Research On Amartya Sen’s Freedom Thought

Amartya Sen, a famous contemporary economist in India who was awarded the Nobel economical price in 1998 and known as "Economist for the Poor". Sen’s research was extensive and the achievements that he have obtained are very much. This paper that mainly based on the perspective of the relationship between freedom and development, equality and justice, making a deep and systematic study of Sen’s freedom of thought and using the related knowledge of economics, political philosophy, social science, ethics and other disciplines. Then on the base of these, this paper examines the overall characteristics and limitations of Sen’s freedom of thought, providing some implications for the study of "freedom" theory and the practice of contemporary China.According to this research idea, the main content and point of this paper includes four parts.The first part investigates the origin of Sen’s freedom thought from the two aspects are as follows:The growth environment and the theory origin. On the one hand, the social, economic political status of Sen’s country, family of intellectuals and rich study the scientific course, brings great influence to budding and developing Sen’s freedom of thought; On the other hand, classical economics, Marxism and modern liberalism constitutes the main theory origin of Sen’s theory. Extraordinary growth environment makes Sen’s freedom theory have strong realistic orientation, and multiple theory origin makes Sen’s demonstration of his theory of freedom across many disciplines.In the following three section. This paper analyses the main content from three aspects of freedom and development, equality and justice. About the freedom and development. Sen criticizes the parochialism and authoritarianism of development concepts and he laid out a free look at the development. He believes that freedom is not only the primary purpose of development, but also an important tool for the promotion of development. Concerning the freedom and equality. Sen pointed out the core of equality problem is what respect needs equality? Then he brought up a theory of freedom and equality -The equality is a prerequisite and guarantee for freedom to come true, liberty must take equality as basis. Also, the equality with respect to distribution of liberty. About the freedom and justice. Sen discussed two kinds of research methods about justice:"Transcendental institutionalism" and "Comparative realism". Sen follows the path of justice of the "Comparative realism" and he believes the justice which virtually is a kind of freedom to choose different paths of life.The fourth part surveys the overall characteristics and limitations of Sen’s thoughts of Freedom. In general, Marx’s theory feature which focuses on individuals and their lives. The theory method feature which concerns at the liberal equality as the core to constructs a free integral theory of development, equality and justice. Of course. Sen’s free thought has theoretical defects embraces the neglect of class rules and a disregard for institutional factors for the realization of freedom. Also, the fuzziness of liberty conception.The fifth part points out that Sen’s unique understanding of freedom, as well as the method and perspective of research freedom, has important implications for deepening the study of "freedom" and contemporary Chinese practice.