Abstract
In this chapter, I defend the second step of the main argument: if something has a set of typical human capacities, it has serious moral status. The major line of reasoning in this chapter is that there are cases of human organisms that are in such a state that the only satisfactory basis for their serious moral status is their set of typical human capacities. Since most of us—philosophers and non-philosophers alike—do believe that these human organisms have serious moral status, and since most of us do base this serious moral status on something, it must be the set of typical human capacities that we base it on. Finally, I spend the last two sections of the chapter explaining why the second step of the main argument can be arrived at in different ways, by adopting either the moral framework of John Rawls’ original position or the moral framework of Martha Nussbaum’s “capabilities approach”
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Michael Tooley argued, in Chapter 10 of Abortion and Infanticide, that the intuition should be set aside for at least three reasons. First, appeals to moral intuitions are plausible only if the appeal is to principles that are (what Tooley calls) basic moral principles (or derivable from basic moral principles), but the principle appealed to by this intuition is not. Second, the intuition in question is not unanimously shared in our own society and was not generally shared by earlier societies. Third, the intuitions of people over the past 2000 years have been heavily shaped by the religions of Judaism and (especially) Christianity, so that a person can reasonably rely upon such intuitions only if he takes the teachings of one of these religions to be true (Tooley, 1983).
- 2.
But since the problem discussed in this section is a general problem, the discussion could be formulated in terms of any single capacity (e.g. the capacity to experience pleasure and pain) or any set of capacities (e.g. the set of capacities possessed by any normal adult human person).
- 3.
Parfit (1984, pp. 199–200).
- 4.
See McMahan (2002, pp. 117–120).
- 5.
Boonin (2003, p. xiv).
- 6.
Boonin (2003, p. 78).
- 7.
Tooley (1983, pp. 102–103).
- 8.
Thanks to Chris Tollefsen for pressing me on this point.
- 9.
What follows is adapted from DiSilvestro (June 2005).
- 10.
Rawls (1971, pp. 248–249).
- 11.
Rawls (1993, p. 19).
- 12.
Rawls (1993, p. 32), footnote 34.
- 13.
Rawls (1971, p. 504).
- 14.
Rawls (1971, p. 505).
- 15.
Rawls (1971, p. 505).
- 16.
Rawls (1971, p. 505). Emphasis [and brackets] mine.
- 17.
Rawls (1971, p. 505).
- 18.
Rawls (1971, p. 509).
- 19.
Rawls (1971, p. 509).
- 20.
Rawls (1971, pp. 505–506).
- 21.
Rawls (1971, p. 506).
- 22.
Rawls (1971, pp. 509–510).
- 23.
See Dombrowski (1997, p. 59). See also Warren (1997, p. 105).
- 24.
The examples of Nussbaum’s formulation of the capabilities approach that I will be working with are primarily from an intermediate stage in her development of the approach. They are found in Nussbaum (2000, 1988, pp. 145–184, 1992, pp. 202–246, 1997, pp. 273–300 [but the version I quote from is found on pp. 117–149 of Pablo De Greiff and Ciaran Cronin (eds.), Global Justice and Transnational Politics: Essays on the Moral and Political Challenges of Globalization (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2002)]). For an example of Sen’s formulation of the approach, see his essay (1993). As we shall see below, very major changes in the concept of basic capabilities have occurred in the last several years. For example, in her 2006 book Frontiers of Justice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006) and in her 2008 article “Human Dignity and Political Entitlements”, President’s Council on Bioethics, 2008), she explains that she has dropped the concept of basic capabilities as originally articulated, because of her concern that it does not make enough room for the complete political equality of people with severe mental and cognitive disabilities. In its place, she says that every person born of two parents who possess the capacity for some type of striving and agency is a fundamental equal of every other. She also extends the idea of capability to non-human animals, although she gives the species a special importance. Thanks are due to Nussbaum (personal correspondence) for clarifying to me these changes in her view.
- 25.
Nussbaum (1988, p. 191).
- 26.
Nussbaum (1988, p. 191).
- 27.
Nussbaum (2002, p. 132).
- 28.
Nussbaum (2000, p. 84). Her text really does say “a capacity for work” rather than “a capability for work”.
- 29.
Nussbaum (2000, p. 84).
- 30.
Nussbaum (2000, p. 83).
- 31.
The section where she explained the differences between basic, internal, and external capabilities was even titled “Levels of Capability.” See Nussbaum (1988, p. 186).
- 32.
Nussbaum (2002, p. 132).
- 33.
Nussbaum (2002, p. 132).
- 34.
Nussbaum (2002, p. 132).
- 35.
Nussbaum (1988, p. 145).
- 36.
Nussbaum (1988, pp. 145–146), emphasis mine.
- 37.
Nussbaum (1988, p. 160).
- 38.
Nussbaum (1988, p. 160).
- 39.
Nussbaum (1988, p. 166).
- 40.
Nussbaum (1988, p. 166).
- 41.
See Nussbaum (1988, p 166).
- 42.
Nussbaum (1988, p. 167).
- 43.
Nussbaum (1988, p. 167).
- 44.
Nussbaum (1988, p. 192).
- 45.
Nussbaum (1988, pp. 192–193).
- 46.
Nussbaum (2002, p. 135).
- 47.
Nussbaum (2002, p. 136). As she puts it in Frontiers of Justice “…the ‘basic capabilities’ of human beings are sources of moral claims wherever we find them: they exert a moral claim that they should be developed and given a life that is flourishing rather than stunted” (p. 278).
- 48.
Nussbaum (2002, pp. 138–139). However, notice both the similarity and the shift in Frontiers of Justice (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006): “the language of capabilities…gives important precision and supplementation to the language of rights… .the capabilities approach holds that the basis of a claim is a person’s existence as a human being—not just the actual possession of a set of rudimentary ‘basic capabilities,’ pertinent though these are to the more precise delineation of social obligation, but the very birth of a person into the human community. Thus Sesha [Kittay]’s entitlements are not based solely upon the actual ‘basic capabilities’ that she has, but on the basic capacities characteristic of the human species. Even if Sesha does not have the capacity for language, then, the political conception is required to arrange vehicles of expression for her, through adequate forms of guardianship. Such entitlements would not exist were capabilities based only on individual endowment, rather than on the species norm” (pp. 284–285).
- 49.
Nussbaum (2002, p. 128). “The List is supposed to be a focus for political planning, and it is supposed to select those human capabilities that can be convincingly argued to be of central importance in any human life, whatever else the person pursues or chooses” (p. 128).
- 50.
Nussbaum (2002, p. 129, 2000, p. 78, 2008, p. 377). http://www.bioethics.gov/reports/human_dignity/human_dignity_and_bioethics.pdf
- 51.
In Frontiers of Justice, Nussbaum admits that there are good reasons for holding that “the capabilities approach…strictly speaking, should not say that the capacity to feel pleasure and pain is a necessary condition of moral status” (p. 362, see discussion on pp. 361–362 and p. 449 fn 54). And in “Human Dignity and Political Entitlement” (President’s Council on Bioethics, 2008): “As for when human dignity begins to assert its ethical claims, I have so far argued that sentience is a necessary condition of moral considerability…I have no very solid argument for this position, and I have for some years urged the young members of the Human Development and Capability Association to work out alternative positions on the question, ‘Whose capabilities count?’” (pp. 373–374). She there briefly considers how this view about sentience might apply to debates about abortion and embryonic stem-cell research. Since Nussbaum is currently searching for a solid argument in favor of the view that sentience is necessary for moral status, since she is aware of good reasons against that view, and since she is currently urging younger scholars to work out alternative positions to that view, perhaps it will not be thought inappropriate to point out that the arguments advanced earlier in this section, and indeed all the argument advanced earlier in this chapter, explain why sentience should not be thought necessary for moral considerability, and point the way to a better alternative. For example, if a person can temporarily lose her sentience for a period of time without losing her moral considerability during that period of time, then sentience is not a necessary condition for moral considerability, even if the basic capability for sentience (what I call the “higher-order capacity” for sentience) is.
- 52.
Nussbaum (1992, p. 227). For her treatment of this issue in Frontiers of Justice, consider: “…the notion of human nature in my theory is explicitly and from the start evaluative, and, in particular, ethically evaluative: among the many actual features of a characteristic human form of life, we select some that seem so normatively fundamental that a life without any possibility at all of exercising one of them, at any level, is not a fully human life, a life worthy of human dignity, even if the others are present. If enough of them are impossible (as in the case of a person in a persistent vegetative state), we may judge that the life is not a human life at all, any more” (p. 214); “Some types of mental deprivation are so acute that it seems sensible to say that the life there is simply not a human life at all, but a different form of life. Only sentiment leads us to call the person in a persistent vegetative condition, or an anencephalic child, human” (p. 220); “surely it would be only dogmatism to insist that the life of such a child [with anencephaly] is a human life…” (p. 492, fn 25). Her reason for thinking this with the cases of anencephaly and PVS is that “all possibility of conscious awareness and communication with others is absent” (p. 221).
- 53.
For an example of the first strategy, consider the following passage: “So far, I have focused on the higher-level (developed) human capabilities that make a life a good human life but have not spoken at length about the empirical basis for the application of the concept ‘human being’ to a creature before us. The basis cannot, of course, be the presence of the higher-level capabilities on my list, for one of the main points of the list is to enable us to say, of some being before us, that this being might possibly come to have these higher-level capabilities but does not now have them. It is that gap between basic (potential) humanness and its full realization that exerts a claim on society and government. What, then, is to be the basis for a determination that this being is one of the human beings, one of the ones whose functioning concerns us? I claim that it is the presence of a lower-level (undeveloped) capability to perform the functions in question, such that with the provision of suitable support and education, the being would be capable of choosing these functions.” Nussbaum (1992, pp. 227–228).
- 54.
For an example of the second strategy, consider this passage: “There is, of course, enormous potential for abuse in determining who has these basic capabilities. The history of IQ testing is just one chapter in an inglorious saga of prejudiced capability testing that goes back at least to the Noble Lie of Plato’s Republic. Therefore we should, I think, proceed as if every offspring of two human parents has the basic capabilities, unless and until long experience with the individual has convinced us that damage to that individual’s condition is so great that it could never in any way, through however great an expenditure of resources, arrive at the higher capability level. (Certain patients with irreversible senile dementia or a permanent vegetative condition would fall into this category, as would certain very severely damaged infants. It would then fall to other moral arguments to decide what treatment we owe to such individuals, who are unable ever to reach the higher capabilities to function humanly. It certainly does not follow that we would be licensed to treat such individuals harshly; we simply would not aim at making them fully capable of the various functions on our list.)” Nussbaum (1992, p. 228). Again, in response, I believe that there is no human individual who “could never in any way, through however great an expenditure of resources, arrive at the higher capability level.” The arguments for this belief are given a detailed exposition in Chapter 2. Indeed, I would say of the anencephalic and the patient in a persistent vegetative state exactly what Nussbaum says about Sesha Kittay in the following passage from Frontiers of Justice: “if we could cure her condition and bring her up to the capabilities threshold, that is what we would do, because it is good, indeed important, for a human being to be able to function in these ways. If such a treatment should become available, society would be obliged to pay for it, and would not be able to offer the excuse that she is impaired ‘by nature.’ And, further, if we could engineer the genetic aspects of it in the womb, so that she would not be born with impairments so severe, that, again, is what a decent society would do” (pp. 226–227).
- 55.
The following passages are all taken from her fuller discussion in Nussbaum (2008, pp. 362–363).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2010 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
DiSilvestro, R. (2010). The Only Game in Town: Why Capacities Must Matter Morally. In: Human Capacities and Moral Status. Philosophy and Medicine(), vol 108. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8537-5_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8537-5_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-8536-8
Online ISBN: 978-90-481-8537-5
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawPhilosophy and Religion (R0)