Study Of The Philosophy Of Public Interest

Interest, which is based on human needs and reflects the unity of the subjective and objective, and the material interest and spiritual interest , exists as one kind of social relations. As a further concept of interest, public interest is not only an important theoretical, but also an important practical issue. It, being a dynamic concept closely related to the community, appears to be an important form of the existence and execution of public affairs. In ancient China and west countries, there used to be deep consideration of the issue of public interest. The thoughts of public interest in ancient China were mainly composed of three different viewpoints on righteousness and interest presented by Confucianism, Legalism and Mohists. Relatively speaking, the studies on public interest in west countries, were integrated with city life from the very beginning. Many scholars started to focus on public interest studies in the fields of political philosophy, politics and others and formed comparatively deep and specific thoughts. They come to a common understanding that state power, especially the power of capitalist society represents public interest, and this viewpoint comes into being from the studies on the relationship of public interest with actions and policies, although they have different viewpoints of public interest. This kind of understanding is of importance to the normative knowledge of public interest, but have side effect to fully grasping the concept of it.Public interest, with a basis of communicative practice and a logical starting point of real individuals, changes and develops under the force of social production. In so doing, it can come true under the completion of perfecting social system, realizing the governance ruled by law and certification of political actions. Although the developed capitalist countries have realized the above-said conditions, it is unable to make true the conscious pursuit of public interest, for the historical limitations of the capitalist countries themselves. It is only used as a tool to carry out special interest of the bourgeois with a high-sounding reason.Socialism, whose power rests in the hands of the majority of the people, is a certain replacement of capitalism. The proletariat party has no special interest of themselves in the process of executing state power, and it has the real intent and abilities to implement public management functions. There goes a big gap between the socialist idea of Marx and Engels and the real socialist countries, established on weak forces of production with no experience of capitalist development. Under these circumstances, it is a philosophic issue to study of how to develop socialism and realize public interest. Several socialist countries failed to reach correct understanding of these circumstances, and met with setbacks in the process of development.China's socialism came into being on a basis of semi-feudal society. After decades of development, China has shown its advantages of the socialist system with high-speed production and continuous rise of people's lives, while there still are many shortcomings in carrying out public interest through scientific development of social production, perfection of social system, strengthening the rule of law and improve governance capacity in order to consciously create conditions for public interest at two levels.