Beyond Nussbaum’s Capability Approach: Future Generations and the Need for New Ways Forward

Abstract

Nussbaum’s capability approach has failed to engage with future generations.¹ This is disappointing for (at least) two reasons. Firstly, the capability approach was developed as a new way of approaching old problems. By leaving future generations to one side, Nussbaum does not map the resources that the capability approach has to deal with one of the most important problems we face. Unique insights and challenges that the approach might bring to this important discussion are left uncharted.² Secondly, Nussbaum weakens her own capability theory by overlooking the interplay between the cases she considers and future generations. Nussbaum’s Frontiers of Justice provides an important critique of Rawls’ social contract theory, and the most comprehensive capability-based account of global justice to date. According to Nussbaum (2006, 3), issues of disability, nationality, and nonhuman animals remain ‘serious unsolved problems of justice’, and problems that ‘the classical theory of the social contract cannot solve […], even when put in its best form’. She further claims that her ‘capabilities approach’ provides us with a way forward on each of these issues — providing us with a ‘truly global justice’ (Nussbaum 2006, 22). Yet Nussbaum does not consider how future generations bear on each of these issues. No discussion of how our obligations apply over time or of our reproductive choices is provided.