Leiden University Student Repository

Hohlfeld, Felix (2025)

Pluralism, Perfectionism and Political Neutrality: Probing the Political Liberalism of Martha Nussbaum's Capabilities Theory of Justice

Master thesis | Philosophy (MA) (60 EC)

Since her purported moderation of Aristotelian essentialism in the late 1990s, Martha Nussbaum has cast her capabilities theory of justice in the light of the political liberalism broadly associated with John Rawls. In recent decades, however, several authors have expressed considerable doubt about the status of Nussbaum’s theory as politically liberal. This thesis aims to systematically examine the political liberalism of Martha Nussbaum's capabilities theory of justice. Through a critical assessment of the existing scholarship on political liberalism, I partially vindicate Nussbaum’s self-description, arguing that a politically liberal orientation – far from being antithetical to – is consistent with the structural configuration of, and weak perfectionist tendencies within, her account. Nevertheless, certain articulations of her account contain ambivalences that Nussbaum has good reason to disambiguate if she is to bolster the political liberalism of her account.

Capability Approach

Political Liberalism

Martha Nussbaum

Liberal Legitimacy

Perfectionist Liberalism

Author

Hohlfeld, Felix

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Specialisation

Philosophical Perspectives on Politics and the Economy

Supervisors

Mokrosinska, D.

ECTS Credits

20

Language

en