Chinese Modern Rational Egoism

Modern China experienced a period of great social transformation as well as atransition of traditional ethics. In this process, rational egoism played an important role,as an ideological weapon of anti-feudalism, anti-invasion, and struggling for a wealthyand stronger country. This dissertation analyzes ideological resources, economic andsocial conditions and historic incentives of the development of rational egoism inmodern China; and also discusses the ideological characteristics of Chinese modernrational egoism and the reasons why it failed to become a mainstream thought ofmodem ethics. Finally, this dissertation gives a justified evaluation.The mature ideological system of rational egoism appeared in modern Europe.Though there were some factors of rational egoism in China's traditional ethics, theywere far from enough to form a rational egoism ideological system. Therefore, theformation and development of modern China's rational egoism was inseparable fromforeign ideological resources. With the introduction of western culture to China and theexploration of reasons of the China's backwardness, modern Chinese thinkers turnedtheir eyes to rational egoism and found its value in limited foreign ideological resources.The slow development of capitalism and the emergence of national bourgeoisie on thestage of history provided the economic and social conditions for further disseminationand development of rational egoism.Modern China's rational egoism was influenced by traditional Chinese ethics andwestern ethics. In the historical background of saving the country, it had its own features.By redefining human nature, modern China's rational egoism showed its differencesfrom the traditional ethics; by emphasizing "benefiting the group","fitting in" anddisplaying strong pragmatic orientation stimulated by social responsibility it alsodiffered from western reasonable egoism. Since modern China faced special problems such as saving the country andstruggling to be wealthier and stronger, and modern Chinese capitalism and thebourgeoisie class were not mature, the rational egoism failed to integrate benefiting thegroup and benefiting self into one, thus failed to become the dominating thought ofmodern Chinese ethics. But it played an important role in ideological innovation, andleft a rich ideological legacy. Of course, restrained by the time and their self limits, themodern rational egoism thinkers couldn't completely get rid of the influence oftraditional ethics and they were also unable to transform western egoism thoroughly.Chinese modern rational egoism caused some negative effects due to its insurmountableinherent limitations.