| The popularly ethical interpretation of Homer's epic is heroic ethics.This is mainly manifested in three aspects: one is the war theme of Homer's epic;The second is the hero's pursuit of honor and excellence;The third is to regard the virtue in Homer's epic as the quality of success.Although the interpretation of heroic ethics in Homer is reasonable in certain sense,it is not a comprehensive understanding of Homer.First,there are plenty of descriptions and hints about peaceful life in Homer's epic.Secondly,heroes have multiple roles,and these roles put forward various ethical requirements for them.Third,even in war,epics show us a soft side.Therefore,to fully understand Homer's epic,we must break away from the theme of war and have a more comprehensive and reasonable understanding of the conflicts in the epic.On the one hand,the heroes of the epic is chasing honor;on the other hand,they express the softness based on human nature.There is tension between these two aspects,the root cause of which is the contradiction existing in human life itself.The resolution of this contradiction needs the development of soft virtues.There are three main kinds of soft virtues in Homer's epic.One is wisdom as opposed to the simple and crude way of resolving conflict;Second,justice based on wisdom and avoiding violence;The third is compassion,kindness and affection based on the softness and warmth of human nature.These soft virtues show the three spirits of human beings as intelligent beings,one is reason,the other is love,and the third is harmony.The virtue of flexibility in the epic has positive ethical value in the history of human development.One is the indoctrination of human nature,the other is conducive to the prosperity of human civilization.Third,human beings need to control their own desires and competition in the future development.Fourth,the virtue of flexibility needs to be deduced from group life to inter-group life.The soft virtue is an important clue to understand the development of ancient Greek ethics.First of all,the understanding of virtue in the Homeric era and the classical Greek era has a common framework--the good life,virtue aims to the good life,but there are differences in the ancient Greeks' understanding of the good life between the two periods.In the conflict and tragedy,the ancient Greeks gradually learned that the growth of the virtue of flexibility was the ethical way to avoid tragedy.As a system of ideology and social norms,morality is the result of the growth and principledness of soft virtues.In certain sense,the evolution of ethics is the restraint of soft virtue ondesire and competition.The soft virtue is not only an ethical scheme to resolve conflicts,but also a major means and result of the evolution of human society.Therefore,the soft virtue has important value for the development of contemporary human society.Human beings are actually fragile and dependent rational animal.Human happiness is also fragile.The development of human beings and the pursuit of individual happiness need to develop corresponding virtues of flexibility.From the practice of contemporary human society,there are various "atavistic" phenomena in human behavior.Human civilization needs the display of soft virtue,which is an important ethical resource for building a community of shared future for mankind. |
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