A Comparative Study Of Xunzi's "propriety And Righteousness Education" And Aristotle's "moral Education" Thought

Xuncius' thought of indoctrination is based on the viewpoint of evil human nature.He believes that we must guide people's nature to develop towards the goodness through indoctrination.The holy king is the subject engaged in indoctrination,and the method of indoctrination is "clear division and group".Xuncius' civilizing thought takes the ritual as the core and the law as the auxiliary.He reckoned that the ritual not only has the guiding function to the individual shaping,but also has the function to dissolve the social conflict.Aristotle's indoctrination thought regards the Middle Path as the basic principle and emphasizes the attention to the soul and the cultivation of virtue.He believed that indoctrination can achieve the transformation of the soul and amendment of the personality,eventually realize the perfection of human beings.The motif of this paper is the comparison between Xuncius' thought of "the cultivation of rites and righteousness" and Aristotle's thought of "moral education".First of all,this paper introduces the background and theoretical sources of their indoctrination thoughts.Secondly,the content of the thought of "moral education" and "moral education" is summarized and analyzed.Finally,through the comparison of contents,it is concluded that both of them affirm the political role of law and hierarchical order,and both agree on the important significance of morality to the shaping of personality.What is different is that Xuncius' thought of "the cultivation of rites and righteousness" means to serve the monarch and the ruling group,which highlights the normative role of morality and embodies the rule by man.Aristotle's "moral education" emphasizes the fairness and justice of the distribution of rights and the objective independence of the authority of law.