Research On Ethical Transition During Transitional Period

Transformation period of society refers to the process from traditional society to a modern one.Since the Opium War(1840-1842),China has experienced difficult modern transformation along with traditional morality facing great challenges.On the one hand,modern ways of production and life require modern morality.On the other hand,traditional morality are no longer adapt to modern social development.The traditional morality needs ethical transformation which aimed at the theory'smodern transition.This is not only beneficial to modern transition of Chinese society,but also the great rejuvenation of Chinese nation.The morality transition means the transformation from the virtue theory in traditional society to the norms theory in modern one.The virtue theory is talked about traditional moral philosophy while the norms theory,a modern one.Among the latter one,it embraces deontology and utilitarian theory.From the perspective of the moral theory in traditional Chinese society,the main moral theory is Confucius' deontology that belongs to the virtue theory.Deontology is raised by Confucius and Menci.The idea of righteousness and profit is the core of the theory.Generally speaking,the righteousness refers to behavior conformed to regulation and is the generic terms of moral rules.The benefit,included social and personal interest,is talked about interest and utility.In pre-qin period,Confucius held high the banner of ideal morality and talked about perfect of human nature the conduct of moral.The school stressed the priority of this internal spirit and asked people to carry this inner spirit without influenced by the external benefit.,which set the righteousness and benefit in opposite position.The period of two Han,Song and Ming dynasties,it developed the relationship into extremes and came up with �keep the natural law abolish the selfishness.�,being divorced from real life and becoming a sagely learning.After that,the theory has became extensive and profound theory system of virtue theory.China was compelled to enter into the modern history and began a rough social transformation after the Opium War.In the presence of national salvation,the traditional theory of virtue also transformed with social changes,and the first manifestation is the theory of pleasure and interest during the Wuxu Reform,however,it was just deontologism containing utilitarian principles or virtue theory,and didn't replace the ethics of modern normativismus.On the basis of critically inheriting the modern moral revolution,Chinese communists represented by Mao Zedong proposed revolutionary utilitarianism,which marked the first step of the transformation of Chinese morality,and it initially realized the historical change from traditional theory of virtue to modern normativismus.After the new China was founded,revolutionary utilitarianism was developed into collectivism.But both revolutionary utilitarianism and collectivism were depended on Chinese traditional theory of virtue.Therefore,moral practices were often influenced by the traditional theory of virtue,which showed up as the supremacy of overall interests on the views on righteousness and benefit.And this kind of influence finally evolved into absolutism in the Cultural Revolution,whose appearance hindered the modern transformation of morality.With the arrival of a new era in 1978,the reform and opening-up and the social transitions are speeding up,making people get free from absolutism.Under the impact of a series of social and ethic thoughts,people's understanding and attitude on righteousness and benefit changed fundamentally,righteousness and benefit were no longer absolutely opposite.Benefit became affirmative and encouraged,and its first characteristic is the �Three Favorables�,which is a criterion to assess benefit;the second is the moral request to pursue benefit,this is the sense of right and wrong on the justice of pursuing benefit.So far,the morality of Chinese society has basically transformed from the traditional virtue theory to modern normativismus,evolved from moral value to utilitarian value,and the morality transformation has moved in the modern direction.Of course,the morality transformation is not perfect now,and a complete system of modern morality theory has not formed,but daylight is on the way.