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Single Idea 21014

[filed under theme 25. Social Practice / D. Justice / 1. Basis of justice ]

Full Idea

A prominent idea, common in the U.S., sees rights as barriers against interfering state action. ...The Capabilities Approach, by contrast, insists that all entitlements involve an affirmative task for government, to actively support capabilities.

Gist of Idea

Rights are not just barriers against state interference; governments must affirm capabilities of citizens

Source

Martha Nussbaum (Creating Capabilities [2011], 3)

Book Ref

Nussbaum,Martha C.: 'Creating Capabilities' [Belknap Harvard 2013], p.65

A Reaction

This makes her approach very left wing, by U.S. standards, because it needs higher taxation and a degree of government paternalism. Her approach strikes me as an excellent agenda for a fairly interventionist European liberal party.

The 22 ideas from Martha Nussbaum

21007 Storytelling is never neutral; some features of the world must be emphasised [Nussbaum]
21008 Liberalism does not need a comprehensive account of value [Nussbaum]
21009 Capabilities: Life, Health, Safety, Mental life, Love, Planning, Joining in, Nature, Play, Control [Nussbaum, by PG]
21010 Justice requires that the ten main capabilities of people are reasonably enabled [Nussbaum]
21013 Capabilities are grounded in bare humanity and agency; qualifying as rational is not needed [Nussbaum]
21014 Rights are not just barriers against state interference; governments must affirm capabilities of citizens [Nussbaum]
21011 We shouldn't focus on actual preferences, which may be distorted by injustices [Nussbaum]
21012 Women are often treated like children, and not respected for their choices [Nussbaum]
21015 Negative liberty is incoherent; all liberties, to do and to be, require the prevention of interference [Nussbaum]
21016 Political and civil rights are not separate from economic and social rights [Nussbaum]
21017 Political freedom is an incoherent project, because some freedoms limit other freedoms [Nussbaum]
21020 Any establishment belief system is incompatible with full respect for all citizens [Nussbaum]
21019 Social contracts assume equal powers among the participants [Nussbaum]
21026 Compassion is unreliable, because it favours people close to us [Nussbaum]
21022 The Capabilities Approach sees animals as agents, not just as having feelings [Nussbaum]
21021 Keep premises as weak as possible, to avoid controversial difficulties [Nussbaum]
21025 Particularism gives no guidance for the future [Nussbaum]
21023 We should respect animals in the way that we respect the animal nature in humans [Nussbaum]
21024 It may be no harm to kill an animal which cannot plan for its future [Nussbaum]
22688 The Aristotelian idea that choices can be perceived needs literary texts to expound it [Nussbaum]
21125 Liberals must respect family freedom - but families are the great oppressors of women [Nussbaum]
21836 Philosophers after Aristotle endorsed the medical analogy for eudaimonia [Nussbaum, by Flanagan]