Abstract

The paper examines Martha Nussbaum's defence of a list of human functional capabilities. Her argument is investigated both in its connection to internal realism and to a certain reading of Aristotle. According to the Aristotelian argument the list of human features which go to build the meaning and reference of the notion of a human being is also expressive of what is "best" for a human being. But Nussbaum tends to conceal this (difficult) naturalist thesis through her appeal to an internal realist understanding of the notion of a human being, according to which what is properly human is not found independently from larger evaluative and culturally embedded views shared by the competent users of such notion.