How does the operation of PHARMAC's 'Community Exceptional ...

Idea of Justice published in 2009. In this book, like none before him, Sen took
Rawls’ predominant theories of distributive justice, which identify what perfectly
just societal arrangements might be, and expanded on them. Sen has included
an understanding of how costs and benefits fit into a justice paradigm and
clarified different perceptions of distributive justice in terms of a person’s
capability to experience justice. Sen’s notions of justice are ultimately linked
with the lives of people and how those lives are lived in the world.
State Distributions in New Zealand
The starting point for analysing social policies which result in the distribution of
government funding is an examination of the social and theoretical traditions
which are built up over time. These have been established from accepted sets
of underlying assumptions (Cheyne, O'Brien, & Belgrave, 2005). These
assumptions are difficult to describe and cannot be universally accepted.
Deane’s (2000) description of the New Zealand social and political landscape
included viewing New Zealand as a liberal democracy with a rule of law and
courts, property rights, a fair electoral system, limited powers of the state and
respect for the partnership between Maori and the Crown as described in the
Treaty of Waitangi.
Based on these assumptions, there are collections of loosely and commonly
held views which underpin the opportunities for government through a range of
institutions and service policies (Cheyne, et al., 2005). These institutions of
government (and their operating policies) aim to utilise the underlying
assumptions described by Deane, to establish guidelines and interventions
(Baehler, 2000, 2003). A normative social theory looks principally at the
consequences of drawing on these ideas which define our government in New
Zealand to validate knowledge of the social distributions made by it.
However, such an approach requires the presence of a social theory by which
solutions can be arrived at (Cheyne, et al., 2005). A social theory does not
simply assume that a set of facts exists and the analysis of these facts will bring
an obvious conclusion as to what state interventions and distributions should be
made. It is tempting to think about the distribution of state resources in this way
(a calculation which is limited to a quantifiable analysis) as a measure of how
social policy should determine fair and just and desirable outcomes. However,
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