BEYOND LIBERALISM: THE CAPABILITIES APPROACH AND SOCIAL JUSTICE CRITIQUE

The capabilities approach has been primarily associated with liberalism, since its founding figures, Sen and Nussbaum, have expressly assumed themselves as part of that school of thought. However, it can be argued that some of the characteristics of such approach could find their best formulation, projection and development outside liberalism. Critical social justice, from its constituent concepts of recognition, intersubjectivity and high sensitivity to vulnerability, seems to be a more appropriate normative space for the development and projection of the capabilities approach. This thesis is illustrated through two important normative discussions, the first of which is the one that has the metric of justice as its subject, and the second is the one related to the way democracy, citizenship and public reason are understood. From the interpretation of these concepts, it can be justified that critical social justice is a better normative framework for the capability approach than liberalism is.