The Ethical Foundation Of Social Governance

It could be argued that human society presents itself as two sides:ethical spirit and social governance.Ethical spirit is the spiritual essence of governance,while governance is the practical embodiment of ethical spirit.Historically,with the transformation of human society from an agricultural society to an industrial society,not only has the model of social governance changed from rule-oriented governance to management-oriented governance,but also the ethical foundation of social governance has changed accordingly from traditional ethics to contractual ethics.Since the late 20^thcentury,the process of globalization and post-industrialization has been another great social transformation movement in human history.Social governance model and ethical spirit are both facing the task of reconstruction.In this global wave of social governance reform,China’s administrative reform has established the overall goal of building a service-oriented government（SOG）.Therefore,with the help of historicism—logicism and other research methods,this paper tries to draw inspiration for the reconstruction of ethical spirit from the experience of China’s SOG reforms by analyzing the evolution logic of ethical spirit.Then,this paper proposes a possible solution for the ethical foundation of the post-industrial social governance,which can be applied to the moral practice of social governance.Obviously,ethical spirit is a historical category,changing along with the historical development.Any form of ethical spirit is rooted in the condition of human existence in a given historical stage.In the traditional agricultural society,gods were the value source and purpose of human existence,and the traditional ethics was rooted in“gods being with human”.In Chinese context,Confucian ethics was the traditional ethics.In modern times,contractual ethics was established first in the West through the Enlightenment movement.The individual rather than the gods was the value source of human existence,thus the condition of human existence was“either/or”.After being integrated into the political state,contractual ethics gradually became the ethical foundation of industrial social governance.But nowadays,in China,contractual ethics is not as successful as it is in the West.In Western history,although the United States is not the first to enter an industrial society,its industrial civilization is undoubtedly more successful.In the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries,the US transformed from an agricultural society to an industrial society.However,the new industrial society was a competitive society,facing the inequality derived from the freedom of contract.In this condition,the US carried out the progressive reform.However,the reform moved from the starting point of moral reconstruction to a scientific path of constructing the administrative state,and efficiency became the basic value orientation of social governance.After the Great Depression of the 1930s,the welfare state reform that emerged during the New Deal triggered a reflection on fairness value.Since the 1980s,the New Public Management（NPM）reform has been devoted to building a market-oriented entrepreneurial government,which means that the focus of contractual ethics has shifted from the previous political contract to economic contract.And yet,because of the financial crisis of 2008,the morality of markets is in doubt.From the perspective of normative ethics,the industrial social governance in the US generally shows a utilitarian picture,while Rawls’justice as fairness,to a certain extent,is a theoretical reflection on the welfare state’s ethical principle of restricted utility.However,the results of social governance based on contractual ethics have revealed that the industrial society is an immoral society.This is not an isolated phenomenon that only happens in the US,but a common outcome decided by the contractual ethics itself.Within the framework of contractual ethics,the moral self-consciousness liberated from the traditional ethical spirit has moved from the individual to the argument of moral independence,while both utilitarianism and justice as fairness have accepted and promised the view of ethical universality.As a result,the internal tension between ethical universality and moral independence has led to a gradual decline in the spirit of contractual ethics.More importantly,with the process of globalization and post-industrialization,the condition of human existence has changed from“either/or”to“symbiosis and coexistence”,which not only aggravates the decline in contractual ethics,but also indicates the possibility of constructing a new ethical spirit.Based on the experience of China’s SOG theory and reform,this paper tries to draw some inspiration for ethical reconstruction.In the sense of government type,unlike the NPM reforms in Western countries,China’s SOG reforms focus on serving the people,and are also committed to providing services to other multiple governance subjects.From the perspective of social governance model,theoretically,SOG and other multiple governance subjects are supposed to form a cooperative relationship,and thus SOG reforms have been committed to achieving a cooperative governance model.From the perspective of spiritual civilization,SOG reforms cannot be separated from a series of ethical contexts that contain the requirements of moral construction.Internationally,Chinese government has put forward the initiative of building a community of shared future for mankind.This reflects the fact that the condition of human existence has turned into symbiosis and coexistence,and also points to the ethical reconstruction according to the change of the condition of human existence.More specifically,this paper gets two main logical elements of ethical reconstruction.First of all,the awareness of the community of shared future for mankind reflects the symbiosis of human beings.The symbiosis and coexistence rather than“either/or”should be the logical starting point for the construction of a new ethical spirit,namely a new ethical spirit that is rooted in the coexistence and interaction of human.Secondly,the emerging cooperative governance could be the social foundation for the construction of the new ethical spirit,namely cooperative ethics.Cooperative governance transcends market to provide impetus for the construction of cooperative ethics.Starting from the coexistence and interaction of human and cooperative governance,we need to work together to usher in the post-industrial society through cooperative actions.In short,in the process of moving toward the post-industrial society,the contractual ethics is on the wane,while the cooperative ethics,a possible solution for the ethical foundation of post-industrial social governance,has been emerging in SOG reforms.Reconstruction of social governance based on cooperative ethics is to actively construct and consciously practice the spirit of cooperative ethics.First,we must build the SOG according to an ethical approach,that is,construct a moral system that accords with the cooperative ethics,and then in turn stimulate cooperative actions through the moral system,realizing the moralization of social governance.