Capabilities
This note is about the capabilities approach to justice, especially in the context of more-than-human beings and collectives.
Cf.
Definitions
In the capabilities approach to justice, a capability refers to opportunities or freedoms individuals have to achieve wellbeing. It is not merely about the resources or means but about what individuals are able to do and be. This approach emphasizes the importance of enabling individuals to pursue a life they have reason to value, considering a wide range of factors.
Capabilities are often contrasted with functionings, which are the actual beings and doings that people achieve. While functionings are the realized outcomes, capabilities represent the potential to achieve those outcomes. This distinction highlights the importance of providing beings with the freedom to choose among different ways of living.
The capabilities approach can apply to various ethical and justice-related issues, ensuring that individuals and communities have the necessary conditions to flourish.
Capabilities approach is, among other aspects, a way to resolve ethical problems in management and design.
Cenci, Alessandra, and Dylan Cawthorne. ‘Refining Value Sensitive Design: A (Capability-Based) Procedural Ethics Approach to Technological Design for Well-Being’. Science and Engineering Ethics 26, no. 5 (2020): 2629–62. https://doi.org/10/gncfq8.
Questions and Challenges
Capabilities extending without evolved or cultural resistance from others or from the material/niche circumstances are not necessarily beneficial. Cf. overeating, obesity, sedentary diseases in humans and other animals. Is a better understanding of capabilities always contextual? Inclusive of dietary, spatial, sensorial (stress of sex, competition, injury, etc.) pressures in response to which the capabilities can acquire the 'right' footprint?
- what is the relationship between concepts such as capabilities, services, and resources?
- what entities can have capabilities, organisms, families, races, local communities, species, ecological or more-than-human communities, ecosystems, planets, etc.?
- what is the ecological history of capabilities, can they be dormant, atavistic, what is the relationship with the concept of plasticity?
- what is the positive work in political spheres this concept intends to perform?
Shared Capabilities
How can the capabilities approach to justice apply to whole sites, biomes, ecosystems, collectives, communities, etc.? Does it need to be confined to an individual organism? Can it be typified for a species?
Sustainable ecological capacity as a 'meta-capability'?
Resilience as ecosystem capability.
References
Cripps, Elizabeth. “Saving the Polar Bear, Saving the World: Can the Capabilities Approach Do Justice to Humans, Animals and Ecosystems?” Res Publica 16, no. 1 (2010): 1–22. https://doi.org/10/frj2kb.
Delon, Nicolas. “Animal Capabilities and Freedom in the City.” Journal of Human Development and Capabilities 22, no. 1 (2021): 131–53. https://doi.org/10/gmnmnb.
Fulfer, Katy. “The Capabilities Approach to Justice and the Flourishing of Nonsentient Life.” Ethics and the Environment 18, no. 1 (2013): 19–42. https://doi.org/10/gfsp32.
Holland, Breena, and Amy Linch. “Cultivating Human and Non-Human Capabilities for Mutual Flourishing.” In The Oxford Handbook of Environmental Political Theory, edited by Teena Gabrielson, Cheryl Hall, John M. Meyer, and David Schlosberg. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.
Nussbaum, Martha C. “The Capabilities Approach and Animal Entitlements.” In The Oxford Handbook of Animal Ethics, edited by Tom L. Beauchamp and R. G. Frey, 228–54. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Parker, Dan, Kylie Soanes, and Stanislav Roudavski. “Interspecies Cultures and Future Design.” Transpositiones 1, no. 1 (2022): 183–236. https://doi.org/10/gpvsfs. Tulloch, Gail. “Animal Ethics: The Capabilities Approach.” Animal Welfare 20 (2011): 3–10. https://doi.org/10/gr5ks6.
Watene, Krushil. “Valuing Nature: Māori Philosophy and the Capability Approach.” Oxford Development Studies 44, no. 3 (2016): 287–96. https://doi.org/10/gpcgxh.
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