The Comparison Of Plato's And Mencius' Thoughts Of Ethical Politics

Ethic or moral is an important part of social ideology, which is determined by social existence. The ruling class has used moral or ethic to serve themselves since class society, therefore, ethic or moral ties in with politics closely. Back in the ancient Greek and XianQin times of China, scholars began to pay attention to the relationship of ethics and politics. They based politics on ethic or moral in order to maintain the legitimacy of political domination, and regarded it as a concrete expression and extent ion of ethic or moral, they also committed to the ethical interpretation and construction of politics. This doctrine is not pure ethics; it is not pure politics too. Instead, it blended these two aspects as a guide to political ethics; this doctrine had a far-reaching impact on eastern and western traditional politics culture.It shows the main features of their political ethic thought by pre-depth comparative analyzing Plato's and Mencius'ethical politics that lived in mid-ancient Greek era and XianQin times of China respectively. Exposing the connections and differences of their thought, this makes us understand eastern and western traditional culture, especially political culture more clearly. In the course of today's economic globalization, cultural diversity and social information, to some extent, it makes us set aside impulsive heart, take history as a mirror and face the future in a better way; in today's modernization construction of China, we study the political ethic thought of these two cultural giants of eastern and western times which will give us a certain historical inspiration when we adhere to the concept of scientific development and build a harmonious society. This article is divided into three chapters:Chapter 1: interpreting Plato's and Mencius'background of times, which solved the problems of their formation of ethical politics, it reached a conclusion that similar background triggered similar thinking and questioning. For example, both of them were not content with politics of reality and anxious for ideal politics, had similar views on the war, required the moral character of the rulers and emphasized the education.Chapter 2: It said, although Plato and Mencius lived in the rough same times and faced similar social political problems, geographical environment, different life experiences, more importantly, different influence of cultures which led to the fundamental differences of their ethical politics thought. Its main and direct cause was the different metaphysics basis of their ethical politics. Plato based the theory of idea on his thought; while Mencius based the theory of Tiandao on his thought. Chapter 3 : Firstly, it described an important part of ethical politics systems of Plato and Mencius---the concept of human nature and political systems; secondly, it told us that justice and benevolent politics was the core and fundamental principle of Plato's and Menius'ruling ideology respectively and conducted a detailed comparative analysis between justice and benevolent politics; thirdly, I would like to interpret the effect of respective traditional political culture on which Plato's and Mencius'thought of ethical politics had. Lastly, summary the article: Plato's and Mencius'thought of ethical politics left us with inspiration.