Functioning and Capability: The Foundation of Sen’s and Nussbaum’s Development Ethics, Part 1 and 2
Author(s)
Crocker, David A.
Abstract
The author’s task in this selection is to consider in some detail the capability ethic’s foundational concepts of functioning and capability, its structure, and its relevance for a reconstruction of the social ideals of freedom, rights, and justice. The author concludes that the capability ethic that Sen and Nussbaum are forging has given international development ethicists a challenging, richly nuanced, and fertile resource. By building and deepening the basic needs perspective, it promisingly evaluated development theory and practice by the plural criteria of valuable human capabilities and achievements. By recasting the traditional social ideals of human freedom, rights, and justice, the capability perspective has in effect launched a new development paradigm.
