An Analysis On The She’s Ethical Thought In Contract

The She people are a Chinese ethnic group which enjoys a long history. During thelong-term migration, hard working and struggling for their reservation, the She has notonly created a gorgeous national culture, but also formed a unique lifestyle and valuabletraditional ethical thoughts. For thousands of years, the She traditional ethical thoughtplayed a vitally essential role in regulating the politically stable of social life. Despitethe changing of times and generations, the She people remained their superiortraditional ethical thoughts, and the influence of it still remain in all aspects of the Shepeople’s social life. Recent years, the study of the She historical document, a hugenumber of voluble the She ethnic group historical document has been collected intobooks, the Contract Documents. Among those document, scholars were especiallyattracted by the contract documents. This paper began with the She Contract Documentsin Zhejiang, and try to interpret the sub-off books, the land deeds and marriagecertificates from the perspective of ethics. On the one hand, in this way we could moretruthfully restore the She people’s moral state in the history; on the other hand, theunique ethical culture of the She people can be revealed.This paper can be divided into three parts:The first part is mainly to introduce the perspective of contractual ethics, and thenmake it an essential dimension of national ethical research. The path of contract ethicscan be summarized as two points, namely,"the ethical characteristics of the contractresearch" and "explore the ethical implementation of the contract", both of them havetheir own interior theoretical basis and practical values: freedom is the core spirit ofcontract ethics, equality is the inevitable demands of it, and honesty is the virtueadvocate of it. Contract ethics, as an important perspective of the study of nationalethics, has its progressive meaning, which means contract ethics not only demonstratedthe independence of the individual, and highlighted the social order, but alsoemphasized the moral norms.The second part focused on the study of the She Contract Documents in Zhejiang,and interpreted the sub-off books, the land deeds and marriage certificates from theperspective of family ethics, economic ethics, as well as female ethics. The familyethics of the She people were vividly reflected in those sub-Off books. That is, clan supremacy as the core spirit, Filial-oriented as the content, and the highlight ofdifferential order. The She’s land deeds are contractual instruments for land trade. TheShe people’s economic ethics mainly shown as the principles of free will, and put theemphasis on some important qualities such as honesty and temperance, the pursuit ofmutual trust and benefit. In addition, the She people has marriage certificates ofZhao-Qin home, which means marry into and live with one’s bride’s family. The existingmarriage certificates were rare but still enough to reflect the She people’s unique femaleethics, such as the pursuit of gender equality, and the She’s female personalindependence.The third part is mainly based on the ethical interpretation of the She people’scontract documents. Through extracting and summarizing the ethical meaning of thosecontract documents, as well as analysis the impact of She people’s traditional ethicalthought to the modern life of their nation. This paper argues that, the ethical value of theShe’s contract ethics mainly covers two aspects, namely the individual perspective andthe perspective of the nation. The individual aspect embodies power of autonomy andhuman dignity while the national aspect suggests the spirit of integrity and tolerance.The influence of those spirit continues today, such as the She’s Double-third Day, theShe people would always remember to memorize their ancestors, by bearing in mindthat the merit of their ancestors, the She’s descendants are expected to maintainautonomy and dignity. In addition, the enhancement of the She people’s femaleeducation rights and political status are inseparable from the value of She ContractEthics.