How Capability Approach View Justice

By This quote Amartya Sen begins his book: The Idea of Justice: “In the little world in which children have their existence’, says Pip in Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations, ‘there is nothing so finely perceived and finely felt, as injustice.” (Sen, 2009: p: vii).

In 1979 Amartya Sen presented the capability approach as an alternative and improvement on the social primary goods approach provided by John Rawls. And also to the preferences satisfaction and real income ideas as measures for well being for the purposes of justice. in his lecture at Stanford University entitled “Equality of What”. Sen argued if People were basically very similar, then an index of primary goods might be quit a good way of judging advantage. But, in fact people seem to have different needs varying with education ,health, longevity and climatic conditions. So what is involved is not only ignoring a few cases, but also neglecting very widespread and real differences (sen 1980 PP: 215-216). Furthermore he believes that people have some preferences (adaptive) not because they believe that their fulfillment will meet their interests , but for a reason that their circumstances have distorted their true interests. If the social structure will allow them to fulfill their aspiration. Some people have preferences that is easy to meet , because they used to have response to injustice , While others may have the opposite because they have failed to exercise restrictions on their aspiration (Sen, 1999, PP:62-63). In addition Sen states his objection on using real income as a measure of well-being. People have differences in their ability to convert money in well- being as well as primary goods. Because people have differences to have control on it such as disable...

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