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The Moral Spirit And Ethic Spirit Of Modern Law

Posted on:2008-07-02Degree:MasterType:Thesis
Country:ChinaCandidate:N LuFull Text:PDF
GTID:2166360242993956Subject:Legal theory
Abstract/Summary:PDF Full Text Request
The separation of"Morality"and"Ethics"has an old academic resource in western world, especially in the theorists of European continent. While in the academic field of China, this separation is not so distinctive. Under the academic context of western world, Morality means such a kind of spirit demand which is fitful for human-beings and is universal for the inner life of people. While ethics means such a kind of spirit demand which is shared by specific community and is valid for the members of the community. The rule of morality stresses the basic conditions for human beings, asks for the people using the universal perspective beyond the specific nation and community, which is deontology; While Ethics stresses the culture and tradition of community and the cohesion on the basic of the tradition, can hardly pass beyond the specific nation and community, which is teleology. Morality, which is based on individual, demands for escaping away the strains of cultures and traditions and pursuits for the identity of human beings in the future. By contrast, the ethics, which is based on community, announces all the norms accumulated by the long history of community and rooted deeply in the collective memories. The ethics is used to strengthen the identity of individual to his community, which is looking backward.The earliest discussion about the relationship between morality and ethics in western world is in the works of Aristotle. He separated the conceptions of virtue of wisdom and virtue of ethics. Aristotle considered the perfect combination of these two virtues in polis is greatly desirable. Cicero transmitted Aristotle's teleology to deontology under the situations of ancient Roma. He started from the classic deism to describe the notion of natural law and translated theēthos in ancient Greek language to the moralis in ancient Roman language. This separation impacted the basic recognitions of Greece and Roma to their respective understandings of politics and laws.In the context of modern times, the tension between the spirit of morality and ethics appears under the discussions of the academic tradition of Kant and of Hegel, which expresses the three problems below: the combination between the subjective right and positive law (and the coordination of system and life world), the possibility of secular verification of subjective right and the tension between the human rights and sovereignty. Kant started from the individual practical reason to solve all these tensions, but got involved in moral formalism. Hegel started from the ethic totality to solve the same tensions, but got involved in ethic peremptoriness. Professor Gao Hongjun puts forward a design about rule of law of voluntary communities. But he can hardly breakthrough subjective philosophy because of scaring of spirit of morality.In modern politics, as two legitimacy resources of law, morality and ethic perceptively express the moral spirit of law, which stresses individual autonomy and self-governing, free choice and tolerance of values, open and expansion of society, as well as the ethic spirit of law, which stresses the cooperation and unity of community, the memories and acknowledgment of tradition and the close the self-sufficient of community. Habermas successfully get these two spirits together through discourse principle. He manages to realize the political coordination and social harmony by reconstructing European constitution structure. These ideas are expressed as Constitution Patriotism.
Keywords/Search Tags:Morality, Ethics, Discourse, Constitution patriotism
PDF Full Text Request
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