Study Of The Social Function Of Moral Education In The New Era Based On Historical Materialism

In order to fully understand and carry out the spirit of Comrade Hu Jintao's speech,"to establish the core value system of socialism and enhance the attractiveness and cohesion of the socialist ideology", and in order to enhance people's consciousness of further implementing the scientific concept of development and building a harmonious society, considering the present situation of moral instruction in our country, the writer of this article thinks it necessary to make further research into the social functions of moral education based on the dialectical relations between social being and social consciousness of historical materialism in Marxist philosophy, especially the reaction of social consciousness to social being.The social function of moral education, namely the special form of realizing its own practical value, is the function and efficiency for morality to motivate the process of social development. To establish the core value system of socialism, the social functions of moral education which is one of the activated social consciousnesses must be fully utilized. Guided by principles of Marxist philosophy, the paper gives scientific definitions to Morality and Moral Education, Function and Moral Function and other relevant concepts. Meanwhile, this paper further discusses the five social functions of moral education—individual-educating function, economy-boosting function, culture-brewing function, ecology-balancing function and politics-utilizing function, based on an overview of the main theoretical points concerning the social functions of moral education of native and abroad in history. The paper concludes with a discussion about the development trend of the social functions of moral education. The writer also points out the scientific and disciplined trend of moral education in hopes of doing bits in the establishment of the core value system of socialism, in the activation of advanced social consciousness, and in the reinforcement of education on values, outlook on life and the worldview.