Marx And Engels's Thought On Environmental Ethics And Its Development In Contemporary China

In the late twentieth century, the environmental problems such as environmental pollution, resource shortage, ecological destruction were becoming serious. Meanwhile, mass movement of environmental protection was booming. In this historical background, environmental ethics emerged as the times require, and became the forefront of academia and the most dynamic research field in recent decades. Considering environmental ethics as a problem vision, all the great resources throughout the human history of ideas have been filtered, including Marxist theory. However, in the past, socialist countries paid little attention to Marxist environmental theory. What's worse, a common viewpoint in the past is that the Marxism in the19century cannot solve the highlight environmental problems in the late twentieth century. Someone even regarded Marxism as "Anthropocentrism" and the ideological root of causing environmental problems. In domestic academia, scholars are more enthusiastic about western environmental ethics or ancient Chinese environmental ethics, paying little attention to Marxist environmental ethics. So, the study of Marxist environmental ethics is a very urgent and necessary job. I am trying to do this job in my paper. Due to the length of the paper, I mainly study Marx and Engels's thought on environmental ethics and its development in contemporary China.Referring to the basic problems and new trend of contemporary environmental ethics's research, the paper defines the ethics relationship between man and nature and the one between man and man whose medium is nature as the problem vision of Marxist thought on environmental ethics, which broadens the visual field of research. The paper is made up of six parts, including an introduction, five chapters and a conclusion. In the introduction, it explains the historical background and the problem vision of environmental ethics, illustrates the purpose and significance of the topics, evaluates the related research achievements at home and abroad, then on the basis of this makes clear the train of thought and the approach of research. The first chapter:"The historical evolution of Marx and Engels's thought on environmental ethics" analyzes its three stages of germination, formation and deepening and the general situation of each stage from the relationship between man and nature and environmental justice according to the development logic of historical materialism. The second chapten:"The multiple interpretation of Marx and Engels's thought on environmental ethics" elucidates the main implication of environmental ethics from humanized nature concept, material transformation theory and social ecology, which reflects the unity of the ethics and economics and the unity of the value criticism and system criticism. The third chapter:"The development of Marx and Engels's thought on environmental ethics in contemporary China" connecting with the practice of Chinese socialist construction, analyzes the environmental ethic of the communist party leadership respecting natural law and pursuing sustainable development and servicing for the people's interest since the founding of the People's Republic of China. The fourth chapter:"The theoretical construction of contemporary Chinese environmental ethics" aiming at the basic concept of western environmental ethics, explores environmental ethics construction of contemporary Chinese, emphasizes on sticking to the subjectivity of the people, acknowledging the multiple value of nature and pursuing the environmental justice. The fifth chapter:"The practical ways of contemporary Chinese environmental ethics" discusses the practical experiences and the specific practices of contemporary Chinese environmental ethics from the understanding of Chinese national conditions, strengthening moral education and perfecting the rule by law, and requires the training of the ecological citizens with the concept of ecological civilization. In the conclusion, it summarizes the basic point, and states briefly that in order to promote contemporary Chinese environmental ethics develop healthily, we must use the dialectics to treat Marx and Engels'thought on environmental ethics, western environmental ethics and ancient Chinese thought on environmental ethics. What's more, we must guide the innovation of environmental ethics by Marxism.