On The Moral Fear

This paper,based on the practices of the daily social life in modern China,proposes the concept of moral fear and makes a special research on moral fear from the perspective of moral psychology and moral philosophy.On the basis of the analysis of the concept of moral fear,this paper tries to explore the contents,features,kinds,mechanism and cures of moral fear so that this paper will provide the ideological supports to the advance of the construction of Chinese moral theory and practice.In this paper,the concept of moral fear refers to that the moral subjects,owing to the fear of the possible serious harms on themselves,avoid taking the necessary moral obligations because if they meet the requirements of moral acts,their moral acts may bring forth serious harms.Moral fears are not fears to morality,but fears to the harms done to the moral subjects which are brought on by their moral acts.The harms result not from the concrete moral acts,but from what are added to the moral subjects by the concrete moral acts.With moral fear,the moral subjects know clearly the difference between good and evil and they know clearly what they should do and even intend to do good deeds in practice,but they,with weak willpower and moral capability,actually choose to avoid their moral responsibility.Moral fears have the following major features.In the aspect of psychological constitution element,moral subjects,in spite of their definite moral consciousness and emotion,obfuscate moral conscience,lose moral willpower and forsake moral bravery.Their moral willpower is weak and their moral consciousness and practice are separated.In behavior,moral subjects,owing to fear and coward,choose to protect themselves first and be indifferent but not to do good deeds.There exists a close relation and obvious difference between moral fear and psychological fear,moral awe and moral indifference.Moral fears can be classified into the following categories:the kind of fear based on the mighty external natural force and the weak moral will power,the kind of fear based on the unknown moral situation and the avoiding of moral risks,the kind of fear based on credit crisis and the kind of fear based on the fragility of justice.In content,the four kinds are more and more complicated one by one.In form,they logically evolve.In function and structure,sometimes one element functions and more often many elements multiply to function in the formation of the basic form moral fears.Moral fears result from the natural organ function and the living condition.At the micro-level of moral individuality,the three main fields of psychological mechanism which produce moral fear are the living anxiety,the crisis of moral belief,and the ontological loneliness of today's people.At the macro-level,the three main fields of social mechanism which produce moral fear are the change of social structure,the deficiency of legal system and the evolvement of the spirit of cultural value.The methods to overcome moral fears are as followings.Firstly,at the micro-level of individual moral construction,the method is cultivating and exalting the subjective moral spirit like kindness,sympathy,conscience and courage and so on and encouraging good deeds of volunteers.At the middle-level of the construction of civil morality,the method is creating the potential of individual morality and the moral potential of social organizations.At the macro-level of the management of the country,the method is establishing the construction and arrangement of social system justice and perfecting legal justice.In this way will be eliminated the phenomena of moral fears in not doing goods when they are needed and not helping when helps are needed.In this way can the metaphysical ideal of moral freedom be adhered to in the realization of moral freedom.