A Comparative Study Of Ethics Thoughts On Chinese And Western Universities' School Mottoes

The School Mottoes as the spirit and conception of a university are come up with the foundation of the modern university, which are always guiding the direction of university'advancing. It not only reflects the traditional culture, but also embodies the specific cultural characteristics and spiritual ideas as a social organization. What'more, the School Mottoes are leading the university's value orientation and reflecting particular ethical connotation. The historical venation of its emergency and development is very clearly to everyone by comparing the historical origination and development on School Mottoes between the Chinese and western universities. The Chinese universities have come up value orientation on the School Mottoes which are"Social Commitment", Devoting to Groups and Peace", and"Striving for perfection". However, the western universities'School Mottoes are"Pursuit of truth,""Strive for liberty"and"Serve for society". The paper has analyzed different value orientation on the School Mottoes, from the aspects of distinction of the modern background and traditional culture between Chinese and the western School Mottoes as well as its special ideas and language. Under the background of the market economy and globalization, the paper has a further study in analyzing on how to inherit the traditional culture and how to annotate the Chinese traditional ethical thoughts with a modern way in the process of inheritance. The School Mottoes find"new wine"for the"old bottles"of Chinese traditional ethical thoughts and give it new connotation. Combined with the times, The School Mottoes make the Chinese traditional culture"renounce"and"beyond"so that it can play a better role in carrying out active exploration. It thinks that the School Mottoes have both inherited and advocated the Chinese traditional ethical thoughts and now will be given new modern connotation and spirit. At the same time, the School Mottoes has learned from the western traditional ethical thoughts in the pursuit of knowledge and truth to create an atmosphere of academic freedom for the country and make due contributions to the community in order to form a special university spirit and embody the university organization culture and value orientation. It makes the School Mottoes as the real soul of a university lead the university to complete the scared mission which is entrusted by the social and times for building a world-class university.