3.11: A suitable theory for all normative questions?

The capability approach is primarily a normative theory, but are there also restrictions on which normative questions it can help to address? Or is it suitable for all normative questions?

In order to answer this, it is helpful to remind us of the key distinction in philosophical ethics between the right and the good. Questions about the good focus on what makes life valuable and include discussions about wellbeing, autonomy, freedom, and love. Questions about the right focus on how we should act in order for that action to be morally sound, as well as discussions about how institutions and policies should be designed so as not to violate universal moral rules. Here, the central issues concern fairness, respect and the avoidance of harm. Different moral theories give different answers to the question of how the good and the right relate to each other.

In philosophical ethics, if we say that an issue is a moral issue, this implies that we have duties to comply with the moral norm, no matter how we feel about it. These are very stringent and universal duties. An example is: do not kill an innocent person; or: respect the human dignity of all persons. Normative questions are much broader, and can also entail other values, such as prudential value (wellbeing). Questions about the right are questions about morality, whereas for most ethical frameworks questions about the good are questions about other areas of normativity, but not morality straight.¹⁷

The modular view that has been presented in chapter 2 has in the core module A only normative properties related to the good. Properties A1 and A2 define functionings and capabilities, and property A5 claims that a person’s advantage should focus on functionings and capabilities: this gives the capability approach the core of its theory of the good. The complete theory of the good may be extended by additional choices made in module C4.

What does the core of the capability approach (module A) have to say about the right? The only property related to the right is normative individualism. There are no additional claims related to the right included in module A. Hence, the only conclusion we can draw is that the capability approach would claim that, if and whenever rightness involves a notion of the good, one should use the theory of the good as entailed by the core characteristics of the capability approach. Hence, if we believe that the right thing to do is to prioritise the lives of the worst-off, then a capabilitarian version of this claim would say that we should prioritise the functionings and/or capabilities of the worst-off rather than their happiness or their command over resources.

Yet many claims concerning the right make no reference to an account of the good. The core of the capabilities approach is, thus, orthogonal to other aspects of the theory of the right, except for ethical individualism, which is only a very small part of a theory of the right. The fact that the capability approach has, at its very core, more to offer in terms of the theory of the good than in terms of the theory of the right has an important implication, namely that the capability approach is not very suitable for ethical issues that only concern questions about the right. For example, the capability approach is not a very helpful theory when analysing the morality of abortion since so much of that ethical debate is about issues of the right rather than about issues of the good. That is, most of the philosophical debates on the ethics of abortion concern the moral status of the foetus, notions of personhood, or questions about the autonomy and self-ownership of the pregnant woman — issues on which the capability approach remains mute.¹⁸ It is therefore not surprising that the capability approach is more useful and more widely used as a theory analysing socio-economic policies where there is a consensus on those aspects that are questions about the right or where the questions about the right are much less weighty than those about the good. Examples include debates about poverty alleviation, distributive justice, environmental ethics and disability ethics. In sum, the capability approach is not a very helpful (or the most illuminating) framework for normative analyses in which elements regarding deontological duties and rights, which are not conceptually closely related to notions of wellbeing, play the most important role — that is, where aspects of the right are crucial in addressing the normative questions.

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17 An influential exception are utilitarians and other consequentialists, who define the morally right as that which maximizes the (non-moral) good (Driver 2014; Sinnott-Armstrong 2015).

18 Philosophical arguments on the moral permissibility of abortion come to widely divergent conclusions (e.g. Thomson 1971; Tooley 1972; English 1975; Marquis 1989).