A Study On The Responsibility Ethics On Anti-poverty In Cities In China

Poverty is a serious challenge confronting China in its modernization. Since 1949, especially the time of the implementation of the reform and open-up policy, the Chinese government, under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, with its great sense of responsibility and mission, has exerted lasting efforts and achieved much in tackling poverty. By the end of 1980s', absolute poverty was eradicated in most areas in China. People no longer can dress warmly and eat their fill. With the advancement of the reform and open-up, when absolute poverty is still lingering in some areas, poverty problems in cites cropped up, and with its unique and complex character in China's economy, it claimed more and more people's attention. To further reform, to maintain social stability, and to.accelerate the economy in China, poverty issues in cites inevitably involves the responsibilities, of the government, society and poverty-stricken individuals themselves. This dissertation discusses the responsibility ethics concerning the solution to this issue.This dissertation centered on the poverty issues and their solutions in cities from the perspective of ethical responsibility and by employing relevant ethics theories and norms. The reason is as follows:1) Responsibility ethics provides a new dimension in dealing with poverty in cities. Responsibility ethics is prospective and preventative. It takes the whole of human behavior as its studying object. Unlike the belief ethics, it is a distant ethic. The classical ethics deals with the direct person-to-person relationship whether seen temporally or spatially. Whereas responsibility ethics takes the human being as a whole, and shows a respect, a responsibility and obligation for the generations to come, Meanwhile, responsibility ethics is a holistic one. The main pattern of argumentation and the pervasive norms of the classical ethics are based on individual behaviorand life. Yet today's society is a gigantic system of different fields and processes: design and creativity, production, services, exchange and consumptions etc. in which the room for individual activity is becoming narrower. Strictly speaking, individual ethic is not manageable. Individual decision and action will be resigned to a higher order of collective decision and action.2) Responsibility ethics is the bottom-line requirement in anti-poverty in cities. According to John Rawls, responsibility is the prerequisite for social justice. The validity of moral is not judged by the goodness of behavior; it must be objective, pervasive, rational and autonomous or it will become the teleology "the end justifies the means", and make the social moral bottom-line collapse. The significance of responsibility lies in the autonomous claim for the realization of social justice. In this sense, anti-poverty in cities is the means and the ends; it is the lowest ethic requirement.3) Responsibility awareness is the principal part of the moral consciousness. Eliminating poverty in cities, maintaining social justice and achieving an affluence society are our aim, and they are also the shared responsibility of the whole society. Therefore the awareness and sense of responsibility on the part of the agents have a great impact on the process and process in tackling poverty problems.The dissertation consists of four parts: introduction; four chapters, amongst which chapter one is the theoretical foundation for the dissertation and chapter two through chapter four make up the body of it and the last part is the conclusion. With regard to the method of study, this article tries to study from the perspective of philosophy, ethics, sociology, economics, demography, education, psychology and statistics, and combines qualitative study with quantitative study and theory with practice. By employing analytic and descriptive methods, the author explores the underlying reasonand ethics for the formation of poverty problem in cities. With analysis of the ethical responsibility of government, society and individual, it attempts to provide some solutions to this issue, thus bears some creative effect. This dissertation bases its argumentation on ethical responsibility, grasps the three main participants' ethical responsibility on anti-poverty, and one object—city poverty and the ethical responsibility stemming from it, aims at social justice and affluence society. The argumentation is organized in a logic order of General—Specific—General.Introduction gives an analysis of a series of ethic problems concerning city poverty: due to some changes in the economy and society, for instance, the reorganization, amalgamation and merging if the state-owned enterprises, the poverty population expanded in cities, which draws the attention and concern of the scholars and even the whole society. Long before, scholars at home have done a lot of fruitful research into poverty from the perspective of economics, sociology, and politics, whereas research from ..the angle of ethics is still relatively weak. Under the influence of the traditional methodology, research in poverty prevention is still to be strengthened. This requires that theorists should work from different disciplines, employ new approaches to provide theoretical support for eliminating poverty.Chapter one expounds some key concepts on responsibility ethics such as its connotation, characteristics, and significance. The author holds that the responsibility ethics contains the appeal for eliminating poverty in cities in China. Responsibility ethics is prospective, holistic and bears much relevance to the anti-poverty campaign in cities. Social justice in anti-poverty is an intrinsic criterion that responsibility ethics demands. The principles and the approaches to realizing the ethics are also proposed. That is to secure the poor people's basic rights, offer them equal opportunity, to distribute riches according to their contribution, and ensure relief on the poverty. To realize these principles, we need to realize and overcome someobstacles proceeding from ideas, institutions and unequal opportunities and also hurdles of efficiency and justice. As the ideal of affluence society is also embodied in the responsibility ethics the author proposes that to advance the social productivity, to develop economy and to lay down and perfect economic legislation are the condition for the realization of the affluent society. It is the shared responsibility for the government and society to build up and reform and perfect governmental and market distribution mechanics and rules.Chapter two mainly develops its argumentation on individual's ethic responsibilities and moral practice. Poor individuals are the basic unit to combat poverty in cities and the play the key role. The individual's moral level is of crucial importance to the anti-poverty campaign in cities. Whether they stick to the unity of the goodness of ends and means, unity of individual value and social value, unity of moral responsibility and moral practice and put them into practice is of vital importance for the efficacy of the anti-poverty campaign in cities. Therefore to nurture poor individual's ethical responsibility and self-reliance spirit is the pressingly current and long-tern demand on China's government.Chapter three decides that government plays a leading role in anti-poverty campaign in cities. The ethical responsibility value pursuit of the government's anti-poverty policies, the practices of the government and its service officials largely determine the progression of the campaign. Chinese government is the "government for the people" and it is humanistic. It has exerted lasting efforts to eliminate poverty and achieve affluent society through policy and institution reform and has achieved much. In the open up and modernization process, through the government's benevolent efforts, social justice and stability can be attained and the economic disparity between the poor and the rich can be narrowed.Chapter four gives an analysis of present ethical responsibility...