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34 results

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  • Chapter 12 - Property and Political Power

  • Edited by John Christman, Pennsylvania State University
  • Book:
    Positive Freedom
    Published online:
    03 September 2021
    Print publication:
    16 September 2021, pp 217-235

  • Summary

    Over the last century, many philosophers have argued in favour of a liberal-egalitarian accommodation of capitalism, in which the liberty of the market is to be combined with an egalitarian distribution of property. Theorists of positive freedom, amongst others, have been prominent in arguing for the liberal-egalitarian accommodation. They have argued that an egalitarian distribution of private property is necessary to give every citizen equal positive freedom. To lead an autonomous life, every citizen needs control over some private property. The liberal-egalitarian accommodation to capitalism has come under threat in the last decades, as documented by a renewed widening of inequalities in wealth and income.In this essay, I will argue that this predicament requires us to look at one important precondition of the positive freedom argument. This precondition I call the de-politization of private property. Private property is conceived of as a purely private phenomenon, which has no effects on the exercise of political power. However, whether this precondition is met is a contingent matter; and so defenders of the positive freedom argument therefore need to turn their attention to the problem posed by the relation between private property and political power.

  • 10 - Selecting a List

  • from Part I - Historical Antecedents and Philosophical Debates
  • Edited by Enrica Chiappero-Martinetti, Siddiqur Osmani, Mozaffar Qizilbash, University of York
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Handbook of the Capability Approach
    Published online:
    11 November 2020
    Print publication:
    19 November 2020, pp 188-205

  • Summary

    Capability theorists disagree on how to determine, for normative purposes, which capabilities are to be treated as basic, with Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen taking opposite views. This chapter will scrutinize this list debate. It has two aims. First, it argues that some distinction between basic and non-basic capabilities is an inherent commitment of capability theories, but that there are many more options for responding to the capability-selection problem than a procedure of democratic deliberation (Sen) or a philosophical criterion of neo-Aristotelian flourishing (Nussbaum). A whole range of possible procedures and philosophical criteria could be combined with the capability metric. Second, it responds to a forceful challenge raised by Ian Carter, who argues that capability theorists should not endorse the selection of specific capabilities as basic (either democratically or philosophically) at all. In his view, this will always have paternalistic implications; instead he proposes that the maximization of ‘capability as such’ should be the goal. In response, I distinguish well-being-based and autonomy-based capability theories, and argue that while Carter’s challenge is valid against the former, it fails against the latter.

Capabilities in a Just Society
  • A Theory of Navigational Agency
  • Rutger Claassen
  • Published online:
    04 October 2018
    Print publication:
    04 October 2018
  • What sort of entitlements should citizens have in a just society? In this book, Rutger Claassen sets out a theory of what he terms 'navigational agency', whereby citizens should be able to navigate freely between social practices. This shows how individuals can be at the same time free and autonomous in striving for their own goals in life, but also embedded in social practices in which they have to cooperate with others. He argues that for navigational agency, people need three sets of core capabilities: those which allow human empowerment in civil society, a decent level of socio-economic subsistence, and political participation in democratic decision-making procedures. The idea of navigational agency, the book argues, provides an alternative to currently dominant versions of the capability approach to social justice, and strengthens its liberal foundations.

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