Comments On Ye Shi's Utilitarianism Thought

Ye Shi is a famous politician and philosopher in South Song dynasty. He is a Confucian but he tried to search a effective way of practice, from the aspect of utilitarianism,for the settlement of the big crisis on politics, economy and society in South Song dynasty. Unfortunately, he was criticized for this try by South Song Confucian scholars, even though he was drove out the Confucian orthodoxy.Confucian was up its summit at the aspect of spirit and mind in Song dynasty. And it regarded itself as the legitimism. This situation extruded the free space for thoughts in that dynasty. Excessive self-contained and pride, the Neo-Confucianism in Song Dynasty doomed to be rebelled. On the other hand, due to the political situation in South Song dynasty, utilitarianism came with the tide of fashion naturally after its drowsy of a long time more than one thousand years. And under the background of commercial development in the east area of Zhe Jiang province, utilitarianism flourished when it came to Ye She. It became a ideological trend offering a thrilling view.Keeping strong will to save the country, Ye Shi developed and enriched utilitarianism and became a master in the field. He began his thought from the critique of Confucian orthodoxy and take natural humanity as his philosophy basis, Ye Shi's utilitarianism was a exotic flower in Chinese ancient thought history, covering politics, economy, military, education,law and so on.What must be pointed out is that the carding of Ye Shi's thought is not the aim of my paper. Where ay the value of this paper is the closing remarks, in which I have discussed the philosophy basis of Ye She's utilitarianism, his view of humanity, the extending to the search of the relationship of moral and law.At last the discussion of my paper is trying to shorten the distance with such a point, namely, the natural humanity just can explain the rationality of utilitarianism, what can guard utilitarianism effectively is the rule of law,which comes from the hypothesis that humanity is evil innately.