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Political Research Quarterly
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Justice and the Environment in Nussbaum's "Capabilities Approach"

Why Sustainable Ecological Capacity Is a Meta-Capability

Breena Holland

Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

What principles should guide how society distributes environmental benefits and burdens? Like many liberal theories of justice, Martha Nussbaum's "capabilities approach" does not adequately address this question. The author argues that the capabilities approach should be extended to account for the environment's instrumental value to human capabilities. Given this instrumental value, protecting capabilities requires establishing certain environmental conditions as an independent "meta-capability." When combined with Nussbaum's nonprocedural method of political justification, this extension provides the basis for adjudicating environmental justice claims. The author applies this extended capabilities approach to assess the distribution of benefits and burdens associated with climate change.

Key Words: capabilities • climate change • environment • instrumental value • justice • political liberalism

This version was published on June 1, 2008

Political Research Quarterly, Vol. 61, No. 2, 319-332 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/1065912907306471
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