Several Meanings Of Good And The Moral Foundations Of Politics

Justice is the core value of social and political system,and there is epochal difference concerning this argument in thoughts of ancient and modern political philosphy.Political ideas of political authority,polity,law and so on are based on good in the former,and based on individual rights in the latter;good prior to right in the former,by contrary right piror to good in the latter.One of the deepest distictions between conceptions of justice is between monistic value and value pluralism.Political principles established in the basis of single good cannot be argumed,and based on the rational calculation of individual rights is not strong.Rightness and goodness are compatible.Political philosophy can’t become a completely utopia like ancient philosophy,but need possess a certain ideal which should be a realistic utopia.Good shows the meaning of life,while right draws the boundaries.Justice cannot draw the limit too narrowly.Right without good is blind,while good without proper is empty.Right not only is prior,and is congruent with good.Political principles are worth people offering their loyalty and political order is not a matter of expediency.Natural law is the theoretical basis of Western political thought,but also the theoretical basis of political moral foundation.It is produced in the oppisitive theory frame of "nature and convention",in which nature is evaluative standards,and is higher than convention,law and the political authority;consequently nature is the natural right.The "nature"mainly refers to human nature or humanity.The conception of human nature is closely linked with the society.The ancient thinkers had developed a philosophy theory of human nature,the basic idea being that the individual is not self-sufficient,and man is a kind of political animal.Classical thinkers insisted on a teleological world view;namely the order of the universe is not only rational but is good.A man’s virtue is that reason will overcome the desire,and reason is derived from the cosmic reason.The wise man which understaned the cosmic reason once being governor will carry on the policy of reformation of the human nature,and its goal is to eliminate the desire of person by means of their political measures to abolish the family and private property.Classical thinkers have singled "good" up to the principle of governing politics;therefore Politics is regarded as part of the morality.virtues are refered to qualities of the mind,not the behavior of virtue.Ancient natural law which is built on the basis of the excellent qualities of human nature is that what is in fact in man be replaced by what should is in man,and is a kind of political philosophy regardless of normative and positive,it being the pursuit of the best politics.But they also saw an important role of passion.Passion is produced in interpersonal relationships,for example it is easier to produce passion from friends betray.Two kinds of basic virtue of love and justice which are produced from the relationships are the link between citizens;and each citizen can cultivate these virtues only in the community’s political life.Justice refers not only to abide by the law also refers to how to deal with the relations of equality between citizens.Classical thinkers regarded politics as a way of life for citizens,also proposed the principle concerning the law of rule which will harmony the various good in different social class.In the Hellenistic period,individual was first found as an ethical unit.Machiavelli from What is in fact in person,rather than from what should be in person analyzed the virtue from the politics,and opened up a realistic path of political philosophy.Hobbes,Locke established the modern natural law theory on the basis of individual rights,the basic idea being that individual is self-sufficient,and who is an independent political unit.They holded on a mechanistic world view,and to reach a conclusion of psychological human nature,namely Goodness is subjective and people’s behavior being pushed by the cause in the back rather than determined by the purpose of guiding role in front,virtue being interpreted as behavior character rather than mind virtue.Reason is no longer regarded as cosmic reason,but is instrumental rationality which wil lubricate desires.They found that the society provide ample space for citizens desires,and insisted on that politics must be affiliated to the society.This is a kind of theory of political legitimacy.Rousseau and Kant developed a philosophy theory of human nature from the normtive rather than the positive point of view.This is that individual are not completely determined by causality,but individual have the capability of free will choice,Human nature including reason and desire must be explained in the concept of will.Rousseau and Kant argued against this idea of the personal rights completely built on rational calculation,of society as the toutcome of individual calculating self-interest by ratioality.They divided the reason into rationalness and reasonableness which is a kind of public rationality.Modern thinkers in the face of value pluralism opposed the concept of good entity,and explained the good from the interpersonal relationship,and the good is divided into two levels of subjective good and objective one,the former refering to people’s subjective desire or partial interests,the latter refering to the people’s fundamental interests(man’s self-preservation,free will or will self-discipline),the political principle being built on the basis of objective goodness.Rawls removed the metaphysics of these factors,the objective good as "primary good",and proposed that it is the result of overlapping consensus.Justice is the part of the human good.