Frommian Autonomic Morality And Its Revelation On Moral Construction In The Chinese Social Transformation

From a perspective of autonomy, this dissertation probed into Frommian moral philosophy systematically, and on this basis, discussed its revelation on the Chinese moral construction and moral education in the transformation of the society.As a criticizer and successor to those autonomy theories of Kant, Nietzsche and Freud, Fromm think morality is the affirmation of oneself on the basis of universal human nature. Autonomy is a whole man constituting moral law for realizing his potential and becoming a man with fully developed capability of love, reason and so on. Morality is a self discipline for oneself and to oneself. Materially, the content of autonomy is a realization of one's potential, and good is the affirmation of life and the unfolding of one's power. Virtue is a responsibility for one's own existence. Morality is a re-action of ourselves. It is the voice of our true selves which summons us back to ourselves, to live productively, to develop fully and harmoniously, that is, to become what we potentially are. Formally, moral law must be constituted by no other powers than man himself. Those laws which are constituted by exterior powers such as God or authorities and are internalized into our heart are not autonomic, but heteronomous in essence.On the basis of human nature, moral good and bad are induced from the question inherent in the primal condition of man. Thus, cognition to morality is equivalent to that of human nature. Because of man's particularities, Fromm opposed objectivism epistemology, holding that cognition is interfusion between subject and object. The knowledge of human is experiential knowledge. The epistemology of Fromm tally with the pragmatistic turn of epistemology, the objective comprehension with a stress on the subjective factors in the process of cognition.Now that autonomy means the realization of man's potential in content, autonomy is equivalent to freedom to. Since autonomy formally rejects constitution of moral laws for man by the other powers outside man, autonomy is equivalent to freedom from the other men's interference. A moral man is an independent, free man. Between freedom to and freedom from, Fromm considered that freedom from is a condition of freedom to while freedom to is the aim of freedom from. If there is only freedom from, without the development of our own capability, man will try any means to escape from freedom. As to free will, Fromm argued that one has a limited will freedom to choose between the fulfillment of our own potentials and degeneration to a thing in the scope determined by physiological and social conditions.A human being is a social being, fulfilling autonomic morality requires a sane society in favor of man's development. With a critical eye on capitalistic society, Fromm proposed his conception of a sane human being and society. However, because of the logic inlierent in his theory, he requested that man only has an ear to the voice of our true selves, a sane society can only emerge when all factors, economic, cultural, transform simultaneously. This meditation, therefore, lacks a realistic basis.A transforming society characteristic of disordered moral calls for a reconstruction of morality. It's important to cognize the autonomic attribute of morality in a socialistic market economy. This property lays a stress not only on norm, but also on inner moral sensibility and drive. The socialistic concept of honor and disgrace emphasizes that the cohesion of moral norm and inner moral sensibility and drive is the result of cognition of the attribute of autonomic morality. In short, autonomic morality demands an aim for whole moral personality, attaches importance to human being's inner moral sensibility and drive as well as development of all potentials of man.