I argue that the rapidly growing happiness literature raises an important challenge for the capability approach. Its results suggest that it has become possible to measure subjective well-being and to compare its value for different persons. Moreover, if one accepts that the opinions of the...

This paper attempts to explore the linkages between democracy, participation, and inequality. It does so by situating the role of 'public scrutiny and debate' in Sen's work. It then draws on the literature on 'deliberative democracy' to show the linkages between requirements for (ideal,...

We give more conceptual flesh and bones to the interconnections between social structures and individual agency by focusing on the way in which the people(s) inhabiting the Mandara Mountains in Far North Province of Cameroon have been affected by pro-poor policy processes. We analyse the role of...

Martha Nussbaum has recently argued that “the language of capabilities … gives important precision and supplementation to the language of rights.” This claim raises the question whether the idea of capabilities, as she or as Amartya Sen has developed it, provides a basis for capturing or...

Nussbaum's capabilities approach is based on a universalistic account of central human functionings. She claims that if central human capabilities are located within a particular kind of political liberalism, then they can become specific political goals and the object of an overlapping...

All modern nations face problems of religious toleration and respect. Examining the US constitutional tradition of religious free exercise and non-establishment, I argue that the core value in this tradition is that of equal respect for conscience, a value that militates against all...

Amartya Sen has critiqued theories of justice in the liberal tradition for not focusing on actual human living and failing to be truly egalitarian. However, in the absence of a theoretical approach of his own that comprehensively links capabilities and social justice, others have criticised him...

The expansion of capability opportunities is an underlying objective of the capability approach. However, related goals such as righting basic social inequities or correcting ecological imbalances require changes in social institutions and practices. Such change in turn rests on the creation and...

This paper tries to extend Sen's capability approach by introducing the issues of personal responsibility and collective capability, in addition to those of individual capability and collective responsibility. In addressing the issue of the subject's responsibility, we turn to the...

In the past, unequal control over such resources as coercive means, labour, animals, and land has caused the bulk of the world's inequality among social categories; in recent decades, unequal control over scientific knowledge has become an increasingly powerful cause of social inequality....