On Moral Freedom

Moral education is a thorny problem that receives much concern. Practices of moral education not only have a far-reaching influence on the contemporary society and national civilization, but also benefit the later generations. In the practice of moral education, moral education experts and scholars are required to have a clear understanding of the present society to make the education tactics which meet the social development and aim at a new generation of moral characters in future. At present, the educational reform is going on, moral education gets energetical support as a light spot of reforming. A lot of education experts and moral educationists have all put forward creative suggestions, thorough changes are taking place from the moral education ideas to the concrete classroom. So, what kind of thread was carried on around the reform of moral education? What is the essential spirit of the reform? That is high praise and practicing of freedom and moral freedom. This spirit has already catered to the requirement of current times and pointed to the future society as a kind of moral ideal at the same time. We can say, the problem of moral freedom will be the practice impetus of moral education of both the present stage and in the future. Moral freedom is the value orientation of moral education, practice content and the goal of moral education as a kind of personality ideal. As to the problem of moral freedom, few people have done systematic research, fewer have discussed it as value and goal of moral education. This thesis regards this as a starting point and enables educational problem of the morals concentrated and shown as the free issue of the morals. This not only stresses the requirements of the times but also the essential spirit of ethical educational reform. This thesis takes historical documents as the main research approach, and assists it with the investigation method of the questionnaire. At first, the author of this thesis has a deep discussion about the problem of moral freedom, and then the thesis turns to the analysis of moral freedom as the value orientation, practice content and personality ideal of moral education.This thesis is divided into four parts basically:In the first part, the author of this thesis defines moral freedom. The basic meaning and characteristics of moral freedom are drawn from the definition of freedom. According to different philosophers of different eras, freedom can be divided into five kinds: physical freedom, spiritual freedom, natural state of body and mind, the absolute free state of individual practices and the free state within the necessary ranges of practices. It is concluded that freedom means the free state of moral practices of a moral subject within the necessary morals with moral responsibility at the same time. Moral freedom has five characteristics: rationality, the exceeding quality, independency and co-existence, self-determination and practicality. These characteristics demonstrate the nature of moral freedom and they are also the living bases of moral freedom.In the second part, the main point is that moral freedom is the value orientation of moral education. The value of moral education lies in cultivating "a whole person " and the morals of a person through stimulating and promoting the students' need for morals. Moral freedom is beneficial to realize the above moral value: (1) Moral freedom has one value relation with humans, and it is the need of human subjectivity and the supreme level of human moral requirement; (2) Moral freedom is the precondition to make moral values come true. Therefore, moral freedom just accords with the value orientation of moral education and has guide effect on moral education.In the third part: the author mainly discusses that moral freedom is the practice content of moral education. There are two major tasks in moral education: one is ethical knowledge, the other is the practice of moral subjectivity. They are the two preconditions for the realization of moral freedom. Moral knowledge includes descriptive knowledge and pr...