A Study On Moral Education Under System Framework

The nature of morality is freedom. Nevertheless, it is conditional to realize this freedom. Since moral education is not conducted in vacuum but improved and promoted under the system framework of modern society, it is inevitably influenced, restricted and branded by those systems. System constitutes order which is the necessary guarantee for the realization of freedom. The sort of moral education that attempts to evade the regulation of system and seeks for absolute freedom without restriction, actually denies the guarantee function and goes against the free spirit of morality, therefore intensifies the conflict between systems and morality, resulting in limited freedom and greater confinement. With regard to moral education, system is not omnipotent, but it is absolutely necessary. It is especially true of our open and multicultural society, people's world outlook and values tend to be increasingly complicated. When an individual is not yet capable of moral autonomy, collective ration embodying social mainstream ideology is in urgent need to guide people's behaviors so as to keep them orientated in pursuit of freedom. Likewise, the course of pursuing moral freedom also urges the readjustment, innovation and improvement of systems, which is thus a course of promoting justice and developing moral system. Consequently, system and morality not only contradict each other but complement mutually as well. Mishandling their relationship will trap moral education in an unbalanced dilemma, resulting in either a loss of moral freedom or a damage of public order. Therefore, it is of profound significance to reinforce related research for moral education theory and practice.In view of many problems and challenges that moral education in China is confronted with at present, starting with the system level which has not been attached great importance to so far, misunderstood but having objective necessity for the effectiveness of moral education, this study fully brings out the significance and value of system for moral education, and attempts to construct a favorable moral atmosphere in which system restrains evil and encourages goodness and maintains order to promote the development of moral education by the system of justice. In moral education, the notion of humanism should be upheld and system is meant to enhance human administration and produce motive power. With system being the important standard and measurement to optimize moral education, external limitations and individual moral construction become an organic whole, which cultivates people's moral character and encourages moral conduct. A harmony of moral character and moral conduct can foster a healthy social atmosphere and make moral education develop effectively and profoundly. So, this study focuses on: the relationship between system and morality, the course for moral education to follow under system framework and the system arrangement to promote moral education development.Morality is the permanent theme of mankind. In the long history, to strengthen and improve moral education is people's persistent pursuit. No matter it is in the field of natural science or social science like economics, ethics, politics, sociology, management and anthropology, morality and moral education are people's focal points throughout. Especially in the process of today's social transformation, economic globalization and cultural diversification bring new development chances as well as serious tests and challenges. Many serious manmade disasters caused by moral disorder, moral decline and spiritual crisis are rather common, poisoning people's thought, ruining social atmosphere and hindering the development of society. Current researches on how to get rid of those difficulties generally revolve two clues: one is to seek for breakthrough from moral education itself, which occupies absolute advantage in academic circle; the other is to go beyond moral education and find the way out in the exterior environment. As a matter of fact, both have fallen into the mistake of binary opposition on two extremes. As a social systematic project, moral issues can be solved neither on its own nor by external intervention. The complete moral education depends on the joint efforts of external conditions and internal factors, of systematic order and moral freedom, involving from heteronomy to autonomy. The logical relationship should be that heteronomy is autonomy's premise and foundation while autonomy is heteronomy's endpoint and purpose. Being a form of heteronomy, system plays an essential role in moral education. However, it is a remarkable characteristic of Chinese traditional morality to regard morality as a matter of autonomy and search to rid moral crises by itself. According to the experience put forward by predecessors and sage, it is the simplest and most basic principle that moral education is for human beings, identified and internalized by them, in no need of external compulsory specification. Actually, it is conditional for people's autonomy to upgrade and it is unpractical to assume moral autonomy as every individual's rules of conduct and moral norm. As for individual morality, external system and regulation are preexistent necessities, without whose support and maintenance moral education is in a mechanical way. It is people who create system and get restricted to its social relationship. System has become people's inevitable and inevasible living environment. Just as people can not break away from their living environment, moral education must be carried out under the range of system. Mankind is both systematic existence and moral existence. System is the product of human activities and moral development relates closely to it. The relationship between system and morality is an old and new one. System maintains historical moral tradition in modern changes, influencing people's moral development by historical existence, and makes modern changes in historical tradition, regulating people's moral development by realistic modes. It can be said that the history of human society is the history of interaction between morality and system. The history of system is the history of man's constant pursuit of moral freedom. System roots in people's moral activities and serves for moral freedom. That is why although system restrains people from pursuing moral freedom, people still create and use system.This paper can be divided into four parts.Part one is a review of moral education issues in the view of system. With those issues as starting points, based on system level, this part explores and analyzes the problems in present moral education such as humanity perplexity, morality edification bewildering, practice logic alienation and moral education omnipotence, making an analysis of the cause of this unfavorable situation, pointing out the loopholes of systems and system defect confusing social moral pattern, and proposing to bring system into thinking tendency of moral education research. This part acts as the foreshadowing role for further study.Part two centers on system, the inevasible living environment of moral education. This part is the theory foundation and practice starting-pointing. First of all, it makes a definition and explanation of system and its characteristics, which has not been paid enough attention so far. Through a semantic analysis from various disciplinary fields, the universality of system is obtained which is a system of rules and regulations based on rights and obligations. Then it points out the paper's research concept, understanding system on macroscopic level and arranging and using system on microscopic level. It is also clarified that system in this paper refers to those related to moral education in society. Moreover, the paper argues from both positive and negative sides why moral education needs system, how system is feasible to moral education and what harm system defects do to moral education, and concludes that system is not only possible and feasible but also necessary and urgent.Part three is the historical investigation of the relationship between system and morality. System is a historical category with different representation in different times but it is also a concrete one with different representations in the same age. Its historicity and concreteness determine that its relationship with morality is sure to manifest different preferences and characteristics as history develops and times changes. So this part researches on two latitudes, Chinese and western. In China, there are four periods to survey and sort, which are pre-Qin period, from Han Dynasty to Ming and Qing periods, republican period and the period since the foundation of new China. The following four periods in the west is studied: the ancient Greece, Roman Republic, medieval Europe and modern era. Through exploring and summarizing those different historical stages and countries, the paper tentatively sums up and proposes the existence forms of moral education under various historical and systematic backgrounds. Based on this Chinese-western comparison and the essence accumulated from the history course of human society development, the paper interprets further the heterogeneous, identical and complementary relationship between system and morality.Part four is system arrangement for promoting effective moral education development. This part is also the emphasis and difficulty of this dissertation. After analyzing the confine and value demand of system arrangement to moral education, it mainly seeks to deal with concrete system arrangements that related to moral education concerning political, economic and cultural field, inquiring concrete and microscopic theoretical construction of system arrangement. It is tentatively proposed to use just and moral system arrangement to accelerate moral education practice forms, and, by just system arrangement, cultivate system awareness, build system civilization, increase the identification of just system and give full play to ethic base-line of system. These efforts will provide a benign and orderly external environment for the healthy development of moral education, making morality ethics and norm ethics complement and benefit each other, continuously promoting moral education for deeper development.