On Dai Zhen's View Of Reason And Desire

Dai Zhen is an outstanding thinker of China,he lives in the golden age of Emperor Yong Zheng and Emperor Qian Long in the eighteenth century.During that time,politics,economy and culture had gained great prosperity,while the imperial autocracy was strengthened to an unprecedented high level.The spiritual shackles of“Save Ethics and Destroy Desire” evoked the social contradictions further,there have been growing calls for liberty of human nature in the society,the “Debate of Ethics and Desire” got unprecedented attention.In the vortex of the thoughts contend,Dai Zhen witnessed the darkness and drawbacks of Neo-Confucianism.In the name of sorting the ancient classics,Dai Zhen started to criticize the practice of distinctively contradicting “Ethics” with “Desire” by Cheng-Zhu’s Neo-Confucianism,which was blamed to be the political tool of rulers to destroy people by “Ethics”.Dai Zhen explored further on the imprisonment put on human nature by Neo-Confucianism in the Song and Ming Dynasties in books “Examine Goodness” and “Commentary and Prove on Mencius’ s Literal Meaning”.In the books,he had a detailed study of the relationship between “Ethics” and “Desire”,which has become the highly distinctive and critical “Doctrine of Ethics and Desire” of him.Dai Zhen’s “Doctrine of Ethics and Desire” was established on the basis of criticizing "Save Ethics and Destroy desire" of Cheng-Zhu’s Neo-Confucianism,and re-explaining the concepts of “Ethics” and “Desire” respectively.Dai Zhen re-defined the concept of “Ethics”,he believed that “Ethics is the essence of all things” and“Ethics is the state in which emotions are fully satisfied without error”.He disclosed the drawbacks of the doctrine “Ethics is the law of the world” of Neo-Confucianism in the Song and Ming Dynasties,which contradicting “Ethics” with “Desire”distinctively.Based on that,Dai Zhen began to rectify and sort the concept of“Desire”,which is seriously criticized by the Neo-Confucianists.He put forward the tripartite theory which illustrates human nature from the perspective of “Cognition”,“Emotion” and “Desire”.He believed that “Desire” is part and the essence of human nature,which laid the theoretical foundation for his rationalization of “Emotion” and“Desire”.Following that,Dai Zhen conducted a complete reconstruction of the“Doctrine of Ethics and Desire” of Neo-Confucianism in the Song and Ming Dynasties,overthrowing the view of “Save Ethics and Destroy Desire” with the unified view of “Ethics in Desire”.At the same time,he tried to strike a balancebetween “Ethics” and “Desire” to avoid falling in the extreme of raising “Ethics”while suppressing “Desire”.Based on the moderation thought of Confucianism,he advocates to achieve an ideal relationship between “Ethics” and “Desire” in the means of “Controlling desire by ethics” and “Satisfying Desire to achieve good emotion”.Dai Zhen’s “Doctrine of Ethics and Desire” reflected the life needs of public class,affirmed the value of human and ethics,and had enlightenment meaning of thoughts to the society.It has important theoretical research value not only to the prevailing but also to the current society.Dai Zhen worthy a place at the long-lasting“Debate of Ethics and Desire” in the thousands of years history of China.This thesis tries to explore the reasons and theoretical foundation of Dai Zhen’s “Doctrine of Ethics and Desire” from the perspective of historical background,academic foundation and development history.In addition,in combination with the“Disposition Theory”,the thesis uncovers the thinking venation of Dai Zhen’s thoughts on “Desire”,making deep comparison with the “Doctrine of Ethics and Desire” of Cheng-Zhu’s Neo-Confucianism,exploring the way to get an ideal relationship between “Ethics” and “Desire” by summarizing the contemporary significance of Dai Zhen’s “Doctrine of Ethics and Desire”.At last,based on the study of Dai Zhen’s doctrine and critical research method,the thesis expects to making feasible suggestions on building China’s socialist citizen morals,laying a solid moral foundation for the building of a harmonious socialist society in China at large.