Advanced / hybrid
Capabilities Approach
What are people actually able to do and be?
Guiding principle
Justice requires securing for each person a threshold level of central human capabilities — the real freedoms to lead a flourishing life.
Key thinkers
Amartya Sen · Martha Nussbaum
Strengths
- Focuses on substantive freedom, not resources or preference satisfaction.
- Powerful in development ethics, disability, and gender justice.
Common objections
- Which capabilities? The canonical lists are contested.
- Thresholds risk paternalism about the good life.
Mini-example
A workplace policy that formally allows leave but practically penalizes its use fails the capabilities test: the freedom is nominal, not real.