Ecological Ethics In Ancient China And Their Contemporary Values

Industrial civilization brings about the increasing development of global economy. Meanwhile, the deterioration of the ecological environment threatens the survival of human beings. Thus, the harmony between nature and human must be reconstructed in order to develop human civilization sustainably. More and more researchers in and abroad begin to put their attention on the East trying to find solutions to the ecological problems in the ancient eastern culture. Based on this, this thesis will mainly discuss the ecological ethics embodied in Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism, which are considered as important ingredients in traditional Chinese culture. These ethics will be analyzed separately and their contemporary values will be elaborated in detail in the thesis.The production of any culture has its own practical basis and social origin, so do Chinese ancient ecological ethics with farming production, nature admiration and principle culture as their background. In this thesis, the philosophical foundations of Chinese ancient ecological ethics will be analyzed from such three perspectives as theory of the unique importance of productive forces, theory of yin-yang and five elements (metal, wood, water, fire and earth) and simple system theory, and the specific content of the ecological ethics will be classified and studied from three other theories as ecology protection, ecology practice, ecology economy. Giving off strong humanistic care, reflecting the respect and love to life, expressing the warmth between human and nature, these ethics depict a beautiful and harmonious ecological picture for people. However, no matter how meaningful these ethics are, they can not separate from the control of the specific times. So these ethics must be developed and discarded accordingly in order for them to be the recourses of the contemporary ecological crisis. Therefore, in this thesis, the reasonable essence and limitations of these ethics are analyzed separately, giving them clear time characteristics.The research on ecological ethnics in this thesis consists of two main aspects. Firstly, in recent years, with the increase of the ecological deterioration, the researches on ecological ethics have got great achievements. Starting from the west, and using western findings as references, the researches on ecological ethics in China aim at building its own ecological ethnics rooted in Chinese traditional culture guided by Marxism, building ecological ethics around Chinese values and having Chinese characteristics. Secondly, for the ecological problems existing in China, building ecological civilization is advocated at the 17th Congress of CPC. Ecological civilization is both a development and discarding of industrial civilization. It is a new form of human civilization which will bring changes to ecological values of the whole population, guiding people to new producing and living styles through building a resource-conserving and environment-friendly society, finally leading people going toward a road of sustainable development. Chinese traditional ecological ethics provide valuable resources for the founding of the ecological civilization by changing moral ideas, establishing new ecological ethics, developing ecological technology and legislation of natural resources.