On Amartya Sen’s Capabilities Theory Of Equality

Amartya Sen,an Indian philosopher and economist,embarked on the third path of equality theory in addition to resourceism and welfarism——the capabilities approach,which was hailed as a leap of contemporary equality theory.The approach takes human diversity as the starting point,and takes the substantive freedom as the central factor,which is consist of traditional conception of ability and freedom as the core.The overall evaluation of the individual’s quality of life is based on the evaluation space of well-being achievement,wellbeing freedom,agency achievement,and agency freedom.The capabilities approach pays sufficient attention to both individual welfare and individual autonomy,truly reflects the equal treatment to everyone.At the same time,the capabilities approach with the goal of eliminating injustice,abandons the method of transcendent institutionalism in the tradition of contract theory,adopts comparative realistic approach,which is giving full attention to individual behavior patterns and social institutional arrangements.This paper is based on interpretation,criticism and defense of Sen’s capabilities theory of equality.Firstly,the paper illustrate the elementary idea of above theory,based on the core concepts of capabilities,human diversity,wellbeing,agency and substantive freedom,then make a comprehensive analysis of Sen’s criticism to the equality theory of resourceism and welfareism.Second,it analyzes the four major criticisms faced by the equality theory equality of capabilities and make defense to a certain extent.The criticism of feasibility is embodied in the uncertainty of high-level standards of capabilities,the vagueness of the concept of universal freedom,the inappropriate representation of the capabilities relative to the midfare,and the variation of resource equality;the criticism of desirability is embodied in the problem of personal responsibility,the risk of parentalism and the presupposition of the comprehensive doctrine;the problems of feasibility are manifested in the conflict between the concept of pluralism and the only equal space,the difficulty in indexing weights,and the failure of capabilities compensation;Methodological criticism comes from the challenge in priority of institution and excessive individualism.Finally,on the basis of the above analysis,it pointed out the practical significance in such areas as democracy,human rights,poverty,medical care,and disability,as well as it’s theoretical prospects.