VOLUME-I, ISSUE-IV ISSN (Online): 2454-8499 INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY STUDIES 1 st November, 2015 Page 1 Website: www.irjms.in Email: irjms2015@gmail.com, irjms.in@gmail.com Internal Debates within Capability Approach Debate Between Amartya Sen And Martha Nussbaum Gyanaranjan Swain Lecturer Department of Political Science Ravenshaw University Abstract: Capability approach is an evolving subject. While Amartya Sen developed the skeleton of the capability approach, the colleagues of Sen and his followers expanded the approach. Martha Nussbaum is a colleague of Amartya Sen who tried to use capability approach as a broad theory of social justice. Hence, she tried to be very methodological in her understanding of capability approach. She argued that a comprehensive understanding of capability approach needs us to go beyond Sen. She added a new twist to the existing understanding of the subject. She prepared a list of capabilities which she thought will provide the best conditions for human development. She claims that her list is more practical and suitable for gender justice. The present paper is an attempt to probe into the issues raised by Nussbaum. Along with this, the paper would also try to draw attention to the similar kind of lists prepared by other contemporary writers. In the concluding part it would focus on why it is a anomaly to prepare a list of capabilities in a diverse society like India. Key words: Basic capabilities, combined capabilities, functioning, While Amartya Sen introduced the capability approach in the 1980s, other scholars have developed it further in recent years. The most well known is the work of Martha Nussbaum. Sen’s and Nussbaum’s approaches are very closely related, and are allies in their critique of theories such as utilitarianism. However, Nussbaum and Sen also differ on a number of issues. (Gasper, 2004) Nussbaum and Sen have different goals with their work on capabilities. They also have different personal intellectual histories in which their work needs to be situated. Nussbaum aims to develop a partial theory of justice, by arguing for the political principles that should underlie each constitution. Thus, Nussbaum enters the capability approach from a perspective of moral-legal Political philosophy, with the specific aim of arguing for political principles that a government should guarantee to all its citizens through its constitution. To perform this task, Nussbaum develops and argues for a well-defined but general list of ‘central human capabilities’ that should be incorporated in all constitutions. As such, her work on the capability approach is universalistic, as she argues all governments should endorse these capabilities. Sen did not have such a clear objective when he started to work on the capability approach. On the one hand, he was interested in the “equality of what?’ question in liberal political philosophy, and argued that there are good reasons to focus on capabilities instead of Rawlsian resources or utility. (Sen, 1979) First, whereas in Sen’s work the notion of capabilities is primarily that of a real or effective opportunity (as in social choice theory), Nussbaum’s notion of capability pays more attention to people’s skills and personality traits as aspects of capabilities. Some scholars therefore favour Nussbaum’s approach over Sen’s. For example, Des Gasper argues that Nussbaum’s approach has more potential to understand actions, meanings and motivations. But because Sen’s approach lies closer to economic theory, many economists find his approach more attractive, and the UNDP’s (1990- 2004) Human Developed Reports have also been CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by International Research Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies (IRJMS)