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Justifying the capabilities approach to justice
Abstract
In this chapter, the author defends the capabilities approach against Pogge's critique, and explains why it is superior to its main rivals, subjective and resourcist approaches. Theories of distributive justice must specify two things: a metric and a rule. The metric characterizes the type of good subject to demands of distributive justice. The rule specifies how that good should be distributed. The fundamental difference between capability theorists and resource theorists lies rather in the degree to which their principles of justice are sensitive to internal individual differences, and environmental features and social norms that interact with these differences. Capabilities and resource theorists agree that principles of justice aim to secure persons' effective access to the means they need to satisfy their objective interests, as defined in terms of needed functionings. The capabilities approach is capable of supplying a public criterion of justice suitable for the basic structure of society.
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“A theory of distributive justice requires that we specify a good and a rule (Anderson, 2010, p. 81).”
From Informational Justice: A Conceptual Framework for Social Justice in Library and Information Services (2015) · cites this paper as Anderson, 2010
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References 22 · Cited by 194
Research works printed but not linked: 17
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- Dworkin, 1981, What is Equality? Part 2: Equality of Resources, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 10, 283
- Raz, 1986, The Morality of Freedom
- Loury, 2002, The Anatomy of Racial Inequality
- Anderson, 2004, Rethinking Equality of Opportunity: Comment on Adam Swift's How Not to be a Hypocrite, Theory and Research in Education, 2, 99, 10.1177/1477878504043438 · DOI
- 10.1080/713678045 · DOI
- 10.1086/518806 · DOI
- Moore, 1903, Principia Ethica
- 10.1086/233897 · DOI
- Pogge, 2002, World Poverty and Human Rights: Cosmopolitan Responsibilities and Reforms
- Rawls, 1982, Utilitarianism and Beyond
- Hartley, C. 2005. “Justice for All: Constructing an Inclusive Contractualism,” unpublished PhD dissertation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan.
- Nozick, 1974, Anarchy, State, and Utopia
- Darwall, 2006, The Second-Person Standpoint: Morality, Respect, and Accountability
- Anderson, 2002, Integration, Affirmative Action, and Strict Scrutiny, New York University Law Review, 77, 1195
- Gaertner, 2000, Reducing Intergroup Bias: The Common Ingroup Identity Model
- Rawls, 1971, A Theory of Justice, 10.4159/9780674042605 · DOI · Paper page
Metadata
- Authors
- Anderson, E.
- Affiliations
- University of Michigan (US)
- Corresponding author
- Anderson, Elizabeth
- ORCID
- Anderson, Elizabeth
- Venue
- Measuring Justice
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press
- Published
- 2010-01-28
- Pages
- 81-100
- OpenAlex
- W1879757763
- Cited by
- 194
- References
- 22
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 23 · 2023: 22 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 12 · 2020: 16 · 2019: 20 · 2018: 20 · 2017: 15 · 2016: 17 · 2015: 10 · 2014: 9 · 2013: 9 · 2012: 3
- FWCI
- 51.68
- Type
- book chapter
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Cambridge University Press eBooks (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Political Philosophy and Ethics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Income, Poverty, and Inequality
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Philosophical Ethics and Theory
- Keywords
- capability approach, distributive justice, resource theory, subjective theories, individual differences, functioning, basic structure of society
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- Anderson, E. (2010). Justifying the capabilities approach to justice. Measuring Justice. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511810916.004
