Amartya Sen’s capabilities approach to social justice has helped to form UN millennium goals as well as other policy expressions of both national and international political agencies. It has had a major influence on many researchers across a range of disciplines, from economics, politics and philosophy to development studies and social policy. However, despite the relevance of Sen’s approach to sociological concerns – inequality, after all, is at the core of the discipline – sociology is the one discipline that has remained relatively immune to his influence. It is also the case that Sen makes very few references to sociological research despite it having clear relevance to his interests. In this article I want to consider some of the reasons for this state of affairs and its consequences. These include consequences for Sen’s own approach, but more important is what it reveals about current sociological reasoning and its limitations.