Human Nature And Social Order

Philosophy is the practice in thought. In its real sense, it is the expression of the time spirit of practice, as well as the reflection and transcendence of practice in theoretical thinking. Therefore, it has to take as its theoretical interest the concern for the historical fate of the present social development.As the basic condition of the existence and development of human society, order is directly related to the development trend of the future society. With the extension of globalization and the increasing communication of men in the fields of economy, politics and culture, universal communications among different human communities are well-established and the history of man has gradually become that of the world. On the other hand, the growing contradictions and conflicts among countries, nations and regions have incurred such global issues as ecological imbalance, power and resource crises, population explosion and environmental pollution. Under these conditions, the global order problems have attracted more and more attention. Faced with such situations and historical trends, philosophy should bring its practical function into full play, so as to provide methodological guide for a good social order. The study of social order problem cannot be carried out without investigating into man and his nature that is in the unceasing process of formation and change. Different theories of human nature are the presuppositions for understanding social orders in different times. To our understanding, human nature can be apprehended from the following three levels: experiences, dialectic speculation and biology. Empirical human-nature theory usually regards human nature as something natural, such as desire, instinct, impulse and volition, taking relations among human as that among"wolfs'", under this kind of humane there could not be an ordered human life. So it ultimately has to restrict man's nature with nous power in pursuit of the social order. Speculative human-nature theory holds that, instead of giving way to desire, instinct, impulse and volition, man should live under the guidance of rationality. But it falls into one-sided limitation because it takes man's absolute nature as the spiritual factors such as rationality, morality, and so on. Biological anthropology believes that human being is a kind of existence in an"unfinished state". Therefore, it holds that man's innate inadequacy should be compensated by cultural elements. None of all these theories on human nature can provide solutions to the problems of social orders.Marx made an important step-forward that based on the work of his forerunners. On the basis of labor practice theory, he insists that human nature should be uncovered from man's social realistic existence, by integrating the neutrality, rationality and morality into sociality. It is just on this theoretical precondition that Marx divides man's history into three stages: human self-reliance, human independence on the basis of material reliance and huamn freedom based on the full development of individuals and their social wealth. This is the only theory of human nature that can act as the foundation for constructing good social orders. Accordingly, human nature has also experienced the following three stages: collective nature, individualistic nature and class nature, among which, the former two belong to the uncompleted stage that needs to be perfected with man's entrance into his own nature, which will enable him to realize freedom and his overall development.Accompanied by the economic development, the rapid extension of free trade, the development of modern industry, science and technology, as well as the coming of internet age, human beings have been connected together as an inseparable whole among time and space. The living environment and roomage have exerted direct influences upon people's quality of living and their future development. Our reality is filled with such global problems as environmental pollution, ecological imbalance, power and resource crises, nuclear war, and so on, which have greatly endangered man's existence and development. How to bring an end to the current conflicts and confrontations, to relax the tensions among different countries and nations, to eradicate the crises human beings facing, so as to ensure a desirable social state——these have become to the significant factors for guaranteeing human existence and development. It requires a unanimous acknowledgement of all human about above issues, which is, in a great sense, calling for man's"class awareness". According to Marxist theory of human nature, man himself should possess of the consciousness of promoting the formation of his"class nature", i.e., man has the ability to make a"classifying standard"out of the collective and individualistic standards. Professor Gao Qinghai once pointed out that the state of class is the self-acting existing state of the free and conscious man. Being a class subject means that man becomes magnified in the sense that he embraces the widest, commonest and the most colorful characteristics. Man, as a class existence, is one who has the full self-awareness of man that he is dealing, and he can deal with everything consciously from man's stand. Based on the above theory of Marxism, we probed into the possibility of ideal social orders in the future. As a classified existence, man should not isolate himself, rejecting"others"as dissidents. On the contrary, he should take"opening to the outside world"as his basic state of existence. Man is an objective existence, his own nature can only be revealed in"others". The development of the human beings as a whole should be achieved in the openness among different countries, nations and communities. In the history of man's development, the different interest demands come from different cultural traditions of different groups of people have formed different value conceptions, provoking value conflicts among them, which are the important causes for the greatest threats to men's harmony and development. Guided by Marxist theory of human nature, the only choice for man's harmonious development is men's mutual respect, for as the kind of classified existence, men hold an equal position in different communities. Therefore, it is essential for different cultural communities to get mutual value acknowledgements. Man is also a moral existence, and morality is the root of man's being a man. However, since Nietzsche's announcement"God has died"which led to the loss of the superior Noumenon in man's moral belief, man has been plunged into the crisis of moral relativism. The coming of global problems call for the mutual understanding of morality which has formed in man's effort to survive. The mutual understanding cannot be achieved without the mutual tolerance among different interest groups in their moral values, which will block man's overall profit development and the progress of human civilization. In a word, the opening of society, the mutual acknowledgement among different values and the mutual tolerance among different moral beliefs——they are not only the basic requirements of a desirable social order in the future, but also the development process of man's basic nature.Man's present historical encounter is the transform of man's history into the world's history. Under such background, it is highly necessary for human beings to reach mutual understandings in the global issues that threaten their existence, and to construct a good social order. The present dissertation, based on Marxist theory of man's"class nature", presents a vision for the construction of such a good social order. Though there might be some longings for Utopia now and then appear between the lines in the present paper, we can still find the rational and realistic theoretical sources from man's pursuit of his"class nature". In the ending part of the present dissertation, our endeavor is aimed to unearth the theoretical resources for the construction of a better future society, to argue the possibility of the formation of a world that enjoys harmony, freedom and democracy.