Social Work, Capabilities and Needs

Abstract

Currently, within the social work theory and practice in Europe the Capabilities Approach (CA), the justice-based approach as developed by Martha Nussbaum (2006) and Amartya Sen (2009), is vividly discussed as an alternative concept to conceptualize agency and social well-being of individuals as well as to evaluate the options provided by social work institutions and welfare state (Otto & Ziegler 2008). This approach links capabilities with human dignity in a similar ways human rights have often been linked to it: “The capabilities approach is fully universal: the capabilities in question are held to be important for each and every citizen, in each and every nation, and each person is to be treated as an end. The approach is in this way similar to the international human rights approach” (Nussbaum 2006: 78). In this paper, the Capabilities Approach will be compared with the Theory of Human Needs as introduced by Werner Obrecht (2008) as well as with the concept of a Social Work as a human rights profession as introduced by Silvia Staub-Bernasconi (2007). Both of these concepts are based on the systems theory of Mario Bunge (1996, 1998) a Canadian-Argentinian scholar whose theoretical and philosophical studies on social science are very much known and discussed in North America and Europe. Furthermore, results of an empirical study (Klassen 2013) based on the analyses of human needs and capabilities of people with disabilities in Austria will be presented. Those results make clear that Nussbaum’s theory shows a lot of parallels to the theoretical concept of Obrecht und Staub-Bernasconi. Both concepts prove itself adequate for the social work practice and strengthen the role of the social work profession.