Examining Nussbaum's Capabilities Approach - Research Paper Example

The concept of human rights is a distinctively moral idea that has obtained global status in at least the rhetoric of world affairs and international declarations. Human rights as a universal standard emerged in the global arena with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. The Declaration intended to ensure all people, everywhere, their ‘fundamental rights and freedoms. People wish to, strive to, and deserve to live a dignified existence. We do sense that an ‘indispensable minimum’ is required for such an existence. If ‘we chose to set our minds to it by cooperating and making it a priority we feel with some confidence that such unnecessary deprivation could be overcome. And yet profound injustices on a staggering global scale remain. Continuing theoretical confusion and disagreement serve as a barrier for the human rights project. Nussbaum has advanced the 'capabilities approach as a non-rights alternative. The capabilities approach focuses on what beings are actually able to do and be, their capability to function, and is an influential approach to quality of life measurement that increasingly features in the international debate.
The Concept of Capabilities
A different language about people's basic entitlements and justified claims has emerged in recent years focused on human capability and human functioning. Capability concerns the freedom to function in certain ways deemed valuable, involving particular powers and opportunities. Functioning is the actual choosing and doing of these valued things. Conceptually, this language of people's capabilities refers to ''their abilities to do and to be certain things deemed valuable" (Nussbaum's Capabilities and Human Rights 119). The idea behind Nussbaum's capabilities approach is that there are certain functions people should be empowered to do which are understood to constitute human life. A life developed and shaped by the choosing and doing of a range of these functions demarcates a dignified or 'true' life from one that is stifled or oppressed (Nussbaum 71-72).