approach to the work by, primarily, Sen and Nussbaum, 30 the capability approach is much more associated with specific individuals. A capability-based human rights theory that is the work of one thinker can never have the political leverage that the existing human rights framework has. For the right, but cannot plausibly be conceptualized as a capability, since one does not have a choice to be discriminated against or not. However, not being discriminated against is a functioning, and it is a mistake to think that the capability approach holds that we should only focus on capabilities and never on functionings, as was argued in section 3.4. 30 Unfortunately, Nussbaum’s (2011c) account of the capability approach only adds to that reductive and misleading portrayal of the capability literature (Robeyns 2011, 2016b; Unterhalter 2013).
168 Wellbeing, Freedom and Social Justice various practices in which human rights are used (creating laws, making policy and activism) a capability-based human rights framework can therefore never replace the existing human rights framework. However, there is, of course, a more fruitful relationship possible, and that is to see the two frameworks as complementary rather than competitive (Nussbaum 2011a). Note, however, that any merging of the two frameworks has to be between a particular capability theory and human rights thinking, rather than between the general capability approach and human rights thinking. 31 A good example of such practical work is the UK’s Equality and Human Rights Framework. Tania Burchardt and Polly Vizard (2011) used insights from both the capability approach and the existing work on human rights to create a framework that is used for the monitoring undertaken by the Equality and Human Rights Commission in order to meet its legal mandate. 32 The aim of this chapter has been to deepen our understanding of the capability approach, by analysing some questions of clarification that are often posed, and by reconstructing and synthesizing some developments that have taken place in the capability literature over time. The next chapter will focus on a range of critiques that have been put to the capability approach. Of course, it is not always entirely clear whether a certain question or debate is purely a matter of clarification, or rather a matter of debate and dispute; put differently, there is no neat demarcation between the main focus of this chapter and that of the next. Still, in this chapter I have tried to be as neutral and even-handed as possible in describing the literature, whereas in the next chapter I will take a more active role in arguing for or against certain views or claims. 31 Hence, when Nussbaum (2011a, 24) writes “the CA is a type of human rights approach”, we should read this as “Martha Nussbaum’s capability theory is a type of human rights approach”. Many other capability theories are, evidently, not human rights approaches, and hence the capability approach, as the overarching framework, cannot be either. 32 See https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en
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Contents Acknowledgements 3 1. Intr
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3. Clarifications 89 3.1 Introducti
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4.7 What about power and political
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Acknowledgements In 1998, when I st
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Acknowledgements 5 the capability a
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1. Introduction Many people who en
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1. Introduction 9 capability approa
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1. Introduction 11 Moreover, it bri
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1. Introduction 13 Countries Outsi
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1. Introduction 15 capabilities of
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1. Introduction 17 their collaborat
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1. Introduction 19 This book has a
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