The Uncertainty Of The Morality Of The Young People In Social Transformation And The Educational Countermeasures

The uncertainty of morality, opposite to its certainty, refers to an unstable and changeable state of moral sense, moral standard as well as moral norms with inner disagreement and conflicts. A conspicuous characteristic of morality during social transformation has been the increase of uncertain ingredients, of which the youth are more typical so that it has been a trend of the group moral condition of the young and it is embodied through their individuality. The reasons are as follows: social transformation has resulted in the multi-facet of value and the lax of norms, which forms the social context; as an unfixed value, the sub-morality of the young has the characteristics of being creative, unique, rebellious, presaging, common and unstable, and this is the most significant group principle; the reason which lies in individuals is the youth's moral psychological feature that they seek independence while absorbing everything and they reject discipline while pursuing novelty and being out of ordinary.The effect it has on education is that it implies the changes in such aspects as the young people's attitude towards moral development, their understanding of moral life, their orientation of moral education contents and their requirements to the model of moral education, etc, and it exerts great pressure on the innovation and revolution of moral education; due to this, schools, families and the society are not able to pass on to the young asystem of consistent and harmonious moral value beliefs and norms, and thus weaken the effect of moral education.The effect of the increase of uncertainty in the youth morality must be treated with reason. It's not objective to simply regard it as "moral degeneration" on "moral advancement". From the perspective of value analysis, it contains more modem factors and greater potential of cultural feedback. Logically, certainty and uncertainty are two active aspects of morality. Without the former, i.e. without specific value standard and norms, people's thoughts and behavior couldn't be restricted; without the latter morality itself would lose its vigor. In fact, the reciprocation of the two forms the development of morality. In practice, it has dual effects on the transformation of morality: on one hand, it is positive and helpful to the construction of the moral system and the theory and practice of moral education consistent with the society of market economy. It has practically widened the value horizon of the young by encouraging their value senses to change from single, closed and rigid to rich, open and innovative and it provides experimented condition and opportunities for the formation of the young people's new behavioral pattern; on the other, it is, in many respects expressed as "rebellion" against the guiding ethics, which may facilitate the unprincipled moral relativism and worsen the lack of moral senses among the youth during transformation and thus bear negative effects on the moral development of the young.As for the increase of moral uncertainty of the young, there are three views in our country, named "Regression", "westernization" and"combination". "Regression" people advocate the reviving of the traditional moral education centering on "humanity" and "justice". They think nothing but traditional morality can eliminate the negative effects that marketization has on the youth and resist the ethical degeneration of the young in this materialist age; "Westernization", on the contrary, argues that the young should reject tradition and individualism and utilitarianism in modern west should be employed to enlighten the young people's mind; "Combination" encourages to construct a new concept among the young by combining traditional morality and western market spirit. But all the above three are attempting to substitute a single value for the gradually formed multi-faceted value or a particular moral concept for the conflicts of varied moral values or to cover "uncertainty" with certain norms. This is not only a reverse in theory but also futile practical...