Opportunity Appraisal Theory And Method

The theory of distributive justice as equity of opportunity originates threesdistinct issues. It concerns the appraisal of individual opportunities, the degree ofinequity in an opportunity distribution, and the design of redistribution mechanismsintended to increase the degree of opportunity equity in a given distribution. Tocharacterize individual opportunities with the degree of freedom of choice based onopportunity sets, the dissertation will discuss the appraisal of individual opportunities.The main work and innovations of the dissertation include:This dissertation define opportunity appraisal in terms of a quaternary relationbetween an agent, opportunity sets, objectives and constraints. The concept of thesefour factors and the relationship between the four factors are discussed. There havetwo basic modes to evaluate opportunity. One is that the opportunity sets are onlypairs compared. The other is that each opportunity set is represented by one realnumber and opportunity sets are compared with the real number. Those conceptsincluding opportunity appraisal, opportunity appraisal based on freedom of choice,and measurement of freedom of choice, are discussed.The concept of availability of option is put forward. Measurement of availabilityincludes dichotomy and fuzzy method. The simple cardinal rule, the S-C rule and theKramer rule are discussed with opportunity vector. Some opportunity evaluating rulesto fuzzy opportunity vector are established based on the concept of predominance ofcut set.The values of alternative include values for agent and values for objectives.These two concepts of values and its measurement are discussed. The relationshipbetween those values and freedom of choice are also discussed. Some opportunityevaluating rules are established based on the distribution or the conditionaldistribution of the capability of alternatives. These rules can be classified intodifferent types which include one-dimensional capability variable, multidimensionalcapabilities variable that can be integrated to one, multidimensional capabilityvariables that can not be vintegrated to one.The issue of whether two options are similar is decided by their attributes andtheir ability. The distance functions about the similarity to any pair of alternatives are put forward when attributes and capability of alternatives are measured by means ofcardinality. Some opportunity evaluating rules are established and their properties arediscussed with the assumption that capability matrix is one-dimensional and attributesmatrix is one or two-dimensional.