The Capabilities and Natural Law

Aquinas, Sen, Nussbaum

Abstract

Martha C. Nussbaum has argued that Sen should endorse one definite list of valuable capabilities, if he wants to apply the capability approach to social justice. And she has herself drawn up such a list of capabilities, i.e. 1.Life, 2.Bodily Health, 3.Bodily Integrity, 4.Sense, Imagination, and Thought, 5.Emotions, 6.Practical Reason, 7.Affiliation, 8.Other Species, 9.Play, and 10.Control over One's Environment. On the other hand, Amartya Sen has refused the listing of capabilities. The search for given, pre-determined weights is not only conceptually ungrounded, but it also overlooks the fact that the valuations and weights to be used may reasonably be influenced by our own continued scrutiny and by the reach of public discussion. According to Sen, it would be hard to accommodate this understanding with inflexible use of some pre-determined weights in a non-contingent form. 　Nussbaum says that the list itself is open-ended and has undergone modification over time, but her list is fixed, like a grand mausoleum to one fixed and final list of capabilities. On the other hand, according to Sen, the capabilities are the substantive freedoms to choose a life that has value. But, there are many sorts of freedoms. There may be a terrorist who wants the liberty of performing terrorism for his revenge. Now, Thomas Aquinas has said as follows. The order in which commands of the natural law are ranged corresponds to that of our natural tendencies. Here, there are three stages. There is in man, first, a tendency towards the good of the nature he has in common with all substances. Natural law here plays a corresponding part, and is engaged at this stage to maintain and defend the elementary requirements of human life. Secondly, there is in man a bent towards things which accord with his nature considered more specifically, that is in terms of what he has in common with other animals. Thirdly, there is in man an appetite for the good of his nature as rational, and this is proper to him, for instance, that he should know truth about God and about living in society. I would like to make one suggestion here. As far as the capabilities are human ability, they can be classified according to human nature. And according to Aquinas, there are three stages in human nature. So, we can make up the list of capabilities according to these stages. To supply something both new and old is the aim of classical study.