The idea that every society ought to ensure each of its citizens an adequate standard of living is widely accepted. Martha Nussbaum has argued that such a standard should be understood as a set of capabilities adequate for a life of human dignity, an ample minimum that can be ascertained through public reasoning in each society.In this chapter the author shows why public reasoning about capabilities can be expected to support a higher standard that is optimal rather than minimal: the highest capability levels that could be sustained for everyone by the productive capacity of their society. The argument rests on a conception of equal dignity among human beings striving to live well, each in his or her own way. The first and most urgent step towards reaching this social optimum consists, at a lower level, in overcoming hardships.

Mahbub ul Haq’s sustainable human development (SHD) paradigm and Amartya Sen’s capability approach (CA) are both inclusive views inasmuch as they are articulated in such a way as to be compatible with certain other views. The CA is one of a range of perspectives compatible with the SHD. There is a tension between an ‘exclusive’ reading of the CA (which suggests that capability and functioning should be the only objects of informational focus) and the inclusion of ‘income’ as a ‘choice’ in the SHD. Attempts have been made to defuse the tension and to merge the two views into one ‘human development and capability approach’. There are risks that, in such a merger, (a) the SHD becomes associated with a specific perspective that is, arguably, hard to ‘operationalize’ and (b) the SHD can no longer ground coalitions, or consensus about indicators of progress across views as diverse as the CA and utilitarian perspectives focusing on the quality of human lives. While ‘inclusive’ interpretations of the CA can minimize the first risk, the capacity to ground coalitions and consensus is central to the inclusiveness of Haq’s SHD and to his legacy, and this chapter argue in its defence.

This chapter makes the case for a greater inclusion of emotional factors in the CA, arguing that including an emotional dimension does not exclude rational calculation, but can be incorporated into a mixed approach. The mixture will be influenced by the context of the research; some contexts will appear to be less ‘emotional’ than others, but emotional aspects cannot be excluded from any CA research context. The argument is developed to identify five ways in which emotions may enter into CA research, ranging from being an independent influence, through positive and negative influences on capability development and expression as functionings. Moving towards social expressions in the CA, the chapter then explores how all human communication has an emotional element and how power relationships have an essential emotional dimension, and are fundamentally disempowering for many people. This disempowerment may manifest itself in negative emotions rather than rationally justifiable actions of resistance, leading to the need to question the assumption of public policies as benign, no matter how well intentioned, if the targets of these policies have had their rational agency denied.

Advances in technology have opened up new opportunities for people to live in different ways. Human creativity is one of the most important causes of changes of this kind. Flourishing probably requires space for people to be creative (in a broad sense) and to benefit from (and rejoice in) the creativity of others. But creativity is often destructive, as Joseph Schumpeter famously noted, destroying value as well as creating it. That change will take place is predictable, but the direction of the change and how rapid it will be are things that probably cannot be known ex ante. Predictions made 50 years ago about what life would be like today are not noted for their accuracy. More recently, the uses of social media have gone beyond what the developers of the technology could foresee. In a world of increasing and unpredictable technological change, what will a life that we have reason to value look like?

In recent years the relationship of the capability approach (CA) to non-Western, especially indigenous, theories has ignited a growing literature. This offers a unique space to expand considerations of environmental justice, to frame intercultural public policies on issues of self-determination or valuations of the natural world and to study the CAs philosophical foundations. This chapter contributes to the literature, engaging current trends in Latin America and focusing on discussions around the idea of buen vivir (BV) and the contributions these make to exploring collective and environmental issues. The BV framework emerges from the regions indigenous philosophies and focuses on a harmonic understanding of the life cycle. The chapter uses two further indigenous notions, ayllu (community) and Pachamama (Mother Earth), that highlight the relational ontology underpinning BV. Through analysis of this epistemological framework, the chapter revisits some of the normative foundational challenges in the CA, reminding us of the importance of providing social and collective spaces to reflect on the ethical value that non-human others and nature have for discussions of development.

The headline aim of the UK governments ten-year strategy for work, health and disability is to have 1 million more disabled people in work by 2027. Good work can be health-enhancing, so there is a prima facie case for encouraging those with chronic health conditions and disabilities to work. The use of assistive technology could help improve their ability to work. However, disabled individuals may have greater difficulty in both accessing good work and having opportunities to improve their health. The concern is that disabled people who remain unable to work may find themselves stigmatized (as freeloaders), though their inability to work may be due to their greater difficulty in achieving sufficient health, or the medical assessment process, or both. These multidimensional barriers should be reflected in the strategys implementation, and valuing the agency of disabled people - respecting their choices in relation to working or not (and not blaming them if they choose not to work) - would increase their health more than the current strategy. The chapter suggests that the headline aim should really be to give 1 million more disabled people the opportunity to work by 2027.

The authors of this chapter conceptualize the “three-failures” perspective in nonprofit-sector theorizing. They then propose the sectoral advantage framework, which revises and generalizes the three-failures approach. The revised framework offers a set of questions and a way of thinking about and interpreting diverse puzzles in the field. The framework uses consistent definitions and criteria so that it can be applied to a broad range of institutions, cultures, and historical periods. The authors develop three themes within the framework: First, they add the family sector and consider its comparative advantages, failures, and activities. Second, they generalize government failure to make it more comprehensive and applicable outside Western democracies. Third, they suggest the capability approach should be incorporated in the determination of sectoral advantages.

Drawing on Putnam’s famous fact–value entanglement argument, Chapter 7 shows how economics is inescapably value-entangled, and argues that while economics is an inherently value-laden discipline it may still be an objective one. It describes economics’ value structure as being anchored by its main normative ideal shared across different approaches, individual realization – what most people in the discipline believe is most valuable and good about human society and characteristic of human nature. It compares two competing interpretations of what that ideal involves – one in mainstream economics and one in capability economics – distinguishing them according to the different additional values regarding what well-being involves, they adopt to give content to the individual realization ideal. It then evaluates these two approaches according to whether their different value structures are consistent – an analysis I characterize as value disentanglement. After this, the chapter turns to a general framework for ethics and economics – or ethics in economics – distinguishes four different forms of disciplinary relationships between economics and ethics, and argues that while cross-disciplinarity best describes the current status of economics and ethics, transdisciplinarity represents an aspirational conception of what an objective, value-laden economics ultimately requires.

The chapter discusses influential justificatory theories of human rights and critically assesses their merits. These include sociological theories of human rights (Luhmann), the economic analysis of rights, behavioral law and economics, utilitarian theories of rights, discourse theory (Habermas, Forst, Günther, Wingert), social contract theory (e.g. Rawls, Scanlon), theories that base human rights on human agency, need or interests (Griffin, Tasioulas), the capability approach (Sen, Nussbaum), political conceptions inspired by Rawls’ thought (Beitz) and the eudemonistic approach interpreting human rights as expressions of dignity and authenticity and a life lived well (Dworkin). As a result, it concludes that a theory of human rights has to include the following three elements: first, a theory of human goods that specifies what human rights legitimately aim to protect; second, a political theory of why human rights secure these goods for individuals in human societies; and third, normative principles that determine the normative yardstick for the protection of human goods by human rights in human societies.

The capability approach is widely considered to be a promising alternative to welfarist approaches in welfare economics. Indeed, prominent criticism of the informational basis of utilitarianism and resource-based approaches in welfare economics and political philosophy stand at the origins of the approach. What is not straightforward is whether the capability approach can indeed overcome the problems that motivated its origins. This chapter discusses the latter issue, covering the intrinsic importance of freedom, issues of preference adaptation and the neglect of diversity linked to paternalism. Drawing both on the wide diversity of the literature on capabilities and on the axiomatic literature on freedom rankings, we show that the characteristic features of the capability approach are not enough to respect these three criteria together. We conclude that any promising non-welfarist approach will require further scrutiny of the conceptualisation of freedom, and the modalities of application of value pluralism.

After reviewing how Sen’s and Nussbaum’s works have incorporated religion in the capability approach through religious narratives and teachings, the chapter furthers this engagement by exploring the contribution of specific religious narratives and teachings to public reasoning and capability expansion. It does so in reference to the Catholic tradition and the global socio-ecological crisis. The chapter is divided into three sections. The first section overviews how religion has been addressed in the capability approach literature. Religion, or relation with a higher source of being, has been considered a relevant dimension of well-being, an important source of agency, and an influence in the formation of people’s values. The second section introduces the relational anthropological dimension of the capability approach. It discusses how the Christian narrative of the parable of The Sower can enhance the universal reach of the capability approach and expand its notion of relationships. The third section highlights the connection between individual choices and social structures, as well as the need for motivational attitudes for transforming and removing injustices. It does so through the religious contribution of the latest social teaching of the Catholic tradition, the papal encyclical Laudato Si’: On the Care of our Common Home.

Capability theorists disagree on how to determine, for normative purposes, which capabilities are to be treated as basic, with Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen taking opposite views. This chapter will scrutinize this list debate. It has two aims. First, it argues that some distinction between basic and non-basic capabilities is an inherent commitment of capability theories, but that there are many more options for responding to the capability-selection problem than a procedure of democratic deliberation (Sen) or a philosophical criterion of neo-Aristotelian flourishing (Nussbaum). A whole range of possible procedures and philosophical criteria could be combined with the capability metric. Second, it responds to a forceful challenge raised by Ian Carter, who argues that capability theorists should not endorse the selection of specific capabilities as basic (either democratically or philosophically) at all. In his view, this will always have paternalistic implications; instead he proposes that the maximization of ‘capability as such’ should be the goal. In response, I distinguish well-being-based and autonomy-based capability theories, and argue that while Carter’s challenge is valid against the former, it fails against the latter.