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Handbook of the Philosophical Foundations of Business Ethics pp 661–674Cite as

The Philosophical Foundations of the Capabilities Approach

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Abstract

This chapter presents (a) the capabilities approach as a real freedom perspective through the connections with the ethics of Aristotle and through its eleutheronomic foundation in Adam Smith, Immanuel Kant, and Karl Marx; (b) the contributions of the impartial spectator as open impartiality to the idea of justice; and (c) a broader conception of rationality.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This study is part of the Projects for Scientific Research and Technological Development HUM2007-66847-C2-01/FISO and FFI2010-21639-C02-01, financed by the Ministry of Science and Innovation with European Union ERDF funds, and part of the work done by the Generalidad Valenciana authority’s research group PROMETEO/2009/085.

  2. 2.

    See for example, David A. Crocker [1]; [2]; Ethics of Global Development, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2008; Jorge Chaves [3]; Onora O'Neill [4]; Adela Cortina [5]; Sara Lelli [6]; Jesús Conill [7]; Marta Pedrajas, El desarrollo humano en la economía ética de A. Sen, Universidad de Valencia, 2005; Pablo Sánchez [8].

  3. 3.

    See Aristotle, Politics VIII, 1, where it states that citizens do not belong to themselves but to the political community: “And since the whole city has one end … neither must we suppose that any one of the citizens belongs to himself, for they all belong to the state, and are each of them a part of the state, and the care of each part is inseparable from the care of the whole.”

  4. 4.

    Amartya Sen [10], 30–53 refers to Aristotle, [11], I, 7.

  5. 5.

    “Well-being,” a term specifically used by Sen to get away from the utilitarian and economicist conception of welfare, extending its meaning by means of a more direct relationship with the person’s condition, which is the reason for the other term as “quality of life.”

  6. 6.

    Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, Book V, Chap. 2; see Jesús Conill [7]; Pablo Sánchez [8].

  7. 7.

    See David Crocker [2] and Adela Cortina [17].

  8. 8.

    “Justice for Women,” New York Review of Books (8th October 1992), 47, n. 22 (quoted by Crocker, [2], p. 69).

  9. 9.

    See G.G. Brenkert [22 (quoted by Sen [20], p. 48, n. 19).

  10. 10.

    A now classic precedent of these “indicators” lies in the existential version of the ethics of development, which is concerned with specific agents, proper to the approach provided from the 1960s by Denis Goulet (Ética del desarrollo, IEPAL-Estela, Barcelona, 1965 and IEPALA, Madrid, 1999; Development Ethics at Work, Routledge, London/New York, 2006) and more recently, in the last decade, and in line with Sen’s approach, with the Reports by the PNUD.

  11. 11.

    Sen [27], pp. 126 and ff.: “The original position and the limits of contractarianism.”

  12. 12.

    See Charles Beitz, Brian Barry and Thomas Pogge (see [27], p. 140 and p. 430, n. 17).

  13. 13.

    Sen [27], pp. 140–141 and p. 71 (referring to Th. Pogge (ed.), Global Justice, Blackwell, Oxford, 2001).

  14. 14.

    See Jesús Conill [7].

  15. 15.

    J. Rawls [32]; J. Habermas [33]; J. Muguerza [34]; A. Cortina [35]; D.A. Crocker [36].

  16. 16.

    Sen [37], pp. 47 ff., 53 and 56–57, 58 ff. and p. 63, n. 6.

  17. 17.

    A. Sen [13], particularly Chap. 3 and [39], where he again insists on this point.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Filosofía Moral y Política, Universidad de Valencia, Av. Blasco Ibáñez, 30, Valencia, 46010, Spain

    Prof. Jesús Conill

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  1. Peter Löscher-Stiftungslehrstuhl für Wirtschaftsethik, Technische Universität München, München, Germany

    Christoph Luetge

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Conill, J. (2013). The Philosophical Foundations of the Capabilities Approach. In: Luetge, C. (eds) Handbook of the Philosophical Foundations of Business Ethics. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1494-6_17

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