The Historical Evolution And Modern Construction Of Relationship Between Public Morality And Private Morality

Moral construction is a state-led systematical project. It promotes the development of people and maintains the orderly operation of social interaction by converting the ethics to morals. We can concern the practical effect and problem of moral construction by people’s moral behaviors. China society is in the new period of reform and opening-up and Chinese are constructing socialist market economy. At the same time we find that our people are seriously lack of public morality, and they always make mistakes in dealing with the relation between public morality and private morality. To change all that, it is of great theoretical and practical importance to have a clear understanding about public morality, private morality and the relation between them theoretically.Following the principle of unifying logic and history of Marxism in this research, the researcher use historical research, logic analysis and comparative research methods. The study focuses on what kind of relationship between public morality and private morality should be and how it may be, in order to improve the actual effect of modern moral construction.Through the study of several groups of related concepts and moral phenomena, the research reveals that modern moral construction is the process of converting the public communication ethics to public morality and private communication ethics to private morality. As two mental phenomena, public morality and private morality have distinction and connection which should be reflected in the practical moral construction.By researching the treatment of the relationship between the two kinds of moral phenomena of moral constructions in different periods of history, found that whether reasonable relationship between public morality and private morality are implemented in the moral construction practice is affected by many factors. The lesson is worth to remember. In Chinese traditional society, moral construction used family ethics as the basis of social ethics. In the treatment of public morality and private morality, moral construction was too heavily on the family virtues, forming private morality characteristics. It was a reflection of that era when family was the foundation of the country, embodied the core of Chinese traditional culture. But that kind of moral construction had some obvious limitations, for example, it emphasized exclusive consanguinity, difference, etc., and caused the lack of social public morality consciousness, equal consciousness and so on. All the limitations are not conducive to the growth of public morality.Since modern times, due to the national political crisis, the society paid more attention to and carried forward the morality of patriotic, the virtue of saving the nation. Especially the moral construction of new China in 1949-1978, the revolutionary ethics was made as the basis of ethics in social life, proletarian revolutionary morality was regarded as the core and the first choice, forming the features of public morality dominated. Proletarian revolutionary morality is consistent with the new Chinese advanced production relations and the social system, and the moral construction had made significant achievements. But its imperfection is the insufficient recognition of private morals, even under the thought of "left" influence, the country required people be completely selfless; And the moral construction had too much emphasis on the highest level of public morality, neglecting the lower levels of public morality cultivation. Since China’s reform and opening up, the moral construction becomes more scientific and practical, but they have not known enough about the rational relationship between public morality and private morality.On the basis of the intrinsic relationships between public morality and private morality, to adapt to the reality that the contemporary social communication is increasingly differentiated to be public communication and personal communication, and the need of people’s comprehensive and free development, combing with the inspiration from historical experiences and lessons, this study proposes that the contemporary moral construction should make public morality and private morality each be in its bits, make them hanve an interdependent symbiosis and benign interaction.That public morality and private morality should be in its bits, have an interdependent symbiosis and benign interaction should be under the leading of socialist core values. To do so, we will make the whole society understand and agree the reasonable relationship between public morality and private morality by all-round moral education; And use the parallel construction of system to guarantee public morality and private morality; And guide the individual to learn more knowledge and information for self-supervision aspects such as strengthening to cultivate one’s morality, to promote people’s all-round and free development and the formation of good social morality.