Dignity Line vs. Priority Lists : a study of Martha Nussbaum’s List of Central Human Capabilities in Relation to the PRSPs from Madagascar and Yemen

Abstract: As an equality producing mechanism Martha Nussbaum presents a list of ten central human capabilities which, if realised, will lead to a dignified life. The purpose of this thesis is to discover if it is reasonable to suggest that Nussbaum’s list of central human capacities equates to a unified definition of dignity. By examining the parallels between the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (hereafter written as PRSPs) from Madagascar and Yemen and the capabilities on the list, similarities and differences will be analyzed. In conclusion, all the capabilities on Nussbaum’s list are represented in the PRSPs but not all Nussbaum’s requirements of what the capability should include. However, it can be deduced from this that Nussbaum overly simplifies the concept of human dignity. Thus, due to the lack of a clear and unified definition of dignity Nussbaum’s list cannot be considered a universal definition of dignity.