Substantive Freedom And Social Development--the Study Of Amartya Sen's Justice Though

'Fairness and justice'are two essential characteristics of the harmonious socialism society, therefore exploring in depth the issue of social equity and justice, establishing and perfecting the socialism justice theory system are necessary for building the socialism harmonious society. In order to study justice issues on the condition of the present society, we have to expand over vision as far as possible, and take the initiative to respond to impact and influence of contemporary western justice theory. According to the contemporary west just theory, no one can have the bigger influence than Rawls's'the justice of fairness'. While among scholars holding the criticism opinion, the influence of Nozick is the biggest, since he has brought forward'the justice of right'. The diametrical opposition between Rawls and Nozick in'equality'and'right','has controlled the argument about value question of the present west, and has established main of the western politics philosophy'. Amartya Sen has built the demand of'substantive freedom'just theory system by studying deeply on his own and analyzing, comparing the thoughts of Rawls, Nozick and so on.Regarding Sen's thought, some western scholars have expressed agreement, appreciation, while some have given the criticism comment. The criticism concentrates on his'feasible ability'. In the current domestic research, his thought hasn't attracted people for very long time, therefore there is obvious deficiency. First, there is very little overall comprehensive systematic analysis and study. Second, the present scholars only focus on his freedom conception, development concept and his economic thinking, but research result of detailed analysis from exposition of his justice theory is rare. In Sen's view, development is aimed at expanding people's substantive freedom, which is the primary jurisdiction of justice. Therefore, this article starts from the issue of justice, which is conducive to systematically grasping his ideas logical structure, features and substance, and is beneficial to exploring and learning from positive factors of his thought.The first chapter, Sen's justice theory background, perspective and method. Perspective of Sen studying justice issue is'substantive freedom', and has used the feasible capacity analysis method to study the justice issue. Feasible capacity'refers to the person being likely to be achieved, the various possible combination of functional activities'. He has pointed that this approach not only can pay direct attention to the importance of freedom, but also can give full attention to those motives based on other methods. Specially it can take into consideration of the utilitarianism of the human welfare's interest, libertarianism's concern of selection process and movement freedom, as well as Rawls theory focusing on personal liberty, resources needed by substantive freedom, and so on'. Therefore,'the feasible ability method has the breadth and the sensitivity to have the broad applicable scope, therefore it can give the appraisive attention to a series of important attributes'.The second chapter, substantive freedom as the primary scope of justice. Sen believes substantive freedom enjoyed by individual'constitutes the primary scoping of justice'. Freedom is defined by him as to'choose, pursue, enjoy the practical ability of the life which has reason to cherish', and this practical ability is as the information basis for assessment of justice. Freedom is divided by Sen into two aspects,'opportunity'and'process', which make his view of'looking upon development by free'different from the conventional view of development being defined as'the growth of per capita output'. Sen analyzes poverty, hunger and famine by'ownership'. This'right approach'can let us investigate the causes of poverty, hunger through economic phenomena and deep into the social, political and legal level to. But he also points that this'rights approach'has some certain shortcomings, therefore proposes to look upon poverty by'practical ability deprivation'. Attention shifts from income of this particular means to purpose that people have reason to pursue, to the freedom of achieving these objectives, which enhances our understanding of nature and causes of poverty and deprivation, so that we can look upon the issue of poverty and deprivation in more closer information level required by social justice. Sen proposes the view of'basic feasible capacity'being as the information foundation to examine, and evaluate inequalities. He considers reasonable institutional arrangements should not only take into account the maximization of the total, but also the total amount distributed among individual; not only take into account efficiency, but also fairness, justice.The third chapter, development is expansion of people's substantive freedom. Sen expresses explicitly that he should make use of the situation of realization and deprivation of different types of freedom to assess the advantages and disadvantages of the community, and analyze justice or not of the social system. He points out that freedom in the development has'constitutive function'and'instrumental function'. And from many utilizable freedom, he sums up the five most important aspects, namely, political freedom; economic condition; social opportunity; transparency guarantee; protective safeguard. He points that the respective function and cross-correlation of these utilizable freedom strongly affect the development process. In order to be compatible with all types of freedom, something should be built, such as democratic institution, legal mechanism, market structure, education and health care facility, media and other types of institutions. While the sense of justice and social value are to ensure success of various forms of social organization, institutional, which has a very important meaning and function.The fourth chapter, realization of justice relies on the system form. When he discusses these major issues of social justice such as eliminating corruption and unequal distribution caused by market mechanisms, preventing famine and establishment of the dominant position of women, etc., Sen pays great attention to social interventions and social arrangements. As for how to prevent corruption, he believes that through strengthening the punishment for corruption by means of institutional reform, and corruption incentives could be minimized as far as possible. Occurring and spreading of corruption can be prevented by taking the institutional measure. Simultaneously the function of value standard and conduct code in preventing and reducing the occurrence of corrupt practices must be noted, also the leading function of senior officials in prevention and reduction of corruption should be noted. In Sen's view, the primary advantage of the market mechanism does not lie in its high efficiency, but its'recognition free exchange'. Sen also explicitly points that when the market mechanism is evaluated, attention must be paid to the formation of the market. That is, whether it is the competitive market or the monopoly market, or other type of non-competitive market should be taken into consideration. In his view,'the market overall achievement is deeply dependent on the political and social arrangement'. Sen points'contribution of the market mechanism to efficiency is beyond doubt', but'efficiency result itself does not guarantee fair distribution. The problem would become more serious in the inequality level of substantive freedom'. Therefore, he said:'for the social equity and justice, the profound power of the market mechanism must be contributed through creating basic social opportunity.'Sen has pointed out the seriousness of existing problems of famine, but he has also believed through formulating appropriate policies and taking effective action, eliminating hunger and famine is possible. Sen believes that to understand the causes of famine, to prevent famine, economic analysis and political analysis must be carried on. In particular, he has stressed:'the prevention of famine is very dependent on protection the interests of political arrangements.'Sen has been very concerned about the issues of women, pointing out that'changing dominant position of women is one of the major media of the economic and social change'.Conclusion, characteristic of Sen's justice theory. Researching perspective and method of Sen's justice have very clear personal characteristic. He has used capability method to evaluate the quality of people's life, arguing that the quality of people's life depending on capability, and comparison of the quality of life should take functional activities as standard. Sen has paid more attention to poverty and the interests of the deprived, and has conducted a large number of theoretical and empirical research of poverty, famine and inequality problems. He has pointed that for social equity and justice, the market mechanism must be combined with the creation of social opportunities, and efficiency and equity must be balanced. Sen's earnest attention, maintenance are poverty and interests of the deprived. He has used capability method to evaluate the quality of people's life, which is designed to enable people to understand the root of losing liberty of the poverty and the deprivation more clearly, and thus has fundamentally solved the problem of poverty and the deprivation being not free, to improve their life quality. He has focused on overall development of society and dominant position of individual, believing that'development is an interdependent process'. And he has pointed out:'the human is not only the means of production, but also is the purpose.'Sen's justice theory can help us deeply understand the scientific concept of development, and provide the evaluation indicator for institutional reform and system construction.