Abstract
This volume engages the theory of development pioneered by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum and their capability approach (CA). Its chapters are an invitation to participate in the growing academic and policy discussion of human development. The focus on the CA is put at the forefront from page 1 where Esquith states the chapters' intention to ‘extend, criticize, and reformulate the capability approach to human development’ (p. 1), but the book does not limit its discussion to these ideas, adding to what Dower presents as the globalisation of ethics in development (ch. 9). While providing interesting and compelling discussions, the volume lacks a unified examination of issues of power and institutions in development ethics.
The book operates around a central tension in development – analysed by Thompson in chapter 8 – between the need to give in to the ‘urgency’ of discussing the morality of development policies and practices and the need to create a space of deeper political and philosophical reflection on development issues, a tension clear throughout the chapters. Along these lines, some authors seem to accept the CA at face value, aiming at improving or extending an already taken-for-granted approach. That is the case with Alkire's chapter arguing for further empirical engagement with the CA in a ‘prospective analysis’ of its applicability (ch. 1) or St Clair's argumentation in favour of a pragmatist methodology in engaging with concrete everyday policies of multilateral institutions that assume the CA as their goal (ch. 5). The more philosophical or political revision of development ethics comes from the chapters of Schmid, criticising the lack of questioning of whose freedom the CA aims to favour (ch. 2); Gasper and Truong, who question the human conception of the CA from several humanist perspectives (ch.4); and Feldman's chapter criticising the liberal-capitalist assumptions that go unchallenged at the basis of the CA (ch. 6). Both Barkin (ch. 7) and Little (ch. 3) are in a middle terrain, presenting acute critiques of the CA using relevant empirical examples of regional development.
The book gives an informed and critical reading of broad issues of development and ethics, and it covers an interesting variety of arguments suitable for academics and practitioners. However, if the interest of the reader is to find a systematic discussion of the CA, or an in-depth engagement with arguments of institutions or power in development, these expectations may be disappointed by the lack of an overall clear perspective between chapters.