On The Reference Of The Moral Education In Contemporary China From The Pre-qin Confucian Moral Education

Pre-Qin Confucian Moral Educational Thoughts is an important component part of the moral educational thoughts in ancient China. It was invented by Confucius and also was inherited, developed and reformed by Mencius and Xun Zi. The Thoughts has been expecting to regulate people's behavior through "etiquette", and to make people adjust their conduct automatically to conform to social demands by the promotion of "Humaneness, justice, etiquette, wisdom, and faith". Thus, the Confucian made their efforts to create a kind of ideal personality of moral perfection, and to foster gentleman who could sacrifice his own life to pursue justice.The Pre-Qin Confucian thinkers who are mainly represented by Confucius, Mencius and Xun Zi attached great importance to moral education. They systematically explored the origin, social effect, basic content and evaluation criteria of morality. Many thoughts and methods have been represented through their educational opinions, ideals, ways and means, which have been positively reference for the contemporary moral education.Confucius lived in a period of social unrest when the Helotism was declining, and regarded it as his own responsibility to "restore dead countries and continue The Patricians". He put forward a moral educational theory with "humaneness" as the core and the idea-"respectful, generous, faithful, nimble, kindness" as the highest standards. Confucius promoted to "love people" rather than "love families", and "love the masses" as an extension. He emphasized that the principle of benevolence and loyalty is of great importance in the interaction of people.Mencius inherited the thought of "humaneness". However, after he witnessed that the restrictive effect of "etiquette" on social ethics and morality was suffering serious reduction and even loss, he gave up "etiquette" and put forward the combination of "humaneness" and "justice" to deal with the relationship between people. Mencius regarded "humaneness'as a heart filled up with love towards others, and "justice" as moral principles we should obey when conducting particular practice under the requirement of "humaneness". The saying "Humaneness is the right home, while justice is the ideal way", is to stress that we should learn to'love people", especially to love the right people, and we should hate those who deserve hatred, otherwise we'11 deviate from the spirit of "humaneness".Xun Zi carried on the thoughts from Confucius and Mencius, and regarded "etiquette" (which was different from that of Confucius') as the highest principle of personal and social behavior, and the fundamental factor of self-improvement, personal acts, and governing the country. "Without etiquette, man cannot live, thing cannot be done, and country cannot be steady. " The "etiquette" in Xun Zi's thoughts is a principle of moral behavior and a criterion of moral evaluation, especially a principle to evaluate personal behavior, which distinguishes people and accelerates them to obey rules and do their duty, in order to realize the ideal of "dicties are respected, the old are given presents, the young are treated with affection, the cheap men are treated with kindness". In Xun Zi's opinion, people who want to improve their morality and be respected in social affairs must pay attention to the value of morality as the internal principle of people's behavior, as well as the function of "etiquette". What's more, they need take the advantage of "etiquette" to hold back their immoral ideas and behavior.As traditional culture, Pre-Qin Confucian Moral Educational Thoughts can be a rich "base of culture and knowledge" for contemporary moral education in China. Confucian Moral Education was not only a certain way to form social personality at that time, but also a necessity of social development then. Different historical paradigms of moral education are formed under various social forms and historical stages. In contemporary China, the traditional moral education has been changed into ideological and moral education of citizens under the new situation. The great practice of socialism with Chinese characteristics requires continuous improvement of lever of citizenship and social civilization. Social civilization depends on the level of citizenship, and the ideological and ethical standards play a significant role. Ideological and moral quality of contemporary Chinese citizens has been realized through continuous reinforcement and betterment of socialist ideological and moral education.In addition to its indelible contribution to the cultural development of our nation through the ages, the outstanding achievements of Pre-Qin Confucian Moral Education Thoughts has provided positive referential value to contemporary ideological and moral education. The two have great comparability, which requires us to inherit them with spirit of criticism. Confucian Moral Education has its own moral pursuit of moral development, with the salient features of the times. However, when we inspect the system of Pre-Qin Confucian Moral Education nowadays, it is not that difficult to find that many of the thoughts and methods are precisely what we need to promote in contemporary ideological and moral education.Based on the in-depth analysis of the basic content, methods and goals of Pre-Qin Confucian Moral Educational Thoughts, this article intends to explore the internal connection between the contemporary ideological and moral education in China and the Pre-Qin Confucian one. It will dig deeply the marvelous part of Pre-Qin Confucian Moral Educational Thoughts, transform this innovation, and give the new content to it, aiming at making it a part of socialist moral education, better building the theoretic system of ideological and moral education under the new situation, as well as improving the actual effect of education, which will serve the contemporary ideological and moral education in China, and serve the socialist career. We should make our efforts to draw lessons from the content and methods of Pre-Qin Confucian Moral Education, and find the organic meeting point of two educational forms, in order to push forward the development of contemporary ideological and moral education in China vigorously.