Labor law scholars often discuss the “Capability Approach” as if it were a single thing with clearly defined content. However, it is best seen as a family of approaches. This paper first clarifies what the different versions of the approach have in common: a commitment to replacing measurement of well-being by gross domestic product (GDP) per capita by a focus on a group of substantial freedoms or opportunities for choice. It then goes on to clarify some deep differences between Amartya Sen’s version of the approach and that used by Nussbaum. Nussbaum’s version is intended to supply a basis for political principles in a pluralistic society, and thus, eschews on grounds of equal respect for persons any commitment to a comprehensive doctrine of freedom or autonomy, given that in a pluralistic society citizens, religious and secular, differ about these values. It also avoids, in consequence, a commitment to maximizing freedom. Even though Sen distinguishes maximizing from optimizing and allows for plural conceptions of the good, he goes further than Nussbaum in prioritizing autonomy and reason-based conceptions. And because he does not endorse a list his maximizing exercise seems fully general; by contrast, Nussbaum’s the political goal is understood to be to secure to all citizens, by constitutional right, an ample threshold amount of (only) ten central opportunities or capabilities as a partial conception. She defends this approach, in terms of Rawlsian “political liberalism,” as more consonant with equal respect for persons. In further clarifying these ideas, the paper also discusses the role of feminist economics in developing the approach, and recommends a focus on the informal economy and the political assignment of financial value to women’s unpaid domestic work.
Validation of the Workplace Integrated Safety and Health (WISH) assessment in a sample of nursing homes using Item Response Theory (IRT) methods