Rights, Capabilities and Human Flourishing (original) (raw)

Christian theorists tend to ground human rights in the nature of human beings, as people created in the Image of God, and justified on the same basis. This paper argues for a complementary view: that rights might be grounded in the idea of shalom, and justified by their relationship to human flourishing. The Capabilities Approach of Armatya Sen and Martha Nussbaum, which emphasizes the importance of people's choices about how they will live, provides fruitful as a way of relating shalom to rights. A state of shalom implies human flourishing, for which capabilities are a prerequisite. Human rights, then, are those rights necessary for enhancing capabilities. This approach can assist with the clarification of certain features that rights possess, and so in evaluating rights claims.