Sen and Nussbaum: The Core Claims

“Sen: 'The ==capability approach== focuses on human life, and not just on the commodities or utilities... A person's capability set reflects the alternative combinations of functionings the person can achieve, and from which he or she can choose one combination... Development can be seen as a process of expanding the real freedoms that people enjoy.' [...] Nussbaum on adaptive preferences: 'Women who have been denied education often don't want it. Women who have been beaten routinely may not want bodily integrity. The metric of satisfaction is contaminated by the injustice it is supposed to measure.' [...] Sen on Rawls: 'Primary goods are means, not ends. The ==capability approach== asks what people can actually do with those means, and this varies enormously. Two people with identical primary goods may have radically different real freedoms.' — Sen, Development as Freedom (1999); Inequality Reexamined (1992); Nussbaum, Women and Human Development (2000); SEP 'The Capability Approach'”