Incubating The Joyfulness Of Morality Education In Confucianism

Li Zehou, the contemporary era philosopher propound that Chinese culture is"a culture of optimism".Reviewing education of morality in the aspect of cultural-psychology, it is necessary and likely to propound the concept of"joyfulness"as well as to define it as: joyfulness that is by way of cultural-psychology, attribute to morality in Chinese culture of optimism, joyfulness is the keystone of sense of morality. The sensibility and attitude of"joyfulness is from employing oneself in morals"is one of the most important and essential sensibilities and attitudes toward moral behaviors.What is called"incubating the joyfulness"is the progress of moral education which pay close attention to the cultivating of the joyfulness, which lead people to feel joyful when he or she hears, acts or sees morals. To be briefly, is to cultivate the sensibility of"joyfulness is from employing oneself in morals".Works from Li Zehou, such as <><> present an ideology of enhancing education of morality by which of esthetics, which is called by himself as"reserve the kindness by esthetics". Both"incubating the joyfulness"and"reserve the kindness by esthetics"propose sensibility and attitude of"joyfulness is from employing oneself in morals", however these two differ in material progress and methods, with the key of how to look on, sense and recognize, and exert"nature of morality"(the inherent connatural nature of morality).In the education of sensibility of morality, inchoate by Mencius and Xunzi, bifurcation between"cultivate the personality"(self-examination and self-questioning) and"cultivate sensibility"(sensibility-edification) has almost run through entire history of Confucianism. whereas"reserve the kindness by esthetics"from Li Zehou completely abandoned the"nature of reason"which is canonized by Confucianism, and is obviously apt to"cultivate sensibility"which is on behalf by Xunzi, Dong Zhongshu and Yang Xiong."Noumenon of sense""oneness between subjects"from Li Zehou apparently intent to experiment alteration and transferring the contribution on epistemology from Song and Ming periods to"culture humanizes senses". However, Li Zehou himself does not actually adopt many of the culture methods that were sparked by Si, Meng, Cheng and Zhu in history of Confucianism. We discover that some of the culture methods from Si, Meng, Cheng and Zhu redound to cultivate the sensibility and attitude of"joyfulness is from employing oneself in morals"during the reviewing of various education practices in Confucianism, indeed some among these have unfailing importance for morality education, even in modern education. Thereby, we advocate of the combination of"cultivate the personality"and "cultivate sensibility"based on the doctrine of good human nature from Mencius, which allows sense edifying to help one to absorb moral, and then purify and improve the soul and mind by self-examination and self-questioning.There is only one problem in practice, which is according to Mencius,"pull up the seedlings to help grow", because Mencius believed all the sense edify is"request to be kind"(Jiao Xun, Qing period). Whereas the criticism of"pull up the seedlings to help grow"from Mencius was not spoken in detail, we can still find Confucius give attention to both"cultivate the personality"and"cultivate sensibility"."joyfulness is from employing oneself in morals"is distinguished from"be fond of employing oneself in morals"and"be joyful of employing oneself in morals". One is fond of employing himself or herself in morals is with consciousness, unconstraint and self-encourage; one is joyful of employing himself or herself in morals is with ease, willingness and spontaneousness. Although being different, both are from self-cultured, therefore both are able to achieve"joyfulness is from employing oneself in morals". Inchoate by Confucius, pay close attention to both constantly succeed to become one of the main characteristics of morality education in Confucianism."Be joyful of employing oneself in morals"can be divided into"joyfulness of the universe"and"joyfulness of human relations"based its content."joyfulness of the universe"is to the heaven, reason, manner, moral and so on, which surpasses the soul and mind;"joyfulness of human relations"is to parents, brothers, wife and children, friends and so on, which is the joyfulness of the natural sense. Joyfulness of the universe is from"to subdue one's self and return to propriety is perfect virtue", its key is easiness, smoothness, harmony. Joyfulness of the human relations is from"virtuous are kind to people", its key is kindness, love, happiness, anger, sadness and cheerfulness. Among these two, joyfulness of the universe is profound and obscure which is not adapted by common school education, while joyfulness of human relations is plain and simple which is the every goal of the modern school morality education.Confucians in Song period considered Yan Hui as the outstanding representative of the people who are fond of employing themselves in morals, Zhu Xi especially advocate of learning from him. However in modern schools it would be extreme to accept Yan's behavior, which is not as practical as"learn from Zi Lu". Through finding how and why makes people feel joyful in employing oneself in morals, we can see that"self-virtuous","fond of kind and avoid the unkind","believe in what you believe"and"virtuous are kind to people"are actually the basic content as well as the basic requirement of being fond of employing oneself in morals.Goodness of Zi Lu is in"choose and act the kindness and constantly believe in it", thus Confucius mainly gave him encourage and lead on music and cognize, because music is helpful to create peace and gentleness, cognize is helpful to further understand the universe, and these two were what defective in Zi Lu. Practice in goodness, kindness, peace and self-cognize will help those who are fond of employing themselves in morals into those who are joyful of employing themselves in morals. Although this is no longer belong to the school education responsibility.Among the culture methods found by Confucianism, many directly redound to"joyfulness is from employing oneself in morals", such as poem education, independent personality, intellectuality, correct one's mistakes; and many others are indirectly such earnest, self-abashment and lust-restrain. These morality education methods are very valuable to modern schools, therefore it is necessary to system organize and exert.