Contractual Ethics And Rights

This dissertation, from the academic stand of modern right, notions of moderate ethics and rational universalism, explores the formation mechanism and basic development tendency of rights based on contractual ethics. The guiding ideology of this dissertation is that as a kind of systematic ethics, secular ethics as well as equal ethics, contractual ethics and rights interact with each other, and the former one has the internal characteristics such as being the bottom line of social morality, mutual game, social consensus, honesty and faith; consequently the rights, on the basis of which, has the virtue of sacredness, justification, evolution and security in itself and will properly direct the modern right legislation. The whole dissertation consists of seven chapters. Chapter one discusses the relationship between characteristics of contractual ethics and prominence of Rights. This chapter, on the premise of the ideal contractual circumstances, states the fundamental contents and characteristics of contractual ethics and points out that contractual ethics contains the spirits such as independence, equality, freedom, corporation and reasonable egoism. Then the author analyzes its advantages such as promoting the human being's subjective character, evolving constantly and its priority that the private ethics doesn't contain. This chapter illustrates the justification, interest-orientation, horizontality, and their interaction with rights from three aspects: systematic ethics, secular ethics and equality ethics, and draws a conclusion that the prominence of rights has been clearly demonstrated on basis of contractual ethics. Chapter two discusses the relationship between moral principles of contractual ethics and sacredness of rights. This chapter holds the view that contractual ethics has the typical way of thinking that others would think as I, which helps us to understand the subjective character, universalism and scientific nature of doctrines of contractual ethics. Furthermore, we can conclude that the doctrines of contractual ethics are principles of respect and of effect. These two principles constitute the essential views of moderate morality conception. The sacredness of moral rights can be illustrated on basis of contractual ethics from three aspects: bottom-line ethics, the emotion similar to me, and balance mechanism between individuals and the society. Chapter three discussed the relationship between legal embodiment of contractual ethics and justification of rights. This chapter holds the view that moral rights possesses such defects as being vague, weakness in ensuring power, loose in formation, the improperness function of procedure, etc. Thus, it cannot work smoothly and should be legalized. By comparison, the contract is the most reasonable way of legalization and provides the abundant reasons for the justification of legal rights. Meanwhile, contractual legislation can also explain the relationship between legal rights and moral rights. Chapter four discusses the relationship between lay of value of contractual ethics and tendency of rights. This chapter holds the view that any claim of rights must obey the ethical values; otherwise, it would lose its ethnical basis as well as universal effect and would change to some kinds of privileges. This dissertation absorbs the reasonable elements from classical contract theory and modern contract theory, summarizes the lay of value of contractual ethics in the following logical order: existence, freedom, equality and tolerance, and respectively analyzes rights introduced by each value principle. Accordingly, discovers the outline and basic tendency of rights system. Chapter five discussed the relationship between quality of contractual ethics and security of rights and holds the view that the security mechanism of rights can be divided into external security system and internal security system to which. Ethical quality belongs to the latter one. The dissertation believes that honesty and faith are the internal quality of contractual ethics and arguesthat honesty and faith are the most important elements in guaranteeing rights from any angles. Chapter six discusses the relationship between Chinese and western circumstances of contractual ethics and differentiation of rights. Following the historical clues, this chapter exposes the contractual ethics under the different circumstances of Chinese and western society. In traditional Chinese culture, the solid family system based on blood relationship, the integrity, and the ignorance to interests have stripped the contractual ethics of its external surroundings, subjective conditions and motivation mechanism, while in Western traditional culture, the loose family system based on blood relationship, the prevalence of individualism, and the emphasis on interests provide the contractual ethics with preferable external surroundings, subjective conditions and motivation mechanism. The dissertation also briefly compares the Chinese and western rights conceptions and rights systems in the process of analyzing the reasons for the peripherization of Chinese contractual ethics and the centralization of western contractual ethics. Chapter seven discusses the relationship between contractual ethics and contemporary rights legislation in China. This chapter argues that as China is now on the track of market economy, contractual ethics is supposed to be the moral base of the contemporary Chinese rights legislation. From legal viewpoints, the contractual spirits should be advocated; in legislative form, the democratic style should be encouraged; in legal mode, the due procedure should be adhered; in value order, freedom-orientation should be emphasized; in motivation balance, reasonable egoism should be respected; and in resources allocation, the significance of rights should be stressed. That is to say, the contractual ethics should be the soul of the modern legal system. In brief, this dissertation is an attempt to interpret the ideal relationships between contractual ethics and rights from the legal philosophy perspective. It aims to prove that the contractual ethics is the most appropriate moral foundation of modern rights, and to have the modern rights and rights system illustrated and justified perfectly on the basis of contractual ethics, which is...