The article discusses a fundamental problem that has to be faced if the general capability approach is to be developed in the direction of a theory of justice: the selection and justification of a list of capabilities. The democratic solution to this problem (defended by Amartya Sen) is to leave the selection of capabilities to a process of democratic deliberation, while the philosophical solution (defended by Martha Nussbaum) is to establish this list of capabilities as a matter of philosophical theory. The article investigates the debate between these two different positions and argues in favour of the philosophical solution. First, it distinguishes political from epistemological reasons for (not) making capability lists. Second, it shows that the democratic position must incorporate at least some philosophical theorising in general and a theory of democracy in particular. Third, the article argues that the democratic position presupposes that the philosophical position will bypass the democratic process while actually it does not. The philosophical position is actually more respectful of democracy than the democratic position. Fourth, while philosophers may exercise caution and connect their capability lists to actual democratic debates and other empirical sources, this kind of epistemological virtue ironically may heighten the chance of receiving reproaches on the political level.

The capability approach is one of the main contenders in the field of theorizing social justice. Each citizen is entitled to a set of basic capabilities. But which are these? Martha Nussbaum formulated a set of ten central capabilities. Amartya Sen argued they should be selected in a process of public reasoning. Critics object that the Nussbaum‐approach is too perfectionist and the Sen‐approach is too proceduralist. This paper presents a third alternative: a substantive but non‐perfectionist capability theory of justice. It presents a two‐level concept of individual agency as connected to social practices. It then argues basic capabilities are those necessary to for the agency necessary to navigate freely and autonomously between different social practices.

This paper is written from a perspective that is sympathetic to the basic idea of the capability approach. Our aim is to compare Martha Nussbaum's capability theory of justice with Alan Gewirth's moral theory, on two points: the selection and the justification of a list of central capabilities. On both counts, we contend that Nussbaum's theory suffers from flaws that Gewirth's theory may help to remedy. First, we argue that her notion of a (dignified) human life cannot fulfill the role of a normative criterion that Nussbaum wants it to play in selecting capabilities for her list. Second, we question whether Nussbaum's method of justification is adequate, discussing both her earlier self-validating argumentative strategy and her more recent adherence to the device of an overlapping consensus. We conclude that both strategies fail to provide the capabilities theory with the firm foundation it requires. Next, we turn to Gewirth's normative theory and discuss how it can repair these flaws. We show how his theory starts from a fundamental moral principle according to which all agents have rights to the protection of the necessary preconditions of their agency. Gewirth's justification of this principle is then presented, using a version of a transcendental argument. Finally, we explicitly compare Nussbaum and Gewirth and briefly demonstrate what it would mean for Nussbaum to incorporate Gewirthian elements into her capabilities theory of justice.

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This paper discusses the question whether care work for dependent persons (children, the elderly, and disabled persons) may be entrusted to the market; that is, whether and to what extent there is a normative justification for the ''commodification of care.'' It first proposes a capability theory for care that raises two relevant demands: a basic capability for receiving care and a capability for giving care. Next it discusses and rejects two objections that aim to show that market-based care undermines the caring motives essential to care, one of them because of its reliance on contracts and the other because of the corrupting influence of payment on motivation. If market care is in principle legitimate, the commodification question transforms into one about the appropriate combinations of market and non-market care. This question can be answered only by adding an additional complication: care is to be balanced against other activities, most notably work for the labor market. This brings in the problem of gender inequality, since paid work has been traditionally distributed to men and caring activities to women. I show how the capability theory of caring presented in this paper can help resolve the dispute between competing models for balancing work and caring.Giving and receiving care is one of the primary functions of any society. In caring for those who are vulnerable and dependent, societies express responsibility for their members when they are unable to sustain themselves without help. At the same time, since giving care usually involves the expenditure of considerable time and energy, care is an economic practice. Choices have to be made about the ways in which care should be provided. Sometimes these choices are met with resistance and criticism, where prevailing patterns of the organization of care work are contested. In many Western societies, this is currently the case. Ingrained patterns of care provision are contested from the perspective of women who have been responsible for the bulk of care to children, the elderly, and sick people. Their entry into the labor market has Hypatia vol. 26, no. 1 (Winter, 2011) r by Hypatia, Inc.

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Authors like Iris Young and Philip Pettit have come up with proposals for theorizing ‘structural injustice’ and social relations marred by ‘domination’. These authors provide conceptual tools for focusing on concrete economic structures and re-focus the debate about justice onto questions of power. In this article we build on their work, but we argue that a positive notion of economic agency is needed as a criterion for what makes economic structures dominating and potentially unjust. We propose a notion of economic agency, which we relate to a more general notion of autonomous agency to create a dual-level account. Domination in the economic sphere happens where individuals are deprived of their economic agency, to the extent that such agency is necessary to lead an autonomous life in general. Using the example of creditor-debtor relations we argue for the usefulness of this theoretical framework. Finally, we define injustices in terms of threshold levels of economic agency, the latter being spelled out in terms of a set of capabilities. This proposal overcomes the artificial boundaries between those theorizing ‘justice’ and those theorizing ‘power’ when analyzing the economic domain.

ABSTRACT. Should society intervene to prevent the risky behavior of precocious teenagers even if it would be impermissible to intervene with adults who engage in the same risky behavior? The problem is well illustrated by the legal case of the 13-year-old Dutch girl Laura Dekker, who set out in 2009 to become the youngest person ever to sail around the world alone, succeeding in January 2012. In this paper we use her case as a point of entry for discussing the fundamental question of how to demarcate childhood from adulthood. After summarizing the case, we identify a 'demarcation dilemma' that frames much of the public and expert debate. On the one hand, it seems morally imperative 'to treat like alike', which means that both children and adults should be allowed to undertake all actions for which they have the relevant competences. On the other hand, requiring proportional treatment of children and adults seems to neglect the special nature of childhood as a distinct stage in life that ends at a specific age. We introduce the notion of a 'regime of childhood' to deal with this problem. This regime includes several dimensions, including the limited liability for children, the supervisory responsibilities of parents, the role of age-based thresholds, and the overarching purpose of childhood as a context for developing autonomy. We argue that, all things considered, there are good reasons not to shift to a regime that offers individual children the option of qualifying for adulthood on the basis of ageneutral criteria.