I find the "Capabilities Approach" to be morally evocative. It suggests that humans ought to have a rewarding life, but that a rewarding life is a complex and nuanced thing. Perhaps we have identified a dozen (or two dozen) "central capabilities", but perhaps there are four more that are so obviously correct we don't even think to articulate them.
C.S. Lewis wrote an interesting book, "The Four Loves," which tackles the different kinds of human relationships. In this book, he argues that true goodness is a complex thing (essentially a divine command, because this is Lewis). But that if you take a single virtue, isolate it, and declare that virtue to be the only one that matters, that virtue will become demonic and destroy you. And in the end, the demonic, isolated virtue will break even its own promises. For example: Perhaps you define simple utility to be the sole virtue. One day, a crime has been committed, and an angry mob seeks to punish the perpetrator. But if they can't find the perpetrator, they'll go after a bunch of unpopular innocent people. And so a naive utilitarian concludes, "Oh, if we falsely accused a single innocent, then only one person would be hurt." And the mob is satiated, for now. But naive utility becomes a demonically isolated virtue, demanding further false accusations to placate future mobs. And in the end, of course, you lose even the utility that the naive utilitarian hoped for, because demonic, isolated virtues are ultimately liars.
Much of the appeal of rule-utilitarianism and deontological ethics, I believe, comes from the fact that they try to work around the problem identified by Lewis, within a secular framework. And I think this is why I find the Capabilities Approach so disarming: It assumes that goodness requires preserving a complex combination of options for human beings, and it suggests that maybe we've overlooked a few. And as Ozy points out, Nussbaum's approach can even be adapted non-human creatures, which might have different central capabilities.
One weakness of the Capabilities Approach is that you can't quite nail it down to a complete list, to a straightforward ethical algorithm. But if we take Lewis seriously, that may be its greatest strength.
Since I've already mentioned one Christian apologist, let me mention another. Sometime around the start of the 1990s, G.K. Chesterton saw a proposal that said, "Poor children often have lice. To help control these lice, we should shave the heads of poor children." And this outraged Chesterton on a fundamental level. Now, Chesterton was a far more of a gender essentialist than I'll ever be. But I still find his response incredibly memorable:
> I begin with a little girl’s hair. That I know is a good thing at any rate. Whatever else is evil, the pride of a good mother in the beauty of her daughter is good. It is one of those adamantine tendernesses which are the touchstones of every age and race. If other things are against it, other things must go down. If landlords and laws and sciences are against it, landlords and laws and sciences must go down. With the red hair of one she-urchin in the gutter I will set fire to all modern civilization.
> Because a girl should have long hair, she should have clean hair; because she should have clean hair, she should not have an unclean home; because she should not have an unclean home, she should have a free and leisured mother; because she should have a free mother, she should not have an usurious landlord; because there should not be an usurious landlord, there should be a redistribution of property; because there should be a redistribution of property, there shall be a revolution.
> That little urchin with the gold-red hair, whom I have just watched toddling past my house, she shall not be lopped and lamed and altered; her hair shall not be cut short like a convict’s; no, all the kingdoms of the earth shall be hacked about and mutilated to suit her. She is the human and sacred image; all around her the social fabric shall sway and split and fall; the pillars of society shall be shaken, and the roofs of ages come rushing down, and not one hair of her head shall be harmed.
Here, Chesterton makes an argument that could have come straight from the Capabilities Approach: people should have access to healthy sanitation, and enough time to parent their children. Any system which fails to provide these capabilities should be reformed: by revolution, if necessary.
My "ethical system" is laughably philosophically simple and vague by standards of many folks around these parts. I can't lay it out in great detail and mount a philosophical defense.
But I can point at Nussbaum (and parts of Lewis and Chesterton) and say, "What I believe looks something vaguely like that. And I would happily live with the vagueness than to strive for a false precision."
The best writing on animal ethics in a long time – exciting!
I find the "Capabilities Approach" to be morally evocative. It suggests that humans ought to have a rewarding life, but that a rewarding life is a complex and nuanced thing. Perhaps we have identified a dozen (or two dozen) "central capabilities", but perhaps there are four more that are so obviously correct we don't even think to articulate them.
C.S. Lewis wrote an interesting book, "The Four Loves," which tackles the different kinds of human relationships. In this book, he argues that true goodness is a complex thing (essentially a divine command, because this is Lewis). But that if you take a single virtue, isolate it, and declare that virtue to be the only one that matters, that virtue will become demonic and destroy you. And in the end, the demonic, isolated virtue will break even its own promises. For example: Perhaps you define simple utility to be the sole virtue. One day, a crime has been committed, and an angry mob seeks to punish the perpetrator. But if they can't find the perpetrator, they'll go after a bunch of unpopular innocent people. And so a naive utilitarian concludes, "Oh, if we falsely accused a single innocent, then only one person would be hurt." And the mob is satiated, for now. But naive utility becomes a demonically isolated virtue, demanding further false accusations to placate future mobs. And in the end, of course, you lose even the utility that the naive utilitarian hoped for, because demonic, isolated virtues are ultimately liars.
Much of the appeal of rule-utilitarianism and deontological ethics, I believe, comes from the fact that they try to work around the problem identified by Lewis, within a secular framework. And I think this is why I find the Capabilities Approach so disarming: It assumes that goodness requires preserving a complex combination of options for human beings, and it suggests that maybe we've overlooked a few. And as Ozy points out, Nussbaum's approach can even be adapted non-human creatures, which might have different central capabilities.
One weakness of the Capabilities Approach is that you can't quite nail it down to a complete list, to a straightforward ethical algorithm. But if we take Lewis seriously, that may be its greatest strength.
Since I've already mentioned one Christian apologist, let me mention another. Sometime around the start of the 1990s, G.K. Chesterton saw a proposal that said, "Poor children often have lice. To help control these lice, we should shave the heads of poor children." And this outraged Chesterton on a fundamental level. Now, Chesterton was a far more of a gender essentialist than I'll ever be. But I still find his response incredibly memorable:
> I begin with a little girl’s hair. That I know is a good thing at any rate. Whatever else is evil, the pride of a good mother in the beauty of her daughter is good. It is one of those adamantine tendernesses which are the touchstones of every age and race. If other things are against it, other things must go down. If landlords and laws and sciences are against it, landlords and laws and sciences must go down. With the red hair of one she-urchin in the gutter I will set fire to all modern civilization.
> Because a girl should have long hair, she should have clean hair; because she should have clean hair, she should not have an unclean home; because she should not have an unclean home, she should have a free and leisured mother; because she should have a free mother, she should not have an usurious landlord; because there should not be an usurious landlord, there should be a redistribution of property; because there should be a redistribution of property, there shall be a revolution.
> That little urchin with the gold-red hair, whom I have just watched toddling past my house, she shall not be lopped and lamed and altered; her hair shall not be cut short like a convict’s; no, all the kingdoms of the earth shall be hacked about and mutilated to suit her. She is the human and sacred image; all around her the social fabric shall sway and split and fall; the pillars of society shall be shaken, and the roofs of ages come rushing down, and not one hair of her head shall be harmed.
Here, Chesterton makes an argument that could have come straight from the Capabilities Approach: people should have access to healthy sanitation, and enough time to parent their children. Any system which fails to provide these capabilities should be reformed: by revolution, if necessary.
My "ethical system" is laughably philosophically simple and vague by standards of many folks around these parts. I can't lay it out in great detail and mount a philosophical defense.
But I can point at Nussbaum (and parts of Lewis and Chesterton) and say, "What I believe looks something vaguely like that. And I would happily live with the vagueness than to strive for a false precision."