Research On Wang Yangming's Thoughts Of Good And Evil

The good and evil is an eternal theme for human to explore their own existence and meaning.Wang Yangming is one of the typical ideologists in Neo-Confucianism and the real Confucianism,good and evil is the basic theory in his thought.While pursuing being good in Confucianism which is the ideal personality,Yangming realized that Zhu Xi's explanation on the good from epistemology,the object and nature aspect,haves some mistakes.In Yangming'views,the good is essentially a kind of good about morality.It is priori moral conscious of human beings.Undamentally,Wang Yangming didn't object knowledge.He just opposed the irrational phenomenon that knowledge could replace morality and be used to assess human values.Different from Zhu'opinion about asserting the good is outside of body,Wang Yangming thinks the good is in people's mind.This opinion on the one hand affirms the subjectivity of human beings in moral practice,on the other hand it strengthens the sense of responsibility for human beings.Wang Yangming's reinterprets the real good and comes up the idea that the mind is principle.This is to realize our own in pursuing the good.At the same time,his thinking of everything on earth being of the same body and nothing existing beyond the mind is to realize other things.Based on the standpoint of the position of moral kindness,the theory of everything's on earth being of the same body and nothing existing beyond the mind not only shows Wang's unique understanding on the relationship between me and others,but also highlights the Confucian moral humanism spirit.Then,Wang Yangming discusses the relation between the same body and Different degrees of love from his own idea.Wang Yangming's theory in state of having neither good nor evil is important for his theory of good and evil.He wants to reveal that the intuitive knowledge ontology is Xuling,which is a kind of empty spirit and is beyond the specific things.Consisting with his ideology,the theory of state of having neither good nor evil reflects the nature of subject.Thus,in Wang Yangming's views,the theory of mind is reason results into the theory of state of having neither good nor evil logically.So Wang Yangming wants to tell us that the subjectivity and existence of human beings is above all else.However,because of the moderate point towards the transcendental essence of human,Wang's theory of state of having neither good nor evil may lead to axiological relativism which is strongly criticized by ideologist during the late Ming Dynasty.On the nature of the problem of evil,Wang Yangming thinks that evil is alienation of good and deviates from the moderate good.The thought of Yangming denies that evil exist in our bodies and minds.How the evil came into being?Wang Yangming considers that the existence of human is the reason of evil,which is much similar to the evil illustrated by western ideologist from the libertarian aspect.What's more,Wang Yangming thinks the human nature that we born to own is evil to some extent.These opinions inherit the ideas of Confucian thought of evil and transcend the Zhu Xi's theory of evil.The thought of evil of Yangming plays an important role in the history of Confucianism.