Ethos Issue 3, Oct 2007

Poverty, Capabilities and Social Justice
Interview with Martha C. Nussbaum

The renowned social philosopher discusses her concept of essential human capabilities, and their implications for dealing with poverty and social development.

You have developed the concept of a set of essential human capabilities: how might this approach help us to gain fresh insight into the problem of poverty?
My work is concerned with describing a minimum threshold conception of justice, in terms of a set of fundamental entitlements without which no society can lay claim to basic justice. I formulate this list of entitlements in terms of a set of “capabilities,” or opportunities for functioning, in 10 central areas.

What I mean by essential capabilities is the combination of internal formation with external possibility. Thus, for the capability involved in the freedom of speech, we need an adequate system of education (internal formation) and then suitable political conditions favourable to actual free speech, the latter being supplied by protective laws.

Some of these capabilities, like the entitlement to freedom of religion, are not usually understood to be related to poverty; some, such as the entitlement to healthcare and housing, are closely related to poverty as traditionally conceived.

What is important to me, however, is that each of these is a separate item: they are not commensurable with one another. Many accounts of poverty ignore the plurality of value and convey the illusion that if people have enough of one thing (for example, wealth and income), they are then all right. Of course, this may not be the case.

All of these capabilities have a material foundation: thus someone too poor to go to school will not have the freedom of speech in a full way. But the traditional account of poverty is too unilinear and too narrow. The theory that a rising tide lifts all boats is simply not empirically true. Dreze and Sen,¹ in their field studies of the different Indian states, have shown that the pursuit of economic growth does not translate into improvements in healthcare and education.

The whole point of the capabilities approach was to conceive of the whole topic of human empowerment in radically different terms. People might be reasonably well off in terms of wealth and income, but deeply lacking in other areas fundamental to a dignified human life, such as political rights and liberties. And it is also true that two people might have equal amounts of wealth and income but be very differently placed in their ability to function in society because of entrenched social prejudice and inequality.

What are the implications of these capabilities on social mobility?
There are many different implications. One cannot rise in society if one has no healthcare, and education is of the very most central importance to social mobility. Women all over the world lack employment opportunities and political voice because of their differential access to healthcare and education. Political participation is also, of course, very central to changing one’s living conditions, as the success of the panchayat system in rural India has shown: the rural poor now have a powerful political voice, and it is clear that it was they who determined the 2004 election. Another capability that is very important to social mobility is the freedom of speech: people who are not allowed to express themselves freely have no opportunity to challenge the society in which they live and to try to secure one that reflects their aspirations better. As for bodily integrity, it is extremely difficult to aspire and to move up in society if one is being beaten up at night at home.

To what extent are governments responsible for—and capable of—ensuring that all their citizens can exercise the essential capabilities, in order to ensure their own development?
In my conception, government is responsible for minimal social justice, and that is a very traditional conception of government. The capabilities on my list are only the ones that, I would argue, form part of a minimal conception of a decently just society.² There are, of course, many other capabilities that are of interest to people in their lives, but these will be determined by their own comprehensive conceptions of value, religious or secular.

That is where the role of government leaves off: if my religious conception tells me to pursue virtue in a certain way, government should not be assisting me, beyond giving me the basic wherewithal of a decent human life that it also gives to all others; it is not the business of government to pursue Christian virtue, atheist virtue, or Buddhist virtue. That is for the citizens themselves to do, once they have basic education, healthcare, employment opportunities, freedom of speech and religion, and so forth.

Governments should respect all citizens as equals, and that includes citizens with mental and physical disabilities, who are often not treated as equals. For instance, if a claim is made that we cannot afford to educate children with disabilities, then we can reply, as a US court did, that the inefficiencies of the school system (which had spent its money unwisely) cannot be permitted to bear more heavily on one group of children than on another.

Page 1 I 2 I 3