Social Sciences in China Review

No.2, 2019

An Analysis of the Marxist Methodology of Two Institutional Values (Abstract)

Tan Peiwen and Tang Zhihua

China’s institutional fairness and John Rawls’ Western institutional justice are two different institutional value discourse logics, and correct methodology can clarify the issue of superiority. The Marxist methodology of justice criticism and value research insists on facts and values, essence and form, and historical analysis and confirmation methodology in practice as a whole, while Rawls uses a constructivist reflective equilibrium method. The Marxist methodology of institutional value is superior to Rawls’ method of institutional value. Analysis of the purpose, normalization, and specificity of the value scope of fairness based on Marxist methodology shows that fairness is a value virtue that is superior to justice. Distinguishing China’s institutional fairness (fairness and justice) and Rawls’ “justice as fairness” in terms of the levels, strengths, and constraints of value and in terms of institutional facts and basic structural efficiency of institutional value, especially the confirmation in practice of “Marxist efficiency optimization” or “Deng Xiaoping optimization,” shows that fairness is an institutional value that is superior to justice. Fairness is the institutional value discourse logic of China’s social governance, and it is also suitable for the institutional value discourse logic of global governance. Thus, adhering to the Marxist methodological consciousness is not only a prerequisite for clarifying institutional fairness and Rawls’ Western institutional justice, but also a fundamental approach to realizing the innovative development of philosophy and the social sciences.