If a country’s gross domestic product increases each year, but so does the percentage of its people deprived of basic education, health care and other opportunities, is that country really making progress? if we rely on conventional economic indicators, can we ever grasp how the world’s billions of individuals are really managing? in this powerful critique, martha nussbaum argues that our dominant theories of development have given us policies that ignore our most basic human needs for dignity and self-respect for the past twenty-five years, nussbaum has been working on an alternative model to assess human development: the capabilities approach she and her colleagues begin with the simplest of questions: what is each person actually able to do and to be? what real opportunities are available to them? the capabilities approach to human progress has until now been expounded only in specialized works creating capabilities, however, affords anyone interested in issues of human developm

This volume, which grows out of The Quality of Life (eds. Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen, 1993), combines philosophical inquiry with economic concerns regarding women's equality in the developing world. Adopting Amartya Sen's capability framework, international contributors tackle issues of cultural relativism vs. cultural imperialism on the one hand, and questions of local traditions vs. universalist critical judgement on the other. The chief aim of this work is to critically explore the relationship between culture and justice as pertinent to women's development, with special attention paid to cultural sensitivity but without compromising the clarity of rational judgement in cases where women's capabilities are at stake. Building upon the practical and philosophical implications of the lived experience of women from a variety of cultures, the authors theorize the pragmatics of economic development beyond utility towards a vision of gender equality. This book is a must‐read for anyone interested in the ethics of women's economic development.