Beyond Tragedy:Reinhold Niebuhr’s Thought On Virtues Of The Powerful

There are mainly two reasons for my choosing Reinhold Niebuhr’s thought on the virtues of "the powerful" as my research subject.First, although virtue is the focus of Niebuhr’s political ethics, it has not been deeply examined by scholars for quite a long time. As a result, Niebuhr was misread seriously (especially by Stanley Hauerwas). However, if we neglect this aspect, we will loose the height and the depth of Niebuhr’s thought. Meanwhile we will not be able to appreciate the classical character of his thought.Second, the virtues that Niebuhr has discussed are of a special kind, that is, the virtues of "the powerful". With the help of Niebuhr’s thinking, we may arrive at a vision from where we can find the crisis of modernity and the blind spots of Enlightenment Tradition(especially the mistakes of rationalism ethics), and deepen our understanding of the dialectic relationship between "deontology" and "virtue teleology." Niebuhr’s thinking on the virtues of "the powerful" can not only criticize the popular politics of liberalism which is a kind of politics of the powerless, but also keep a necessary tension with the traditional ’virtue of the powerless’in Christianity. It also has the special critical and normative function which other ethics of "the powerful" do not have.The main content of this paper is made up of five chapters.In chapter one "preface", I will make clear the significance of Niebuhr’s thought on the virtues of "the powerful" and introduce the basic situation of this research. Then, I will show where my research begins, the basic research ways and the main thesis. Finally, I will provide a brief generalization of all chapters.In chapter two "The Debate between Deontology and Virtue ethics in Christian Public Theology", I will introduce the basic context in which Niebuhr himself and the whole movement of "Public Theology" have been regarded as the sample of Deontology Ethics, and thus had been criticized seriously by Stanley Hauerwas who is regarded as the best example of Virtue Ethics. I will make an apology for Niebuhr. I think Niebuhr has been misunderstood. Rather than a liberal, Niebuhr put virtue down as the basis and core of his public theology. Besides, I will analyze the main reasons why Niebuhr’s virtue thought has been neglected so popularly. In chapter three "Niebuhr on the Virtues of the Powerful", I will furthermore argue that the moral problem of "the powerful" is the real core which Niebuhr paid more attention to. I offer an analytical model of "the ethics of powerful vs. powerless" which is drawn from "politics of powerful vs. powerless". According to this special model, I will try to provide a new framework to understand Niebuhr’s ethics:The powerful—virtues—sin—tragedy—beyond tragedy—virtues of the new powerfulIn fact, this is the logic of this paper. In this chapter I will also discuss the problem of meaning in the pursuit of the powerful, the problem of human nature and the character of duty in the career of the powerful.In chapter four,"the Tragedy of the Powerful and Beyond Tragedy", I will deeply analyze the special attention which Niebuhr paid to the tragic fate of the powerful, and explain how Niebuhr finds a spiritual resource in Christian faith for the powerful. Niebuhr intends to offer a moral background support for the powerful to engage in historical creation.In chapter five,"Comparison and Remark", in order to emphasize the special features of Niebuhr’ s ’virtues of the powerful’I will offer some comparisons between Niebuhr and the other two famous thinkers, one is Hans Morgenthau and the other is Max Stackhouse. Then I will give some discussions about Niebuhr’s ethics and analyze the inspirations of Niebuhr’s thought, especially in epistemology, value theory and practice.