Recovering Nussbaum's Aristotelian roots

Purpose – The paper aims to examine the relationship between creating capabilities and political liberalism. It argues that the reality of climate change calls for the capabilities approach to be more rooted in a relational anthropology which the Aristotelian ethical tradition is more akin to. Design/methodology/approach – It discusses how traces of this ethical tradition can be found in Nussbaum's capabilities approach itself: affiliation as an architectonic capability leads to the common good being the end of political action, and practical reason as an architectonic capability leads to reasoning being structured by concerns for the common good. Findings – The paper suggests some practical implications of an Aristotelian version of the capabilities approach. Originality/value – The paper seeks to build an account of social justice based on the capabilities approach with Aristotelian roots.