The Critical Study Of Heller's Justice Theory

Justice is not only an operation and a standard on social facts,but also a metaphysical problem related to the people's existence and their dreams of life.Through the ages,people always pursuit for justice,higher goals of life and social ideals,because people in nature is self-denial,self-transcendence,and self-improvement.So it makes people not to loose an ideal or stop the exploration of an ideal life and standard value.Justice is inherently related to people's real life situation and existence paradox.The key to understand justice is to understand people.Specifically,it is to understand people's real life situation.Theories of justice in different schools or styles can be seen as a reflective expression of people's existence,life situations and pursuits of value.At present,Justice about people's ideals of life and a standard of value is increasingly highlighted.So it is more consciously and urgent for people to explore the theory of justice.Heller put forward her theory of justice under the general context and influence of the Renaissance of contemporary political philosophy.But as the representative of the new Marxism in eastern Europe,Heller made an theoretical exploration and a construction of justice theory from the humanitarian thought tendency in eastern Europe.So the Heller's theory of justice is needed special attention on its ideological resources,value,and specific claims which are highly complexity." Beyond justice " is a representative work of Heller's theory of justice,which expresses a theory of justice.The word "beyond" in the book refers to being beyond its types before: it is regarded as the transcendence of both the static theory of justice in the traditional society,and the dynamic theory of justice in modern society.In Heller's view,"beyond" is neither to make some sort of justice theory come true,nor to build a society of justice,but is to have it back to the individual and freedom itself so that everyone can live a good life based on one's own moral choices.Goodness,the nature of life,is moral,ethical,and emotional.It really embodies the fundamental value of justice,to respect the the individual life and one's freedom,which is the respect of individual's inherent morals.An upright man,self-construction and emotional attachment constitute the three basic conditions of good life.Heller's dual critique of the justice theory to the traditional society and modern society clearly showed her postmodern position.Based on this,Heller made a valuable attempt to transcend the existence and people's moral situation in modern times.Her theory of justice is filled with the double thoughts both on reflection of the traditional concept of Marxism and the critique of modernity.So,this interaction of double thoughts,makes Heller's theory of justice show its rich and specific contents.Furthermore,it has subtle contact with western theory of justice in modern time and in Marxist thought.First,from the point of her ideological evolution,the theory of justice,the important turning point in the development of Heller's thought,is fully absorbed her early humanitarian thoughts and social critical theory.Furthermore,it is explicitly expressed as a kind of aesthetic utopia for moral philosophy.Second,in the theory of justice of modern western landscape,Heller's special contribution lies on making the main body of moral and ethical problem to be promoted to the core of the justice theory,which especially highlights the problem of moral philosophy in the study of justice.At last,from the perspective of new Marxism in eastern Europe,Heller's theory of justice showed the ideal of aesthetic utopia in postmodernist besides the mainstream ideology of capitalism and the communist ideal of Marxism,.From the view of Marxism,Heller's idea particularity lies on these following aspects: it maintained a close connection all along with the Marx's thought tradition which is not only embodied in the specific ideas such as the need theory and the moral theory,but also is treated as the reflection on the theme for problems of the modernity as well as the purport of the theory beyond the situation in modernity.Under the contexts of global capitalism expansion and the revival of political philosophy,Heller's criticism on the postmodernism in Marx's theory of justice,should be given more special attention,because the essence it cares is the complex relations between the Marx's theory of justice and the modern western theory of justice.So,if people have a critical study of Heller's theory of justice,clarify its theoretical premise,and draw its theoretical line,based on the basic ideas of Marxism,can not only effectively clarify Heller's misreading of Marx's theory of justice,but also help inherit and develop it in the contemporary times.In Heller's view,Marx's theory of justice is one of the modern theory of justice,but it still stays in the narrative framework of liberalism,which is full of blind worship to people's economic needs,and lacks of the position of moral philosophy she advocated.So the communist ideology is a theory taking the absolute freedom as the hypothesis of a "suffering of theodicy”.Heller's criticism of Marx's theory of justice apparently contains some serious misreadings.But in turn,it put forward a difficult task in the thought to reactivate and explore the contemporary values and rich connotation of Marx's thought of justice.This paper argues that if people want to " recriticize " Heller's criticism from the point of Marxism,they need to go back to the context in the original theory of Marx's critique of political economy,to emphatically grasp the Marx's theory of justice in the inner tension of dimensions between political philosophy and moral philosophy,highlighting the historical materialism to a" realistic individual ",its profound understanding in the process of real life and the cares of existentialism.Based on this,it can be found that Marx's thought of justice does not lack the dimension of moral philosophy.And it also does not have the premise of the assumption of absolute freedom,like liberalism.Thus,communism,in turn,is a real movement of " the true own of people 's nature by people,through people and for people " rather than the “ suffering Theodicy " identified by Heller.Overall,Heller's inherent limitations of justice lies on an excessive emphasis on the postmodern thought method,which is alienated the overall vision of Marx's historical materialism.So it is covered by the strong aesthetic utopia color.Meanwhile,Heller's theory of justice has important instructive significance to develop a contemporary ideological line in Marx's theory of justice richly,to perfect the research paradigm of theory of justice in contemporary time,and to criticize the justice of western new liberalism.