Chapter 6 moves from combatting capability shortfalls to expanding people’s capability development through capability gains. In addition to promoting people’s basic capabilities for what they can be and do, we can also promote their potential enhanced capabilities when societies are democratic and reduce social inequality. I argue this calls for envisioning the economy as a capability generation process rather than as income generation process (or preference satisfaction process) as the mainstream sees it. I address the relationship between democracy and capabilities, explain democracy in the social contract tradition as a system of public reason, discuss the nature of collective capabilities in terms of the idea of people forming collective intentions, and argue that this all entails seeing democratic societies as “open political systems” that allow for constant innovation and evolution in how diverse kinds of people settle upon and consent to rules that govern the decision-making practices they find functional to living together. Finally, I close by arguing that this is all inconsistent with the mainstream conception of private subjectivity. I return to the idea of a person’s self-narratives as a personal identity capability and suggest understanding it requires we rethink how subjectivity is socially embodied and socially situated – a topic taken up in Part III.

Due to its complexity, climate-induced migration can be explored from different angles and disciplines. Over the past decades, scholars and practitioners engaged with this topic have extensively discussed the terminology in use, the (still) controversial link between human mobility and climate change, and the legal status of those fleeing environmental disruptions. However, a comprehensive understanding of the justice-related angle of this issue seems underdeveloped. What precisely is the ‘injustice’ where people forced to migrate because of slow-onset, rapid-onset, or extreme-weather-related events are concerned? The following chapter seeks to answer this question by examining climate-induced migration through the lens of environmental justice (EJ). To this end, the chapter proceeds first by analysing the EJ paradigm, its origin, and its main features. Second, it justifies the choice of using this concept by emphasising how its multidisciplinary nature, multidimensional understanding of justice, and multi-scale (spatial and temporal) approach well suit climate-induced migration. Finally, it presents a proposal to remedy the injustice of climate-induced migration with an EJ-oriented pathway. This proposal introduces a community-based EJ approach rooted in the notion of collective capabilities.

This chapter critically reviews the debate on individualism and the capability approach, arguing for the need to account for those capabilities that result from social interaction and collective action and are unachievable by single individuals. The first section explains how the capability approach adopts ethical individualism with its emphasis on the individual as the only unit of moral concern. Drawing on Sen’s and Nussbaum’s works, the second section explains how the approach accounts for the instrumental role of social structures in affecting individual freedoms, agency, identities and affiliations. The third section presents different concepts, such as irreducibly social goods, structures of living together, group capabilities and collective capabilities that aim to emphasize the intrinsic importance of collectivities and societal structures. The last section presents Sen’s responses to these critiques and highlights the need to account for a new type of capabilities that are generated at the collective level without necessarily sacrificing the primary focus on individual capabilities.