The Analysis Of The Capabilities Justice Of Amartya Sen

Justice is both the pursuit of individual virtue and the foundation of legality and rationality of social system.In Marx’s view,Justice is a category of social history,and we should explore the foundation and motivation of justice’s generation and transmutation in the social mode of production and social interaction.In the late 1970s,drewing theories from sources on Aristotle’s ethics,Adam Smith’s economic thought,and the Marxist idea of person’s all-round and free development,adopting the research method combining economics with philosophy and moral ethics,Amartya Sen introduced the perspective of’individual capabilities’ into the study of social justice,criticized the utilitarianism and Rawl’s justice as fairness based on primary goods,proposed concepts of ’functions’ and ’capabilities’ and then constructed a theory of justice which was different from distributive justice of western liberalism.His work’ The idea of justice has become the most important academic work on justice since the emergence of the ’theory of justice’ of Rawls.Based on the difference of individuals,Sen argues that we should regard the’capabilities’ as the information basis for assessing individual advantages and social fairness and justice.We should satisfy and improve the basic capabilities of the members of the society,so that they can live a happy life and realize the individual substantive freedom and equality and the social justice.Based on the Marx’s position and viewpoint,this paper makes a comment on Sen’s view of the capabilities and justice,and explores its practical significance in the context of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.Different from traditional construction path of the Social Contract,Sen adopts a actualistic comparative method and advise us promote social fairness and justice by eliminating the obvious unjust phenomenon in the reality.By introducing the perspective of individual capabilities into the study of social justice,Sen focuses on the actual situation of people’s life,so hit the point of social equity and justice.However,Compared to Marx from the actual mode of production and social structure,seeking for the realistic conditions of the free liberation and the overall development for human capabilities,Sen adopts the theoretical presupposition of ’a neutral bystander on that one’ and the method of ethical individualism,so he can’t reveal the reason why individual capabilities suffer deprivation and unbalanced development in the modern capitalist society.Sen’s advises of improving the basic capabilities of the individuals is just the Ex-post regulation mechanism of capitalism.So it can’t offer people most fundamental methods to make their capabilities transcend the special states of reification,alienation,monetization and polarization and then realize free liberation and all-round development.However,Sen’s theory is very instructive for China to step out of power attachment,achieve individual independence,get rid of poverty,improve people’s welfare,establish a just global order,and build a community of shared future for mankind.