Sessions IV to VI: Challenging Theories of Justice: The Capability Approaches of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum

Over the next three sessions with Professor Jay Drydyk, we would be reading the first chapter from Martha Nussbaum’s Frontiers of Justice, titled 'Social Contracts and Three Unsolved Problems of Justice’.


The text has been divided into three parts to spread over the three sessions:
07 February 2012 : Pages 9-35
14 February 2012 : Pages 35 - 69
21 February 2012 : Pages 69-95

Session III - Challenging Theories of Justice: The Capability Approaches of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum

For Session III of the course On Justice, the reading is: ‘Introduction’ from Amartya Sen’s The Idea of Justice.

Date: 17 January 2012 (Tuesday)
Time: 3.00 pm - 5.00 pm

Venue: Room 56, First Floor, Arts Faculty Building, University of Delhi

Reading/lecture questions

1. What is Sen’s idea of justice, anyway? What does reasoning have to do with it?
2. What is Sen’s feasibility argument, and is it sound?
3. What are Sen’s redundancy arguments, and are they sound?
4. Can a comparative approach escape these problem

Discussion questions

1. Is Sen’s assessment of the difference between niti and nyaya sound?
2. Is Sen’s assessment of the discussion between Arjuna and Krishna sound?
3. Does the social contract tradition have a future?

Session II - Challenging Theories of Justice: The Capability Approaches of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum

Many thanks for being there yesterday. It was great to see you all!


The reading for the next session is: 

Amartya Sen, 'Capability and Well-being', Chapter 2 of The Quality of Life edited by Sen and Nussbaum, 1993.



Date: 10 January 2012 (Tuesday)


Time: 3.00 pm - 5.00 pm


Venue: Room 56, First Floor, Arts Faculty Building, University of Delhi

Reading/lecture questions

1. What is meant by 'advantage'?

2. What does Sen mean by 'capabilities', 'capability', well-being freedom, well-being achievement, agency freedom, agency achievement?

3. Which goods constitute advantage?

4. Why is it capabilities that matter most for distributive justice?

Discussion questions

1. Who is to decide which capabilities are valuable? Experts? The people?

2. For Germans, eating well might involve rye bread, not rotis, while for Indians, eating well might involve rotis, but not rye bread. How can there be a single capability, if there is no single standard for its achievement?

3. Nussbaum's challenge: Don’t we need a single list of all essential capabilities?

4. Sen has discussed only individual capabilities. Aren’t group capabilities also important – for instance the capability of a tribal or ethnic group to maintain their culture?