The Ethical Thinking Of Amartya Sen's Develo Pment View And It's Meaning

In the different periods of development process of society, ideologists always hold different reflections on development. Even in a same nation and a same historical period, different scholars propose different conclusions. Amartya Sen, who is a contemporary Indian economist, has proposed a particular view of development on the basis of previous studies. This new view endowed the category of development with new connotations, which provided us with more comprehensive understanding on development. In the traditional view of development, only the increase of economy was emphasized, whereas the integrated development of individuals was more considered in Amartya Sen's theory, including the increase of economy, the development of society, and the harmonious development between people and nature.Amartya Sen's view of development was deeply influenced by previous thoughts. He absorbed and adopted many positive thoughts from both oriental and occidental world, such as the idea serving for all the people proposed by Tagore, the idea about happiness from Aristotle, and the people oriented view of development from Marx. Affected by these views, Amartya Sen proposed his own view of development by sublating the view of development on wealth. This paper summarized his views as following aspects. First, human centered view of development. He thought that the ultimate purpose of development was to broaden the rights of people to choose in every field of development in society, which may keep the living surroundings in a harmonious and stable state. Second, capability view of development. Sen's "capability" referred to the level of welfare was not be determined by the resource possessed by individuals or by whether one is satisfied with what he possess, whereas it should be determined by what one can actually do or what state he is in. Capability always showed what one can do and cannot do, and further, it implied that one can have more choices to select the life and freedom he want with stronger capability. Third, freedom view of development. Sen stated that development was a process in which people expanded the genuine freedom they have. The core of freedom is capability, namely the ability to choose different lifestyles freely.Then, this paper talked about some ethical principles in Sen's view of development, such as equality, freedom, justice, sustainability and human centered idea. From these principles, we can recognized that Sen's thoughts were deeply influenced by Marx. Sen claimed that freedom was the primary purpose of development, and freedom was also the important method of development, which was astonishingly identical to the view of freedom proposed by Marx. Marx believed that the process of pursuing freedom was the process of development of individuals. The idea that people was the ultimate purpose of development proposed by Marx acted as the basis of Sen's thoughts on development. They both overcame the old view of development, and considered the freely integrated development as the ultimate purpose instead.At last, this paper systematically researched the ethical principles that Sen's view of development implied, and discussed its practical reflections and effects on contemporary Chinese society. Sen's view of development provided references to present China to solve existing problems in education and welfare. The present china is confronting various challenges, which make the government more concentrate on the weak ones in society and propose a series of policies representing the human centered ideas, such as integrated medical security and measures to help underprivileged ones. According to Sen's view of capability, the living state cannot be ameliorated only by the simple increase of income, in order to solve the problems of poverty and starvation, their capabilty to make income should be established well.