| Review of: | Capabilities Equality: Basic Issues and Problems edited by Alexander Kaufman |
|---|---|
| Reviewed By: | Carl Knight |
| Reviewed in: | Political Studies Review |
| Date accepted online: | 14/01/2008 |
| Published in print: | Volume 05, Issue 03, Pages 395-474 |
Book Reviews: Political Theory
This collection of new essays adds to the large and rapidly growing literature on capabilities theory. The views of the two principal capabilities pioneers, Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum, receive substantial and roughly equal levels of discussion, in connection both with the theory itself and particular areas of application. The book will appeal to upper-level undergraduates, postgraduates and scholars working on a wide range of topics in politics and related disciplines.
Nussbaum herself provides a chapter which brings out both the principal differences between capabilities theory and other accounts - its focus being on freedoms to be or do certain things (functionings), rather than on welfare or resource levels (or opportunities to alter these levels) - and the key departures her work makes from Sen's, the 'specific list of the Central Human Capabilities' being a particularly important addition here. Each of these ten capabilities is 'part of a minimum account of social justice: a society that does not guarantee these to all its citizens, at some appropriate threshold level, falls short of being a fully just society, whatever its level of opulence' (p. 51). This account can be readily applied to issues of public policy, as both Nussbaum and Timothy Hinton illustrate with reference to gender inequality.
Sen, who has refused to specify any such list, is succinctly described in Richard Arneson's essay as having 'developed an approach to the understanding of social justice rather than a theory of justice', an approach that is characterised by the 'message ...that things are more complicated than you think' (p. 18). While Nussbaum gives capabilities theory determinacy, she also, Arneson suggests, inadvertently exposes the dubious priority it places on securing threshold levels. David Wasserman develops Arneson's objection, specifically as it bears on disability, in his chapter.
Unusually, the first two of the three parts close with short pieces by the editor defending capabilities theory against this objection and another raised elsewhere by G. A. Cohen and extended in this collection by Peter Vallentyne. Although this works quite well, the editor's introduction is perhaps too quick with rival positions.
Overall, this is an excellent volume which will reward the reader whether they are concerned with how capabilities theory relates to other contemporary accounts of distributive justice, or to such subjects as political participation and deliberation (Sabina Alkire, David Crocker and, in the context of environmental issues, Victoria Kessler all address this). The writing is consistently good - though not, of course, entirely consistent in style - and the reasoning clear, even where there is much space for disagreement. That the contributors advance the debate while often occupying such space is testament both to the complexity of the subject matter and their tenacity in exploring it.