1. Creating Capabilities – Which
Capabilities and for Whom
Harry Brighouse
University of Wisconsin, Madison
2. How to decide which capabilities?
Recognize human diversity
Recognize cultural and social diversity
3. How do people flourish?
Needs vary with external environment
Needs vary with non-plastic traits
4. Personal autonomy/self-governance
Cannot pick out a child’s tendencies at birth
Imperfect match of children’s needs to parents’
values/practices
We need the internal resources and external conditions
needed for making and acting on good judgments
about what will tend to our own flourishing (matching
our values and practices to our personality)
5. But…
We need to be attached to a culture and community, for
self-knowledge, for personal connection, and for
meaning (Community)
Different societies balance community and autonomy
differently
There may be a precise correct equilibrium, but we don’t
know it
What individuals need is sensitive to the balance between
autonomy and community in their society
6. Tendency for policy to focus on…
A subset of capabilities everybody needs:
those about the content of which there is
little live public disagreement
7. Education in the contemporary US...
Cognitive (math and reading)
Physical
------------------
Emotional
Moral/Social
Spiritual
8. A (rough) guide to capabilities in education
The self
We value ourselves as unique human beings capable of spiritual, moral,
intellectual and physical growth and development.
Relationships
We value others for themselves, not only for what they have or what they
can do for us. We value relationships as fundamental to the development
and fulfillment of ourselves and others, and to the good of the community.
Society
We value truth, freedom, justice, human rights, the rule of law and collective
effort for the common good. In particular, we value families as sources of
love and support for all their members, and as the basis of a society in
which people care for others.
The environment
We value the environment, both natural and shaped by humanity, as the
basis of life and a source of wonder and inspiration.
From UK National Curriculum Statement of Values
9. Distributive Rules
EQUAL CAPABILITIES:
Each person’s capabilities should be equally well
developed
EQUAL GOVERNMENT ATTENTION
The development of each person’s capabilities should
receive equal attention from public institutions
ADEQUACY
Everyone should reach some threshold level of capability
development. Inequalities above this level are fine, or
governed by some other rule
10. More distributive rules
MAXIMIN:
Social inequalities are justified when they work to the
benefit of the capability development of those whose
capabilities are least developed
PRIORITY
Developing the capabilities of those who capabilities are
less developed is always (somewhat) more urgent
than developing those whose capabilities are more
developed
11. Whose capabilities here and now?
Focus on less and least advantaged
Realistic assessment of the conditions facing them as
adults
Develop capabilities needed to flourish in those conditions
12. Two purposes of moral theory
Guide evaluation of status quo
Guiding action (and policy)
13. Policy and practice come in sectors…
Education
Health care and public health
The economy (?)
Family policy
Housing
The environment
etc…..
15. Creating sector-specific complex resources:
the case of education
Preparing teachers and principals
Common standards
Common assessments
Detailed data on achievement
Common language for discussing standards,
assessments and achievement
Professional development oriented to learning
which instructional strategies are successful with
which children and learning those strategies
16. Not creating complex educational resources:
the case of Title One
“in a nation whose schools were radically
decentralized, and which lacked a common
infrastructure, any effort to improve instruction would
have to take on the fundamental weaknesses of the US
System…. The political governance arrangements and
traditions of U.S. public education inhibited even
discussion of such an infrastructure…. The absence of
such instruments [common
standards, curricula, assessments, and data systems
and professional development keyed to them] was, of
course, not an oversight, but a central feature of the
design of public education.”
– Cohen and Moffitt, The Ordeal of Equality
(Harvard, 2009)
17. Summary
Which capabilities?: sensitive to variation in
what it takes to flourish across and within
societies
How distributed?: to benefit the least
advantaged (lowest capability development)
Operationalizing for policy purposes requires
attention to how sectors interact
