| The present study undertakes to demonstrate that an ethical system is implicit in the thought of Mao Zedong. His ethics is understood in terms of the theme "human responsibility in history." It is seen as rooted in historicity, i.e., human self-understanding as living in responsibility over against the future and therefore in decision. It is based on an ontology that sees reality as typified by contradictoriness, which in turn is seen as the source of dialectical socio-historical development. It has an epistemology that claims that the validity of cognition is found in revolutionary practice, and in a grand vision of the future society.; A schematic analysis of Mao's ethics provides a full picture of human responsibility in history. In the personal realm, it is actualized through a radical commitment to the revolutionary process and a stance on collective integrity and on flexibility in learning and application. In the social realm, it is expressed through egalitarianism, populism, and various social methods that ensure the liveliness of revolutionary experimentation. In the historical realm, it is manifested in the dialectical interaction between voluntarism and determinism, and in the stages which revolutionary thoughts ascribe to the historical process. In the futuric realm, it is concretized through the cultivation of revolutionary personal life style, a transformation in the social arena through dialectical interaction between the old and the new ethos, rural and urban development, political consciousness and technological expertise, and a vision of a future society based on permanent revolution.; The study concludes that Mao's ethics is effective in the social and political transformation of society; but it is deficient in the arena of personal transformation. This is due primarily to its deficient understanding of human nature. Mao's insistence on the particularity of social-class human nature and his rejection of universal human nature hinders his understanding that human nature is always both creative and destructive, progressive and conservative, continuous and changing. These concepts we draw from Paul Tillich's understanding of human nature demonstrating that through such a dialogue the possibility of a new synthesis of revolutionary ethics can be articulated which would overcome the problem which caused Mao to be unable to actualize his grand vision in actual social reality. |
