The Research On Political Ethical Thoughts In The Work Of 'Ming Yi Dai Fang Lu'

In the history of political thought in ancient China, the late Ming and early Qing Dynasty is a significant time of transition. In the political system, the Ming and Qing Dynasties of China had reached the peak that the systems of feudal autocracy and centralized monarchy in China had gone into their extreme. As a response in terms of ideology, the traditional intellectuals and thinkers like Li Zhi, Huang Zongxi, Gu Yanwu, Tang Zhen, criticized to the extreme autocracy and its ethics which had been hold for thousands of years in China. Among them, Huang Zongxi was the guy who held the fiercest and profoundest opinions, and his criticized though was embodied mainly on his important work, "Ming Yi Dai Fang Lu". Since modern times, the domestic and foreign scholars have pay close attention to the book and have acquired so many significant results, but they mainly focus on the political thought, rarely on ethics thought of "Ming Yi Dai Fang Lu". In view of this, this paper attempts to study in depth the political ethics thought of "Ming Yi Dai Fang Lu" ,and expounds systematically on its historical backgrounds, the origin resources of the theory and the basic contents, and assess its progress and the limitations ,its historical influence and its modern meanings. At present, our Party and our government are making great efforts to build a political ethics system as so called "people-oriented, serving the public interest and governing for the people". The positive factors of Huang's political ethics such as pursuing equality, taking the people serious and affirming the personal interests, may fit the spirit of modern political ethics. Therefore, the author has chosen the political ethics of the work "Ming Yi Dai Fang Lu" as a research topic.The emergence of political ethics in the work of "Ming Yi Dai Fang Lu" had the broad historical backgrounds and deep theoretical origins. The peak of imperial dictatorship of China's feudal society in Ming and Qing Dynasties, the emergence of the civic class who had the requirements of anti-feudal exploitation and the trend of anti-LIXUE which criticized the autocratic monarchy, are respectively the political, economical and cultural background of Huang's political ethics thoughts. Huang's thoughts'profound theoretical sources include: first, the original essence of democracy which in period of tribe society, the tribe leaders served their people selflessly and quit their power for the excellent successor; second, inherited the traditional thought of'Ming ben'which takes the people serious. Third, absorbed the thoughts of ancient thinkers such as Ruan Ji, Bao Jingyan and Dengmu, who criticized the autocratic monarchy.The basic connotation of Huang's political ethics of "Ming Yi Dai Fang Lu" embodied the following three aspects: Firstly, the idea of"the people are the root of the county". Huang Zongxi denied the traditional ethics of absolute monarchy and the idea of"The power of monarch was awarded by the God", and advocated establishing the ethics between the monarch and the people as"the people are the host while the monarch is the guest". He also advocated that the country must be run by the laws which reflected the benefits of the people. Secondly, the idea of the equality between the monarch and his officials. Criticizing the traditional notion that the monarch was superior highly to his officials, Huang put forward a new monarch-official relationship that the monarch and the officials were the equal colleagues who served the country impartially. In order to ensure this equality, something must be done to control the power of the monarch, and the restoring of prime minister system and school discussing political affairs, maybe a good way to balance the monarch's power. Thirdly, the idea of natural human nature. Huang affirmed that the individual has the rights to pursue his desires, so that his "private rights" is reasonable. On the basis of this theory, Huang Zongxi proposed an idea that "Trade and Industry are the root of the country" and advocated that the rights and interests to pursue material wealth must be protected.As for the historical position of political ethics in "Ming Yi Dai Fang Lu", the author makes it inadequate that Huang's thoughts was regard as modern democracy, or as traditional idea of people being the root of the country (Min ben). His thoughts inherited from the latter, but could not exceed it, and approached the former, but be not real democratic. Huang's thoughts'main limitations are the followings: First, He could not completely break through the traditional idea that the monarch's authority must be highly respected, and lacked of the concept that "the sovereignty is hold on by the people" which is one of the essential codes of the modern politics. Second, the idea of restricting monarch's power which reset the prime minister and school participated the court's politics, has the strong escapism .third, Huang failed to break through the traditional notion"rule of man"which goes beyond the modern concept"rule of law".In this paper, the author also analyzes the historical value and the modern meanings of political ethics thoughts of"Ming Yi Dai Fang Lu". The thoughts of"Ming Yi Dai Fang Lu"as the bridge for western-style democracy came to China played a major role in china's modern democracy movement, this is its historical value of the performance. Huang suggested that the monarch should serve the people with the notion that people are the root of the country, that we must take some measures to restrict the monarch'power and enrich people. All of these can provide us some precious thinking resource and enlightenment, in the background that now, our country and our Party are constructing the"people-oriented"ruling ethics, reinforcing socialist democratic supervision, and improving the livelihoods of the people.In short, it has great practical significance to study Huang's political ethics thoughts, in the context of building a harmonious society in contemporary China. Of course, as how to objectively evaluate it and how to draw its essence to guide our practice, these are still the directions of the author's future efforts.In this paper, the research methods include: literature and text method, through studying the text of "Ming Yi Dai Fang Lu"; Comparison approach, making the comparison the political ethics thoughts of "Ming Yi Dai Fang Lu" with the traditional ones and Western modern democracy.