This post was originally submitted to the APA Blog Undergraduate Public Philosophy contest. We are happy to publish it in the Women in Philosophy series.
by Xuerui Yang
Imagine a community. It is situated at a disadvantageous location, lacking natural resources, and developing through limited subsidies. Underdeveloped transportation discourages children from traveling to schools outside. However, within this community, everyone receives equal respect and distributes their basic necessities – food, shelter, income and so on – equally. What’s more, this community is deeply religious and is blithely unconcerned with material needs beyond a certain minimum level. Observing religious practices is deemed the key to realizing the worth of a human being. This is a village I visited in the Tsang region of Tibet in China: Village LongLive (pseudonym is used for the village).
Noteworthily, this village community does not feel unjustly disadvantaged in either material or social conditions. Moreover, given their strong sense of reciprocal respect for one another, Village LongLive could even be used as an exemplary egalitarian community. Notwithstanding, the question arises when it is placed in a broader context of the globalized world: Are the villagers truly living their life to their human potential when they do not receive a formal education? The response to this question might show the limits of what we have come to call “The Capabilities Approach,” following Martha Nussbaum.
Nussbaum argues for a list of ten universal basic capabilities that should underpin the political goals for any government (see link here for her original article). The concept of capability originates from an intuitive understanding of human nature, which is deemed to be dignified, free, and conscious. Following from this conception, every human being has the capability to achieve their full human functions. Therefore, the guarantee for capabilities is an indispensable condition for any society that aims for political justice. Failure to do so leads to an “unjust and tragic” situation which demands urgent action.
Importantly, the “capability” in Nussbaum’s conception is a combination of both internal development and social conditions. Specifically, Nussbaum emphasizes that ripe “material and social circumstances” are essential for an individual to not only display her trained capabilities, but also cultivate her internal capability as a human being. This understanding of capability underlies the moral obligation of governments to prepare a favorable environment for their citizens’ flourishing. Thus, for the Tibetan case, Nussbaum would argue for two courses of action: (1) redistributive policies to ensure the material basis for formal education, and (2) laws to ensure the social basis for formal education.
For Nussbaum, she would claim the lack of education at LongLive as a tragedy, given that education is the critical component that shapes one’s capability of practical reason. Considering the remoteness of the village and difficulty in accessing primary and secondary schools, Nussbaum would advocate for more government subsidies – to build schools and infrastructure, provide transportations, and even recruit more teachers for the children from Village LongLive. Such a provision is costly. However, the ability to reason practically is a universal one. Thus, in spite of the costs, it is necessary to provide each villager with an education.
However, the villagers think otherwise: most do not feel strongly about their situation. To them, although conditions for basic survival could be improved, they are satisfied with their current modus vivendi. Moreover, all families teach their children a Tibetan Buddhist way of living by practicing religious worship. A chat with a villager, Mary (pseudo name is used to protect the interviewee’s privacy), reveals that some households would prefer sending children to monasteries over educational institutions in town so as to continue their rootedness in Tibetan Buddhism. It is clear that Buddhist worship is the foundation of a meaningful life to these villagers.
In response, Nussbaum would contend that satisfaction is not the correct metric to institute policies. The essential question, rather, is what the villagers are capable of achieving if they were given the opportunity to choose different ways of living. Because they never received an education, it could be argued that these villagers were being conditioned to believe they did not need one. Such a scenario is a deprivation of a critical human capability.
Nussbaum’s underlying justification is the difference between functioning and capability, where functioning refers to the actual exercise of a human potential, and capability refers to the opportunity of displaying functioning. Nussbaum uses an analogy: comparing the difference between fasting and starving, a religious ascetic can choose to fast but still have the option to eat whenever he wants to. As such, even if the villagers choose not to activate their functioning of literacy and numeracy, the government should still devote resources to make formal schooling an available option, showing respect for citizens’ universal capability of practical reason.
On the surface, it seems that Nussbaum shows great respect for the choice of each human being. However, a closer examination of her stance in the aspect of practical reason reveals contradictions. Despite her concession that individuals have the choice to decide whether or not to exercise their actual capability, she specifies that certain functioning should be pursued by the government for its citizens regardless of their will. An example she gives is functioning in childhood, which is deemed necessary for capability in adulthood and thus an imperative to protect. Essentially, Nussbaum believes that (1) certain functioning is indispensable for cultivating the internal conditions (for example, intellectual capacity) for capability, and (2) capability is the basis for exercising full human functioning in future. Therefore, it is crucial to promote certain functioning as a starting point. As such, it is insufficient to merely have an option of schooling – there must be social basis that ensures compensation for natural and social differences in order to respect human capabilities. Such social basis would manifest in laws related to education.
One important clarification centres around the view that education is the key to “practical reason” – the ability to “form a conception of the good and to engage in critical reflection about the planning of one’s life”. What such reflection entails is a complexity of discourse and considerations about human activities, to which Nussbaum offers a specific interpretation – the option to multiple possibilities of living. To illustrate, speech and religious freedom are two tenants of developing political and religious capabilities; Nussbaum claims that “[A] child raised in an environment without freedom of speech or religion does not develop the same political and religious capabilities.” Conversely, the lack thereof reveals a preclusion from cultivating such capabilities – the charge against Village LongLive. The mere exposure to religious practices of Tibetan Buddhism without formal modern education would be an inadequate one because such education deprives children of the ability to formulate multiple interpretations of their lifepath beyond a tradition-abiding one. In order to realize one’s full human functioning of reasoning, Nussbaum would campaign for necessary pro-education laws in remote villages. Consequently, it would be unacceptable to her if the Tibetans decide not to send their children to formal schools but simply raise them with the practices of Tibetan Buddhism.
However, comparing her arguments above, a contradiction exists between enforcing mandatory education to protect capabilities and respecting individual human choices. In order to respect individuals as truly worthy human beings, Nussbaum expects a top-down approach to enforce rules which would potentially violate individual choices. Such contradiction, however, reveals an implicit assumption of Nussbaum’s universal capability metric – that complexity in a person’s plan of life is only possible through going beyond her status quo, which thus necessitates modern liberal education. This reasoning may sound plausible in Nussbaum’s anecdotal encounters with Indian women who want to work outside of the home but cannot do so. However, it does not apply to this Tibetan village where the villagers choose to keep to their way of living despite their awareness of the possibility for change. Specifically, the Tibetan lady who I encountered told me that villagers will donate whatever extra portion of wealth or gifts they receive from visitors to local monasteries because they believe that is the moral way of living. While the topic is not directly targeted at education, her view nonetheless reveals a different belief in human worth, which is neglected by Nussbaum. To the Tibetan villagers, their human value and capability rest in their embodiment of the religiosity of Tibetan Buddhism through maintaining their way of living and practices. Even without formal education, the capability of practical reason can exist, through a different format in the Tibetan village context. Per corollary, villagers feel little need to bridge the difference between their educational opportunities and the perceived increased enjoyment by the modern world. The basis of comparison for human worth, is not the same.
My critique of Nussbaum’s universal capabilities concurs with the ideas of transnational feminism. More specifically, in her recent book Decolonizing Universalism: A Transnational Feminist Ethic, Serene Khader urges second-wave feminists who advocate for universal moral ideals to factor in historical and structural contexts before commencing their mission of ending “global” social and political injustice. I agree with Khader’s view; in the context of Village LongLive, it is critical to recognize and respect the historical continuity under which villagers developed their devotion towards Tibetan Buddhism and to look beyond one single normative paradigm in judging what is a worthy life. However, rather than advocating for any justice-enhancing changes to the community – as embedded in most transnational feminist ideas, I insist on recognizing the socio-cultural significance of Tibetan Buddhist teaching in villagers’ life.
Admittedly, my experience with the Tibetan village is an anecdotal account. Nevertheless, it reveals an exception to Nussbaum’s principle of universal capability, specifically targeting the aspect of practical reason. As Nussbaum’s principle targets governments worldwide, a crucial question to ask is where to draw the line between protecting universal capabilities and imposing certain capabilities deemed universal by progressivists. In this specific case where the villagers base their meaning of life fundamentally on the maintenance of Tibetan religiosity, a change in education will inevitably challenge the value it holds dear, even creating frictions that may break this close-knit community. Nussbaum’s approach is likely to bring more disruptions than human progress to this village. Ultimately, Nussbaum’s argument for universal basic capabilities does not appear to be so universal after all.
Xuerui Yang developed an interest in political philosophy in her first year of university when she took a class on Philosophy and Political Thought in Yale-NUS College. A class on Contemporary Egalitarianism inspired her to evaluate established theories with her personal observation in Tibet. Keen on promoting philosophical discussions among more students, Xuerui developed Yale-NUS Philosophy Society and organized the second Singapore Undergraduate Philosophy Conference in 2018. She is currently pursuing Urban Studies and Philosophy at Yale-NUS College in Singapore. You can find her at: xuerui.yang@u.yale-nus.edu.sg.
Not a huge fan of Nussbaum and her ways.
Thanks very much for this, which is very thought provoking. I’m not an expert on this area of philosophy, so I can’t comment specifically on Nussbaum, but I did have some niggling worries. Mostly I wondered whether the very benevolent nature of the society you described might be hiding potential difficulties. I have just finished reading Marian Toews Women Talking which is about a very non-benevolent closed society, where one of the themes is the lack of capabilities afforded to women. In this book it is very clear that things have gone very badly educationally speaking for the women. It also shows the difficulty the women face in challenging the norms of their society. So the issue of choice is complicated, and I worry if it isn’t complicated in the case of the children in Village LongLife. Thank you very much for your very thoughtful post. I will go on thinking about it.
Thank you for this post questioning the universality of Nussbaum’s capabilities. My feminist theory students often raise the universality question, and I think I can use your blog to show what an interesting, thoughtful criticism might look like.
Thanks for this post, which I found really interesting. I wonder if there’s some kind of middle ground between the sorts of policy proposals you think Nussbaum would make for Village LongLife and an approach that would simply preserve the status quo; and I wonder, too, if the objections you raise against Nussbaum would carry over to such middle-ground proposals. I also wonder if the source of the proposals make a difference–e.g., it’s not totally clear to me whether you’d think your objections to the Nussbaum-inspired proposals would apply if those proposals arose somehow from a group of people within the village as opposed to being recommended to the group from outside. Anyway, thanks again for the post!