Paper short abstract:

How are human beings capable of recognizing injustice, of knowing which differences and inequalities among us are unjust? This presentation identifies factors in our moral psychology that support awareness of injustice and shows how capability concepts mobilize and facilitate that support.

Paper long abstract:

Context

In The Idea of Justice Amartya Sen rejected ‘transcendental’ conceptions of justice that set out necessary and sufficient conditions for a perfectly just society. Ingrid Robeyns responded by asking how, without referring to an ideal of justice, one can reply to people claiming that justice has been achieved, when it has not.

In other words, how are we capable of recognizing injustice, if not by comparing the actual world to an ideal world that satisfies principles of justice?

Methodology

I begin with conceptual analysis of valuable capabilities as freedoms to live well. I extend this analysis by asking: when we recognize that people are unequally free to live well, how does this activate the basic ‘working parts’ of our moral psychology?

Findings from moral psychology

Drawing upon the recent high-level synthesis by Victor Kumar and Richmond Campbell A Better Ape: The Evolution of the Moral Mind and How It Made Us Human (Oxford 2022), I locate the basic ‘working parts’ of our moral psychology at three levels.

I. A few basic moral sensitivities were the first to evolve: sympathy, loyalty, respect for autonomy, trust, and fairness.

II. Later to evolve was norm psychology. Here we identify particular behaviours that offend against our basic moral sensitivities.

III. With the advent of agriculture, surplus wealth, and social hierarchies, moral distortion was incentivized to favour people higher and disadvantage people lower in the hierarchies. Moral progress since then has involved detecting and removing these distortions.

Analysis & Conclusion

In this context, I make two observations about capabilities.

(1) The valuable capabilities are freedoms to live well. Therefore, when we witness unequal capabilities, three of these basic moral sensitivities are triggered at once: sympathy, respect for autonomy, and sensitivity to unfairness.

(2) Capability thinking is concerned not merely with expanding capabilities; it is equally concerned with unequal capabilities. This concern also leads the moral mind to object when some people’s restricted capabilities are ignored, or regarded as less important. In this way, capability concepts are supportive of moral progress.

I conclude: these are two ways in which capability concepts can contribute powerfully to the human capability for recognizing and knowing injustice. To answer Robeyns’s challenge: this explains how, simply by recognizing unequal capability (unequal freedom to live well), justice-seeking people can be aware that their work is not done.