On The Values Of Confucian Ethics In Modern Moral Construction

Confucian ethics, as the core of Chinese traditional morals and culture, has exerted an extensive and profound impact on contemporary society, especially on our contemporary moral construction. Confucian ethics is the important social and moral resources and studies of its modern values are of great significance for advocating socialist ethics. This paper, based on Confucian ethics and contemporary morals, explores the modern value of Confucian ethics and reflects the difficulties faced by Confucian ethics in the hope of calling people's attention to it and of the scientific and rational development and utilization of Confucian ethics resources for the building of our socialist ethics.The thesis comprises three parts:The first part explores the values of Confucian ethics in contemporary moral construction. Confucian ethics plays a very positive role in cultivating patriotism —the core national spirit of the Chinese, building a strong national cohesion power, enhancing national spirit of self-confidence, and raising awareness of social ethics for a good social climate, high standard of professional ethics, ideal family values and citizens of personal integrity.The second part is the reflection of traditional Confucian ethics: the traditional concepts of justice and profits, of filial piety and of honesty. It studies comprehensively their shortcomings in contemporary moral construction so as to prove the difficult situation Confucian ethics are now in and to analyze the causes of it. It points out that the shock to Confucian ethics by social transformation, scientific development and the collision of Chinese and western cultures is the root cause of the difficult situation of Confucian values.The third part describes the development and utilization of the resources of Confucian ethics in modern times. From the perspective of social ethics, it concludes that we must always uphold the Marxist methodology, absorb critically Confucian ethics in order to meet the requirements of the times, that is, to achieve the combination of Confucian ethics and socialist morals and connection of Confucian ethics and good foreign cultures.