The Balance Of Power And Ethics-Analysis Of Social Justice Issues In The "Moral Man And Immoral Society "

This paper is based on the Niebuhr's Christian Ethics. With the thought of social justice, we found a middle-way solution in the Niebuhr's ideas. This paper begins with original sin science of Christian theology, which is also the basis of human nature theory of the Niebuhr's Christian Ethics, then discussed the features of individual moral and group morals, along with the difference between them. Niebuhr found the reason causing social injustice from the difference of individual moral and group morals. That is the immorality of group morals. This paper discussed several resources such as rational resources, religious resources and social force, which are all valuable to the fulfillment of social justice. They all play a catalytic role in solving the problem of social injustice to some degree, but they also have their own limitations. At last we found an effective method to solve the problem of social injustice by combining social force and moral factors together. Targeting at social justice, owing to the respective limitations of rational resources, religious resources and social force, relying on only one factor or abandoning any one will result in what we don't expect. In the book of"moral man and immoral society", Niebuhr proposed a method to solve the problem. This method combined the three factors together, making them restrain each other, with force as a kind of means, rationality as a kind of guidance and religious theory as a kind of ethics. Simply to say, the balance of power and ethics is Niebuhr's method. As a philosopher concerning the social reality life, Niebuhr's work on social justice is very significant and meaningful. Niebuhr's Christian Ethics is not simple religious doctrine. What he is running after is the methods of solving social problems. In his book,"moral man and immoral society", he found a middle-way solution for social injustice. His solution combined rationality, religion and social force together, making them restrain each other, to guarantee social justice. Besides he found out a desired end for human beings, that is God. No doubt, it's effective for the chaotic social status at his time. Niebuhr has explained the concepts of sin and justice by a mount of fact, but never gave definite defining. So do those concepts from Niebuhr's time still have the same meanings in different social backgrounds? What's more, Niebuhr insisted group morals are immoral and separated individual moral and group morals completely. This is a bit rather arbitrary Group morals present two sides,one group's influence on inner morality can't be ignored. These two questions are the most important part on thoroughly analyzing Niebuhr's social ethics.