The Comparisons Of Ethical Thoughts Between Xun Kuang And Aristotle

The thesis selects two famous thinkers, Xun Kuang in Warring States period in China and Aristotle in ancient Greece as competitive study objects who lived in 800B.C.-200B.C.called Axial Period, which was described as the intense movemental period of human wisdom named by the famous Germany Existentialist philosopher Karl Jaspers .The thesis aims at the analysis of the deep ethic thoughts of the two thinkers , grasping the main content of the ethics in ancient China and Greece, understanding the spiritual special characteristics of the ethic thoughts in the eastern and western world, and enhancing the understanding between the different types of civilizations.Xun Kuang and Aristotle are respectively the collectors of the classical thoughts and cultures of the east and west. Though they lived in the different countries -one was in ancient China while the other was in ancient Greece and they lived in different years, yet their thoughts could twinkle in the air and had some common joints: they both synthesized other thoughts of other schools and created new theories, observed calmly and saw clearly, focused on the experience and emphasized the behaviors of man itself, their theories were widely spread and had received numerous praises and criticism. They ended the dialogue quotation and began the argumentation style. They were both key characters in the ethic thoughts history. The former put forward"the nature is devil","the heaven and human are apart","Li and law"and so on, which raised numerous new discussions aftertime. The latter was the creator of the subject of ethics in the west, and NICOMACHIEAN ETHICS was the most excellent achievement among the ethical thoughts of the ancient Greek thinkers. Thus, the thesis plans to take"The Comparisons of Ethical thoughts between Xun Kuang and Aristotle"as the theme.The whole article is divided into three parts: the introduction, the main text and the conclusion.Based on the comparable explanations on the ethical thoughts of Xun Kuang and Aristotle, the introduction part defines the concept of ethical thoughts and makes the brief summary on the history and the present situation of the ethical thoughts of the domestic and foreign scholars.The main body of the thesis is divided into six chapters:The first chapter takes the comparison of Xun Kuang and Aristotle's on the thoughts of human nature essentially human nature is the integration of virtue and instinct, congenial and acquired, emotion and reason. Focused on the implications of human nature, Xun Kuang posed that human nature was evil and the good nature is acquired after birth, man cannot live without group, sentience and wisdom are the human's nature. While Aristotle argued that"human's nature is sometimes good sometimes bad","human are social animals","man is the only animal that has reason". The identical points about human nature of Xun Kuang and Aristotle are as below: they both realized the variability of human nature and they both considered wisdom of soul as the foundation of the change of human nature. The differences of the two thoughts mainly express in the two sides. One is that Xun Kuang cared more about the moral implication while Aristotle cares more about the intellectual factors in human nature. The other difference is that Xun Kuang adopt a grand, broad and instinctive sight to expound his ethical thoughts; while Aristotle took the structural and analytic method to interpret his own theory.The second chapter takes Xun Kuang and Aristotle's individual ethics thoughts as the breakthrough point. The two thinkers' individual ethical thoughts included two parts: the courage and the moderation. In view of courage, Xun Kuang and Aristotle both regarded courage as comparative impavidity and spirit of bravery and indefatigability. Courage takes nobility as a goal, moderate as the principle and needs wisdom for correction and assistance. The diversity lies in two parts, from the content angle, Xun Kuang took the political courage while Aristotle's courage chose military content. From the style, Xun Kuang's courage view trends to flexibility, but the Aristotle's courage view tends to rigidity.The common points on the view of moderate of the two thinkers are that they both emphasized the maintainment of moderation of desire, and they both claimed the proportional moderation. The diversity lies in three aspects: firstly the content and the extension of moderation view are different; the link between moderation and bitterness are different; in the two thinkers'minds, the initiatives of the moderate behavior are different.The third chapter set forth the comparisons study of family ethical thoughts of Xun Kuang and Aristotle. The same points of the three as below: firstly, Xun Kuang and Aristotle both had a prejudice against women, which was male power society's product; secondly, they both put family relationship on a subordinate situation; thirdly, they both went in for the differences of the consanguinity between different members in the family. The divarications mainly manifest: firstly Xun Kuang focused on the advantages and disadvantages between the members while Aristotle preferred the cooperation principle among the family members. Xun Kuang's family view was full of hierarchic signification and seriousness, while Aristotle's family view showed more warmth, which indicates their expressive style for love are different, the former is more implicit while the latter is direct.The fourth chapter carries on the comparison Xun Zi and Aristotle's social ethical thoughts. In the view of justice, Xun Kuang and Aristotle both regard hierarchy as the basis of their view of justice. The distinctness lies in the facts: firstly their understandings on equality are apposed. Xun Kuang considered equality as the source of the violent society while Aristotle assumed if the citizens are not supplied evenly, they will harm the social order. Secondly as to the method of maintenance of justice, Xun Kuang chose government by men while Aristotle chose nomocracy.Concerning the ethics of intercourse Xun Kuang and Aristotle both take love as the basis of friendship, but Xun Kuang's love was more inclined to ranks, utilitarian and Aristotle's was apt to equal and reciprocal. About the view of respect and etiquette, Xun Kuang and Aristotle gave voice to their devoir to the personality of the opposing party. But there are two main differences at all: firstly, the view of respect and etiquette has different status in their system. The former thought more of human relations, so he cared respect and etiquette. while Aristotle considered individuals were more important, so he cares for them less than Xun Kuang. The second difference is the attitude toward humility. Xun Kuang regarded it as a good virtue, while Aristotle thought of it as a bad virtue, from which we can see the different cultural preference obviously.The fifth chapter carries on the comparison to the two thinker' personality thought. Xun Kuang and Aristotle both sought for the goal of perfect. We can compartmentalize their personality modes into two levels. Xun Kuang stressed that the ultimate personality mode was the sage, while Aristotle chose the Perfect Person. The lower level of personality mode in Xun Kuang's opinion was gentleman, while in Aristotle's was the open-minded character. The similarities of their ideal personality mode they were yearning for perfect life. From the relationship of morality and body, morality and wealth, morality and language, the traditional Chinese philosophers ,such as Xun Kuang, are accustomed to put morality on the converse side of the body, wealth and language, because according to Chinese partial way of thinking, too successful and happiness life is the beginning of the scourge. Such thoughts can be found in the saying "be vigilant in peace time". Therefore, they preferred to the pursuit of the perfect moral soul, not the overall physical and mental perfection.In contrast, the ancient Greek tradition pursues and admires the outstanding personality of the perfection "Hero". Therefore, they pursued of morality, wealth, intelligence and physical health overall, and believe in the well-planned life, which was the composed way of thinking. In conclusion, Xun Kuang cared more for the single value of morality and adopted the thinking method; while Aristotle preferred the multiple thinking method, and stressed the unification and cooperation of different factors.The sixth chapter makes the comparison of educational thoughts between Xun Kuang and Aristotle as the topic. In this part we found the two thinkers both stressed that habits and surroundings exerted a subtle influence on education, education should be offered by the class and musical education were necessary. The differences of the educational thoughts of the two thinkers are as below: Firstly, Xun Kuang considered the goal of education was to cultivate political elite and submissive mass so as to unite all their spirit and behavior. While Aristotle considered the goal of education was to consummate citizens' morality and supply them with noble minds, and he thought education was not for utility. Secondly, Xun Kuang regarded the content of education was virtues while Aristotle approved the overall education. Thirdly, Xun Kuang argued that education should powerful and students should not rest. On the contrary, Aristotle said education should be moderate. Finally, Xun Kuang emphasized the importance of the individual efforts, while Aristotle paid more attention to the enactment of educational system by political and legal powers of the polis.The conclusion part we try to summarize the differences in the style and characteristics of the ethics thoughts of Xun Kuang and Aristotle.Firstly, Xun Kuang and Aristotle's thoughts on human nature were different, one took a value-oriented attitude toward human nature while the others were taking a structured-oriented attitude. Secondly, the styles of their ethical thoughts were different. Xun Kuang held a utilitarian teleology while Aristotle held a rationalistic teleology. Thirdly Xun Kuang and Aristotle adopted a cline of single and diversiform respectively.In a word, from the comparing of the ethical thoughts of Xun Kuang and Aristotle, we can draw the active elements of them so as to favor our present construction of the ethics with the valuable reference and experience, in addition, we hope to give an ingoing view on the differences and accordance of the classical cultures of the east and west for deepening the understanding of the civilizations.