Nussbaum, with economist Amartya Sen, developed the capabilities approach to human development and justice, arguing that well-being should be assessed by people's real freedoms to achieve valuable "functionings" - health, bodily integrity, practical reason, affiliation, and more - rather than by resources or aggregate utility alone. She proposed a list of central human capabilities as a cross-cultural minimum standard for justice, and in "Upheavals of Thought" argued that emotions embody cognitive judgments of value rather than being merely irrational forces.
Intellectual setting
Nussbaum developed the capabilities approach in dialogue with Amartya Sen's critique of purely resource- or utility-based measures of welfare, drawing extensively on Aristotelian ethics, and has applied the approach to international development policy, disability, and animal welfare across a long career bridging ancient philosophy and contemporary political theory.
Key ideas
The capabilities approach
Nussbaum argued that justice and development should be measured by individuals' genuine freedom to achieve a set of central human capabilities - including life, bodily health, bodily integrity, practical reason, and affiliation - rather than by income, resources, or aggregate utility.
Emotions as judgments of value
In "Upheavals of Thought," Nussbaum argued that emotions such as fear, grief, and love embody evaluative judgments about what matters to a person's flourishing, making them rationally assessable rather than mere non-cognitive feelings.
Legacy
The capabilities approach has shaped international development policy, including the United Nations Human Development Index, and Nussbaum remains one of the most widely read living philosophers, influential across ethics, political philosophy, and law.