Ingrid Robeyns

Ingrid Robeyns

Aims of the chapter • To link the capability approach with theories of equality and social justice.

• To investigate how the capability approach differs from John Rawls’ theory of justice. • To introduce the underlying purpose and main ideas of theories of justice. • To highlight the role of the capability approach in developing theories of justice. • To examine the implications of a capability-based approach to justice for policy

design and other intervention strategies. Key points

• Equality and justice are related but distinct values. • There are crucial differences between the capability approach to justice and Rawls’

Justice as Fairness, yet the philosophical debate concerning their precise differences continues.

• The capability approach can be developed into partial or complete theories of justice, but this requires much more philosophical work than just embracing functionings and capabilities as metrics of justice.

• The capability approach is particularly well-suited to looking at justice for disadvantaged groups, such as women. • The capability approach leads to several distinct recommendations, but much more work still needs to be done to see how the capability approach can be put into practice and how its policies and interventions can be effectively evaluated.

This chapter aims to introduce the contribution of the capability approach to the literature on theories of equality and social justice. As described in the second chapter, the capability approach is a broad normative framework for the evaluation and assessment of individual well-being and social arrange- ments, the design of policies, and proposals about interventions and social

TOPICS

change in society. It is used in a wide range of fields, including development studies, welfare economics, social policy and political philosophy. This chapter highlights the role that the capability approach can play in one of these fields – the literature on theories of justice, and the related question concerning what implications follow for justice-enhancing interventions and policies. This literature in large part falls within the domain of normative political philosophy, but there is some overlap with the work being done by welfare

economists and other scholars. 1 The chapter does not provide a complete overview of the literature on the capability approach and social justice, and is not aimed at an audience of advanced philosophy students, but rather hopes to introduce some key issues to an interdisciplinary audience.

The first section sketches the nature of contemporary academic literature on theories of justice, and includes a brief discussion of how the concepts of equality and justice are related. The second section discusses the main outlines of John Rawls’ theory of justice, which is generally regarded as the most important and influential contemporary theory of justice. The third section presents the main critique by capability theorists on Rawls and, alternately, two Rawlsian critiques on the capability approach. Studying these critiques will give us a sense of how these theories differ. The fourth section poses a question about what is needed for the construction of a complete capability theory of justice. Next, we examine how the capability approach deals with justice for disadvantaged groups, particularly justice between women and men. The final section explores the implications of a capability-based approach to justice for policies and other intervention strategies.