Browsing by Author "Pakonen, Elias"

Martha Nussbaum's capabilities approach is an account of justice which provides a substantial list of entitlements, the ten central capabilities with the related intuitive notion of human dignity, as a tool to measure justice and construct justice claims. Nussbaum's outcome oriented approach is normative and universal but also non-metaphysical and partial, and represents political liberalism. Nussbaum considers the justice claims of people with impairments to be undertheorized in accounts of justice, and aims to include such questions in her approach. Recent critique has pointed out that Nussbaum’s approach has problems in simultaneously addressing discrimination and equal status, and remaining impartial with regard to values. The study question of this thesis asks if Nussbaum’s capabilities approach can offer substantial arguments for the justice claims of people with cognitive impairments from starting points compatible with political liberalism. To do that, the approach needs to address discrimination without referring to capability failures, as such a thing would mean strong value claims which are in contradiction with the impartiality of political liberalism. Central concepts for this study are human dignity, equal status, political liberalism, and perfectionist liberalism. I will analyze recent critique of Nussbaum’s capabilities approach, and use that to explicate the concept of human dignity. I will argue that a more detailed and explicitly prioritized conception of human dignity, and a consequential commitment to perfectionist liberalism, would enable the approach to address disability, equal status, and discrimination more efficiently. I will characterize the role of human dignity in terms of its functions and contents, which give the concept more substance and a more prioritized role. The functions of the concept show how it represents value, status, and desert. The contents of the concept characterize human beings as sociable, ethical beings with various needs. I argue that the functions and contents of human dignity together should form the perfectionist core of Nussbaum’s capabilities approach, which would then enable it to address equal status and argue against discrimination.