The Research On Economic Ethical Thought Of Ancient Greek And Ancient Rome

Economics in present days leans to math and deviates from ethics. Absurd theory such as "economics has no sense of morality" is quite rampant in economic profession. Without the support of ethics, the research of economics will derail from the right track; and deviating from the requirements of ethics the development of economy will be abnormal and unsustainable. The most evident phenomena are aggravating income disparity, increasing Gini coefficient and intensifying social contradictions. Nowadays, slogan of "efficiency comes first" is out of time and "fairness"has been putting in a more important place. People begin to realize again that without the ethics to support the development of economy and economy theory, it will accumulate many conflicts. Under this circumstance, ethics come back to economic and fairness no longer being put to the subordinate position of efficient but a more important one. That is to say, entering into the new century, Chinese scholars are paying great attention to economic ethics again. From the study of the history of economic ethics, the attention people paid to economic ethics is only revived and returned theoretically. In ancient western time especially axial period, Plato and Aristotle both did profound research towards economic ethics and proposed many valuable opinions, as well as their mistakes that made us reflect and rethink. Taking history as mirror can we know the rise and decline of the past, the research of the thought of economic ethics of ancient west certainly will help the current research of it, benefit the relationship between fairness and efficiency in economic development, making economic and ethics to integrate, to support and to develop mutually.This paper combines with introduction and the main body that obtains seven chapters. Introduction first introduce the close connection between economics and ethics and economics should not deviate from ethics and that economic ethics in ancient Greek and Rome had discussed the basic questions of economic ethics and still remain its influence on today's economics. Second, the theoretical and practical value will be introduced. The third part will introduce the academic summarization of the research of ancient western economic ethics. Because of the magnificent achievements and profound influence of the economic ethical thought of ancient Greece, there are many domestic and oversea books and papers of ancient Greece economic ethics thought that will be combing and introducing in this part. The fourth part will introduce the innovation ideas, research system and research methods of this paper. The first chapter will introduce the backgrounds and origins of the generation of the economic ethical thought of ancient Greek, mainly from the background of politics, economics, culture and religion these four aspects. The main sources are Logos theory from Herakleitos, Atomic theory from Democritus and Relativism from the wise men. Chapter two will introduce the economic ethics thought of Socrates whose great contribution is to pullback philosophy from universe to earth that discuss the reform matters of human moralities. He proposed the ethics topic of that knowledge is virtue and that nobody does evil deliberately. He set himself an example to his virtue principles and the virtue life style of Socrates also reflects his economic concepts of the restraint to material desire, the endurance of labor and to thrifty of consumption. Chapter three will introduce the economic ethical thought of Xenophon who believes agriculture and tactics are the noblest and most essential works. He highly appraises the shrewd of businessman. Xenophon is the earliest economist studying on finance. He claims the balance of finance. Division of Labor is the great contribution Xenophon made to economics. The fourth Chapter will introduce Plato's economic ethics thoughts. Plato focuses on what is division of labor, why to do it and how to do it. These are the special contributions to the ethics of division of labor. Chapter Five will introduce the economic ethical thoughts of Aristotle which is the emphasis of this paper. The economic ethical researches of Aristotle involve many different aspects and have great influences. It involves the division of labor of masters and slaves, distribution justice, ethics of property, ethics of getting wealth, ethics of exchange and so on, among which the distribution justice that involves basic proposition of fairness and efficiency in modern economics has the greatest influence. Chapter Six will introduce the economic ethical thoughts of Ancient Rome. The ethics of Stoa has evident tendency to naturalism such as refuse to take wealth and health as good and they claim simple, temperate and agriculture based life. Epicurus takes Democritus' Atomism theory as foundation and claims simple life is good. They believe that from philosophy treatment, people can obtain happy lives no matter rich or poor. Cicero believes that private property is legal and should be protected by its country. He takes wealth as good and gives it the highest appraisal. Varro believes that righteousness of agricultural ethics lies in effectiveness and pleasure. Chapter seven will discuss the historical and modern value of economic ethics of ancient Greek and ancient Rome. The rational spirits of ancient Greeks and ancient Rome run through their economic ethics thoughts. It has great impacts on the civilization of ancient and modern times; especially their division of labor and distribution of wealth are accepted by many present economists. The passive value of the economic ethics thought of ancient Greece is the composition of fantasy, agriculture over commerce and their support to slavery. The theory of ratio and quantity equality in distribution justice of Aristotle is actually the fairness and efficiency matters that have been paid great attentions in modern western economic ethics. Plato opposes the polarization between the rich and the poor has actual guiding significance to our country's present economic ethics thoughts.