 
Good Philosophy and Common Value

Liangzhi Gao

2016

# Contents

Brief introduction of Prof. Liangzhi Gao

### Preface
### Part 1 Western Good Philosophy

### Chapter 1-1 Plato
### Chapter 1-2 Aristotle

Chapter 1-3 Aquinas

Chapter 1-4 Hobbes

Chapter 1-5 Locke

Chapter 1-6 Hume

Chapter 1-7 Rousseau

Chapter 1-8 Smith

Chapter 1-9 Kant

Chapter 1-10 Mill

Chapter 1-11 Marx and Engels

Chapter 1-12 Hayek

Chapter 1-13 Rawls

Part 2 Chinese Good Philosophy

Chapter 2-1 Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi

Chapter 2-2 Confucius and Mencius

Chapter 2-3 Mo Zi, Xun Zi and Legalism

Chapter 2-4 Philosophy in Han and Tang Dynasties

Chapter 2-5 Philosophy in Song and Ming Dynasties

Chapter 2-6 Chinese Modern philosophy

Part 3 Basic Problems of Good Philosophy

Chapter 3-1 What is Good? Theory of Virtue and Theory of Happiness

Chapter 3-2 Human Nature and Good: Good Human Nature and Evil Human Nature

Chapter 3-3 Catalogues of Good: Individual and Society

Chapter 3-4 Principle of Good: Self Benefit and Others Benefit

Chapter 3-5 Reason of Good: Inner Reason and Outside Reason

Chapter 3-6 Evaluation of Good: Motivation and Effect

Part 4 General Discussion of Common Value
Chapter 4-1 General Discussion of Common Value'

Part 5 Partial Discussion of Common Values

Chapter 5-1 Humanity and Human Love

Chapter 5-2 Liberty and Reason

Chapter 5-3 Democracy and Rule of Law

Chapter 5-4 Equality and Human Right

Chapter 5-5 Constitutionalism and Justice

Chapter 5-6 Harmony and Happiness

Brief introduction of Prof. Liangzhi Gao

Liangzhi Gao or Gao Liangzhi (高亮之) in Chinese (1929.5.20--) ( Gao is his family name)

He was born in Shanghai and graduated from the Affiliated High School of Shanghai University in 1946. In 1950, he graduated from College of Agricultural Sciences of Zhejiang University at Hangzhou, China..

He was working in East China College of Agriculture Sciences for four years. After then, he was working in East China Institute of Agricultural Sciences, which turned to be Jiangsu Academy of Agricultural Sciences (JAAS) in 1978. From 1983-1990 , he was assigned as the President of JAAS and also a senior researcher there.

At the same period , he was a professor of Nanjing Agricultural University , China Agricultural University and Nanjing College of Meteorology . He was a Trustee of CIMMYT (International Research Centre of Maize and Wheat in Mexico)

He was one of the founders of Agricultural Meteorology and the main founder of Agricultural Modeling Science in China.

He has been accomplished 88 research papers and many books on Agricultural Sciences, as Climatic Ecology of Rice ,Foundation of Agricultural System Science , Foundation of Agricultural Modeling Science, etc.

He was interested in philosophy in his young age. After he retired in 1999, up to now, he has read more than 300 books on philosophy, mostly original works of famous Chinese and Western philosophers. He wrote 8 books on philosophy:

1) Essay on Synthesis Philosophy, Gao Liangzhi, China Culture Press, 2007 (in Chinese and English )

2) Strolling on Western Philosophy, Gao Liangzhi, Wuhan University Press,2014 (in Chinese)

3) Brief Discussion on Chinese Philosophy, Gao Liangzhi,Wuhan University Press,2014(in Chinese)

4) Philosophy of Human Love, Gao Liangzhi, Zhejiang University Press, 2011(in Chinese and English )

5) Good Philosophy and Common Values, Gao Liangzhi, China Culture Press, 2014(in Chinese and English )

6) Beauty Philosophy, Gao Liangzhi, Wuhan University Press,2014

7) Does Man have Soul? —Soul Philosophy and Scientific Rational Belief, Gao Liangzhi, Zhejiang University Press, 2015(in Chinese)

8) Fusion of Chinese and Western Wisdom, Gao Liangzhi, Zhejiang University Press, 2015 (in Chinese and English)

His works on philosophy obtain high evaluation in the academic circle and by the readers in China

Preface

Firstly, I like to explain the theme and the title of this book.

Common Value (or Modern Common Value) is a series of ideas of great importance to all people and all countries in modern world.

The series of ideas was presented and elucidated by many great philosophers in ancient and modern period .These ideas were also enriched by the experiences of human history of the whole world. So, they belong to the whole world

Today, any country in the world should accept these values to establish the modernization of country.

What is the theoretical basis of the Common Value ? I (the author of this book) regard that it is Good Philosophy or Philosophy of Goodness.

Good Philosophy is the combination of Moral philosophy and Political philosophy. This thinking was firstly presented by ancient great philosopher Aristotle (see below)

So , I take"Good Philosophy and Common Value"as the title of this book.

In this book, the term "Common Value" means the wholeness of different "Common Values". These two terms("Common Value" and "Common Values" are used alternatively.

The task of this book is to elucidate the relation between Good Philosophy and Common Value so as to help readers have a deeper understanding of Modern Common Value

I myself am a Chinese professor. I like to introduce the fact that the concept of Common Value is accepted by Chinese leaders today, just as it is accepted by leaders of most countries in the world. It shows that there is a comprehensive acceptance of the concept of Common Value in the world.

In Feb, 27, 2007, former prime minister Wen Jiabao in his article wrote:

The ideas of Science, Democracy, Rule of Law, Liberty and Human Right are not owned especially by Capitalism. They are the common values pursued and the common civilizational achievements created in the long historical process of mankind.

In Oct. 1 ,2005, Chinese Chairman Xi Jinping had a speech in Conference of the United Nations (UN). He said:

Peace, Development, Fairness, Justice, Democracy, Liberty are common values of all mankind. They are also lofty goals of UN. These goals have not accomplished yet, we have to do effort.

The term of "Common Values" shows that this series of values have been created by the common effort of ancient and modern ideologists in the world and are accepted by people in all countries in the world

Of course, modern common values are not limited in the ideas that Wen and Xi talked about.

In contemporary world, any country who wants to establish a modernized, prosperous country of Democracy and Liberty must accept and implement these modern common values. China cannot be an exception.

About Common Values, some problems should be clarified.

1) Why I used Common Value instead of Universal Value?

The concept of Universal Value originally came from Christianity. In the early period of Christianity, due to the purpose of popularizing the Belief that God and Jesus would rescue all men, not only the Jews. It was emphasized that the doctrine of Christianity had the Universal Value.

Of course , today ,the term Universal Value is not limited in its original meaning . It includes many modern ideas of politics as Liberty, Democracy, Equality, Rule of Law, etc. But usually, the term of Universal value involves those Values coming from the West and neglects some important Values coming from other civilized country, as China, etc.

Some ideas in common values indeed presented firstly by Western philosophers, as Liberty, Equality, Democracy, Rule of Law, etc. But some important ideas, as Humanity, Human Love (Kindhearted Love), Harmony, etc. were presented firstly by ancient Chinese philosophers. It was the contribution of Chinese civilization to the world.

This is the reason that in this book, I use the term "Common Values" instead of the term "Universal Values", although these two terms basically have same meaning.

"Common Value" is a better term to include all ideas discussed in this book.

2) Common Values mean those ideas that conform to happiness of mankind. It does not mean specific political system or form. For example, Democracy is one of common values. But due to historical reason, different countries have different democratic systems. Britain has the Cabinet system keeping the position of Queen; USA has the Presidential and Two parties system; France has the Presidential and Multi-party system. China has his own national condition and history, so China can have its own democratic system.

2, About Good Philosophy

This book attempts to elucidate the philosophic basis of common value. The basic view of this book is: Good Philosophy (or Philosophy of Goodness) is the theoretical basis of common value.

Philosophy has very broad extent and many research fields, among them , two fields directly relate to common value, which are moral philosophy and political philosophy .Both of them discuss the problems of Good. Moral philosophy discusses the problem of Good Mind and Good Behavior. Political philosophy discusses the problem of Good Politics and Good Governance.

Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle said:

The end (of Good) is the same for a single man and for a state..

(Nicomachean Ethics, 1094)

What he talked on the Good for a single man is the discussion object of moral philosophy. What he talked on the Good for a state is the discussion object of political philosophy. He said they are the same, which meant that the essence of them were the same.

So, there is close linkage between moral philosophy and political philosophy. The common theme that they discuss is: Good or Goodness..

This book takes the title "Good Philosophy", so as to combine moral philosophy and political philosophy together.

This book will introduce systematically the development history of Western and Chinese Good Philosophy and extract the creation and development process of each idea of common values. I regard that only when we know the creation and development of these common values, we may understand the deep meaning of these values. And we will have high consciousness while we implement and popularize these common values; and also we will have more clear judgment on the correctness and advancement of politics and policies.

This is the starting point of writing of his book.

I hope the book will have some help for the progress of all countries in the world.

Thank you for reading this book. I welcome your comments on this book.

My email address is: lzgao863@sina.com.

I like to have communication with you about this book or my other philosophy books in English as below:

1) Fusion of Chinese and Western Wisdom ---Synthesis of Chinese and Western Philosophy

2) On Synthesis Philosophy

3) Philosophy of Human Love

All of the above books are published on Amazon Website, the webs of Smashwords, of Goodreads and also my own web of Gaoworks:

http://kx.jaas,ac.cn/daamnet/Gaoworks/index.html

Thank you for reading my books

Prof. Liangzhi Gao

(At the age of 87)

2016, Jun.14

# Part 1

Progress of Western Good Philosophy

Modern Good Philosophy is the basis of modern common value. This book is a book of philosophy. It does not discuss common value only. It has more elucidation on Good Philosophy.

Good Philosophy takes Good as the kernel theme to synthesize moral philosophy and political philosophy. So, in introducing the progress of Good Philosophy, the philosophers selected are those who had contribution to both moral philosophy and political philosophy. Pure ethicists or political scientists, except a few, are not selected; although their thinking may be referenced.

Why I introduce Western Good philosophy before introducing Chinese Good philosophy? The reason is that Western philosophy has clearer concepts and more rational analysis compared with Chinese philosophy, which makes the basic ideas of Good philosophy easier to be understood.

Western civilization and philosophy began with ancient Greece. The history of ancient Greek philosophy was from 6th century BC to 6th century AD ,about 1000 years long, It included the Classical Period of Greece, the Hellenistic Time and the Period of Rome Empire,

The earliest Greek philosophy was Natural Philosophy. The most famous Natural Philosophers were Tales(624-546 BC), Pythagoras(580-500 BC), Parmenides(540-470 BC), Heraclitus (535-475 BC),etc. The earliest philosopher who brought philosophy to human life was Socrates(469-399 BC ).But Socrates did not have his own philosophic works. His thinking was remained in the works of his student, Plato and the student of Plato, Aristotle. These two most important philosophers had their systematic and original theories of both moral philosophy and political philosophy.

Chapter 1-1 Plato

1. Historical background of Plato

Plato (427-347 BC) was born in a noble family in Athens, Greece .He got good education in his youth age. He was interested in literature, drama and poetry, etc. And he made up his mind to devote to politics. Began in his age of 20, he became the best student of Socrates. When he was 28 years old, Socrates was sentenced to death, which gave him great attack. He went out for shelter. He had been living in Egypt, Italy, Sicily, etc. for 12 years. In 387 BC, he returned to Athens and established a philosophic Academy using the name of a Greek hero--- Academes, which was a famous learning center in Athens.

Plato was one of the greatest philosophers in ancient Greece and also in whole Western world. He had a large amount of works. After the research of many scholars, 24 works were proved as his own works. Reading his works, you have to admire his deep thinking and elegant style of writing. His philosophy related to many aspects of philosophy and gave deep influence upon Western philosophy in later periods.

The basic principle of Plato's Good Philosophy came from Socrates. Socrates said: "Virtue is knowledge" ,which pointed out that Virtue (or Good) is a complex research field involving much knowledge. Socrates view on Good is not complete, since Virtue requires not only knowledge, but also man's emotion and will .

The systematic and theoretic elucidation of Good Philosophy began from Plato. His Good Philosophy was mainly stated in his following works: Republic, Timaeus, Philebus, etc.

2. Plato's main views on Good Philosophy

Main views of Plato on Good Philosophy may be summarizes as below:

1) Good is the highest Idea and the goal that soul pursues

The most important content of Plato's philosophy is his theory of Idea. Then, what is Idea?

Plato was a theist. He believed that all things in the world are created by God. How did God create all things? Plato divided things into two kinds: one is eternal and unchangeable. It is knowable, but invisible; the other is changeable, visible, but unknowable. The former one is Idea. God took Ideas as model to create all different things.

In modern understanding, Idea is the common character of things, or the essence of things.

For example, Man is an idea, which is the common character of all men. There are many different kinds of man (different nations, different professions, etc.) From child to old, man is changing continuously. But the idea of Man is unchangeable.

Of course, the concept of Idea presented by Plato is not completely same as the modern concept of Common Character. In modern understanding, in the process of the development of cosmos or the world , different things are created first , Then man conclude the common character from these things . But in Plato's theory, Idea was created firstly by God; then different things are created taking Idea as their model.

In spite of the above difference, the theory of Idea is still an important contribution to philosophy, which helps man to pursue the common character of different things. This is just the task of science.

The first view in Plato's Good Philosophy is: Good is the highest idea in all ideas.

His original saying was:

The Idea of Good is the biggest problem of knowledge.[...].If we do not know it , all other knowledge is useless for us,

(Republic, 505B)

Plato regarded that Truth, Good and Beauty are Man's highest pursuit. Good has higher position than Truth and Beauty.

He said:

Truth and knowledge are beautiful. But Good is more beautiful than them

(Republic, 508B)  
Since Good is the highest idea in all ideas, so, he said

Every soul is pursuing Good and takes Good as the goal of his all activities,

(Republic, 504 E )

This is a very important thinking, which shows that as to human nature, every man pursues Good and takes Good as his goal of activities. This thinking is similar to Mencius theory of Good Human Nature.

2) Good is the most perfect

Why Good is the highest idea?

Plato said:

The Creator is perfect. He is justice for all things and not partial to any thing. He hopes all things alike himself. This is the starting point for creating all things and the cosmos.

(Timaeus,29E)

Perfect, that Plato mentioned, means order, harmony, coordination and stability.

Plato regarded that since God himself is perfect, so he must create the world and all things according to his own perfectness.

Truth is the true existence of the world and things. God created the world and things according to his own Good. So Good is the basis of Truth

The criterion of Beauty is also Good---order, coordination, harmony, etc.

So, in the relation between Truth, Good and Beauty, Good is the basis of Truth and Beauty. This is the reason that Good has higher position than Truth and Beauty.

This is the ontological explanation of Plato's thinking of "Good is the highest idea."

3. Good is the greatest happiness of all men

Plato also explained his thinking of "Good is the highest idea" in the aspect of relation between Good and human life'

In his works--- Republic and Philebus, he discussed a problem: Joy and wisdom (knowledge), which is more close to Good?

Joy is man's feeling of pleasure. Wisdom is man's rational cognition of the world. Both of them have close relation with human life.

In two works mentioned above, the conclusions of the discussion of Socrates and his friends are:

1) Joy is multifarious. There is true joy and there is false joy. Sometimes, joy is mixed with pain .Joy is not stable. After joy, there might be pain

2) Comparing with joy, wisdom is closer to Good

3)The combination of joy and wisdom is the best Good.

Plato said:

In one well is honey. In another well is water which makes man sober, not drunk, and is good for health,[...] We should really mix them together.

( Philebus,61C)

So, according to Plato's above view, Good should be the combination of joy and wisdom, or joy with wisdom.

The meaning of "Man's joy with wisdom" is very close to the meaning of "Man's happiness".

Man's happiness, of course, must make man feel joyful .But such joy must be combined with wisdom. Man's happiness must have both body joy and spiritual joy. Such joy must not be established on pain of others, but be co-shared with others. The joy under the guide of wisdom is man's true happiness.

About man's happiness, Plato had direct statement:

The goal of our establishment of country is not the isolated, prominent happiness of certain class, but the greatest happiness of all citizens. Our primary goal is to build a country of whole happiness.

(Republic, 520 B) .

So, according Plato's view, to realize the greatest happiness of all citizens is the highest Good in human society.

This view, even today , has its guiding meaning for any country in the world.

4) Love gives man the highest happiness

In Plato's philosophy, Love has a very high position (see my other book---Philosophy of Human Love)

Plato wrote:

The love, more especially, which is concerned with the Good, and which is perfected in company with temperance and justice, whether among Gods or men, has the greatest power, and is the source of all our happiness and harmony, and makes us friends with the Gods who are above us, and with one another.

Of all Gods, Love is the best friend of men, the helper and the healer of the ills which are the great impediment to the happiness of the race.

(Plato :Symposium)

So, Plato regarded that Love relates closely to Good and Love gives man the great happiness.

5) Individual Good: Four Virtues and Justice

In Part 4 of Plato's Republic, he elucidate in detail his theory of man's Four Virtues

He divided man's soul into three parts: Wisdom , Emotion and Desire.

The coordination of these three produces Justice. So, man's four virtues are: Wisdom, Courage, Restraint and Justice.

Plato pointed out: If a man's emotion could be guided by wisdom; then he is a man of Courage. If a man's emotion and desire could be guided by wisdom; then he is a man of Restraint.

If a man whose wisdom, emotion and desire could play their proper role and his emotion and desire could be guided by wisdom; then he is a man of Justice.

I regard that Plato's theory of division of man' soul should be highly evaluated. The reasons are:

(1) His theory conforms to the new achievement of modern Neurobiology. In may another work, Philosophy of Human Love. I introduced the theory of Trinity of human brain. Man's brain is composed of three parts: RB, LB and NB. RB controls man's physiological activities; LB controls man's emotion; NB controls man's wisdom. Plato's theory of Four Virtues are all expressions of the combination of emotion and wisdom.

(2) Plato's theory of Four Virtues is reasonable and also beneficial to human life. He did not deny the function of man's desire and emotion; both of them come from human nature. What he emphasized was that both desire and emotion should be guided by man's wisdom.

(3) He put Justice at the highest position of Four Virtues. Justice is one of the most important common values in modern society.

6) Good of State and Justice.

If Good of Individual is problem of Moral philosophy (or Ethics); then Good of State is problem of Political philosophy

An apparent character of Plato's Good philosophy is the complete coordination of Individual Good and State Good.

Individual's Good is composed of Wisdom, Courage and Restraint. He regarded the State Good should also be composed of three parts of men: Men of Wisdom, Man of Courage and Man of Restraint.

A state (or country) should be governed by Men of Wisdom. Their number is the least, but they have the knowledge and wisdom for managing the state.

The state should be protected by men of Courage (soldiers) . The majority members of the state have different professions (farmers, workers, etc.). They should do their best in different posts and be restraint for their desire.

The coordination of these three parts of men is the Justice of the state. This is the Political Good of State.

Of course, from the modern view of politics, his theory of State Good is not perfect. More perfect theory of State (or Political) Good was appeared in later historical periods.

7. State governed by philosopher

In Plato's political philosophy, he had a special view: a state should be governed by philosopher. This view related to his opinion of "State Good", which required the man of wisdom to be the governor.

This opinion seems unrealistic. In fact, in the history, there was on specialized philosopher becoming the governor of any country.

Let us read what Plato wrote on the required character of philosopher:

Be Quick learning, strong in memory, wit, [...] enterprising, generous and open-minded.

(Republic, 503 C )

Plato did not ask a governor must be a specialized philosopher. He asked a governor should have the above characters of philosopher.

So, his opinion is basically reasonable.

3. Discussion about the relation between Plato's Good Philosophy and Common Value.

1) In the period of Plato, modern common value had not established yet. Plato emphasized strongly the concept of Good. Good is the basis of all modern common values.

Plato presented his view that Good is the highest idea of mankind. Even today, we should pay much attention to this view. This view is the basis of all modern common values/

,2) Plato presented that the goal of Good is the greatest happiness of all citizens. In this book, Happiness is the final one (or the final goal) of modern common values.

From ancient to contemporary period, the goal of all man's efforts on politics, economics, civilization, science, education, art, etc. is just "the greatest happiness of all people."

3) Plato paid high attention to Love . Kindhearted Love is one of very important idea in modern common values.

4) In Plato's theory of Four Virtues, he put Justice at the highest position. In his political philosophy, he also regarded that Justice was the highest requirement of State Good

Today , many modern philosopher take Justice as a very important idea in modern common values.

5) As to Liberty, Democracy, Equality, Plato did not affirmed these ideas. Plato's period of Greece was a slavery system. He himself was a slave owner. It could be understood that he neglected the ideas of Liberty, Democracy, Equality, etc.

Chapter 1-2 Aristotle

1, Aristotle and His Historical Background

Aristotle lived in 384-323 BC, the late period of Greek Classic Period. He spent 20 years in the academy created by Plato. He was the best and the most successful student in this academy. He served as tutor of Prince of Macedonia, Alexander. After Alexander established a strong empire, Aristotle returned to Athens and set up a school of his own. After Alexander's death, Athens rebelled against Macedonian rule, and Aristotle's political situation became precarious. To avoid being put to death, he fled to the island of Euboea, where he died soon after.

Aristotle inherited his teacher---Plato's philosophy. But in many aspects, he had his own opinions different from Plato. He said: "I love my teacher, but I love Truth more."

Aristotle was the creator of Western Ethics and Political science. On Ethics, he wrote three works: Nicomachean Ethics(mentioned as Ethics below) is the most important. In political science, he wrote Politics.

2, Good Philosophy of Aristotle

The views on Good philosophy may be summarized as follows:

1) Good is working of the soul in the way of Excellence

Plato's view was: Good is the highest idea created by God

Aristotle had different view. He combined Good with Virtue

He said:

The Good of Man comes to be "working of the Soul in the way of Excellence" or, if Excellence admits of degrees, in the way of the best and most perfect Excellence.

(Ethics of Aristotle, Vol 1-7, translated by T Taylor)

The meaning of " Excellence",in ancient Greek is the same as the word "Virtue".

So the definition of Good that Aristotle presented is: Man's activities which conform to Virtue.

The most important contribution of Aristotle to philosophy was that he presented the Theory of Matter, which is the beginning of all sciences.

Based on the Theory of Matter, Good is not an idea created by God; but began with man's activities'

Aristotle classified man's activities into three kinds: (1)Theoretical ; (2) Manufacturing ; (3)Practical

Practical activities are those activities related to human relations, as family relation, friend relation, social relation, etc.

He named those practical activities as Working Activities. In his above definition of Good: "working of Soul in the way of Excellence", Good is related to working activities. And Good is the man's working activities that conform to man's virtue..

His definition of Good made the concept of Good separated from the will of God, and returned to human life. And also he separated Good from the theoretical activities (as Science, etc) and manufacturing activities (as production, etc.)

2) Analysis of Virtue.

In the above definition of Good, there is the concept of Virtue (or Excellence). Then, what is Virtue?

In his work, Nicomachean Ethics, he made analysis of Virtue in detail. His analysis may be summarized as below:

(1) Virtue means excellence or perfection or goodness. In above three activities, if they are made perfect; then there are virtues.

(2) Due to that man's soul (spirit) may be divided into two parts: rational and irrational, virtue also may be divided into two parts: wisdom (rational) virtue and moral (irrational) virtue.

(3) Wisdom may be divided into two parts: theoretical wisdom and practical wisdom. So, wisdom virtue may be divided into: theoretical virtue (Intelligence) and practical virtue (Wise).

I make the table below to make his classification of virtue clearer.

Man's ration→Wisdom→①Theoretical wisdom→Theoretical virtue(intelligence)

②Practical wisdom→Practical virtue (Wise)

Man's irrationality \----------③ Moral virtue (morality)

Theoretical virtue (Intelligence) means that man have correct cognition of the world (science)

Practical virtue (Wise) means that man could treat well the relation in family and in society

Wise is closely related with Good. A wise man could have good relation with family member and members in society.

Wise is different from intelligence. A skillful man is intelligent, but he is not certainly a wise man. He might cheat others.

(4) Common function of different virtues

So, in Aristotle's philosophy, Virtue is a synthesized concept, which includes moral virtue, practical virtue and theoretical virtue.

Among them, theoretical virtue (Intelligence) is the highest. In ancient Greek, it had the meaning of "Light".

Practical virtue (Wise) is the most important, and is related directly with Good.

In summary, Aristotle's definition of Good may be understood as: the practical virtue under the guidance of theoretical virtue and the support of moral and emotional virtue

This is a rather complete cognition of man's virtue.

3) Good is the highest goal

In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle wrote:

Man's all practices and selections take some kinds of Good as their goal. So, someone say that Good is the goal of all things

Let us review what Plato said:

Every soul is pursuing Good and takes Good as the goal of his all activities,

(Republic, 504 E )

So, Good is the highest and the end goal of Man. In this aspect, Aristotle and Plato had the same view.

Good is the highest goal. This view was affirmed by Kant in 18th century. Kant regarded that Practical Reason is more important than Pure Reason. It involves the same meaning

People know that natural science is very important. It brings much welfare to mankind. But all natural science should obey the goal of Good.

Atomic science belongs to natural science. The utilization of atomic science must obey morality. Aggressive atomic war is unmoral.

Good is man's highest goal. This is the kernel idea of this book.

4) Happiness is the highest Good

According to Aristotle's view, Good is not only one kind. There are many kinds of Good. Then, what is the highest Good? Aristotle answered:

Most people have the same opinion,[...] It is Happiness.

Of course, Aristotle himself agreed with this opinion. In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle wrote the title of Part 1(4):

Happiness is the highest Good.

To this problem, Aristotle had the same opinion with Plato.

Aristotle's understanding of happiness was:

Happiness should be regarded as a working activity which takes itself, but not other things, to be pursued.

(Ethics, 1176)

Generally, any practical activity has a goal. For example, you do physical exercise; your goal is to have health.

Happiness, itself is the goal. Man has no goal higher than his own happiness.

Aristotle had further analysis. Different men have different view of happiness. Someone regards that enjoyment is happiness. Someone regards that wealth is happiness. Someone regards that honor is happiness.

Aristotle regarded that enjoyment, wealth or honor could not give you happiness

In his view, the best happiness is meditative life, or life of wisdom. But only few men could have this happiness.

As to most people, the suitable meaning of happiness is: working of the soul in the way of excellence, which means to have your practical activity conforming to Good (or virtue)

So, Good and Happiness are reciprocal causation. Happiness is the highest Good. And Good gives you happiness.

5) Ethics and Political Science

In Nicomachean Ethics, the title of Part 1(2) is: The highest Good and Politics, which discusses the relation between Ethics and Politics.

Aristotle wrote:

Good for individual and Good for state is the same. And state good is more important to be attained and maintained.

Ethics (or Moral Philosophy) discusses Good for individual. Politics (or Political Philosophy) discusses Good for state (or country).

According to Aristotle's above saying, the essence of moral philosophy and that of political philosophy are closely connected together.

This is the reason that this book (at your hand) takes the term "Good Philosophy" to involve both moral philosophy and political philosophy.

6) Man is a Political Animal

Aristotle had a famous saying:

In essence, Man is a political animal.

(Politics, 1253)

In biological circle, there are some social animals, as honey bee, ant, etc. Human being is the highest social animal. According to explanation of Aristotle, the main differences between Man and other animal are: Man has the speaking ability, and the ability to distinguish Good and Evil. Speaking ability made Man could communicate with each other; the distinguishing ability made Man could treat properly the contradiction in a group.

According to my opinion, the main difference between Man and other animal is that Man has highly developed wisdom and emotion. Both of them make Man willing and able to live together in a group.

Aristotle regarded that Man's group life began with the combination of two sexes, and then family formed. Some families joined together and formed countryside. Mush countryside joined together, forming a state. In ancient Greece, state was the most perfect political community. Then, Man became a political animal living in state.

According to Aristotle's theory, politics is Man's essential character. No any man could be separated from politics.

7) The utmost Good is the goal of state which takes Justice as principle.

Why Man was willing to live in state? Aristotle explained:

The forming of state was due to development of human life and the goal is to have a good life. The end of state must be the utmost Good.

(Politics, 1253)

Here, he combined Politics and Good together. The basic goal of politics is to attain the utmost Good. And the utmost Good is Man's happiness. In a state, the utmost Good is the common happiness of all people. This view of conclusion is same as that of Plato.

State Good and Individual's Good are reciprocal causation. Good politics will make people have good morality. And moral people will make a country have good politics.

This view is helpful to all countries, including China

In state Good, Aristotle especially emphasized the idea of Justice. He wrote:

State should take Justice as its principle.[...] Justice is the basis to establish the order of society.

(Politics, 1253)

In Summary, Aristotle's view is: The highest goal of politics is Utmost Good and the common happiness of all people. And Justice is the most important principle to attain this goal.

8) The necessity of Rule of Law

In the aspect of state governance, Aristotle advocated clearly Rule of Law and opposed Rule of Man.

He wrote:

Rule of law must be better than rule of one man. Even though sometimes the governance of a state requires someone's wisdom, but there must be limitation for him to use his wisdom in the extent of law.

(Politics, 1287)

Rule of Law is one of important common value in the modern world. Aristotle was the earliest philosophy advocating this idea.

9) About Way of Mean

In both moral and political philosophy, Aristotle advocated Way of Mean, which means not to be extreme.

He said:

There are three properties: two evils---one is excess and the other is deficiency---and one virtue which is suitable, between the above two.

As to the virtues advocated in ancient Greece,

Wisdom: if excess, it is cunning; if deficiency, it is stupid.

Courage: if excess, it is reckless; if deficiency, it is cowardly.

Restraint: if excess, it is stingy; if deficiency, it is indulge.

In politics, Aristotle advocated that the basis of state should be the middle class.

He wrote:

Comparing with other classes, the middle class is more stable. They are not like the poor to plot other's welfare, and not like the rich inducing the desire of the poor.

(Politics, 1297)

His opinion that taking middle class as the basis of a country , even today, is worthy to be paid attention for any countries.

It should be mentioned that Aristotle's opinion of Middle way is very similar with the thinking in ancient Chinese philosophy work--- The Doctrine of Mean.

10) Evaluation of different political systems

In his work Politics, Aristotle classified political regime into 6 kinds:

  1. Normal Regimes

A, Imperial regime: ruled by one man

B, Noble regime: ruled by few men or the rich

C, Republic regime: ruled by most people or the poor.

2) Abnormal Regimes

A, Tyrant regime: ruled by one man

B, Oligarchy regime: ruled by few men or the rich

C, Civilian regime: ruled by most people or the poor.

The principle of his classification was that: if the regime made service for whole common benefit, then, it belonged to Normal Regime. Otherwise, it belonged to Abnormal regime.

According to his classification, he gave positive evaluation to Imperial, Noble and Republic regimes. And he gave negative evaluation to Tyrant, Oligarchy and Civilian regimes.

In six regimes, the Republic regime was mostly praised by him. Because it was a mixed regime and it took middle class as its basis.

Among Abnormal regimes, he regarded that Civilian regime is comparatively suitable, since it might conform to the interest of most people

Today, we may not agree with his opinion. But his thinking of politics might be referenced.

12) Three elements in a political system

Aristotle presented the opinion that a perfect political system must have three elements.

He wrote:

Any regimes should have three elements as its basis of construction. [...] One of them is the council institute; the second is the administration part,[...] and the third has the function of judgement.

(Politics, 1298)

He pointed out that any political system should have three parts: Legislation, Administration and Judicature .

This theory has deep and far-reaching influence upon the Western countries and all countries in the world.

3. Discussion about the relation between Aristotle's Good philosophy and Common Value.

1) Aristotle's greatest contribution to Good philosophy is that he brought the idea of Good returning to practical human life. His presented the opinion that Good is working of the soul in the way of Excellence (Virtue) , which is the theoretical basis of modern Western Good philosophy . It conforms to man's rational thinking.

2) Aristotle distinguished theoretical virtue and practical virtue, distinguished intelligent and wise. This is a deep thinking, which distinguished "To be" and "Should be". It clarified man's two different kinds of spiritual activities: Pursuing Truth and Pursuing Good. It gave great influence upon later development of human civilization.

3) Aristotle made deep and high level analysis of man's virtue. He regarded that Good is the practical virtue to treat the human relation wisely under the guidance of theoretical virtue and the support of moral and emotional virtue.

If we make an investigation of all modern common values, they all conform to the above definition of Good,

4) Aristotle paid high attention to human happiness. He regarded that human Happiness is the highest Good and Happiness is the highest goal of mankind. Happiness that he talked is not substantial enjoyment, but practical activity conforming to virtue.

This book put Happiness as the final idea of modern common values. It has the long lasting philosophic reason.

5) Aristotle presented the opinion that state Good and individual Good is the same. The opinion combined moral philosophy and political philosophy together and formed Good philosophy as a whole. According his opinion, state Good is more important than individual Good. His opinion enlightens us that establishing a perfect political system is the main way to raise man's personal and social morality.

6) As to the problem of political system, Aristotle supported the slave system. In his work---Politics, he had not support the ideas of Equality and Liberty.

But he paid attention to the opinion and interest of most people. So, he supported the Republic regime. In Abnormal regimes, he regarded that Civilian regime is the better one. He emphasized that Rule of majority must combined with Rule of Law.

His above thinking may be regarded as the beginning of modern idea of Democracy,

7) Aristotle's theory of Way of Mean was not paid enough attention in later Western political philosophy. But in my opinion, this is a very important thinking in either moral philosophy or political philosophy.

In another book of mine \---On Synthesis Philosophy, I elucidate that Synthesis is basic character of the nature and of the world. Synthesis means Harmony of things, of society and of the world. Aristotle's Way of Mean has similar meaning as the concept of Synthesis or Harmony. In a family, a society or in the world, any extreme thinking or activities are harmful. A mean or proper thinking, behavior or policy is beneficial to the stable and progress of a family, society and the world.

In this book, Harmony (same meaning as Aristotle's Way of Mean) is listed in modern common values.

Chapter 1-3 Aquinas

  1. Historical Background from Hellenistic Period to European Middle Age

In 323BC-31AD, from establishment of Alexander Empire to disintegration of Rome Republic, was the Hellenistic period In 1-5th centuries was the period of Rome Empire, which was a great empire crossing Europe, Asia and Africa, three continents.

In more than 800 years of Hellenistic period and Rome Empire period, philosophic thinking had been developing. There were Stoicism, Epicureanism, etc. They had their own ethical thinking.

Stoicism regarded that man should abandon all desire and enjoy inner independence and freedom, which is the real happiness.

Epicurus(341-270 BC)was an important philosopher. In ethics, he presented the doctrine of Joyfulness. He regarded that the goal of human life is to pursue man's joy. Joyfulness is the highest Good. He regarded that spiritual joy is more important than substantial joy

Their thinking gives us inspiration on Good philosophy.

The greatest contribution of Rome Republic and Rome Empire to human civilization was their Law. The complete law system began with Roman law, which included Public law, Private law, Civil law, and Natural law, etc.

Today, Law in all countries obtains the influence from Roman law.

In the late period of Rome Empire, Christianity rose in Palestine. It is Monotheism, different from Polytheism populating in that period. It believes the only God--- Jehovah. Its basic belief is that God created the world and Man. Man has original sin and can be rescued only by God and Messiah sent by God---Jesus Christ.

The doctrines of Christianity attracted a large amount of people.. In 392 AD, Rome emperor declared that Christianity as the Empire religion

After then, in the whole Middle Age, philosophy was served for Christianity, which was named Christian philosophy.

In Christian philosophy, the most famous philosophers were two: one was Aurelius Augustine (354-430) and the other was Thomas Aquinas(1224-1274)

Augustine's philosophy belonged to Patristic philosophy. In his work , On Free Will. He presented his view on Good. He regarded that Man's free will is the grace of God. Free will arrows man has free selection of doing Good or Evil. God's grace expresses in the justice of rewarding the Good and punishing the Evil.

2. Aquinas's Good Philosophy .

Thomas Aquinas was born in a noble family in Italy. At his age of 5, he entered a monastery to study. He went to Paris to receive high education. In 1252, he was a theology professor in Paris University. He studied many works of Aristotle and received deep influence from Aristotle. He applied Aristotle's philosophy to explain the doctrines of Christianity. He wrote many famous works, as _Summa theologian,_ _On the Eternity of the World_ , etc.

In about 1000 years of Christian philosophy, Aquinas presented the most systematic and the highest level of theological theory.

Aquinas had detailed theory on Good which is introduced below.

  1. God is the highest Good and the complete existence of Wisdom, Good and Love

Based on the doctrine of Christianity, Aquinas pointed out that God is the highest Good.

He wrote:

Since Good exists in God as the most perfect form, so, God is regarded as the highest Good

( _Summa theologian)_

_If we compare Plato's view (Good is the highest idea) and Aristotle's view (_ Good is working of the soul in the way of Excellence), we may see the apparent theological character of Aquinas view on Good.

According to Aquinas, God is not only the highest Good; God is the existence of All-Good, but also is omniscient and omnipotent. In God, Truth, Good, Beauty, Happiness and Perfection are the same one.

Aquinas regarded that Good is non-monotonic. God is the highest Good. There are many kinds of Good in the world created by God. They are understood while analogizing with the highest Good

  2. Identity of Good and Existence

Aquinas regarded that Good is basically identical with Existence.

God is the primary reason of all things. Since God is the highest Good, so all existing things are expression of God..

He wrote:

Generally, Evil is the non-present of Good. But not all non-present of Good means Evil. There are two meanings of non-present of Good: .deficient and negative. Non-present of Good in the negative meaning is not Evil.[...] For example, a man is not evil due to that he does not have the agility of a dear or the power of lion.

( _Summa theologian)_

According to his saying, if a man does not have the ability to do Good, he is not evil. For example, a child who has not the ability to do Good, he is not evil. But an adult, who has the ability to do Good, but he does not do Good, but do Evil. This is the deficiency of Good, which is Evil.

So there is identity between Man's existence and Good. It means that man has the nature of Good

Man's nature is Good or Evil. This is a problem which has been argued for very long time in the Western and Chinese philosophy.. According to Aquinas's opinion, since man was created by God and God is the highest Good; so man's nature must be Good.

But he did not deny that there is Evil in man's behaviors. It is due to the deficiency of Good.

  3. Christian Theory of Virtue

Aquinas agreed with the opinion of Aristotle on Virtue that man's virtue may be divided into two kinds: Theoretical virtue and Practical virtue.

But he regarded that besides the above two kinds of virtue, man also has the third kind of virtue: Theological virtue, which includes three virtues;

A, Belief virtue: man believes that God's teaching is the first Truth.

B, Hope virtue: Man's hope must be pointed to God

C, Love virtue: the primary love is Agape (which means love by God and love for God) ,and also love for others.

Aquinas had the same opinion with Augustine: Love virtue is higher than Belief virtue and Hope virtue. In other words, Love is the highest virtue in all virtues./

This problem is discussed in detail in my other work: Philosophy of Human Love.

4) Christian power is higher than Royal power

Political philosophy is closely related with moral philosophy.

Based of the moral philosophy introduced above, Aquinas established his political philosophy

The most important opinion of his political philosophy was: Christian power must be higher than Royal power.

As to this opinion, Aquinas had detailed elucidation. His main opinion was: The reason that man requires a society or a country is to have happiness of man, If only for the purpose of existence, animals or slaves could establish a society. If only for welfare, all merchants could establish a society. But man has higher goal. Besides the happiness in present world, man also pursues the happiness in Heaven. Only rule of God, not rule of Man (as King) could make man attain the higher goal, Rule of God can only belong to Jesus Christ, who is man and also God.

In the Middle Ages of Europe, power of Pope was higher than all kings. At the accession of a new king, king must have the coronation of Pope.

5)Law of God is higher than any laws

Aquinas wrote:

Besides natural law and man's law, there must be law of God to guide human life.

He presented four reasons:

A, Man must pursue the eternal happiness. For attaining this goal, man must accept the guide of law of God.

B, The judgment of man himself is possible to be incorrect. But judgment of law of God is impossible to be incorrect.

C. Man's law can only treat those outside activities. But law of God can deep into man's inner heart.

D, Man's law cannot prohibit all evils. But law of God can prohibit any evils.

Aquinas's theory of Law of God limited man's freedom of thinking and behaviors. It was the theoretical basis of serious ideological control in the Middle Ages of Europe

In summary, Aquinas Good theory attained the highest level in the Middle Ages of Europe and contained some valuable thinking on the idea of Good. But at the same time, it created serious negative influence upon the freedom of man's thinking and it impeded the progress of science and politics in that period.

3. Discussion about the relation between Christian Civilization and Modern Common Value.

Thomas Aquinas was the representative philosopher of Christian philosophy. His philosophy expressed the main content of Christian civilization. Christianity is the biggest religion in the world. Today, there are more than 2 billion believers of Christianity in the world.

Christian civilization has great influence in human history. There are both positive and negative influences.

The relation between Christian civilization and modern common value may be summarized as follows:

1) The thinking of Love (or Fraternity) of Christianity, the thinking of Affection of Buddhism and the thinking of Kindheartedness of Confucianism established commonly one of important modern common idea---Kindhearted Love.

Christian philosopher, either Augustine, or Aquinas, paid high attention to Love. Both of them regarded that in Christian virtues, Love virtue is higher than Belief virtue and Hope virtue.

In Christian doctrines, "Love others just as love you self" combined with "Love for God" are taken as two general rules of all laws in Christianity.

In Christianity, "Love for others" has the same meaning as "Love for all people". So, Fraternity is a thinking originated from Christianity.

Up to today, Charity in many countries, including China, is supported by Christianity.

So, the thinking of Love (or Fraternity) of Christianity has great contribution to the idea of Kindhearted Love, which is a very important idea in modern common value.

2) The thinking of Equality of Christianity has great influence upon the world.

In Bible, there is the thinking of Equality. The outline meaning is: God lives in all men, no matter with their nations and their positions. The thinking of Equality, later in the Enlightenment movement happened in 17-19th centuries, accepted by some famous ideologists.

Jean Rousseau (1712-1778), said: Man is born free and equal.

A British Christian theologian William Wilberforce (1759 – 1833) said: In God, people is equal.

Today, the idea of Equality is accepted by almost all countries in the world and becomes one of important idea of modern common value..,

3) The thinking of Power of God (or Pope) and Law of God gave negative influence upon the implementation of Democracy and Liberty. This is the negative effect of Christianity on the modern common value.

In Christianity, there is a premise of Love and Equality. That is the belief of God and also the teaching of Bible. Anyone, if disobey this premise, the punishment is cruel.

Famous astronomer Copernicus (1473-1543) presented Heliocentric theory which does not conform to the teaching of Bible. In 16th century, astronomer Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) strongly supported Heliocentric theory. Finally, he was sentenced to death by Catholic Church.

Of course, Christianity is advance with the times. Modern Christianity insists on the idea of Love and Equality, And it accept the modern value as Democracy, Science and Liberty, etc

Chapter 1-4 Hobbes

1. Historical Background of the West from the Middle Ages to17th Century.

The Middle Ages of Europe began in 5th century and ended in 15th century.

In this about 1000 years, human civilization in the world had been developing magnificently. Some strong countries appeared in the world. In East Asia, China had experienced several united and strong dynasties--- Tang, Song, Yuan and Ming. In West Asia and North Africa, there was strong Abbasid Dynasty of Islamism. In North Asia, Gen Giese Khan established Mongolian Empire crossing two great continents---Asia and Europe. In Asia Minor, there were the Byzantine Empire and the Osman Empire.

Europe in this period, due to strict control of the power of Christian Church, the development of civilization was impeded seriously. Even under such circumstance, the education, architecture, sculpture, painting, etc. still had great achievements.

It should be especially mentioned that, in the late period of European Middle Ages, some very important changes happened in Europe. It was Europe, not any other place; mankind was coming to modern period firstly. .

There were some main factors happened in Europe in this period causing the end of Middle Ages.

  1. Establishment of national countries of feudalism

Different nations of Europe lived in north part of Rome Empire, occupying broad regions between Danube River and Rhine River .Under the aggression of Mongolian Empire, they came to the south ; coordinating with slave uprising within Rome, they established national countries in the regions of France, Britain, Germany, Spain, Portuguese, etc.

Feudalism was their main political and social system which was more advanced than Slave system. Slaves became land owners and had more freedom that greatly raised the enthusiasm of them. At the same time, Feudalism system created many land owning nobles; they are the main supporters of royal power.

The relation between royal power and Church power was the main political contradiction in those national countries. The success of royal power was the mark of the end of the Middle Ages,

  2. Development of Industry and Commerce and the appearance and growth of Capitalism

Comparing with other regions in the world, Europe has its special geographic conditions, China, India and North Africa, all have good condition for developing agriculture ( broad and plain land ,warm climate, etc). But Europe has separated land and cool climate, besides some regions, most regions are not suitable for agriculture. But Europe faces Atlantic in the west and Mediterranean in the south. The areas of most countries are rather small. So, the commodity exchange between countries was frequent. These conditions promoted the development of industry, commerce and seafaring, which required the development of science and technology. All these factors caused Capitalism appeared in Europe, earlier than any other continents in the world.

  3. Rising of Renaissance, Religious Reform ,and Scientific Revolution

Renaissance began at Italy in 14th century and was rising in west European countries in 15-16 centuries.

Dante's poetry: "Divine Comedy" , Da Vinci's paint: "Mona Lisa", Shakespeare' s dramas were the mark works of Renaissance, All those famous literatures and arts awakened the conscience of Man and let people return to the world of Man , instead of the world of God.

Religious Reform had great influence upon the end of the Middle Ages. German Martin Luther (1483-1546)advocated :Every one reads Bible by himself. He opposed strongly the church privilege. French John Calvin(1509-1564)advocated personal effort to realize the pre-determination of God. Those thinking attacked church power strongly.

Scientific Revolution began with the great scientific discovery of Nicolas Copernicus (1473-1543) , Galileo(1564-1642), Isaac Newton(1642-1727), etc.

All these factors pushed European people leaving the Middle Ages and coming to the Recent and Modern civilization.

In the field of Good philosophy, the first scholar who led the world coming to the recent and modern period was Thomas Hobbes.

2, Historical Background of Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) was one of the most important philosophers in 17th century.

17th century was the period when Capitalism had been developing rapidly, especially in textile industry, mining industry, and oversea trade. In Britain, land enclosure movement accelerated development of capitalistic agriculture; and at the same time made a large number of land lost farmers becoming employed workers.

Capitalism is a mode of production much progressive than Feudalism. The development of Capitalism must reflect on political reform, ideological and civilization changes. It may be said that all recent and modern politics and civilization has been pushing forward by Capitalism. Of course, political revolution or reform and ideological progress also promoted the development of Capitalism.

In the aspects of politics, the main events that pushed the recent history was the Glorious Revolution in England in 17th century , the American Independence War and the French Revolution in 18th century.,

In the aspects of ideological and civilization progress, the most important event was the Enlightenment movement in 17-18th centuries, which opened the door of Reason for human thinking. All things in human world as politics, economics, philosophy, science, etc. should be evaluated and verified using human Reason,

In both political revolution and ideological enlightenment, Britain was going ahead of the world. Thomas Hobbes was just the philosopher and ideologist living in the period of the bourgeois revolution in Britain.

He and John Locke(1632-1704)were two most important political philosophers from Britain in the Enlightenment Movement.

Hobbes was born in a family of countryside teacher in south England. He was very clever in his childhood. He liked study and had good marks in school. At his age of 15, he entered Oxford University and majored in philosophy. After graduation, he remained in the university and taught Logics. He was invited as tutor to William, the son of William Cavendish, a famous noble in Britain and began a lifelong connection with that family.

He got acquainted with Bacon. When he traveled to other countries, he got acquainted with Galileo in Italy and Descartes in France. The communication between him and those famous philosophers and scientists gave great influence upon his thinking.

In his whole life, he had many works, among them; the most important work was Leviathan which has great academic value in the political philosophy in the world. His Good philosophy ( moral and political philosophy) was also mainly elucidated in this book.

For understanding this book, it is necessary to introduce briefly the history of Britain.

The British Isles in the west of Europe is the base of Britain. Before 5th century, it belonged to Rome Empire. In year of 407, the army of Rome left. The Anglo-Saxon people from south Denmark and German people from the Rhine River invaded British Isles and fused to become people of England---English. In the Middle Ages, same as other countries, England was a country of king autocracy.

Compared with other European countries, Britain had stronger power of nobles and weaker power of king. In 1215, due to failure of war with foreign countries, noble class, united with other citizens, forced the king to sign the Great Charter that limited the power of king.

In 15th century, under the people uprising, slave system of Britain was disintegrated. A new noble class, composed of rich farmers and enterprisers was created. In 1455-1485, Rose War between old nobles themselves happened; the power of old nobles was greatly weakened. New noble class and bourgeois class supported Henry VII to be the king. Tudor Dynasty began. From then, Britain went on comprehensively the way of Capitalism.

In 1527, Henry VIII asked for his divorcement, but it was refused by Rome Pope. He decided to establish national religion, separated from Rome Church; but still believed the doctrines of Catholicism. So, it belonged to old religion in Christianity.

Queen Elizabeth was the last king in Tudor Dynasty. She was in power in 1558-1603. In her period, Britain was the most powerful country in the world. Both Bacon and Shakespeare were living in this period,

After Queen Elizabeth died, due to no offspring of her, Stuart Dynasty began, James I (1603-1625) and Charles I continued the rule of kingdom. Both of them enhanced national religion (Catholicism ---old religion) and oppressed Puritanism, which belonged to Protestant (new religion). Their ruling met the strong opposition of new noble class and bourgeois class. The contradiction between king and parliament became unprecedented intense.

Parliament became the centre of revolution, General Cromwell, who was born in a family of Puritanism, led the army of parliament won the war against the king. Charles I was sentenced to death

This was the historical background of Hobbes and his work--- Leviathan.

3. Hobbes' Main Views on Good Philosophy

In Western ideological history, Hobbes was a special philosopher. In one aspect, his was a strong supporter of royal power; in other aspect, he was the creator of modern politics. He was named by people as Father of Modern Man.

His main views related to Good philosopher are introduced as follows:

  1. Criticism at Church Power

In the period of Hobbes ( early half of 17th century), James I and Charles I (Stuart Dynasty), both insisted on the theory of Divine Right, which means that the royal right must be given by God ( or by Rome Pope, in fact). They implemented religious autocracy, persecute the believers of Puritanism and impeded the development of Capitalism.

In Leviathan, Hobbes wrote:

Now, the church announces that they are the country of Christ. Pope also announces that he is the general representative of Christian Church. Then the theory is that a Christian king must be colonized by Pope and then he could received the grace of God and become the king.

(Leviathan)

He criticized severely the incorrect theory of Diving Right and pointed out many disadvantages of this theory.

His criticism at church power, in one aspect, supported the royal power and religious reform in Britain; in the other aspect, it provided the basis of a more reasonable theory of the legislation of political power---Theory of Contract.

  2. Elucidation of Human Equality

Ancient Greek civilization was established on the basis of slave system. Both Plato and Aristotle affirmed slave system. They regarded that slaves were only living tools of slave owner. So there was no real thinking of Equality in ancient Greek civilization.

In doctrines of Christianity, there is the thinking of Equality. In Bible, there is the saying showing that: God lives in all men, no matter with their nations and their positions

But Equality thinking of Christianity has the religious character. As to pagans (non-believers of Christianity), there is no equality. According to Bible, pagans should be punished.

Hobbes was the first philosopher who elucidated the thinking of Equality on the basis of human reason.

He affirmed the idea of Equality in his description of human's Natural State.

He wrote:

Nature makes men very same in men' s body and mind. So that although some one's body might be stronger than others; some one's wisdom might be clever than others , but combining all those , it could not make the difference between men becoming so large that some one could asks for any benefit different from others.

(Leviathan, Chap.13)

His thinking of Equality did not have the religious character, but was based on human nature. His thinking of Equality had great influence upon Enlightenment Movement and also upon modern world.

  3. Elucidation of Human Liberty

Liberty is one of kernel value in modern common values. But this idea was not recognized in ancient period in China and also in the West.

Plato basically opposed the idea of Liberty. He advocated strict control of religious belief and literature so as to clean man's soul.

Aristotle basically supported Liberty. But he regarded that liberty should be limited in the extent of citizens. Slaves could not have Liberty.

In Middle Ages of Europe, only the utmost power of God or church was recognized. As to God, what man can do is only obey. Augustine wrote a book titled: On Free Will. He regarded that man has the free will to do Good or Evil, which is the grace of God. But Gad must reward the Good and punish the Evil. So his idea of Liberty served for religious goal.

Hobbes was the pioneer philosopher who supported the idea of Liberty on the basis of human reason.

He wrote:

The "Liberal Right" named by writers is that everyone may apply the method which he likes to preserve his own nature---which means his own life. Such freedom is the liberty that he can apply the most suitable measure to do anything according his own judgment and rational cognition.

(Leviathan, Chap. 14)

In this statement,

A, He mentioned "Everyone" without the difference of identity (slave owner or slave) or welfare, position, etc.

B, Man's Liberty does not grace of God, but come from man's own judgment and ration.

C, The most important is: he takes Liberty as man's Liberal Right, which means that man must has his Liberty naturally.

His theory of Liberty opened the door for recent and modern ethics and political philosophy.

4) Hobbes' View on Good and Evil

Both Plato and Aristotle connected Good with Virtue, which means high morality

In Middle Ages, the Christian philosopher all connected Good with God.

Hobbes's view on Good was completely different from the above. He connected Good with human nature, especially with human desire.

He wrote:

The object of anyone's desire is Good for him. And the object of his hate or detestation is Evil for him

(Leviathan, Chap. 6)

This is a very brave opinion. If we think from man's human nature, we may agree that things that could satisfy our desire, we will look them as Good. For example, everyone will regard that having food and cloth is Good.

Of course, Hobbes only paid attention to man's desire in explaining the idea of Good. His view is not very complete. But he brought the idea of Good from God to human nature. It is a great breakthrough in Good philosophy.

5) Elucidation of Man's Natural State

The most famous theory of Hobbes political philosophy is the statement on man's Natural State in original period of mankind.

He wrote:

Any two men, if they want to get the same thing but they cannot enjoy it commonly, they will become enemy. Their goals are mainly self-preservation, sometimes, self-joy. In the process of attaining the goal, they must destroy or conquer the opposite.

Such war is the war of one man against the other man.

(Leviathan, Chap. 11)

The last sentence is a famous saying referenced by many writers.

But Hobbes did not finish his elucidation. He wrote continuously:

Man's wisdom mentions that man will agree to apply the peace condition which may make men agreeable. This peace condition, in other cases, my be called: Natural Law.

(Same as above)

So, Hobbes's complete views on man's Natural State are:

A, Man in nature is selfish. Man's main goal is to preserve himself and get his joy;

B, When the life resource is limited, there must be war between man and man;

C. But war between men is not beneficial to anyone; so, men must pursue peace of mankind.

It may be said that Hobbes' cognition of man's Natural State attained a high degree of deepness.

6) Elucidation of Natural Law

Natural Law has important position in Western political philosophy.

Stoicism school in Hellenistic period and Cicero(106-43 BC)in Rome Empire period, both had statement on Natural Law. But they regarded that Natural Law came from will of God. It was Hobbes, who separated Natural Law from will of God, and returned Natural Law to human reason.

What is Natural Law? Hobbes' explanation was:

Natural Law is the disciplines or general principles that are discovered by ration.

(Leviathan, Chap. 13)

So, Natural Law only obeys human reason. The things that human reason allows or not allows you to do are the disciplines of Natural Law,

Using method of Logic Reasoning, Hobbes presented more than 10 rules of Natural Laws. Some ones are as follows:

A, Pursuing peace and preserve one self.

B, Man might transfer the possession of some rights to others; but such transferring must be reciprocal and equal.

C, Man must implement signed contract.

D. Man must accommodate others and sociable.

From the above rules of Natural Law, we may see that all Natural Laws conforms to basic human nature and the principle of combination of self-benefit and others-benefit.

The above Natural Laws presented by Hobbes was also the basis of his theory of Country

7) Hobbes' Theory of Country

In Western political philosophy, the most famous contribution of Hobbes is his Theory of Country.

Leviathan (the title of his work) was a special giant animal described in Bible. It was living in water and was the king of the water region. Hobbes used this name to represent Country.

His statement on Country was:

A big group of men signed the contract. Every one grants authorization to it (country) and let it be a personality who could apply the method to use the whole energy and measures beneficial to peace and common defending, such a personality is named Sovereign.

The group of men united in the personality is called a Country.

(Leviathan, Chap. 17)

There are some important views in his theory:

A, His theory of Country was based on men's Equality, Liberty and Natural Law.

Since everyone is equal and liberal, there is the possibility to sign contract and to grant authorization to country.

B, In his theory of Country, he used the concept of Contract. The thinking of Contract, being developed by Locke , Rousseau, etc , became the main basis of modern democratic country .All Constitutions of modern countries have the meaning of Contract between people and country.

C, But , his theory of Country is not perfect , He emphasized that people grant authorization to a Personality or a Sovereign and could not change the authorization granted. This thinking made some impede to democratic politics.

3. Discussion about the relation of Hobbes and Common Value.

1) Hobbes was a transitional philosopher between Middle Ages to Recent period of the West. He had very important contribution to oppose the Diving theory and the Church power. But he was also a strong supporter of Royal power, which made some impede in political progress of Europe.

2) Hobbes' view of Good that Good is the object of man's desire, was the beginning of modern philosophy of Good, separating from the theological view of "God is Good". He brought the idea of Good to human nature and human reason.

3) Hobbes was the pioneering philosopher to present and affirm the ideas of Equality, Liberty, Natural Law, etc. He opened up the road of modern politics

4) Hobbes' thinking of Contract and his theory of Country build the basis of modern thinking and system of Democracy

In summary, in the establishment of modern common value, Hobbes's contribution should not be neglected.

. Chapter 1-5 Locke

1, Locke and his periodical Background

17th century was an active period of Western philosophy (including moral philosophy and political philosophy). Some very important philosophers appeared. According their living years , they are: Francis Bacon(1561-1626 ),Thomas Hobbes(1588-1679), René Descartes(1596-1650), John Locke(1632-1704),Baruch de Spinoza(1632-1677), etc.

After the Renaissance in 15-16th century, Recent Western civilization had great development. From then, the Enlightenment Movement began. Among those philosophers, in the field of political philosophy, the most important one was John Locke.

For understanding Locke, it is necessary to know the periodical background of Britain in 17th century and the Glory Revolution.

As introduced in above chapter, after Queen Elizabeth, Stuart Dynasty began,. There was serious contradiction between king and parliament. Cromwell (representing power of parliament) got success. After Cromwell died, Charles II continued the rule. In parliament, there were two parties: the Whigs represented bourgeois class and the Tories represented land owner and noble class. In 1688, the Whigs launched a palace coup and declared abdication of James II and welcomed his daughter Marie and her husband Williams from Holland back to Britain. Both of them believed Protestant. Parliament passed Bill of Right which limited the power of king. From then, Britain implemented the system of Constitutional Monarchy and parliament got the power. This was the famous Britain Glory Revolution in history.

Britain Glory Revolution had very important meaning in human history, even though it was a peaceful revolution. Constitutional Monarchy was a political system completely different from Autocratic Monarchy. In Constitutional Monarchy, the monarch is spiritual(no real power). All important things in a country should be determined by the parliament. So, Britain Glory Revolution was the beginning of modern democratic politics in the world.

Locke was born in a family of small land owner and lawyer at Scotland. He graduated from Christian Church College of Oxford University. He was interested in scientific research and acquainted with Newton and other scientists. In politics, he followed Sir Achilles, who was the main leader of the Whigs. In 1682, Locke followed Achille escaping to Holland. After Glory Revolution, he returned to Britain and was assigned as president of the court and became the main theorist of Glory Revolution.

His main works are: An Essay of Concerning Human Understanding, Theories of religious tolerance, Two Treatises of Government, etc.

Hobbes was the firm supporter of royal power. Locke was the firm supporter of Constitutional Monarchy and Democratic politics. This is the main difference between them . But in political philosophy, Locke's many thinking came from Hobbes.

2, Moral Philosophy of Locke

In 16-17th century, there were two main philosophic schools formed in Europe. One was Empiricism in Britain; the other was Rationalism in France and Holland. In Britain, Bacon, Hobbes and Locke were main representatives of Empiricism. Descartes and, Spinoza were main representatives of Rationalism.

Main difference between them was in the aspect of Epistemology---Where does man's cognition come from? Empiricism regarded that man's cognition comes from perceptual experience. Rationalism regarded that man's cognition comes from man's ration and logic reasoning.

Locke's moral philosophy was also based on his epistemology of Empiricism. The main views of his moral philosophy are:

  1. Criticism at theory of Innate Morality

Where does man's morality come from? Is it innate? This is a problem that is argued commonly in eastern and western philosophers. Locke opposed explicitly the theory of innate morality. His reasons were as follows:

A, Moral rules require verification. For example," Do not do to others what you do not wish yourself" is a moral rule recognized commonly. But why man should keep to this rule? It requires verification; otherwise, people do not keep to it certainly.

B, There is no moral rule which is accepted comprehensively in the world. Locke presented an example; in Peru, there is a kind of man who copulates with female slave and eat the child whom her bears.

C, The reason that people accept some moral rules is not because they are innate, but because they are beneficial to them.

D, What is consciousness? Locke explained that consciousness is man's judgment or Good and Evil. But everyone's judgment is not the same. So consciousness is not innate.

( An Essay of Concerning Human Understanding, Part 1,Chap.2)

It should be said that Locke's criticism at the theory of innate morality is deep and powerful. In Locke's period, theory of innate morality was closely related with theory of innate view of religion. "Innate" means: coming from God. So, Locke's criticism was pointed to theological thinking and had progressive meaning.

But his criticism does not conform to truth completely. In 19th century, Charles Darwin presented the theory of Evolution. People know that man's some morality, as love for child, came from evolution of animal.

This problem will be discussed in later part of this book

2) Locke's view on Good and Evil

View on Good and Evil is the kernel problem in ethics, or moral philosophy. Locke's view was completely based on Empiricism.

He wrote:

Good and evil, what? Things then are good or evil, only in reference to pleasure or pain. That we call good, which is apt to cause or increase pleasure, or diminish pain in us;,[...] And, on the contrary, we name that evil which is apt to produce or increase any pain, or diminish any pleasure in us.

(An Essay of Concerning Human Understanding, Book 2, Chap.20)

Locke's thinking of "Good is Pleasure" had the similar meaning as Hobbes's thinking of "Good is Desire"; because everyone has the desire to have pleasure.

It should be said that Locke's opinion conforms to human nature. As to all men, pleasure gives them happiness and pain makes them unfortunate. .

Pleasure and pain, both are personal feeling. So Locke's view on Good and Evil is the basis of Individualism .And Individualism is the basis of Liberty---the most important idea in common value.

Locke's view on Good is a great breakthrough in the history of Good philosophy. Locke's thinking of Good has been accepted comprehensively by modern Western philosophers

3, Moral Law and Moral Relation

Individual pleasure is closely related with people's happiness. Besides individual pleasure, Locke also paid much attention to moral relation between men.

He said: there are three kinds of law: God law, Civil law and Moral law. Civil law makes the judgment on crime or innocence, Moral law makes the judgment on Good or Evil of one's behaviors. So, he regarded that there are two courts: one is Outside Court and the other is Inside Court, which means one's consciousness

Locke also presented the theory of Moral Relation, which means the relation between man and society and between men.

His opinion was: in moral relation, Good or Evil was distinguished according to our behaviors complying with law or not.

So, in a society or country, Locke regarded that Good does not only belong to individual. The greatest Good is to promote the comprehensive happiness of mankind

4, Elucidation on Liberty

Liberty is a very important idea in Locke's political philosophy. The view on Liberty in his political philosophy came from the view on Liberty in his moral philosophy.

In his work, An Essay of Concerning Human Understanding, there is a chapter titled "Ability", elucidating his view on Liberty.

He wrote:

So far as a man has power to think or not to think, to move or not to move, according to the preference or direction of his own mind, so far is a man free.

Realization or stop of ability must be within the extent of the subject's ability. If it is not in the extent of ability and not follows his will, then he is not free, but limited by certainty.

( An Essay of Concerning Human Understanding ,Book 2,Chap.21)

He pointed out that Freedom must have free thinking and also must have the ability to realize one's will. Only within the extent of ability, one can be free.

Locke's thinking of Freedom has deep influence upon recent and modern Western politics. Man's Liberty requires man's free thinking firstly. If there is no freedom of thinking in a country, there is absolutely no other freedom.

And at the same time, only freedom of thinking is not enough. Man must have freedom of activity, in other words, freedom of ability. This is why that freedom of speaking, publishing, association, living, transferring, treatment of property, etc. are all required. Locke regarded that the main responsibility of government is to ensure freedom of people, especially freedom of protecting people's own property right.

3, Political Philosophy of Locke

In Western political philosophy, Locke has very important position. It may be said that he is the establisher of modern democratic political thinking.

His political philosophy was based on his moral philosophy.

His political philosophy mainly expressed in his famous work: Two Treatises of Government. The main views of his political philosophy are as follows:

  1. About Natural State

Same as Hobbes, Locke also took Natural State as the starting point of his political philosophy. But the Natural State that he described is quite different from that described by Hobbes.

Hobbes regarded that in Natural State there must be war between men.

The Natural State described by Locke was that:

It is a perfect natural state. They (mankind), in the extent of Natural State and according to the proper measures which they agreed, determined their behaviors and treated their property and living body.

He supported the view: Same natural motivation makes men know the same responsibility of self-love and others-love. He imagined that in Natural State, everyman is equal, free and independent. Men are friendly and love each other. Men got alone properly according to Natural Law. But such Natural State is unstable; so government is required

  2. About Natural Law and Natural Right

The kernel problem of Locke's Natural State is Natural Law. And the kernel problem of his Natural Law is Natural Right or Human Reason

Locke wrote:

In Natural State, there is Natural Law playing the control function that everyone must follow it. Reason, which is just the Natural Law, teaches that all men are equal and independent; any one cannot hurt other's health, freedom and property

(Two Treatises of Government, Book 2, Chap 2)

This paragraph has very deep meanings:

A, In Natural State, everyone follow Natural Law;

B, Natural Law is just man's Reason;

C, Since everyone is equal and independent, so everyone has his Natural Right, which is offered by Nature;

D, The most important Natural Rights are: Right of living, Right of Freedom and Right of Property, that are called: Natural Human Rights.

In Locke's theory of Natural Right, the view that gave the greatest influence upon later period is his theory of Property Right.

Why natural things originally belonged to nature became private property. Locke's explanation was:

Everyone has the ownership of his own body. The labor that he does and the works done by his hand belong to him properly. So, any thing that makes the state of thing separated from Nature are added his labor, which becomes his property [...] then exclude the common right of others.

(Two Treatises of Government, Book 2, Chap 5)

So, according to Locke's theory, anyone's labor creates the Right of Property.

In a civilized society .man could put physical labor and also brain labor including labor of management, all the products of labor should be recognized as his private property.

Locke's explanation of Property Right was the classical theory in modern economic and political sciences.

Private Property Right is the basic one in Human Rights, which provides the fundamental basis of modern economics and politics.

3) Deficit of Natural State and the Origin of Goverrnment

Locke derived his political philosophy from his theory of Natural State.

Although in Natural State, man enjoyed Natural Rights, as Equality, Freedom, etc. But Locke pointed out:

Such enjoyment is instable, threatened continuously by other man. Natural State had many deficits.

The deficits pointed out by Locke were:

A, Natural State was lack of law, accepted by all men,

B, Natural State was lack of a judicator who can make judgment according the justice of law.

C, Natural State was lack of power that can support the judgment.

Such situation made everyone possible to be hurt by others, so , it is not beneficial to everyone. Therefore, men liked to give up part of his rights and gave it to appointed one, who can implement those rights according to rules with unanimous agreement, which is the contract between people and government. Such contract was the beginning of government.

Locke wrote:

This was the original right of legislation and administration and the reason of their creation.

(Two Treatises of Government, Book 2, Chap 9)

4) Legitimacy of Government and Theory of Limited Government

As to the problem of Government, Locke presented many views different from that of Hobbes.

A, Hobbes regarded that the contract was signed by all people.. So, once the contract was signed, people can only obey and cannot change the government.

But, Locke regarded that contract was signed between people and government. If government violated contract, people have the right to oppose or change the government. So contract is not unchangeable. The basis of contract is: agreement of people

Here existed a problem of Legitimacy of government. According to Locke's theory, there is only one reason of Legitimacy of government, which is: agreement of majority of people. This is just the principles of people's sovereignty, which is the basis of Democratic Politics.

B, In the theory of Hobbes, people gave all rights to the government. In the theory of Locke, people only gave a part of rights to government. People's rights of living, freedom and property, have not been given to government. The responsibility of government is to protect these basic rights of people.

This is the Locke's theory of Limited Government.

Locke's Theory of Legitimacy of Government and Theory of Limited Government have been accepted comprehensively in modern world and become the basic idea of Constitutional Democracy.

5) About Rule of Law

In Locke's political philosophy, it pays high attention to law and rule of law. He regarded that Law is the basis of a country.

He wrote:

And so whoever has the legislative or supreme power of any common-wealth, is bound to govern by established standing laws, promulgated and known to the people, and not by extemporary decrees;[....] And all this to be directed to no other end, but the peace, safety, and public good of the people.

(John Locke: Two Treatises of Government, The Second,Chap.9)

Locke's thinking of "govern by established standing laws, promulgated and known to the people" may be regarded as the beginning of modern Rule of Law.

6) About Separation of Power

In Locke's political philosophy, another important content was the theory of Separation of Power. Locke presented the idea that the power of country should be separated into three parts: the right of legislation, of administration, and of foreign affairs. The right of legislation is to formulate and promulgate the laws. The right of administration is to implement the laws and manage the country affairs. The rights of foreign affairs are to establish foreign alliances, declare war, and make peace with foreign countries.

He emphasized that these three power should not be concentrated at the hand of one person (as the emperor) . The three powers should have mutual supervision and restriction.

He mentioned that these three powers are separated but not parallel. The legislation right is the highest right in a country. The institution of legislation must be created by vote of the people so as to represent the will of people. So, the people are the owner of the highest power of the country. This is the essential meaning of Democracy.

Locks' theory of Separation of Power, although was not perfect (he didn't separated out the right of Jurisdiction) ,established the theoretical basis of the theory of Separation of Power in Western political philosophy..

4, Discussion about Relation between Locke's Good Philosophy and Modern Common Value

1,Many important ideas of modern democratic politics were presented firstly by Locke, as man's three Natural Rights( Living Right, Freedom Right and Property Right) , Legitimacy of Government is the agreement of majority of people, Main responsibility of government is protection of people's basic rights, theory of Limited Government, theory of separation of ruling power, etc. So, Locke was the pioneering philosopher in the forming of modern Common Value.

2, Locke's political philosophy is closely related with his moral philosophy. He regarded that Good is man's pleasure; Evil is man's pain. This was a breakthrough opinion in Western Good philosophy, which came from Locke's Empiricism. The final goal of his political philosophy is to realize the comprehensive happiness of people which is based on pleasure of all persons.

Happiness of people is the final one of modern common value.

3, In three Man's Natural Rights, Locke paid the highest attention to Right of Property. People' Right of Property is the basis of modern economics and civilization. It is also the basis of the ideas of Liberty, Democracy, Rule of Law, etc. in modern common value.

In modern China, in the period of 1953 to 1976, all right of people's right of property was lost, which caused great backward of economic development.

On the Third Plenary Session of the18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) declared the inviolability of both public and private right of property

This is the correct principle of economics and politics in the progress of modern China.

The theory of this principle was originally presented by Locke

4. As to the Legitimacy of Government, it was a basic problem in politics and political philosophy.

In the West Middle Ages, the Devine theory was the dominant thinking, which meant that power of king was given by God.

In ancient China, the dominant thinking was that the ruling power was given by Heaven.

Locke presented the thinking that the ruling power is given by the agreement of majority of people. This is the basic principle of Modern democratic politics which was comprehensively accepted by almost all countries in the world.

So, Locke is the establisher of the modern idea of Democracy, which is one of the most important common values.

5, Locke's had detailed elucidation of the thinking of Rule of Law and developed the thinking of Separation of Ruling Power. All of these theoretical creations have been making great contribution to modern democratic politics in the world.

Now, China is going on the road of modernization, it is required to review and absorb the wisdom of Locke.

Chapter 1-6 Hume

1, Hume and his Periodical Background

British philosopher David Hume lived in 1771-1776, 18th century.

18th century was the main period of Enlightenment Movement in Europe, In 18th century, two great events happened, which gave influence upon the whole world: one was American Independent War in 1775-1776; the other was French Great Revolution in 1789. This two events pushed and accelerated development of Capitalism and democratic politics in the world.

In this period, there appeared some great influential philosophers, as David Hume (1711-1776), Jean Rousseau

(1712-1778), Adam Smith (1723-1790), Immanuel Kant(1724-1804), etc.

In Western philosopher, Hume was a philosopher who had much creatively thinking, especially in the field of epistemology, theory of human nature and moral philosophy..

He was born in a declining noble family in Scotland, north of Britain. He studied law in Edinburgh University. Due to economic reason he stopped study in school and had self-study at home. At his age of 21, he began writing his main philosophy work A Treatise of Human Nature, and accomplished in 3 years. From 1746, Hume served for three years as secretary of General James St Clair and accompanied him to have war with France,.In 1749, he returned to his own country. At that time Hume wrote An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. In 1763, he was invited by the British ambassador to the France as secretary. He got acquainted with many famous French philosophers, as Voltaire, Rousseau, etc. In 1766, he was assigned as assistant secretary of state for the United Kingdom. In 1769, he returned to Scotland and died in 1776.

In Britain, after Glory Revolution, Capitalism came to a rather stable period. The ruling power was at the hand of the Whigs for a long time. In politics, Parliament and Cabinet system was established. Parliament has Upper House and Lower House (House of Representatives). Prime Minister and Cabinet members are from majority party. This system has been continuing up to now

In 18th century, Britain implemented Enclosure movement, which provides the market of labors for development of Capitalism. At the same time, in the war between Britain and France for controlling the colonies in North America and India, Britain won. In the aspect of industry, Britain invented many machines. In 1769, Watt invented steam machine, which was the beginning of Industry Revolution.

In 17-18th centuries, mankind had great progress in natural sciences. The prominent scientist was Isaac Newton.

Hobbes and Locke were philosophers in the period of violent political struggle. Their philosophy related to political struggle apparently. Hume was a philosopher in the period of stable development of Capitalism. This historical background made Hume possible to have more deep and independent thinking on basic problem in philosophy. Although in political philosophy, the contribution of Hume was not as great as Locke. But in epistemology, theory of human nature and moral philosophy, Hume's contribution was higher than Locke.

Although Hume was living in a period of rather stable development of Capitalism, but his academic life was not plain. Since he insisted on his thinking of Skepticism and his criticism at doctrines of religion, his works met opposes of many men .Some of his work cannot be published before his death.

The philosophic achievements of Hume obtained very high evaluation by many famous philosophers, as Diderot, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Kant etc, Hume's philosophy has great contribution to the development of philosophy and science in the world.

2, Hume's thinking of Skepticism

One of Hume's greatest contributions was in epistemology. He presented the thinking of Skepticism.

In his work:An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. he elucidated his theory of Skepticism in detail.

His outline opinion was: All theories of practical things are based on cause and effect relationship. Man's cognition of cause and effect relationship can only be established on experiences. But any induction of experiences cannot affirm the Truth." The opposite case is always possible", he wrote.

Many other scholars tried to deny his above thinking, but they failed.

Hume's thinking of Skepticism is a great pushing power in the development of all sciences and philosophy.

3, Hume's Theory of Human Nature and Moral philosophy

In 1729 (his age of 28), Hume published his famous work, A Treatise of Human Nature, which has three parts:

Book I Of the Understanding

Book II Of the Passion

Book III Of the Morals

Book I discussed problem of man's cognition---epistemology. Book II discussed problem of man's emotion. Book III discussed problem of man's morals.

### More than 20 years later, he rewrote Book I as  An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding and rewrote Book III as  An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals.

### 1) Human Nature and Science of Man

### Hume regarded that former philosophers had not enough research on human nature, which has close relation with mankind.. The subtitle of his work, A Treatise of Human Nature, is: Being an Attempt to Introduce the Experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects. He tried to use Newton's scientific method to make research on human nature and morals.

### Ancient Greek philosophers related Truth, Good and Beauty with the creation of God. Philosophers in Middle Ages regarded that all things came from God's will. Hobbes and Locke began to connect Good with man's desire or pleasure. But they had not discussed Human Nature completely.

### David Hume was the first Western philosopher who made research on Human Nature completely.

### Especially, as to man's emotion, it did not have a proper position in philosophy. In 17-18 centuries, British philosopher Shaftsbury (1671-1713) and Francis Hutchison (1694-1747) ,mentioned the importance of man's emotion. Hume's contribution was that he put man's emotion in the complete human nature and presented the opinion that in moral philosophy: Emotion is more important than Reason"

### The philosophy system of Kant and Hegel is quite complete. But there was no special part discussing Emotion in their system.

### According to modern scientific research, emotion and wisdom are two basic functions of man's brain. So, Hume paid high attention to man's emotion; his opinion is worthy to have high evaluation in contemporary philosophy.

### Book III of his book elucidated his unique opinions in moral philosophy.

### Man's wisdom, man's emotion and man's morals, these three construct the whole system of Hume's theory of Human Nature.

### 2) In Origin and Judgment of Morals, Emotion is more important than Wisdom.

### In Book III (Of Morals) of his work, A Treatise of Human Nature, he discussed the problem of origin of Morals. Later, in his work,  An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals , he discussed the problem of Judgment of Morals

### "Origin of morals" means: why does man have morals?

### "Judgment of morals" means: how to judge Good and Evil?

### As to origin of Morals, Hume regarded that: thinking belongs to Reason; but morals belong to Practice. So, morals only can be originated from man' emotion. Only emotion can push man to do Good; wisdom does not have this power

### In his work,  An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, his cognition had some development.

### He wrote:

### One principal foundation of moral praise being supposed to lie in the usefulness of any quality or action, it is evident that REASON must enter for a considerable share in all decisions of this kind,

### But though reason, when fully assisted and improved, be sufficient to instruct us in the pernicious or useful tendency of qualities and actions; it is not alone sufficient to produce any moral blame or approbation.[...] It is requisite a SENTIMENT should here display itself, in order to give a preference to the useful above the pernicious tendencies.

### (Appendix,  An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals)

### Here, he expressed his complete opinion on judgment of morals: for distinguishing Good or Evil of a certain behavior, you should make clear the fact firstly and to know this behavior is beneficial to society or not. This process requires Reason. When the fact is clear, then Reason alone has no use anymore. The moral judgment of Good or Evil of the behavior will depend on emotion.

### So, in the problem of both origin and judgment of morals, Hume's opinion was: Emotion is more important than Wisdom.

### From Hume's theory of morals, we could understand that: morals are the combination of man's Wisdom and Emotion, and Emotion is more important. If a man who has no love with others and with people, it is impossible for him to have moral behaviors and it is also impossible for him to have correct moral judgment.

### 3) On Benevolence

### In his work,  An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, there is a chapter, titled : Of Benevolence. He wrote:

The epithets SOCIABLE, GOOD-NATURED, HUMANE, MERCIFUL, GRATEFUL, FRIENDLY, GENEROUS, BENEFICENT, or their equivalents, are known in all languages, and universally express the highest merit, which HUMAN NATURE is capable of attaining.

(An Enquiry Concerning the Principle of Morals, Chapter 2 Of Benevolence),

He regarded Benevolence as the highest value of mankind

### His idea of Benevolence, basically, is same as the idea of "Kindhearted Love" in the philosophy of Confucius and Mencius in ancient China. So it is a very important idea in Both China and the West.

### In this book, I take this idea---Kindhearted Love (or Benevolence) as one of modern common values.

### If we review the opinion of Hobbes and Locke on Good: Good is man's desire and Good is man's pleasure, we'll find that Hume's opinion on Good was more complete and deep than that of Hobbes and Locke.

### 4) Principle of Morals

### As to the principle of morals, he wrote in his An Enquiry Concerning the Principle of Morals:

### Personal Merit consists altogether in the possession of mental qualities, USEFUL or AGREEABLE to the PERSON HIMSELF or to OTHERS.

### It might be expected that this principle would have [...] been received from its own evidence, without any argument or disputation.

### (An Enquiry Concerning the Principle of Morals, Chap.9):

### His principle of morals is composed of four rules:

  1. ### Useful to oneself;

  2. ### Useful to others;

  3. ### Pleased (or Agreeable) to oneself;

  4. ### Pleased to others.

### Comparing Hume's opinion on Morals (or Good) with that of Hobbes and Locke, we'll find the sameness and differences.

### A, Sameness: all of them affirmed that Good (Morals) should give men pleasure;.

### B, Difference-1: In judgment of Good, Hume emphasized the object of both oneself and others;

### C, Difference -2, In Principle of Morals, besides Pleasure, Hume emphasized the principle of Usefulness.

### Hume regarded that a Good behavior must give pleasure to oneself and others. It also must be useful to oneself and others.

### So, Hume's principle was an important progress in Good philosophy in the West. In one aspect, his theory inherited the basic idea of Hobbes and Locke: Good gives men pleasure, which is the basis of the idea of personal Liberty. In another aspect, Hume made the connection between Good and public welfare and human happiness.

### 5) Distinction between "To be" and "Should be"

### In Hume's famous work, A Treatise of Human Nature, The title of Book III, Section I is: Moral distinctions not derived from Reason

### Hume made the distinction between "To be" and "Should be". Hume himself regarded that this is the most important discovery in his moral philosophy.

### Hume pointed out: In human's intellectual activities, there are two different kinds: one answers the question of "to be" or "Not to be" ,in other words, the question of True or False ; the other answers the question of "Should be" or "Should not be". Various natural sciences belong to the first kind. Various practical sciences, as ethics, politics, law science, etc. belong to the second kind

### Hume pointed out that the problem of the first kind---"To be" or "Not to be" ,could be judged by human Reason. But the problem of the second kind---"Should be" or "Should not be", could not judged by human Reason only. It should be judged by the combination of Emotion and Reason

### Hume's distinction between two kinds of man's intellectual activities was one of his important contributions to philosophy and obtains high evaluation by many later famous philosophers.

### 4, Hume's Political Philosophy

### Hume's main contribution to Western philosophy is his epistemology and moral philosophy. His statement on political philosophy was not too much. But he had some valuable views in political philosophy as follows:

### 1) Elucidation on Justice

### Justice is a problem of moral philosophy, and also an important problem of political philosophy.

### In his work, An Enquiry Concerning the Principle of Morals, he wrote a special section: On Justice. He wrote:

### Justice is useful to society'

### (Section III)

### This saying showed that he looked Justice from his thinking of Utilitarianism

### He wrote:

### If we examine the PARTICULAR laws, by which justice is directed, and property determined; we shall still be presented with the same conclusion. The good of mankind is the only object of all these laws and regulations. Not only is it requisite, for the peace and interest of society, that men's possessions should be separated; but the rules, which we follow, in making the separation, are such as can best be contrived to serve farther the interests of society

### (Section III)

### From the above statement, we may understand: Justice that Hume talked about is basically the reasonable rules of property ownership in human society. If the rule of separation of property ownership is beneficial to the interests of society, then it is Justice.

### As to Natural State of mankind, Hume presented two extreme hypothesis:

### A, There are very rich natural resource that everyone's requirement could be satisfied. Under such condition, it is not necessary to separate people's property. So, Justice is not requisite.

### B, There are very scarce natural resource. Everyone can only consider how to maintain his own life, and could not consider the interest of others. Under such condition, man must have the war between men, as described by Hobbes. So, Justice has no function.

### Hume wrote:

### The common situation of society is a medium amidst all these extremes. [...]. Few enjoyments are given us from the open and liberal hand of nature; but by art, labor, and industry, we can extract them in great abundance. Hence the ideas of property become necessary in all civil society: Hence justice derives its usefulness to the public: And hence alone arises its merit and moral obligation.

### (Same as above)

### The real situation of mankind is just at the medium of the two extremes. Under such condition, people's separation of property ownership is completely useful and necessary. So, Justice is essential for human society.

### In Hume's opinion, the separation of property ownership should conform to following rules:

### A, Property should not be public. If property belongs to whole society, no one is willing to use his "art, labor and industry" to increase the property. This situation is very harmful to whole society.

### B, Property must be separated to individuals and their family. Only under such condition, everyone must be willing to use his "art, labor and industry" to increase his property. This situation is very useful for whole society.

### C. No one, including government has the right to invade the private ownership of property. Only under such strict rule, the peace and order of human society could be maintained and the welfare of all people could be enhanced. This is the Justice of mankind.

### 2) Argument on Theory of Contract and Origin of Country

### In Hume's article, Of Original Contract, he criticized the opinion of theory of Contract presented by Hobbes and Locke, even though he had not mentioned their name.

### He wrote:

### Almost all the governments which exist at present, or of which there remains any record in story, have been founded originally, either on usurpation or conquest, or both, without any presence of a fair consent or voluntary subjection of the people.

### (Of Original Contract)

### Then, what was Hume's own opinion on the origin of country? He wrote:

### All men are sensible of the necessity of justice to maintain peace and order; and all men are sensible of the necessity of peace and order for the maintenance of society.[...]

### Order in society, we find, is much better maintained by means of government.

### (Of the Origin of Government)

### So, Hume's opinion on the origin of government was not that people agree to sign a contract with the sovereign. The only reason that people require government and are willing to be obedience to it is to have peace, justice and order of society. This is the Hume's political philosophy of Utilitarianism

### Contemporary American philosopher John Rawls (1921—2002) had made deep analysis on the comparison between the political philosophy of Locke and Hume.

### Rawls regarded that there is no basic contradiction between Locke's Theory of Contract and Hume's theory of Utilitarianism.

### Only when the government could maintain peace order and justice of society, people are possible to sign the Contract with the government

### In modern period, both of their theory of government are meaningful and enlightening for all countries

### 4, Discussion about the Relation between Hume's Good Philosophy and Modern Common Value

### 1)Hume 's thinking of Skepticism enriches the basis of human reason. Reason is the basic idea of modern common value. Reason was the main factor in the Enlightenment Movement in Europe in 17-18 centuries. Reason is the basis of all natural and social sciences and also philosophy.

### In this aspect, Hume's Skepticism has been giving great contribution to human progress; and also to modern common value.

### 2) In the origin and judgment of morals, Hume presented the opinion of "Emotion is more important than Wisdom". This is a creative thinking in moral philosophy. Most philosophers before Hume (as Plato, Aristotle, Bacon, Locke, etc.) emphasized Wisdom and did not give enough attention to Emotion. But in human nature, Emotion is a basic and very important factor which should not be neglected.

### In the system of modern common value, many ideas, as Humanity, Kindhearted Love, Liberty, Justice , Democracy, etc are based on the Love for people. Love is just a very important emotion of man.

### 3) In Hume' theory of Human Nature, he emphasize the idea of Benevolence. Benevolence has the same meaning as Kindhearted Love, which is the kernel idea in Chinese philosophy, especially Confucianism. So, Benevolence (or Kindhearted Love) is a common value accepted world widely.

### 4) Hume's theory on Justice helped us to have deeper understanding of the idea of Justice, which is one of most important common value in the whole world.

###

###

###

###

### 
Chapter 1-7 Rousseau

  1. Life of Rousseau

Jean Jacques Rousseau lived in 1712-1778. He was a representative philosopher in Western Enlightenment Movement. His thinking has great influence upon the development of democratic politics.

He was born in a clock maker's family believing Protestant Christianity in Geneva. His originate country was France. His mother died only 10 days after his birth. His father married again. He was raised by his aunt. In his youth age, he was an apprentice and had served in noble's family. At his age of 16, he lived with a woman, De Warens. Under her persuasion, he entered a Catholic asylum, where he was forced to believe Catholicism. He refused the education there and was soon expelled.

So, he had not obtained good education in his youth age. All of his knowledges were obtained by his self study.

In 1742, he went to Paris and got acquired with Darren Bell and Diderot (two chief editors of Encyclopedia) and became friends in his whole life. In 1750, he submitted his thesis--Discourse on the Arts and Sciences and won a prize. In 1754, he returned to Geneva and believed Protestantism again. In 1755, he wrote The Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality among Men. In 1762, he wrote his famous work , Of the Social Contract and famous novel , Emile, or On Education .Both French and Geneva governments prohibited his works and decided to arrest him. He had escape and hidden life in his late age. In 1770, he accomplished his famous work,  Confessions). He died in 1778 at Paris.

From the life of Rousseau, we could understand that he was different from Hobbes, Locke and Hume. In his whole life, he had never been a high officer. He may be said as a folk-philosopher. But depending on his wisdom and diligence, he made great contribution to philosophy and literature.

  2. Periodical Background of Rousseau

To understand Rousseau's thinking , it is necessary to know the historical background of France in 16-18th centuries.

In that period , France was different from Britain. In Britain, nobles' power was strong and king's power was relatively weak .But, in France, there was very strong king's power.

In 16th century, Francis I (1515-1547) was the king. He enforced the rule of autocratic system. He implemented external expansion. In the war between France and Italy for 65 years, France costed large amount of manpower and material resources.

In 16th century, French Calvin established Protestantism (New religion) , which had been populating rapidly in south France. The king implemented brutal persecution, which inspired the contradiction between king and people

King Henry IV(1589-1610) began the period of Bourbon. After he died, Louis XIII (1610-1643) and Louis XIV(1643-1715) ascended the throne continuously. Both of two kings enforced autocratic ruling and inspired massive people's uprising. In the period of Louis XV, he increased taxes resulting in massive famine.

Rousseau was just living the period of serious contradiction between the king and people.

Before Rousseau, the enlightenment thinking of Hobbes and Locke had already transferred to France. The thinking of philosophers , as Voltaire(1694-1778), Montesquieu (1689-1755), Diderot(1713 —1784),etc. had influences upon him.

  3. Rousseau's Moral and Political Philosophy

### Rousseau wrote many works.The main works of him related to moral and political philosophy are :on the Origin and Basis of Inequality among Men(1754), Of the Social Contract(1762), Emile(1762), Reveries of a Solitary Walker(1776-1778),etc.

### His thinking on Good philosophy may be summarized as follows:

  1. ### Self-Love , Benevolence and Fraternity

### Rousseau was not only a philosopher, but also a literature writer and educator. To be more exact, he was a humanist. In his works , there is more component of emotion. He paid much attention to man's emotion (or passion). He wrote:

### Our passion are the chief means of self-preservation , to try destroy them is therefore as absurd as it is useless, This would be to overcome nature.

### (Emile, Part 4)

So, he regarded that man has emotion is a law of nature.

In man's emotion, he especially paid attention to Self- love . He wrote:

Self-love is always good, always in accordance with the order of nature. The preservation of our own life is specially entrusted to each one of us and our care is, and must be, to watch over our own life.

(Emile, Part 4)

We see in Chapter 1-6, Hume paid attention to Benevolence. We may see that Rousseau paid much attention to Self-love. This is the unique character of his moral philosophy.

His opinion is correct .All of man's other emotions come from man's self-love. Just due to man's self-love, man has love for parents, for children, for friends and for motherland.

In 50-70 years of 20th century, in China, a idea of "Fighting against all self interest " had been advocated . Such education is harmful to society.

Of course, Self-love is not equal to Selfish. Selfish means loving only oneself and not love others. Rousseau regarded that Self-love must combine with Others-love. His opinion is: Benevolence (love for others) also comes from man's nature.

He wrote:

The child's first sentiment is self-love. His second which is derived from it is love of those about him, for in his present state of weakness, he is only aware of people through the help and attention received from them.

(Emile, Part 4)

Here, he made a good explanation about the process from man's Self-love towards man's Others-love. His explanation also told us that both Self-love and Others-love come from human nature. The extension of man's Others-love is Fraternity. In his work, Emile, he wrote a special section titled: Fraternity and Belief.

We know that Fraternity was one of three famous slogans (Liberty, Equity and Fraternity) in French Revolution. Rousseau was one of the great ideologists in French Revolution.

  2. Men were born Free and Equal .

Rousseau wrote in his famous work, Of Social Contract

All men were born free and equal

(Of Social Contract, Part II , Chapter 2)

This is a very famous saying written in 1762. The basic meaning of the sentence was written in Declaration of the United States Declaration of Independence and the French Declaration of Human Rights.

Now, the idea of Liberty, Freedom and Equity are accepted by almost all countries in the world.

How did Rousseau explain his idea of Liberty?

He wrote:

Nature speaks to all animals and beasts obey her voice. Man feels the same impression, but he at the same time perceives that he is free to resist or to acquiesce; and it is in the consciousness of this liberty, that the spirituality of his soul chiefly appears.

Rousseau explained the reason of that man was born free based on man's nature. Since man has advanced brain which gives man the ability to have judgment and selection of his action. While meeting a beast, all sheep will escape. But men's reflections are different between different individuals. Some men might escape, but some brave men might fight with beast using stone. Such difference shows the free will of men.

This explanation conforms to science. It shows that man has the nature of liberty. As Rousseau said, liberty is men's chief spiritual character.

About Equity, Rousseau discussed two types of inequality. One is natural or physical and the other is economic and political. Natural inequality involves differences between men's physical strength, as age, health and wisdom, etc.– it is a product of nature. Rousseau was not concerned with this type of inequality and wishes to investigate moral or political inequality. He argues economic and political inequality is related to the differences in power and wealth.

His elucidation on man's inequality is reasonable. First, he recognized that there is natural or physical inequality between men.

This view is important. So we cannot wish to have an absolute quality in a society, which is thinking of equalitarianism being not beneficial to human progress. Rousseau paid much attention to economic and political inequality which, in his opinion, should be solved in a progressive society.

Political inequality may be developing to rule of tyrant. Roussea had severe criticism on Tyrant ,which became strong spiritual power pushing forward the French Revolution in 18th century.

  3. Social Contract and People's Sovereignty.

The valuable contribution of Rousseau to the world is that he not only pointed out the origin of inequality of men, but also developed the theory of Social Contract and People's Sovereignty.

His work Of the Social Contract is famous in the world and is the theoretical basis of modern democracy , even though it involves certain important deficit.

The main meaning of this work is:

The problem is to find a form of association which will defend and protect with the whole common force the person and goods of each associate, and in which each, while uniting himself with all, may still obey himself alone

(Of the Social Contract, Part I Chapter 6)

He used the following paragraph to express his idea of social contract :

Each of us puts his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will, and, in our corporate capacity, we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole

So, his idea is that man should combine together in an association, in which, every man will have his own liberty and rights.

There are valuable thinking involved in his theory.

The idea of social contract was presented firstly by Hobbes. But in Hobbes theory, people transfer their whole right to and grant authorization to a personality (king or country) who becomes the sovereign.

Locke's theory of contract is that: people transfer part of their rights to government and remain the rights of property and freedom at the hands of people themselves.

Rousseau's theory is that, people remain all rights and people themselves, as a whole, is the sovereign. This is the beginning of the theory of People Sovereignty which is accepted by most countries in the word including modern China. .

Of course Rousseau' theory , basically, has no contradiction with Locke's theory . Transferring part of rights to government is necessary and is under the control of sovereignty of people.

  4. Problem of General Will

The idea of General Will in Rousseau theory is an important deficit in his political philosophy

About General Will, Rousseau wrote:

The general will is always right and tends to the public advantage.

There is often a great deal of difference between the will of all and the general will; the latter considers only the common interest, while the former takes private interest into account..

(Of Social Contract, Book 2, Chapter 3)

From the above statement, we know that in his idea of General Will, there is Utopian element. In any country, there must be people in different classes, with different occupations, different amount of wealth, etc. So, there must be different requirements and opinions. There must be only "the will of all", but not "general will".

What the parliament and government can do is to coordinate the different requirement of different classes and different opinions of them.

The idea of General Will must cause some enforcement of different opinions to become a same opinion. So , it is quite possibly to support autocracy .

From his idea of General Will, Rousseau opposed the Separation of powers which was supported by Locke and Montesquieu. And Separation of Power is the basic principle in democratic politics..

3. Discussion about Rousseau's Good Philosophy and Common Value.

  1. In the history of Western philosophy, Rousseau is a philosopher making great contribution.

Rousseau was not only a philosopher; he was also a famous writer of literature. He was a man full of emotion. In his moral philosophy, he paid more attention to emotion. He had deep love for mankind.

His theory of the process from Self-love towards Others-love , and then extending to Fraternity is valuable . His emphasizing to Fraternity has great influence in the period of French Revolution and later period.

In political philosophy, his explanation of man's nature of Liberty and Equity is very valuable. Both of these two are kernel ideas in modern common value.

His famous saying that all men were born free and equal has worldwide influence upon the whole world and has been accepted by most countries in the world.

He was the first philosopher who presented the theory of People's Sovereignty which is accepted worldwidely.

  2. Rousseau political philosophy has some deficit, especially his opinion of General Will.

In the period of French Revolution, his theory supported Jacobin dictatorship, which sentenced many revolutionary leaders with some different opinion to death. And finally Jacobin was himself sentenced to death in a Coup.

Of course, Rousseau was not responsible for the tragedy. But his theory of General Will did have certain influence.

The theory of General Will had given negative effect upon late period of mankind.

# Chapter 1-8 Smith

1.Smith and his periodical Background

Adam Smith is the establisher of modern economics; and he was also an outstanding ethicist. In his whole life , he wrote only two works: one is:

An Inquiry into the nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

(Briefly referenced below as Wealth of Nations);

And the other is:

The theory of Moral Sentiment

Both of these two works attained very high level and have been giving far-reaching influence upon the world.

Wealth of Nations is a book of economics. But his goal of writing this book was not only doing economic analysis, but for the purpose of making richness of his own country and happiness or Good of people. The second was written to elucidate directly the idea of Good. So his Good philosophy are consisted of these two books

Smith was born at a small town in the County of Fife, Scotland. His father was a lawyer died before Smith's birth. His mother was a daughter of landowner. Smith was not married and lived with her mother in his whole life.

In 1740-1746, he studied in Oxford University and read a great amount of classic works there. In1750-1764, he was a professor teaching logic and moral philosophy. In1768, he published The theory of Moral Sentiment and obtained high evaluation. In 1776, after many times of modification, he published Wealth of Nation. This book had great influence upon the world. He was named as the father of modern economics. He died in 1790 at age of 67.

In early period of 18th century, when France and Germany were still in the period of handcraft, Britain had already entered the period of early capitalism. Production of factory system was rising vigorously.

In 1765-1790, James Watt (also from Scotland)discovered steam machine which brought industrial revolution in Britain. Large scale industry had been developing rapidly.

Smith was living in the transition period from handcraft production to large scale mechanical production.

In politics aspect, in 18th century, Britain was in a stable period of Constitutional monarchy. Especially in 1756-1761, William Pitt was British Secretary of state。 Britain won the war with France to conquer the colony in India and North America. Britain obtained a great amount of welfare.

But,in that period of Britain , many policies(especially those related to export and import were harmful to development of industry. At the same time, Capitalism development in colonies met serious problems of morality. The two books of Smith were written under such periodical background.

2. Smith's Moral Philosophy

In his work, Wealth of Nations, he conformed Self-love; in his work, The theory of Moral Sentiment, he confirmed Others-love and sympathy for others. One writer presented two contradictory theories; this was named: Problem of Smith.

Did Smith really present two contradictory theories? No, it was not the case. The two views presented in his two works constructed his complete ideological system. He regarded that the combination of Self-love and Others-love is just the requisite of human welfare. This is a very deep and correct thinking.

His work, Wealth of Nations is much more popular than his other work, The theory of Moral Sentiment. But Smith himself paid more attention to the second book. He took the ethic thinking in The theory of Moral Sentiment as the basis of his whole thinking system.

# Before Hume and Smith, in Britain, there were some important Emotionalist ethics, as Lord Shaftesbury (1671-1717), Francis Hutcheson (1694-1747) and Joseph _Butl_ _er_ (1692-1729).

. Shaftesbury regarded that besides man's sense of seeing , hearing , smelling , man has also moral feeling, which can judge good and evil of man's behaviors and is based on emotion.

Hutcheson agreed with the opinion of moral feeling. He regarded that only Others-love conforms to the value of morality.

_Butl_ _er synthesized the opinions of the above two philosophers. He presented the idea that in human nature there are three levels: Self-love, Others-love and Conscience, which is the highest level._

_Smith's moral philosophy was based on his predecessors and had further development._

_The views in_ The theory of Moral Sentiment may be summarized as follows:

  1. Man's Sympathy and Emotional resonance (or affection)

Hume had presented the problem of man's sympathy. Smith made a deep analysis on man's sympathy based on human nature.

Smith wrote:

How selfish so ever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it. Of this kind is pity or compassion, the emotion which we feel for the misery of others, when we either see it, or are made to conceive it in a very lively manner.

Here he pointed out that man not only has sympathy for others' misery , but also feels pleasure to see the pleasure of others. So , he presented the idea of man's emotional resonance.

Why there is emotional resonance between men? His explanation is that all men have same senses, so they have same feeling with same object or same situation. And man has the ability of imagination (which other animals do not have); so man could experience the feeling of others through his imagination.

This is a deep analysis of man's sympathy and kind-hearted love. It is also a strong criticism at Hobbes theory that man only has the nature of selfish.

2)"Impartial Spectator"of moral judgement

Moral judgement is the judgement of Good or Evil of man's behaviours.

In moral judgement , Smith presented a special term of "Impartial Spectator".

What is Impartial Spectator? According to Smith explanation, Impartial Spectator has the following meanings:

To have the moral judgement of the behaviours of one self or others, one should not only use the view of himself based on his own emotion or interest; he should have the view of public using objective and justified attitude.

This opinion is deep and correct.

In his work, Wealth of Nation, he emphasized Self-love. In market economics, if one' s business increase his own profit , but at the same time, it is beneficial to the society and people, then his behaviours should not be denied . In opposite, if he seeks his own interest but damages the common interest of the society and people. Such behaviours should not be confirmed.

From the theory of "Impartial Spectator", we may understand that Smith supported the view of combination of Self-love and Others-love.

3)Man's Virtues: Prudence, Justice and Beneficence

As to man's virtues, in ancient Greece, Plato resented his theory of four virtues: Wisdom, Temperance, Courage and Justice.

Plato's theory of four virtues was suitable for the noble society of ancient Greece. 2000 years later, in the early period of Capitalism , Smith presented different opinions based on the combination of Self-love and Others-love, which he regarded as the basic principle of morality.

Smith presented three virtues: Prudence, Beneficence

and Justice.

Smith regarded that the virtue coming from Self-love is Prudence. He wrote:

The care of the health, of the fortune, of the rank and reputation of the individual, the objects upon which his comfort and happiness in this life are supposed principally to depend, is considered as the proper business of that virtue which is commonly called Prudence.

Here, an opinion worthy to be noticed is that, in Smith theory, virtue involves the consideration of one's proper and legitimate interest. Beginning with one's own interest, he must be diligent and frugal and must control his emotion and behaviours.

Of course, Smith also paid much attention to Others-love. That was why he took Beneficence in his Three Virtues.

As to Justice, Smith regarded that for the purpose of maintaining the interest of whole society. Only Beneficence is not enough, there must be Justice. Beneficence usually concerns people nearby one self, but the principle of Justice covers the whole society.as to protect the weak, to restrain the violence, and to punish the criminal. Smith agreed with Plato, the principle of Justice involves all other virtues.

In summary, Smith's moral philosophy is suitable to modern society and is combined with his principle of modern economics.

3, Smith's Economic Philosophy

The publish of Smith's work, An Inquiry into the nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, in 1776, was an important event in human economics. It established the theoretical basis of Capitalism in the world. In more than 2000 years, the prosperous of the world has been getting benefit from this book.

Smith spent more than 20 years for writing this book, which shew that he made great effort to do it.

This is not only a book of economics. It combines economics, politics, philosophy and ethics together to elucidate the basic principle of human life. Its basic goal is to realize prosperous of country and welfare of people. So it belongs to category of Goodness. I take the thinking of this book in Good philosophy.

The main opinions in this book related with Good philosophy are summarized as follows: Market (or exchange) is the essential character of human life

Chapter 1 and 2 of Part I of this book discusses the problem of Division of Labour. He wrote:

THIS division of labor, from which so many advantages are derived, is not originally the effect of any human wisdom, which foresees and intends that general opulence to which it gives occasion. It is the necessary, though very slow and gradual, consequence of a certain propensity in human nature which has in view no such extensive utility; the propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another.

This paragraph is very important which pointed out a basic character of human life: Exchange,

Man has many different requirements .Even the original men, they have requirements of food, cloth, house, etc. No one can live depending only on what he himself produced. And the world has different regions and different environments producing different products. So . Exchange is the must of mankind.

Where is exchange , there is market. Market has the same meaning as Exchange.

Exchange is the unique character of mankind

Smith wrote:

Nobody ever saw a dog make a fair and deliberate exchange of one bone for another with another dog

  1. Market promotes Division of Lobor

He wrote:

In a tribe of hunters or shepherds a particular person makes bows and arrows, for example, with more readiness and dexterity than any other. He frequently exchanges them for cattle or for venison with his companions; and he finds at last that he can in this manner get more cattle and venison, than if he himself went to the field to catch them.

He used this example to summarize and explain the comprehensive phenomena of the formation of market

Along with the enlargement of exchange market, division of labour and industry has been enforced and refined. In the Middle Ages and Recent period of Europe, a large amount of tea and porcelain was imported from China . Since the climate of Europe is not suitable for growing tea tree; and Europe was lack of the technology to produce porcelain.

In several hundreds years, under the pushing power of continuously development of world market, a worldwide market of production division with numerous categories has been formed.

  2. Division of labour promoted technological progress and economical development

Smith in his work elucidated in detail of the process that division of labour and industry promoted technological progress and economical development. He took needle making industry as a example. He said: a worker who has no experience and does not use machine, cannot produce one needle in a day. But in a needle producing factory, the process of producing needle is divided into 18 steps; each worker is responsible for only one step. Then 10 workers may produce 48 thousand's needles in a day. In average, one worker can produce 4800 needles. So division of labour raises the production efficiency greatly.

Smith analysed the reasons of the raising of production efficiency as follows:

  1. The skill of worker was raised apparently by the division of labour.

  2. The transmission time of different steps is saved

  3. Division of labour promotes the discovery of new machines.

According to the theory of Smith, it may be regarded that all the economic development and progress in science and technology has been gotten the benefit from division of industry and labour.

  3. The invisible hand and free development of economics

Smith wrote:

By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.

[...]

By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it.

(Book IV, Chapter 2)

These sentences elucidated his theory of Invisible Hand. His opinion is that the market may regulate the running of economics automatically .It is no need of the inference of the politician or the ruler.

The theory of Invisible Hand is a great discovery of Smith and the great contribution of him to the whole world.

Of course , later economic practice shows that besides invisible hand ,some restriction of law and regulation of government are still required.

  4. Pursuit of each one's own interest will be beneficial to whole society

In the saying introduced above Smith presented a important opinion that every one's pursuit his own interest will promote the interest of the whole society.

This is a very important principle in economic development of mankind. This principle is conform to his moral philosophy , which confirms the combination of Self-love and Others-love.

Here we can understand the whole thinking system of Smith's Good philosophy which combines his moral philosophy and economic philosophy.

4. Discussion about the Relation between Smith's Good Philosophy and Common Value

1) Smith presented his theory of market economics, which has been greatly pushing forward the idea of Freedom or Liberty in Common Value.

The essence of market economics is Free management and Free trading. The marketing principle based on free management and trading has great importance for the progress of human society.

The history of mankind in recent several hundreds years has proved the Idea of Freedom (free management and trading) is the foundation of the progress of human society.

  2. Is there Common Value in Economics?

From the theory of Smith , we may understand that Common Value does not exist only in politics field , but also in the field of economics.

In the principle of marketing and exchanging in economics .it is absolutely required to implement the ideas in Common Value, as Freedom, Equity, Rule of Law, etc. If there is no private power of property, no freedom of production, management and trading ; if in the process of trading , there is no the principle of Equity and Rule of Law, the development of economics in any country is impossible.

So, in the field of economics, Common Value is absolutely essential.

3. Kind-hearted love (or Benevolence) is one of modern Common Value. Either in Smith moral philosophy, or in his economical philosophy, the common thinking of Smith is the combination of Self-love and Others-love. Smith theory proves that this is the only correct principle in the idea of Kind-hearted Love(or Benevolence)

# Chapter 1-9 Kant

1.Life of Kant

Immanuel Kant(1724-1804)was the scholar who had the greatest achievement on philosophy since 18th century in the world. He was the founder of German classic philosophy. He established a complete philosophic system, including ontology, epistemology, moral philosophy, political philosophy, beauty philosophy, etc.

He was born in 1724 in a handcraft family at Konigsberg, Prussia. He graduated from Philosophy Department of Konigsberg, University. He was a private tutor for 9 years. In 1755, he was a teacher in Konigsberg, University. He never left Konigsberg in his whole life. He did not marry and spent silently in philosophic meditation in his whole life.

His life may be divided into two periods. Before 1770, ,he made researches in natural science,; after then , he made researches in philosophy.

In his whole life, he wrote many important philosophic works, among them , the most famous ones are:

Critique of Pure Reason (1787)

Critique of Practical Reason (1788)

Critique of Judgement (1790)

And also some others as:

 Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics(1783)

"An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?(1784)

Metaphysics of Morals (1785)

Etc..

For the purpose of understanding Kant's Good philosophy, the periodical background of Kant is introduced briefly below.

911 AD was the beginning of transformation from the East Frankish Empire to the German Empire. In this year, Frank Duke was elected the first king of Germany. In 962 AD German king Otto I was crowned by the Pope of Rome as Rome Emperor. This was the Ancient German Empire –the first Empire.

In 17-18th centuries, Germany was backward compared with Britain and France. The feudal force was strong. There was political split and slow economic growth.

But in this period, in Germany , under the pushing of French Revolution and Enlightenment movement, there appeared some extraordinary ideologists , as philosophers, Kant , Fichte, litterateur, Goethe,and playwright , Racine, etc. Especially Kant, he was a scientist and also a philosopher. He established the philosophic system at the highest level in the world. Kant's thinking brought the progress of Germany and of the whole world.

Owing to the comparatively backward of economic and political situation, Kant's political philosophy was rather steady and not radical. But it did not have effect on the advancement of his thinking of enlightenment.

2, Kant's Good Philosophy

There are many relations between Kant's Good philosophy and Common value, as summarized below:

  1. In Kant's philosophy, ideas on Reason and Science are interlinked.

Reason is man's natural ability to cognize the world. It is man's unique character which makes difference man and other animals.

Science is the knowledge system that man apply his reason to cognize the world

According the classification made by Aristotle, Science is the theoretical Reason.

Kant had a famous saying:

Two things fill me with constantly increasing admiration and awe, the longer and more earnestly I reflect on them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law in my heart.

Starry heaven means the rules of the nature; Moral law means the rules in man's mind.

This saying shows the high attention paid by Kant on man's Reason. Since only man's Reason is able to cognize the rules of the nature and in man's mind.

People might ask: Should Reason (or Science) be involved in Good philosophy and man's Common value?

Let us review the saying of Socrates:

Knowledge is Virtue. Ignorance is Evil.

(Plato, Laches)

It shows that from ancient Greece, philosopher connected Good with Knowledge (or Science)

Of course, we could not say: Idea of Reason (or Science) is equal the idea of Good. Hume is correct to distinguish "Be" and "Should be". But there is close linkage between Good and Reason (or Science).

It is correct to say:

  1. Based on man's Reason, man must be Good.

It is because that only Good can give man real happiness.

B, Based on man's Reason, Science must be Good

Science might be used things harmful to man's welfare (as used in bacteria war) , but man's reason must not allow to do so.

In modern philosophy, Kant paid special attention to Science. Since he himself was an excellent scientist (Engels said: Kant 's Nebula theory was the greatest achievement in astronomy after Copernicus). More important is that Kant had deep understanding of the importance of Science in philosophy.

In Kant's work, Critique of Pure Reason , he said the goal of him to write this book is to answer following questions:

How is pure mathematical science possible?

How is pure natural science possible?

The great contribution that Kant made to the idea of Science (or Reason) is proving the possibility and truth of Science.

Before Kant, there were two schools in philosophy circle: one was Empiricism from Britain; and the other was Rationalism from European continent (mainly France and Holland). . Empiricists regarded that all knowledges come from man's experience; Rationalists regarded that all knowledges come from man's rational thinking.

Both of these two theories were criticized by people. Empiricism was criticized as Scepticism. David Hume pointed out that any experience does not have inevitable cause and effect relationship. Rationalism was criticized as Dogmatism, since one's rational thinking is not certainly proved by objective experience.

Then, a question was raised : How is scientific knowledge established? How is science possible?

After long time research, Kant answered the question. He presented creatively the theory of Innate Synthesis Judgement, which combined Empiricism and Rationalism together. According to Kant, man's knowledges have two sources: one comes from experience and the other comes from innateness, which means the inborn ability of rational thinking.

He regarded that the original source of knowledge is man's sense and experience .But man's senses and experiences are separated .Only by experiences man could not establish science. It is required to synthesize those separated experiences to form a systematic and complete knowledge system, then science is established.

Kant proved that man has innate ability to know time and space, to distinguish quantitative and qualitative changes and to have the cognition of cause-effect relation. These are named by Kant as Innate Judgement ability.

Kant's theory of Innate Synthetic Judgement basically solved the problem of the possibility of Science. It was his great contribution to philosophy and also to science(or Reason)

  2. Kant's thinking on Morals.

Critique of Practical Reason is Kant's special work on moral philosophy. His another work on moral philosophy is Foundations of the metaphysics of morals.

As to the problem of Good or morals, there were different thinking systems:

  1. Rational view of morals, represented by Plato and Aristotle;

  2. Theological view of morals , represented by Aquinas;

  3. Empiricism view of morals, represented by Hobbes and Locke;

  4. Emotion's view of morals, represented by Hume and Smith.

Since Enlightenment movement, the later two views were the dominant.

Kant , following ancient Greek philosophers, raised the flag of Rationalism of morals again.

Kant presented four fundamental principles of morals:

  1. You should not take your own desires as the motivation of your will;.

  2. You should take happiness promoting as your responsibility , not your personal preference ;

  3. The principle of morals is : your will should be general legislative , which means, should be comprehensively suitable in whole society;

  4. Your moral rule should be Self disciplined , which means that it is determined only by your own will and not enforced by others  
( Critique of Practical Reason, Chapter 1)

The third principle is the fundamental one. According to this principle, so, one's own desire or one's own preference should not be used as the rule of morals.

The fourth principle is also very important , which points out the special character of morals and the difference between morals and law. .

Kant emphasized the rational principle of morals is reasonable. Hume and Smith emphasized the emotional factor in morals. But much moral behaviour is conducted by man's reason, not by man's emotion.

For example, man should be honest , not to cheat; man should help the weak, respect the old, etc. These moral behaviours are adaptive in whole society. It is not that you love someone, then you does not cheat him.

So, in the problem of Morals, man needs emotion, and at the same time , man needs reason. But Kant did not pay enough attention to man's emotion (as Kind-hearted Love or Benevolence) ; this is one-sidedness of his moral philosophy.

Kant's moral principles led to his theory of Moral Order. Moral Order comes from man's inner heart, as, you should do or you should not do.

The thinking of Kant's Moral Order is similar with Conscience in philosophy of Rousseau in the West and Wang Yangming in China.

  3. Kant's thinking on "Man is the Goal"

In Kant's moral philosophy, there is a very important thinking of "Man is the Goal (or end , purpose)".

This conflict with the principle of other men is even clearer if we cite example of attacks on their right of men intends to make use of the person of others merely as means without consider that, as rational being, they must always be esteemed at the same time as ends (i.e. only as beings who must be able to embody in themselves the purpose of the same action.)

There is one purpose which not only can have but which we can

presuppose that the all do have by a necessity of nature. This is happiness.

(Foundations of the metaphysics of morals, Chapter 2)

The above sentences show an important thinking of Kant, which is: Man is the goal of himself, but not a mean of any others.

The general thinking of Kant is: every man must take himself as his goal, and at the same time, he should consider other one is the goal of the other one self.

So, man should love and take care of himself and at the same time love and take care of others.

According to the thinking introduced above , we may agree with Kant's opinion:

  1. In the whole world . only Man and Man's happiness is the final goal

  2. Any party, government or politician must take Man as its (or his) final goal . All policies should conform to the welfare and happiness of Man

Kant's thinking of "Man is the goal"was an breakthrough thinking in the Enlightenment movement in 18th century and has great influence upon whole world in modern and future period of mankind

4) Kant's thinking on Liberty

Ancient Greek and Middle Ages' philosophers did not support the idea of Liberty. Beginning from Enlightenment movement, the idea of Liberty has been rising gradually as a very important idea.

Hobbes , Locke and Rousseau explained the idea of Liberty from the hypothesis of Natural State or human nature. It was Kant , who raised the idea of Liberty to a level of philosophy.

Kant inherited the theory of Aristotle, regarded that Reason is the main character distinguishing man and other animals. He agreed the thinking of Aristotle and classified man's Reason into two parts: Theoretical Reason and Practical Reason. Theoretical Reason is man's reason to cognize the natural world; it pursuits the rules of natural word according man's experiences of objective world. Practical reason is man's reason to taking practical activities; it does not depend on objective experiences, but follows man's inner moral rules.

Kant presented the concepts of "Self disciplining of Will" and "Legislation for man self",all involve the idea of Liberty.

Kant's affirmation of the idea of Liberty was his great contribution in the period of Enlightenment movement which has very important meaning in modern and future man's society.

  3. Kant's thinking on Justice and Rule of Law

In his work, The Metaphysics Elements of Justice , he presented his opinion on Justice.

He regarded that Justice is a social idea. While everyone's will could be harmonious coexistence under the principle of Liberty, there is Justice.

For social Justice, he paid high attention to Rule of Law. Even though he did not recognize the fact of social contract in history ,but he regraded that Law must express the common will of people, and respect every citizen's will, just as every one agree the common will expressed by Law

Kant's political opinion was rather steady. He did not unconditionally support violent revolution. He advocated that people have the power to supervise government and promote improvement of society under the principle of Rule of Law.

3. Discussion about Kant's Good Philosophy and Common Value

1) In the process of forming and development of modern common value, Kant is a significant philosopher. Especially , as to the idea of Reason (Science) , Man-orientation, Liberty , etc. Kant made the breakthrough contribution .

2) Modern science began from Bacon ; Copernicus,Newton, Darwin, etc made epochal contributions. But from the view of philosophy to demonstrate the possibility and basic methods of Science , the greatest contributor was Kant.

Connected with Science, Reason is one of the most important modern Common Values.

In Kant's famous paper, An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?(1784). He wrote:

Nothing is required for this enlightenment, however, except freedom; [...] the freedom to use reason publicly in all matters.

In his opinion, freedom to use Reason publicly is the basic meaning of Enlightenment.

So, Reason (or Science) is the main idea that emphasized by Kant, which has great influence upon the whole world.

  3. Kant's opinion of "Man is the Goal" brought the thinking of Man-orientation to the whole world.

Man-orientation is the basic idea in modern politics, economy , science , literature, etc. In this book, I put this idea at the first of modern Common Value.

  3. Liberty is one of kernel idea in modern Common Value. It was Kant, who put Liberty at the highest position of man's practical reason. He proved that Freedom of Man' Will is the essential character of mankind. At the same time, he did not regard that Freedom is unconditional. He also emphasized the importance of Justice and Rule of Law. He regarded that everyone's freedom should be coexisted and coordinated harmoniously which depends social Justice and Rule of Law.

Chapter 1-10 Mill

1,Periodical Background of Mill

John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) was a famous Britain philosopher in 19th century. He was contemporary with Karl Marx.

He was different from Locke, Hume, Smith; he had not obtained regular education, but received all knowledges by self study in family. He studied Greek at 3 years old, studied Latin at 8 years old, studied political economics at 13 years old. At his age of 16 , he was a famous theorist. It showed that he had high talent.

He wrote many famous works, as :

Principles of Political Economy,(1859)

On Liberty, (1861)

Utilitarianism, (1861)

Considerations on Representative Government (1865)

Mill lived in the age of Queen Victoria(1837-1901), when British capitalism was at its peak period. British economics and civilization were developing prosperously.

At the same time, there were many contradictions appeared in capitalism, as gap between the rich and poor ; limitation of thinking and speaking; correct opinions were often refused . All of these hindered progress of society.

In his works ,he made sharp criticism at those shortcomings. His criticism formed important theories that have great influence upon the world.

2.Mill's Good Philosophy

1) Mill's thinking of Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism is an important school in philosophy, which was established by British philosopher J. Bentham (1748-1832)

Bentham's ethics was established on Hedonism(Doctrine of Pleasure), taking man's pleasure as the criteria of judgement of Good or Evil. He presented the idea that rule of morals is the greatest happiness of the most people.

Bentham's thinking of ethics was agreed by many scholars , and also criticized by others.

After Bentham, the important contribution of Mill was the establishment of the term, Utilitarianism.

Mill made modification of Bentham's ethics; he transformed Hedonism into Eudemonism (Doctrine of Happiness). His reasons were:

  1. Man's pleasure has the difference in quantity and also in quality and difference in high and low levels. So called High pleasure means the spiritual (Intelligent , emotional and moral ) pleasure. So called low pleasure means the physical and sensual pleasure.  
Mill regarded that high pleasure is superior to low pleasure.

  2. Mill presented the opinion that man should take Happiness to instead of Pleasure as the main goal of man's pursuit; and take the greatest happiness of all people as the main goal of man's Utility.

It is worthy to notice the difference between "the most people" in Bentham 's theory and "all people" in Mill's theory. Here is a problem of minority, Mill concerned the interest of minority. This is a character of Mill's ethics.

2) Mill's thinking on Justice and Equity

Since ancient Greece, Justice has been always a very important idea concerned by ideologists. Mill was not a exception. His main views on Justice are as follows:

  1. Justice and Utility, there are difference and connections between these two ideas

If Utility pursuits the greatest happiness of all people ,then Justice pursuits the reasonable distribution of happiness.

Mill said that all problems related to justice are related to utility also.

(Utilitarianism)

  2. He regarded that Justice must be related to law and morals.

  3. Since all men are equal in front of law, so both Justice and Utility involve the idea of Equity.

  4. Mill pointed out that Justice is not only a rule , but also related to emotion , including sense of self defence and compassion , which means every one has the sense of Justice from his inner heart.

Utility generally is related to effect , not to motivation. Mill regarded that Justice is related to emotion, and emotion usually is related to motivation. So Mill's view of Justice is the combination of motivation and effect.

  5. Mill regarded that Justice is higher than Utility. He said that Justice is the general name of all moral requisite, so Justice must be high than other morals, including Utility.

  3. Mill's thinking on Liberty

On Liberty is the most influencing work among all his works. It is a classic work forming modern Common Value.

The Middle Ages philosopher, Augustine and modern philosophr, Kant, both had presented the problem of Liberty. Mill declared that the Liberty he discusses is neither the religious idea , nor the pure philosophic idea, but is man's social liberty or citizen's liberty.

Man's social liberty or citizen liberty is a very important ideological and political problem .

In his work , On Liberty, he had a systematic and complete elucidation on man's Social Liberty, as follows:

  1. What is Liberty?

Mill presented a classical definition of Liberty:

The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it

In this definition, Mill pointed out the main points of Loberty:

  1. The goal of one's liberty is to pursuit his own good. This is conform to human nature.

  2. The pursuit of one's own good is in his own way, which means

that he can select the way he likes to go. It shows that there is the power of self-selection of him.

  3. One's liberty should not attempt to deprive the liberty of others.

Mill's above definition of Liberty has been accepted by all modern countries. It shows that one's Liberty has a only limitation that is : not to deprive other's liberty. Within this limitation , each one has full liberty.

  2. Liberty of Opinion, Expression and Discussion

Mill affirmed the necessity of freedom of opinion, expression and discussion. He presented following reasons:.

First, if any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may[...] be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility.

Secondly, though the silenced opinion be an error, it may, and very commonly does, contain a portion of truth; and since the general or prevailing opinion on any subject is rarely or never the whole truth, it is only by the collision of adverse opinions that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied.

Thirdly, even if the received opinion be not only true, but the whole truth; [...] it is held in the manner of a prejudice, with little comprehension or feeling of its rational grounds.

( On Liberty, Chap.2)

Mill's elucidation on liberty of opinion, expression and discussion has been accepted by most modern democratic countries in fields of politics and science.

  3. Liberty of personality and Practice

In Mill's opinion, only when everyone's personality and ability could be being into play , then mankind could be an"Integral Whole".

Mill regarded that man should not only have liberty of opinion , man should have liberty of playing everyone's personality and ability.

This is a very important principle of the development of science, literature, art , etc.

The creativity in science and technology depends on the freedom of man's personality and ability. This principle is related to education and civilizational policy in a country..

In modern and future society ,man's creativity is the first important factor in economic and scientific development.

  4. Liberty of Association

Mill regarded that besides the above liberties (opinion , expression , discussion , personality practice) , Man should have the liberty of association.

Liberty of association means that men could unite together to organize group or party , according their own will. He regarded that when these group or party is organized and joined voluntarily and not to harm others, men should have the freedom of association.

It may be seen that what Mill presented is a series of Liberty; Liberty of opinion, of expression, of discussion , of personality, of association. Mill's On Liberty was the first book presenting and affirming this series of Liberty of people in the history of the world.

4) Mill's thinking on Democracy

Considerations on Representative Government is a famous political philosophy work written by Mill. Some views in this book are worthy to be noticed.

  1. Representative Government is the best political regime .

Pioneer philosophers ,Locke, Rousseau ,etc. presented the principle of People's Sovereignty ;but they had not answered the question: why democratic regime is the best regime? Mill answered this question.

He wrote:

Each is the only guardian of his own rights and interests.

The ideally best form of the government is the one which , in the circumstance in which it is practicable and eligible, is attended with the greatest amount of beneficial consequence, immediate and prospective. A complete popular government is the only policy which can make out any claim to this character.

(Considerations on Representative Government.hap.3)

The above saying means that democratic regime has two basic advantages:

  1. Since each one is the only guardian of his own rights and interests, and democratic regime is joined by all people. So it must serve for all people to protect their rights and interests.

(b) Only under democratic regime, people's enthusiasm, initiative and creativity could be fully played which will bring the greatest amount of benefit of country and of people.

B. Basic Principle of Democratic Regime –Constitutional Principle

Constitutional Principle involves the following rules:

  1. General election system

  2. Function of parties and people's associations

  3. Separation of powers

  4. Representative Government

Mill explained that in a society larger than a city town ,it is impossible to let all people joining the administrative management . So Representative Government is the most perfect form of government.

Today, all countries in the world implement the form of Representative Government.

3. Discussion about the Relation between Mill's Good Philosophy and Common Value

1) Mill is a very important philosopher who made contribution to the formation of modern Common Value especially on the ideas of Liberty , Democracy , Justice and Happiness.

2) Mill's greatest contribution is his theory of Liberty. He presented the classical and correct definition of Liberty which is:

Pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it

He was the first philosopher in history presenting the series of man's Liberty, which is essential in a democratic country. They are Liberty of opinion, expression, discussion, personality, practice and association. His theory fulfills the meaning of Liberty in modern Common Value.

3) Mill's theory of Justice points out that Justice is the summation of all morals ; Justice is the reasonable distribution of happiness in a society; Justice must be linked with law; those thinking deepens the idea of Justice

4)Mill presented deep elucidation of Constitutional Democracy, which is beneficial to all countries in the world.

Chapter 1-11 Marx and Engels

  1. Periodical Background of Marx and Engels

Karl Marx and Friedrich _Engels_ ,(1820-1895) were two worldwide influential ideologists.

Good philosophy includes moral philosophy and political philosophy. To introduce political philosophy in the West , it is impossible to avoid Marx and Engels.

The thinking of Marx and Engels are connected together. In their theories, Marx was more important .But Engels had longer life than Marx. In the late years of Engels, he experienced some new changes in the West and had some valuable new thinking. So , it is suitable to introduce them together.

Although after the disintegration of the USSR, the thinking of Socialism and the reputation of theory of Marx and Engels had been declining to a certain extent. But in the history of thinking in the West , Marx still has a high position. Famous American philosopher John Rawls(1921—2002) in his work , Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy , he only selected six philosophers: Hobbes, Locke, Hume ,Rousseau, Mill and Marx. This book was published 10 years after the disintegration of the USSR.

Rawls's evaluation on Marx is :

Given the circumstance of Marx's life ,his achievement as an economic theorists and political sociologist of Capitalism is extraordinary , indeed heroic.

( Rawls, Lectures on the Theory of Political Philosophy)

The life of Marx and Engels are introduced briefly as follows:

Karl Marx (1818-1883)was born in Rhine Province, Germany. His father was a talent lawyer; his mother was a virtuous women. He studied hard and liked independent thinking in his young age . He entered University of Bonn and then University of Berlin studying law and philosophy of Hegel. He got doctor's degree in 1841.

After then, he joined the democratic struggle against feudal autocracy. He served as chief editor of Rhine Newspaper. After the newspaper was closed down , he moved at Paris and took part in worker's struggle and met Engels there and established their close friendship and cooperation.

In 1845, he was expelled from France. In 1848, he exiled in Britain and lived there for a long time writing his famous work, The Capital .Hard living , heavy writing and intensive struggle harmed his health. He died in 1883.

Friedrich _Engels_ (1820-1895)was born in family of textile manufacturer in Rhine, Germany. He himself served in a firm with a rather rich life. In 1844-1883, about 40 years, he was getting together with Marx in writing and conducting workers struggle. He wrote many works , as The Condition of the Working Class in England (1844), Anti-Dühring(1878) ,The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1884),etc.

For understanding Marx and Engels, It is necessary to know the periodical background of them.

19th century was the early period of Capitalism. Bourgeois oppression and exploitation of the working class is serious which inspired the resistance movement of the working class. In 1871, the working class revolution broke out in Paris, establishing the Paris commune. But it existed only 72 days.

The theory of Marx and Engels was produced adopting the requirement of working class movement.

  2. Main Views of the theory of Marx and Engels

  1. Kernel idea and main views in theory of Marx and Engels

The kernel idea in theory of Marx and Engels is Class.

Rawls wrote in Lectures on the Theory of Political Philosophy

For Marx, among the fundamental basic units of analysis are Classes.

In his work, Manifesto of the Communist Party(1848), he wrote:

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles

Marx and Engels observed all problems in the world basing on the view of Class and Class Struggle.

Marx's main contribution was in the field of Economics. But the complete theory of Marx and Engels involves economics, politics, philosophy, social science, natural science and civilization, etc.

The main views of theory of Marx and Engels are summarized as follows:

  1. The basic view of Historical materialism

Marx wrote:

The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness.

It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness

(cited from  A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, 1859)

(2)The basic production relation in Capitalism system is:

the capitalist owns the capital, then owns all the production materials . The workers only own their labor. They can only sell their labor to the capitalist.  
(3) All social wealth and value , in the final analysis, is produced by labor of workers. Only production materials could not increase wealth.

(4) The value that workers produce must more than the salary they obtain. The remained value may be named Surplus Value which is the essence of capitalist's exploitation.

(5)Capitalism economics is competitive economy. The more that capitalist obtains, the more successful he is. As the development of Capitalism , combination of capital and financial - credit system, the capitalist's exploitation must be increasing. And the workers are going into poorer situation.

(6)The basic contradiction in Capitalism system is the sociality of production and the private nature of capital possession. This contradiction must cause the cyclical economic crisis of capitalism which must enlarge the gap between the rich and the poor and the combat between capitalist class and worker class.  
(7) To reform the situation of working class, the only method is reforming the capitalism system , to deprive the private ownership of capitalist and let the production materials becoming the common wealth. For attaining this goal, it is essential to carry on the worker's struggle against capitalist and implement proletarian dictatorship . The final goal is to eliminate the bourgeoisie class and realize Communism.

(8) To realize Communism, it requires two periods : the first is the Socialism society , which implements the principle of "Let each person do his best and have the distribution according each's work.".The second period is the Communism society, implementing the principle of distribution according each's requirement.

(9) Either in Socialism society or Communism society, owing to the diminishment of private ownership and marketing system , a country must implement Planned Economics.

(10) The final goal of mankind is to establish Association of Free Mmen

The above principles are summarized from many works of Marx and Engels.

  2. Starting point and Goal of theory of Marx and Engels

It is not suitable to follow all views of Marx in China today. Since China began the period of reform and open up in 1978, many policies do not conform to theory of Marx, as stopping planned economics and implementing market economics, which has carrying China toward great progress.

But, I regard that it is not suitable to reject Marx's theory at all. At least, two points in his theory are worthy to be noticed; one is its starting point and the other is the goal of his theory.

As to the starting point of Marx's theory , modern American philosopher Rowles gives affirmative evaluation of Marx's theory.

He wrote:

I shall proceed as follows: I first sketch some reasons for saying Marx does not condemn capitalism as unjust. And then I sketch some reasons for saying he does, at least implicitly. By this I mean that what he says implies that capitalism is unjust , although he does not say so in so many words

( Rowles, Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy , Marx II,

His Conception of Right and Justice)

After certain analysis, Rowles affirmed that in Marx's theory, Marx regarded that Capitalism is unjust.

So , the starting point of Marx's theory is to point out the injustice of Capitalism and to solve the problem of injustice.

You could not say this starting point is incorrect.

As to the goal of Mark's theory, Marx wrote:

In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all

(Marx: Manifesto of the Communist Party)

Saying briefly the goal of Marx's theory is to establish an association of all free men.

This goal involves the idea of Liberty , Equity ,Justice and Unification(or cooperation) between men .

It should be recognized that this is a great and basically correct ideal of mankind.

  3. The Way of Social Reform in Marx's theory

Why after the disintegration of the USSR, people have doubt about Marx's theory? It may be answered that the reason is not in the aspect of its goal, but in the aspect of it's way.

There are many problems related to the way of social reform in Marx's theory that are necessary to be analyzed seriously.

  1. Is there only Class nature and no human nature of mankind?

As introduced above, the kernel idea in Mar's theory is Class. It regards that the history of man's history was a history of Class Struggle. It applies the idea of Class to observe and explain all activities of mankind (economics , politics, civilization, etc.) It should be said that this view is not complete, but of one-sidedness.

  1. Man , no matter their classes , all belong to human being. All men have common human nature, as there is kind love for children, filial love for parents, sexual and intimate love for lovers or spouses, friendly love for friends. There is no difference of those love between different classes. Denying common human nature does not conform to truth and will bring great disaster to mankind.

  2. Man's history was very complex . Some man's activities may be explained using the view of class struggle; but many activities , especially those civilizational activities, as literature, science , art ,etc. could not explained using class struggle

  3. As the progress of mankind in going on, the differences between classes are weakening or diminishing. In modern society, both in the West or in China, many workers become stock holders. They are both workers and inventors in their factory or company.

  2. Is all wealth produced by worker's labour?

No , it is not true. Economists has proved that social wealth is produced by the combination of many factors, as capital , labour , technology , management , information , etc. As economics is developing, the factors other than labour have more and more contributions.

So , the theory of the Marx's kernel theory in economics —theory of Surplus Value is not correct in modern society.

  3. How to evaluate the function of Capitalists?

Capitalists have important functions and contributions in modern economics: offering invention, doing management, employing talents, bearing the risk . In a enterprise ,the contribution of the capitalist is much more than common workers.

  4. Is class struggle the main or only way to reform society?

No, many facts proved that it is not the case. The factors effecting on social progress are: scientific and technological progress, political and economical reform, civilizational and educational development. The function of class struggle was only appeared in special period of special country.

E, How to evaluate the function of market? Are Planned economics beneficial to society?

No, the fact in history showed the opposite result. China is a good example. From 1949-1978, in 20 years, planned economics brought very slow economical development. A great amount of people remained in poor life. And after 1978 ,China began marketing economics. Its economics has been developing rapidly. In 30 years, China becomes the second largest economic entity in the world.

So, it may be said that the opinion of Marx on market does not conform to the reality. .

  4. New thinking of Marx and Engels according to new periodical trends

In the later age of Marx and especially Engels, they saw some new trends appeared in the Western counties and had some new opinions

A, In the third Volume of Capital, Marx talked about the Stock System. He mentioned that those social capitals are an opposite form different from private form; And those Social enterprises are opposite to the private enterprises.

In those what Marx called Social Enterprises, workers are also inventors of the enterprises. So, the Stock System changed the Capitalism basically.

B.On the relation between labour and capital

In the second edition of Engels's The Condition of the Working Class in England (1892), Engels talked on new trends in British factories. He noticed that as the Capitalism developed, the relation between capitalist and workers had been much improving. The capitalists was impossible to apply the old method to manage the workers. Worker' life had obtained much improved.

C. On Democratic Republic

Democratic Republic means the political regime established on the basis of Democracy, Liberty , Equity, etc. Marx and Engels criticized Democratic Republic in their early period. They regarded that it was a Cheating slogan . But in the late period of Engels, the worker's party got success in general election of Germany, Engels changed his opinion and supported the political system of Democratic Republic. It showed that Engels supported the idea of Democracy, Liberty, Equity, etc. Those ideas all belong to modern Common Value.

  3. Discussion about the Relation between the theory of Marx and Engels and modern Common Value.

The relation between theory of Marx and Engels is a complex problem. In their theory, there is the factor of affirming modern common value, and there is also the factor of denying common value.

  1. Affirmation of the idea of Liberty

Among modern common values, Marx paid special attention

to the idea of Liberty.

As introduced above , the final goal of mankind in his theory is to establish "Association of all free men"

This is a very famous saying of Marx.

Freedom (or Liberty) in theory of Marx and Engels has two meaning: one is its political meaning, which affirms that each man has the freedom of his thinking and behaviours; the other is the meaning of epistemology, which affirms that the way from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom.

In both meanings, they point out the bright future of mankind.

  2. Affirmation and distort of the idea of Equity

According to Rowles's view, the main contribution of Marx and Engels is the affirmation to the idea of Equity. It is true that they paid high attention to the idea of Equity.

Engels wrote in his work, Anti-Dühring:

The idea that all men, as men, have something in common, and that to that extent they are equal, is of course primeval. But the modern demand for equality is something entirely different from that; this consists rather in deducing from that common quality of being human, from that equality of men as men, a claim to equal political resp. social status for all human beings, or at least for all citizens of a state or all members of a society

(Anti-Dühring, Part I , X)

This paragraph shows the following opinions of Engels on Equity:

  1. Equity is related to human nature. All men have the common nature, so they are equal. This view is same as Rousseau's view: All were born equal .

  2. But the modern idea of Equity is different from the above. In modern society, all men must have equal political and social status.

So, Engels' idea on Equity is deeper and higher than Rousseau's idea.

It may be said that the main goal of the theory of Marx and Engels is pursuing the complete Equality of all men .

The problem in their theory on Equality is how to attain this goal.

Engels wrote:

The demand for equality in the mouth of the proletariat has therefore a double meaning. It is[...]either the spontaneous reaction against the crying social inequalities, against the contrast between rich and poor, [...] Or, on the other hand, this demand has arisen as a reaction against the bourgeois demand for equality, [...] and serving as an agitational means in order to stir up the workers against the capitalists with the aid of the capitalists' own assertions; [...] In both cases the real content of the proletarian demand for equality is the demand for the abolition of classes. Any demand for equality which goes beyond that, of necessity passes into absurdity.

The meaning of this paragraph is that ,either from indignation of proletariat at the inequality between rich and poor, or from using capitalist's own demand for Equity, the proletariat's demand for Equity is the abolition of Class, or in other word , abolition of capitalist class.

The problem is that capitalist class is also a group of people(an elite group of people). Does the behaviour to abolish such group of people conform to the principle of Equity? We have to say, it is unequal and injustice..

In Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), not only capitalist class, but also many intellectuals, land owners , rich farmers , high officers, etc, were in the list of abolishment , causing great social tragedies.

  3. Opinion of Marx and Engels on the idea of Democracy

Marx and Engels had not much statement on Democracy .But in the introduction of Paris Commune , Marx did affirm the idea od Democracy, which included follows:

  1. General election and Recall system in Paris Commune

  2. Separation of country and religion;

  3. All schools are freely opened to people

  4. Local self-government

  5. Clean government and low salary for officers.

We have to say that Paris Commune had some factors of democratic politics. Of course , it was not a complete democratic politics. There was no separation of powers in its government.

But , Marx and Engels presented the concept of Proletarian Dictatorship, which does not conform to the principle of Democracy. In USSR and in the early period of PRC(People's Republic of China),implementing of Proletarian Dictatorship had made great disasters of country and of people.

In late period of Engels, he affirmed the concept of Democratic Republic, which involves the idea of Democracy, Liberty, Rule of Law, etc. those idea of modern Common Value.

  4. Different directions of application of theory of Marx and Engels

An important character of theory of Marx and Engels is its practicality. Their theory was related closely with worker class . Due to the large amount of workers, their theory had great influence upon whole world. Under the guidance of their theory , in 20th century , there was a large and strong camp of socialist countries, taking cold war with Capitalist world in a long time . As to the organization, there were the first , second and third Communist Internationals and also Socialist Parties International , involving 168 group members

Owing to the inner contradictions in the theory of Marx and Engels, within the socialist movement , there are several different directions as follows:

  1. Socialism with SU(Soviet Union) model

It should be affirmed that in country construction and Anti-Fascism War , the socialism in SU had got certain success. But due to the monopoly of political , economics and ideology, brutal struggle in party itself , SU's economy was apparently backword, and there is no democracy and freedom of people, SU was finally disintegrated in 1991. SU model failed.

  2. Democratic Socialism

Democratic Socialism had been criticized by Lenin and Stalin as Revisionism; but it was comprehensively accepted in many north and west European countries. These country accepted more modern Common Values, implementing Constitutional Democracy, giving more freedom to people and at the same time, they insist on the idea of Social Equity of Marxism .advocating complete social security and people's welfare.

Of course , there are still problems in those countries waiting to be solved.

  3. Socialism with Chinese character.

In modern China after 1949 (beginning of PRC).there are apparently two periods: before 1978, China basically studied the Mode of SU , implementing planned economics , carrying many political movement of class struggle; but economics had been developing very slowly. After 1978, China has been implementing the policy of reform and open up and going on the road of Socialism with Chinese Character. China is accepting more ideas of modern Common Value. China's economics has been developing very rapidly . People have more freedom of management. Human right and Rule of Law has been getting improvement.

Of cause , there is still a long way to go for establishing a country that accepts more ideas of modern Common Value , which will give much happiness to people...

Chapter 12 Hayek

  1. Periodic Background of Hayek

For expressing the ideological trend in the West in 20th century, some philosophers may be selected as Karl Popper(1902-1994), Jean Paul Sartre(1905—1980),Isaiah Berlin (1909-1997)。 But I finally selected Hayek and Rowles, since the thinking of them has closer relation with modern Common Value.

Friedrich Hayek (1899-1992) was a British philosopher originated from Austria .He was born in Vienna , Austria. He got doctor degree of law and political science in University of Vienna . He served as the director in Austria Economic Cycle Research Institute, professor of London Academy of Economics and German University of Freiburg. He got the British nationality in 1938 .

He got the Nobel Prize in economics, but his achievement went beyond the extent of economics.

He had many works, as:

The Road to Serfdom, 1944.

Individualism and Economic Order, 1948.

The Transmission of the Ideals of Economic Freedom, 1951.

The Counter-revolution of Science: Studies on the Abuse of Reason, 1952.

The Constitution of Liberty, 1960,

Law, Legislation and Liberty(1973,1979)

The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism, 1988

His most influencing contribution to the world was his criticism at planned economics and totalitarianism.

As introduced in above Chapter, Mill was a philosopher in 19th century. Hayek was a philosopher in 20th century. In 20th century, there were two world wars. The first world war happened in 1914-1918; the second world war happened in 1939-1945. Between the two wars, there appeared two worldwide trends; one was Fascism of Germany , Italy and Japan and the other was Socialism of Soviet Union(SU),. Fascism failed in 1945 . SU disintegrated in 1991.

In this historical period, the thinking of some famous politicians and ideologists made their contributions to the progress of the world, as Franklin _Roosevelt_ (1933-1945 Roosevelt, Karl Popper(1902-1994), Isaiah Berlin (1909-1997),etc. Among them, Hayek was an extraordinary one.

  2. Hayek's Good Philosophy

  1. Origin of human's morals and values

Hayek's main contribution was in the field of economics, but on problem of morals, he had unique opinion. In his article, An Essay on the History of Civil Society (1967), he presented his idea on the origin of man's behavior as follows:

  1. Began from Aristotle, the origin of man's behaviors was divided into two kinds: natural and artificial.

  2. In 17th century, Descartes presented Rationalism which regarded that man, through his own reason, designed his behavior rules.

  3. In 18 century, Smith proved that market is a spontaneous order; under such order, every man pursuits his own profit will promote the social profit.

  4. Later, man found that many man's behavior rules were produced spontaneously, not by man's design.

I regard that this problem presented by Hayek has very important meaning for us to understand modern Common Value. People do not clear where those common value came from? It should be said many ideas in modern common value were came from human nature , as Kindhearted Love , Liberty , Equity, etc. Some of them were formed or enhanced spontaneously in the development of market economics, as Democracy, Liberty , Equity , Rule of Law. Of course , there were contributions of some great philosophers. But they are not designed by those philosophers, but found or summarized by them.

  2. Hayek's Thinking on Liberty

Liberty is the primary idea in Hayek's philosophy.

What is Liberty? His answer was:

We are concerned in this book with that condition of men in which coercion of some by others is reduced as much as possible in society. This state we shall describe throughout as a state of liberty or freedom.

So, Hayek's definition of Liberty is : the condition of men in which coercion( or limitation) by others is as little as possible in society.

As to Liberty, Locke, Mill, etc. also had important elucidation . But they emphasized the political point of view. Hayek's discussed Liberty in a wider scope, including economic, political, ideological, and some field that Mill did not concern about, as liberty of belief, of trading, of entrepreneurship, of art, etc..

Firstly, from the view of epistemology, he proved that man only has Limited Reason.

In his work, Individualism and Economic Order, he wrote:

Man has achieved what he has in spite of the fact that he is only partly guided by reason, and that his individual reason is very limited and imperfect.

Since man has only limited reason, so man is impossible to design a perfect society based on man's reason. Man can only improve gradually social system depending on spontaneously developed social order, plus man's limited reason.

The marketing order that Smith talked about is just the spontaneously developed social order. In the marketing order, man must make the trading freely.

Hayek's opinion is correct. In 20th century, all social designs as Fascism of German, Socialism of the SU (Soviet Union) and Chinese Great Leap Forward Movement, had failed. In those designed society, no one has the liberty.

Hayek distinguished the difference between Freedom and Compulsion and pointed out that Liberty is the basis of a reasonable society and also the basis and guarantee of social prosperity, including prosperity of economics , politics , science, civilization , etc.

  3. Hayek's thinking on Rule of Law

In his work, The Constitution of Liberty ,the main opinions he presented are :

  1. In a marketing society, all men have selfish thinking .If there is no law, there must be conflict between men. The function of Rule of Law is to establish certain rules making the harmony of society. So ,in a liberal society ,it is essential to have Rule of Law.

  2. In a liberal country , all activities of government must conform to the principles of Peace, Justice and Liberty , which means that the right of government must follow certain rules. This is also the meaning of Rule of Law.

  3. In a liberal country, men's freedom is not limited by any authority, but it is limited by law. Men's Liberty is the freedom within the extent of Rule of Law .

4)Hayek's thinking on Democracy

Began from Locke and Rousseau .political philosophers in general, affirmed the idea of Democracy . But Hayek had his unique opinion. He wrote in The Constitution of Liberty:

Like most terms in our field, the word "democracy" is also used in a wider and vaguer sense. But if it is used strictly to describe a method of government—namely, majority rule—it clearly refers to a problem different from that of liberalism. Liberalism is a doctrine about what the law ought to be, democracy a doctrine about the manner of determining what will be the law. Liberalism regards it as desirable that only what the majority accepts should in fact be law, but it does not believe that this is therefore necessarily good law.

So, in his opinion, Democracy is only a method of determining the laws---the majority rule. But Democracy does not definitely determine the goodness of laws.

Of course, the majority of people will support Liberty and oppose Autocracy. So in most cases , Democracy and Liberty are Compatible. But sometimes , the opinion of majority is not definitely correct . So Hayek regarded that a democratic government should follow the opinion of majority , but at the same time , should respect opinion of minority. Therefore, In a liberal country , there must be freedom of thinking , speaking, expression , academy, publishing ,organization, etc.

In Hayek's opinion, Democracy, even important, is not the ultimate goal. The goal of Democracy is to protect the liberty of people; and the liberty of people can bring to people happiness.

So Hayek supported the idea of Limited Government. The power of government should not transcend the people's liberal right.

5) Hayek's criticism at Autocracy

The most influential work of Hayek is The Road to Serfdom.This book was published in 1944, when the German and Italian Fascism ware facing complete failure. The evil of Fascism was recognized by the world. But how was Fascism produced? What was the essential character of Fascism ?People did not know clearly. Especially Soviet Union (SU) joined the camp of Anti-Fascism ; and SU was a Socialist country. What was the relation between Fascism and Socialism of SU model? People did not clear. This was the periodical background that this book attracted great interest of people.

Hayek pointed out that the origin of Fascism was State Socialism

He said that after 1914, German left wing and right wing of Socialism united together causing the advantaging of State Socialism ideological trend

He introduced the theory of the leader of German State Socialism, Oswald Spengler (1880~1936). Spengler wrote:

The German, more correctly, Prussian, instinct is: the power belongs to the whole.... Everyone is given his place. One commands or obeys. This is, since the eighteenth century, authoritarian socialism, essentially illiberal and anti-democratic, [...]are meant..

(The Road to Serfdom, Chap.12)

According to theory of Spengler, every man belongs to the whole. Every man has only two selection: commanding others or obeying others. All ideas of Liberty , Democracy , Equity, etc. are disappeared.

Such thinking caused the uprising and completely failure of Fascism.

6)Hayek's Evaluation of Socialism

As to Marx's theory and Socialism , Hayek had given affirmation and negation.

He wrote:

The doctrines which had guided the ruling elements in Germany for the past generation were not opposed to the socialism in Marxism, but to the liberal elements contained in it, its internationalism and its democracy

It shows that he regarded that in Marx's theory , there are liberal element, internationalism and democracy

He distinguished the goal and method of Socialism.

He wrote:

This confusion concerns nothing less than the concept of socialism itself. It may mean, and is often used to describe, merely the ideals of social justice, greater equality and security which are the ultimate aims of socialism. But it means also the particular method by which most socialists hope to attain these ends[...] In this sense socialism means the abolition of private enterprise, of private ownership of the means of production, and the creation of a system of "planned economy" in which the entrepreneur working for profit is replaced by a central planning body.

(The Road to Serfdom, Chap.3)

In this statement, Hayek regarded that as to the goal , there is no difference between Socialism and Liberalism Both of them pursuit the goal of social justice , greater equity and security. The difference between them is about the method to attain the goal.

In my opinion , Hayek's comparison between Socialism and Liberalism is correct .

In China today , the leaders of CCP( Chinese Communist Party) presented that China is going on the way of Socialism with Chines Character. China will be insisted on the goal of establishing a country of justice, liberty , democracy and equity. And China has give up the method of planned economy and take market as the dominant method of economic development.

According to the theory of Hayek, China is on the way of combining Socialism and Liberalism together.

3, Discussion about the Relation between Hayek's thinking and Modern Common Value

  1. Some main ideas in modern common value were presented in 18-19th centuries(Enlightenment Movement ) and fulfilled gradually in later period by the efforts of many philosophers. This set of ideas has been pushing the world to go on a bright road.

But it was not a plain road. In 20th century .there appeared two influential ideological trends and political powers: one was Fascism represented by German , Italy and Japan , and the other was Socialism with SU(Soviet Union) model . Fascism brought to the world great disaster. Socialism with SU model brought great obstacle of development in USSR, East European countries and also China in 1949-1978..

In this period, some progressive politicians, as Franklin Roosevelt , etc. and philosophers had important contribution to realize or fulfill these modern ideas. Among them, Hayek was an extraordinary one.

The greatest contribution of Hayek is the deep analysis of the forming of Fascism and Totalitarian and also the strong criticism upon them.

  2. Liberty is the key idea in Hayek's theory. He, from the view of epistemology , pointed out that man has only limited reason. Man is impossible to design an ideal mode of society. Only depending on man's full liberty, man can establish spontaneously a reasonable social order, as marketing economics and democratic politics. He regarded that democracy follows the rule of majority decision. But the opinion of majority is not certainly correct. So, democracy politics must protect the opinion of minority, and guarantee the liberty of people's thinking, expression, etc.

  3. As to the Socialism, Hayek made a objective evaluation .He affirmed the goal of Socialism--- pursuit of more justice and equity , and more welfare of people. But he criticized strongly the method applied in Socialism with SU model, specially planned economics and autocracy.

His thinking on Socialism is beneficial to countries implementing Socialism, as modern China, etc.

Chapter 13 Rawls

  1. Rawls and his Periodical Background

John Rawls(1921-2002) was one of the most important moral and political philosophers in 20th century..

He was born in Baltimore, the biggest city in Maryland, USA. His father was Chairman of local Law Society . He graduated in Princeton University in 1943. In 1943-1945 , he joined World War II. He got doctor degree in Princeton University in 1950. In 1962-1995 , he was professor in Harvard University.

His main works are:

A Theory of Justice (1971, 1999)

Political Liberalism (1993).

The Law of Peoples (1999).

 Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy. (2000).

Justice as Fairness: A Restatement (2001)

 Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy (2007)

A Theory of Justice is his enduring work.

The periodical background of him is :in more than 20 years after World War II, in one aspects ,USA and other Western countries had been getting rapid recovery and development in economics; but in other aspects, there appeared many social contradictions, as inflation, inequality between rich and poor, racial discrimination, Vietnam war, Student's Resistance Movement, etc. Facing such social situation, Rawls made deep analysis and discussed the basic problem of Social Justice so as to point out the direction of improvement of Capitalist society.

  2. Rawls Theory of Justice

As introduced above in this book , Justice is a concept of moral philosophy and also of political philosophy

In Plato's philosophy, the idea of Justice had a very high position. It was the most important virtue ,combining other three virtues: Wisdom, Courage, Restraint.

In 19th century , Mill pointed out that Justice is the general name of all moral requisite, so Justice must be high than other morals..

Rawls' theory of Justice discussed the most reasonable moral and political principle. His theory of Justice is a complete thinking system involving opinions with rigorous logical relationship.

  1. Natural State of Mankind

Rawls' discussion on Justice began from theory of contract which was presented by Locke, Rousseau, etc. He regarded that it is a useful concept to discuss the social problems. He presented the hypothesis of Original position as the starting point of his theory.

He gave three basic hypothesis of Original position:

  1. Veil of ignorance

  2. Mutual disinterested rationality

  3. Maximum of Minimum or Maximin Rule

He made the hypothesis that in original state of mankind, each man was ignorance of the situation of others(hypothesis a). Even man had reason , but they did not concern each other (hypothesis b); as to the distribution of rights, each man asked for the least loss of himself or under the situation of lost, he could obtain the mist profit(hypothesis c)

His theory of Justice aims to a rule of distribution that every man is willing to accept。 Since in a democratic society, only the rules accepted by everyone could be realized comprehensively. This was the reason that he presented three hypotheses.

  2. Two Rules of Justice

Based on above three hypothesis, Rawls presented two principles of Justice , as follows:

First: each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others.

Second: social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both (a) reasonably expected to be to everyone's advantage, and (b) attached to positions and offices open to all.

Explaining more clearly, the above two principles are:

  1. Every man has the same right of equity and liberty.

  2. It is inevitable to have certain social and economic inequity; but there are two limitation :(a) as to the opportunities of positions and offices, every man should have equal right ; (b) The least advantaged members of society should be compensated.

From above two principles, we may understand Rawls' thinking on Justice is more complete than his pioneers. In Rawls opinion, a reasonable society should have following characters:

  1. In the aspect of man's right of liberty, he insisted on the equal right of every one's liberty. So he strongly supported the private ownership of property and marketing economics.

  2. He insisted on the principle of Equity in the opportunity of positions and professions.

  3. But in the aspect of distribution of economic interest ,he insisted on the helping and compensation of the poor(the least advantaged member's).

This thinking is different from the pure Liberals, and involves some thinking of Socialism or Welfarism..

  3. Rawls' thinking on Well-ordered Society and Social Union

  1. On Well-ordered Society

Rawls wrote:

Now a well-ordered society is also regulated by its public conception of justice. This fact implies that its members have a strong and normally effective desire to act as the principles of justice require. Since a well-ordered society endures over time, its conception of justice is presumably stable[...] The stability of a conception depends upon a balance of motives: the sense of justice that it cultivates and the aims that it encourages must normally win out against propensities toward injustice.

(A theory of Justice, Chap.VIII)

In this paragraph, he expressed the following thinking:

(a)A well-ordered society is desired by all people in a society.

(b) Justice is the basis of a well-ordered society.

(c) The common sense of Justice is beneficial to establish a well-ordered society.

(d) A well-ordered society is more stable than other society which is not well-ordered.

B. Rawls' thinking on Social Union and the community of mankind

He wrote:

It is through social union founded upon the needs and potentialities of its members that each person can participate in the total sum of the realized natural assets of the others. We are led to the notion of the community of humankind; the members of which enjoy one another's excellences and individuality elicited by free institutions, and they recognize the good of each as an element in the complete activity, the whole scheme of which is consented to and gives pleasure to all.

This is a very important statement of Rawls , which shows the ideal society of mankind's future:

  1. He presented a very important concept: Community of Mankind.

  2. The Community of mankind is established on the basis of social union.

  3. In the Community of mankind , every one can enjoy other's excellences and individuality elicited by his freedom .

  4. In the Community of mankind, the Good of every man will be an element of welfare of the whole society and e will give pleasure to all men.

  3. Discussion of the Relation Rawls's Good Philosophy and Modern Common Value

  1. Rawls' theory of Justice makes great contribution to modern common value.

In 20th century, modern common value met serious crises. Especially , two thinking trends, Fascism and Socialism of SU model were great attack upon modern common value world widely

Why State Socialism (Fascism) and Socialism of SU mode opposed modern common value? An important reason of them was reforming the situation of social inequity. But the theory and methods of them, military invading other counties ,political autocracy , planned economics , etc. were incorrect.

Even though both of them failed finally , but the problem of social inequity has been still existing.

Rawls summarized the experiences of many Western countries and the theories of many great ideologists and philosophers, through his own deep thinking, based on strict logical reasoning, presented his own theory of Justice which attained a very high academic level.

The principles of Justice in his theory insists on the idea of Liberty--the key idea in modern common value; and the idea of Equal Opportunity; at the same time, in economic distribution, he presented the Principle of Difference for the least advantaged members .

Since his theory insists on the principle of Liberty , so as to guarantee the economic prosperous of a country; and at the same time, his theory insists on the equity of opportunity and the compensation of the weak in society, which promotes the mutual cooperation and help between different classes in a society.

The history after World War II has been proving the correctness of Rawls theory. The economic development and progress of Western countries, the social harmony and common welfare of North European countries, the uprising of Russia, the great achievements of China after implementing the policy of reform and opening up all those historical facts shows the correctness of Rawls theory.

  2. Of course, the contemporary world is still not peaceful. Since 2008, the financial crisis happened in USA; the debt crisis happened in European counties; China is facing to many problems, as gap between the rich and the poor, environmental deterioration, official corruption, etc. To solve these problems , it is necessary for us to have further understanding of Rawls' theory and make further development of it.

  3. The idea of Justice has been a very important idea iin Good Philosophy and a key idea in modern common value. From ancient to modern periods, many philosophers had elucidation on this idea. Rawls theory of Justice, undoubtedly , deepened our understanding of the meaning of Justice, Briefly speaking, Justice is a synthetic idea, which combines the idea of Liberty , Equity, Democracy , Rule of Law, etc.

In summary, Justice provides the society principles of equity and fairness. .It gives consideration to all classes and the interest of all individuals.

Part 2

Development of Chinese Good Philosophy

In this book, elucidating of Good philosophy emphasizes its relation with modern Common Value.

In Chinese traditional philosophy, there were rich content about moral and political philosophy.

As to the connection with common value, indeed, Western philosophy made more contribution. But it could not be said that all common values came from Western philosophy.

Common values conform to development of mankind and the interest of all people. And also, they were created commonly by the ideologists and people of the world.

I, as a Chinese, of course concern the contribution of Chinese philosophy in the process of forming common value. Yes , Chinese philosophers , from ancient to modern time, made important contribution in the process of forming common value.

As to some important ideas of common value: Man-orientation, Kind-hearted Love, Harmony, etc. Chinese philosophers made more contribution comparing with Western philosophers. And those ideas are closely related to Chinese Good philosophy.

As to the ideas of Liberty, Equity, Democracy, Rule of Law, etc. there were some factors (not complete) in Chinese philosophy. Due to various reasons, they have not been developed fully in Chinese philosophy. But the buds of those thinking are worthy to be perished today.

From Ming and Qing dynasties, some progressive philosophers began introducing the valuable thinking from the West and made contribution to modern China.

In the next chapters, the development of Chinese Good philosophy and its relation with common value will be introduced.

Chapter 2-1 Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi

  1. Lao Zi' and his Good Philosophy

Lao Zi was a very important philosopher in ancient China The birth and death year of him is not clear. Most modern Chinese philosophers regard that Lao Zi lived in the same period of Confucius and was elder than Confucius.

The main work of Lao Zi is The Book of Dao and De(《道德经》). It is a philosophy book with very high academic value. Confucius' philosophy was mainly related to ethics and politics. But The Book of Dao and De was mainly related to ontology, which is the kernel part of philosophy. This book has comprehensive contents: ontology, cosmogony, outlook of the nature, of the world and of human life , political philosophy, military philosophy, etc.

Lao Zi's Good philosophy may be summarized as follows:

1) "Dao begets all things and De rears them"

Lao Zi said:

Dao begets all things;

De (virtue) rears them.

Dao gives them shape,

De accomplishes them

So all things respect Dao and honor De.

(Chapter 51, same book)

In Lao Zi's philosophy, Dao means the principle and rule of the nature. De means the realization of Dao. De has the meaning of Virtue or Morality.

Lao Zi presented an unique thinking different from Western philosophers. He combined the rule of nature and man's morality together.

Plato had a similar thinking as Lao Zi. He regarded that since the god is perfect , so the world and man created by the god is perfect. Lao Zi did not have the concept of the god . He connected rule of nature (Dao) directly with human virtue (De)

Lao Zi's thinking began the China's traditional thinking of the unity of Heaven and Man.

How to evaluate the thinking of the connection between rule of nature and man's morals?

I regard that this is a reasonable thinking.

For example, Harmony is the rule of both nature and human society. Harmony in nature relates to Universal Gravity Law. Harmony of human society relates to Love between men . And Harmony is the same rule of nature and human society.

2) Lao Zi's thinking of Upmost Good.

Lao Zi said:

The perfect Good is like water,

Water is beneficial to all things, but is not contenting with them.

(Chapter 8, same book)

This is a very famous saying of Lao Zi.

Everyone knows that water is beneficial to all things. Water raises all crops in the field. Water rears all husbandry animals.. Water is essential for Man's daily life........

But water does not claim any merit of her kind giving.

Human Love is very similar as the character of water. Human Love gives anything to its beloved object, but it does not claim any reward.

So, according to Lao Zi's philosophy, Human Love is the Upmost Good, just like water.

3) Lao Zi's thinking of Inactveness

Lao Zi said:

Dao always remain inactive,

Yet it acts upon everything in the world.

If lords and kings can keep it,

All creatures will grow and develop naturally.

(Chapter 37, same book)

Inactiveness is a very important philosophic thinking of Lao Zi.. It is also his political thinking.

As to the Nature, Inactiveness means not do much Interference upon the Nature. This thinking conforms to the modern thinking of environmental sustainability.

In political philosophy, Inactiveness means giving and protecting more freedom of people.

In the view of Good, Inactiveness means that the great Nature does not only create all things, but also allows all things to grow freely and naturally.

  2. Zhuang Zi and his Good Philosophy

.Zhuang Zi (庄子)'s name was Zhuang Zhou (庄周)。 He lived in 369-286 BC, in the middle of the Warring States Period, the same period of Mencius. In his whole life, he had never held important position in government. He was only a low manager of a Lacquer tree garden. He was poor in life, some times was lack of food. King of Chu(楚) tried to invite him to be prime minister , but he refused. He liked to be happy in poor life.

He inherited the philosophy thinking of Lao Zi and presented his own special philosophic thinking.

The writing style of the book Zhuang Zi is very elegant. Zhuang Zi used many fables to elucidate his philosophic thinking.

His Good philosophy may be summarized s follows:

1)Zhuang Zi's thinking of Liberty

The first chapter of the book Zhuang Z i is titles Happy Excursion. Zhuang Zi described a big bird:

In the Northern Ocean there is a fish named Kun, which is many thousand Li* in size. This fish transformed into a bird named Peng, whose back is many thousands Li in breath. When the bird rouses and flies, its wings obscure the sky like cloud. When the bird moves itself in the sea, it is preparing to start for the Southern Ocean, the Celestial Lake*.

(Li is the Chinese length unit. Celestial Lake means the lake of Heaven)

This first paragraph of Zhuang Zi, in my opinion, is the praise for the Nature and also Freedom.

In this short paragraph, he praised the spirit of Freedom of the big bird Kun. Kun prepares to move to every where as he likes.

2)Zhuang Zi's thinking of Harmony between Man and Nature

In Chapter 2 of the book Zhuang Zi, there is a very famous paragraph:

Once a time, Zhuang Zhou dreamed that he was a butterfly flying about, enjoying itself. It did not know that it was Zhuang Zhou. Suddenly he awoke, and veritably was Zhuang Zhou again. I did not know whether it was Zhuang Zhou dreaming that he was a butterfly, or whether it was the butterfly dreaming that it was Zhuang Zhou. Between Zhuang Zhou and the butterfly, there must be distinction. This is the case of what is called the transformation of things.

This paragraph may be said as the elite part of the book. The kernel thinking is the phrase of "transformation of things (物化).", which means the fusion of all things in Nature and also the fusion of Man and Nature..

It is worthy to notice that he enjoyed his dream to be a butterfly. It means that he felt very happy that he united with the Nature together, which shows his thinking of Harmony between Man and Nature

  3. Zhuang Zi' thinking on Fraternity

In Chapter 4—The Human World, Zhuang Zi told a story of Oak tree.

Once a stonemason came to Qi (齐). He saw a very big oak tree. The stonemason did not look at it. His apprentice asked him: why don't you look at it? He answered: this is a useless oak. If you use it to make a boat, the boat will sink in the river. If you use it to build house, the house will be destroyed by moth.

In the night, the stonemason dreamed to see the big oak. Oak told him: I tried to search a method for maintain my self for a long time. I found that Useless is the best usefulness for myself. If I am useful , can I live for such long time?

This story tells us: Man should not to reform the nature too much for man's usefulness. Man must let the nature maintaining its own nature so as to protect the nature.

Zhuang Zi' s view conforms to the modern principle of Ecology. Man must protect the Nature so that man could have a sustainable environment and economic development.

It shows the Zhuang Zi's thinking of Fraternity that man should not only love Man self . but should love the great Nature.

In summary, Zhuang Zi's ideas of Liberty , Harmony and Fraternity with Nature are very valuable thinking for mankind even today.

  3. Discussion about the relation between Good Philosophy of Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi and Modern Common Value.

  1. In modern common values, Liberty is a kernel idea. In Western philosophy, began from Locke in 17th century, through Rousseau, Smith, Mill, Hayek, Rawls, etc. the idea of Liberty has been deepening continuously. It may be summarized as the following two rules:

  1. Liberty of property right and marketing is the basic guarantee of economic prosperous.

  2. Liberties of thinking, speaking, expressing, publishing, and election, etc. are the basic guarantee of political progress.

Why China was backward from 17th century comparing with Western countries. There were many answers. Someone said it is due to technology; some one said it is due to political system. During May 4th movement in 1919, the idea of Democracy and Science were introduced from the West . Of course , these two ideas are very important for progress of China. But the idea of Liberty had been introduced and emphasized not enough .Famous Chinese politician Sun Zhongshan even said: Chinese people have two much freedom . This situation must have negative effort upon China's progress.

So , the thinking of Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi on Liberty should be paid much attention to in modern China. To day ,we may say that the thinking of Liberty are not all imported from the West; in Chinese traditional philosophy , there was the factor of the idea of Liberty in Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi's philosophy..

  2. The unique thinking in Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi's philosophy is the attention of the Nature. Dao in Lao Zi's philosophy means the rule of Nature.

From the view of today their thinking are quite advanced and conform to the principle of ecology and Sustainable development of natural resources.

Chapter 2-2 Confucius and Mencius

1. Spring autumn and Warring States Period and Contention of a hundred schools of thought

Confucius was the most important philosopher in ancient China. Mencius was main successor of the theory of Confucius.

Confucianism created by Confucius and Mencius was the dominant thought in China before May 4th Movement in 1919

Confucius and Mencius were living in the Spring-Autumn and Warring States Period of China. In that period , there were many famous and influencing philosophers as Lao Zi, Confucius , Mo Zi ,Zhuang Zi , Mencius , Xun Zi, Huishi, Gongsun Long ,Shang Yang, Han Fei,etc. Spring autumn and Warring States Period became the Golden Age of Chinese philosophy.

Why was the case? It should be explained by Chinese history.

Shang dynasty was in 1600-1046 BC (554 years)

West Zhou was in 1045-771 BC (275 years)

East Zhou was in 770-250 BC (524 years)

Began from East Zhou, Chinese history was divided into two period:

Spring Autumn Period : 770-476 BC (295 years)

Warring State Period: 475-221 BC (524 years)

According the opinion of famous historian Fan Wenlan (范文澜) , Shang dynasty was the period of Slave System . Zhou dynasty was the beginning of Federal System.

If considering political system, West Zhou was the system of enfeoffment with a separation of political power. From Qin dynasty to Qin dynasty, more than 2000 ears ,the political system was the system of centralized political power under Emperor Autocracy.

Spring autumn and Warring States Period was the period of transition between the above two political system.

In this transitional period, there was no strong central political power. So thinkers could express their own thinking or theory freely. If one's thinking was not welcomed in one state, he could move to other state to advocate his thinking. Hence the situation of Contention of a hundred schools of thought appeared.

2. Confucius

1) Confucius and Analects of Confucius (《论语》)

Confucius was the most important philosopher in ancient China. He established the philosophy of Confucianism, which had great influence upon China's politics and culture in Chinese history. Even today, his theory still has influence upon all Chinese in the world.

His living period was 551-479 BC , about 80 years earlier than Socrates(469-399 BC ).

He was born in Qufu(曲阜), Shandong province. His father was a general and died when Confucius was only 3 years old. He was cultivated by his mother. He got good education from his mother and grandfather. He was very clever and loving study in his childhood.

While he was young, he was a lower officer. When he was 30 years old, he established a private school. He had about 3000 students, among them, 72 students had outstanding achievements.

When he was 50 years old, he was the mayor of capital of Lu (鲁国). Later he was promoted as the minister of administration and then the minister of public security. But King of Lu pursued personal pleasure and ignored the affairs of state. Confucius was disappointed and led his students to travel to many states advocating his own theory for 13 years. But his opinion was rejected by those Kings. In his late ages, he returned to his hometown and engaged in education.

Confucius' philosophy was mainly remained in the book--- Analects of Confucius, which recorded his talking with his students. This book has very high position in Chinese philosophy.

2) Confucius Good Philosophy

From the view of philosophic history, the main contents of Western philosophy were ontology and epistemology, not moral and political philosophy. The main contents of philosophy of Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi were also ontology and epistemology. But in philosophy of Confucius and Mencius, the main content was just Good philosophy, including moral philosophy and political philosophy.

In Confucius Good philosophy, there are some basic thinking:

  1. Man-orientation thinking

In modern Chinese philosophic circle, some philosophers regarded that the kernel thinking of Confucius was Kind-heartedness. Some philosophers regarded that the kernel thinking of Confucius was Kind-heartedness and Rites. In my opinion , above Kind-heartedness and Rites, there was an more basic thinking of Confucius , that was Man-orientation or the idea of Man .

In world history of philosophy , there were two opposite thinking: God-orientation and Man- orientation.

Plato's philosophy was God- orientation. He explained why Good is the most perfect ; since God (creator of the world) is the most perfect.

In the Middle Ages of Europe, Theology was the basic theory of philosophy.

The age of Confucius (551-476 BC ) was earlier than the age of Plato(427-479 BC) . But in the theory of Confucius, there was no position of God.

In Analects of Confucius, there is a saying:

Confucius did not talk on Strange, Power, Disorder and God. (Chap.7)

But , Confucius talked much on Man:

His famous saying was:

Kind-heartedness means loving men.

(the complete sentence may be seen below)

Before Confucius , There was not on idea of God. In fact , in Shang dynasty, there was strong belief of Heaven and God in the thinking of king and people. Since Zhou dynasty, such belief had been weakening gradually. Coming to Confucius , he never talked on God. This was a remarkable ideological progress in ancient China.

So , Man-orientation thinking did not originated from the West , but from China.

In the West , the meaning of The Renaissance(14-15 centuries) was just the awakening of Man. In 17-18th centuries, the meaning of Enlightenment Movement was changing from belief of God towards the reason of Man.

Man-orientation is the basis of all modern common values

The thinking of Man-orientation pays attention to individual man and also to people and all mankind.

So, the idea of Man-orientation is a great contribution of Confucius to human civilization.

  2. Thinking of Kind-hearted Love

Kind-hearted Love is the kernel thinking in Confucius philosophy. The word Kind-heartedness, in the book, Analects of Confucius, appears more than 100 times. It shows the high attention paid by Confucius to Kind-heartedness.

What is the meaning of Kind-heartedness? The key answer is the following sentence:

Fan Ci (a Confucius's disciple) asked: "What is Kindheartedness?" Confucius answered: "Loving men."(Chap.12)

Kind-heartedness means Love for men (others, people). So Kind-hearted Love and Kind-heartedness, basically, have the same meaning.

Kind-heartedness had some other explanations:

Zhong Gong (a Confucius's disciple) asked: "What is Kindheartedness?" Confucius answered: Do not do to others what you do not wish yourself.(Chap.15)

This sentence,Do not do to others what you do not wish yourself ,obtains high evaluation from the international academic circle of philosophy and ethics . It is regarded as the Golden Rule of morality.

This saying contains several meanings:

  1. It expresses the principle of combination of Self-love and Others-love: Beginning from Self-love and ending at Others-love.

  2. It determines the principle of Liberty: you do not want others to violate your liberty, so you must not violate others' liberty.

  3. It determines the principle of mutual respect in a society. You do not wish to be disrespected by others, so you must respect others.

Confucius had many other explanations about Kind-hearted Love as follows:

  1. Desiring to sustain oneself, one should sustain others. Desiring to develop oneself, one should develop others.(Chap.6)

  2. Is Kindheartedness remote and difficult? If a man wish to have Kindheartedness, then Kindheartedness will come to him.(Chap.7)

  3. Men need Kindheartedness more than the necessaries of life ,such as fire and water(Chap.15)

Sentence B shows that Kind-heartedness is originated in your heart.

2000 years later, Kant's thinking of Moral Command is similar to the saying of Confucius.

Sentence C has a meaning of political philosophy, which shows that Kind-heartedness is essential for human life in a society just like fire and water are essential for human daily life

Kind-hearted Love has the same meaning as Benevolence, which is a very important idea in West philosophy.

Love is the common foundation of different religions.

So , Kind-hearted Love , undoubtedly, is a very important idea of common value.

3) Thinking of "Harmony but not Sameness"

Confucius presented a unique thinking of "Harmony but not Sameness", which was scarcely talked by Western philosophers

The original saying was:

Confucius remarked: Wise men are harmony, but not the same. Fool men are same, but not harmony. (Chap.13)

The original meaning of this saying is that wise men have different opinions, but they will be harmony. The fool men have same opinion superficially, but they will conflict with each other in reality.

In my other work, On Synthesis Philosophy, I regard that the phrase: Harmony but not Sameness" has a broad meaning in philosophy. It shows a basic principle of the world: every thing in the world is a Synthetic Body, which is composed of different parts , buy they combine together hormonally.

In a society, there are different classes and different groups , but good politics may make harmonious relation between these classes or groups.

In academic circle, there are different schools with different opinions or theories , but it is possible to have free discussion between them ,hence to build harmonious relation.

In the world, there are different countries , different nations and different religions , but it is possible to build harmonious relation. The world should be Pluralism, not Unilateralism.

In 21th century, different countries should be coordinated peacefully and harmoniously. It is beneficial to all countries and all people.

Under such background, the idea of Harmony ( Harmony , but not sameness) should be involved in modern common value

3. Mencius

1)Mencius and his work Mencius

Mencius(孟子)'name was Meng Ke(孟轲). He lived in 365-304 BC, in the War States Period.

He was offspring of a noble class family. After the family declined , it move to Zou (邹)。

He was a student of the grandson of Confucius, Zi Si(子思) 。 So he may be said as an indirect student of Confucius. He had wide knowledge and strong personality. At that time , there was an academic center established in Qi (齐) ,he was a famous scholar there.

His life experience was similar to Confucius. He travelled to many states to present his ideas and suggestions which were not accepted. In his late ages, he engaged mainly in education. The book Mencius was accomplished by the cooperation of him and his students.

2) Mencius' Good Philosophy

He was recognized as the main successor of Confucius' philosophy. He inherited the thinking of Kindhearted Love and had important development of this important thinking.

His main views related to Good philosophy are summarized as follows:

  1. Theory of Good human nature

As to human nature, he had a famous statement:

The feeling of commiseration is the beginning of Kind-heartedness. The feeling of shame is the beginning of righteousness. The feeling of modesty is the beginning of propriety. The sense of right and wrong is the beginning of wisdom. Man has these four beginnings just like he has four limbs. (Mencius, Book 5)

Here, the four beginnings are human nature talked by Mencius, He regarded that if one has no the four beginnings, then he is not a man , with no difference from an animal.

The key idea of Confucius is Kind-heartedness. Confucius Kind-heartedness is a moral rule. Man should do things of Kind-heartedness. Mencius raised Kind-heartedness to a level of Human nature or human essence.

Is Human nature Good or Evil?. This is a problem argued both in Chinese and Western philosophy.

In the West, Hobbes presented the opinion that Human nature is Evil. But Hume, Smith, Kant, etc. did not agree with Hobbes's opinion. Hume said Man has inborn feeling of sympathy.

This problem will be discussed in detail in Part 3 of this book.

  2. Thinking of Kind-heartedness and Righteousness

In the book, Mencius, there are many places that Mencius combined Kind-heatedness and Righteousness together.

He said:

Kindheartedness is Man's heart and Righteousness is Man's road

(Chap.11)

In Mencius' opinion, Kindheartedness is the kindheartedness in man's heart. Righteousness is the road that man must pass so as to attain the goal of kindheartedness.

Kindheartedness is man's morals and Righteousness is man's behavior. Morals must be combined with behavior. If there is no Righteous behavior, there is no way to express the moral mind.

Righteousness has the similar meaning to Justice. Justice is established on the basis of Kind-hearted Love.

  3. Thinking of Kind-hearted Politics and People-Orientation

Kind-hearted Politics is the main political philosophy of Mencius.

The main suggestion that he gave to the King of Liang was to practice the Kindhearted Politics. He said:

Practicing a commiserative politics with a commiserative mind,the governance of your empire will be as easy a matter as running thing in your palm.

(Mencius, Chap.3)

Treat with the reverence the elders in your own family, so that the elders in the other's families shall be similarly treated. Treat with the kindness the young in your own family, so that the young in the other's families shall be similarly treated. Then, the governance of your empire will be as easy a matter as running thing in your palm.

(Mencius, Chap.1)

A brave saying of Mencius was:

The people are the most important in a nation, the country is the next , the king is the lightest .

(Chap.14)

It should be recognized that in the feudalistic age, Mencius' theory of Kind-hearted Politics had its progressive meaning. He asked the rulers pay more attention to the interest of people. His theory of Kind-hearted Politics played active role in early period of different dynasties in Chinese history , as Han , Tang , Song, Ming and , Qing,

Mencius also presented his theory of People Orientation.

He said:

When a ruler rejoices in the joy of his people, people also rejoice in his joy. When he grieves at the sorrow of his people , people also grieve at his sorrow....In such a case, he will attain to the Imperial dignity.

(Mencius, Chap 2)

There is a way to get the empire;—get the people. and the empire is got. There is a way to get the people; —get their hearts, the people are got.

(Mencius, Chap.7)

Undoubtedly Mencius thinking of People Orientation was benefial to the interest and welfare of people.

Of course , Mencius' theory of People Orientation was different from the theory of Democracy presented by the Western philosophers , as Locke, Rousseau, etc. Mencius had not presented the thinking of Popular Sovereignty.

Today, it is clear that if there is no Democracy and Rule of Law, Kind-hearted Politics and People Orientation has no guarantee in a country.

But , with the premium of Democracy and Rule of Law, Mencius' theory of Kind-hearted Policy and People Orientation is beneficial to people in any country.

4.Discusion about the Relation between Good Philosophy of Confucius and Mencius

1) In the world history, Confucius was the earliest philosopher who presented the Theory of Man Orientation, or Humanism. Humanism is the basic idea of modern common value.

2) Kind-hearted Love (or Benevolence, Fraternity) is a very important idea in modern common value. Confucius and Mencius were two of the earliest philosophers in the world who presented the theory of Kind-hearted Love. It is a great contribution to the world by Chinese ancient philosophers .

3)Mencius combined the idea of Kind-heated Love and Righteousness together. Righteousness has similar meaning of the concept of Justice. So, Mencius' theory of Kind-hearted Righteousness deepened man's understanding of the idea of Justice , which is an very important idea in modern common value.

4) Mencius' said:

The people are the most important in a nation, the country is the next , the king is the lightest .

It may be said the earliest thinking of Democracy in the Chinese philosophy. Even though Mencius 'thinking of People Orientation is different from the modern thinking of Democracy. But People Orientation is still a valuable thinking in modern democratic politics.

Chapter 2-3 Mo Zi,Xun Zi and Legalists

  1. Mo Zi

  1. Mo Zi and Mohism

Mo Zi' s name was Mo Di(墨翟) . He lived in 468-376 BC ,83 years later than Confucius. He lived in the period between the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. He was born in a family of handicraft industry. He had the technology of handcraft and also wide scientific knowledges of geometry, physics, etc. This was seldom to be seen in Chinese ancient philosophers.

He had travelled to many states. Later, he established a school of part-study and part-work. This school had the character of association with strict discipline.

The philosophy of Mo Zi represented the thinking of middle and low class in the society. His theory and students formed a philosophic school: Mohism.

The book Mo Zi was edited by his students.

Mo Zi had a system of theories different from Confucianism which had great influence in that period

  2. Mo Zi's Good Philosophy

  1. Thinking of Universal Love

When there is universal love in the world, the world will be peaceful, and when there is mutual hatred in the world, the world will be chaotic

(Mo Zi, Chap. 14, )

Mo Zi pointed out: the chaos of the world come from no mutual love. Son only loves himself, but not loves his father. Officers only love themselves, but not love the king. Then the world must be in chaos.

He said:

If a man loves others, the others must love him. If a man benefits others, the others must benefit him.

(Chap.16, Mo Zi)

This thinking of Mo Zi is quite close to the thinking of famous British economist Adam Smith (1723-1790)

In the opinion of Smith expressed in his famous work An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Smith pointed out that everyone pursues his own benefit will finally benefit all people.

The thinking of Mo Zi conforms to modern society. In marketing society, all people are beneficial to each other. In modern world , the only way of relation between countries must be Cooperation and Win-Win. Any hegemony is harmful to the world and people.

  2. Thinking of Equity

Among ancient Chinese philosophers, Mo Zi was the one who had the strongest support for the idea of Equity His support for Equity expressed in two aspects: one was concerning the weak; the other was about talent selection.

He had deep concern for the weak. He said:

One has universal love must give food to hungers, give cloth to whom feeling cold; give concern to whom getting sick, give funeral to the dead.

(Chap.16 , Mo Zi )

Mo Zi' s thinking of Equity advocated the equal concern for all people; so he must pay special attention to the old , the weak, the sick, etc.

His thinking is valuable in modern society to have more security policies for the weak, the old, the unemployed and the sick ,etc

In the aspect of talent selection, he said:

Sage king should implement the policy: giving high position to those who have virtue, and giving respect to those who are wise and able. So, even the farmers , workers or merchants , if they have talents , they will be promoted.

(Chap.8.Mo Zi )

In ancient China, the promotion of officers paid much attention to men's family or position. But Mo Zi ' thinking was different. He paid more attention to men's virtue and ability. His thinking has progressive meaning , even in modern society.

  3. Mo Zi' thinking of No Attacking.

In the book of Mo Zi, there is a special Chapter titled: No Attacking. The basic thinking of his idea of No Attacking is as follows:

Killing one person is unjust, which must be punished penalty of death one time. Killing ten persons is ten times unjust, which must be punished ten times penalty of death. But today, attacking a state (or country) is recognized just. It shows that people do not know the difference of just and unjust.

So, Mo Zi opposed all war attacking other state or country. He pointed out the unjust war attacking other country is a great disaster for people in the world. In his opinion, if you have love for people, you must oppose all unjust war.

Mo Zi's thinking of No Attacking conforms to the political principle in modern world. No Attacking means Peace of the world, which is the great love for all people in the world.

  2. Xun Zi and Legalists

1)About Xun Zi

Xun Zi' s name was Xun Kuang (荀况). He lived in 313-238 BC, the late period of Warring States .It was a period that Qin sate was becoming stronger and won the wars with other six states.

He was born in Zhao state . At his age of 50 , he came to Qi state and became the ideological leader in the public academy of Qi. The book Xun Zi was very possible written by himself.

Even though Xun Zi himself was a Confucian; but his theory began the road of Legalism. Those main Legists , as Han Fei etc. were all his students

  3. Xun Zi's Good Philosophy

  1. Theory of Evil Human Nature

In ancient time, Xun Zi clearly presented the theory of Evil human nature. In the book (Xun Xi) ,there is a special Chapter titled: "The Evil human nature". He said:

The nature of man is evil , his goodness is acquired by training.

(Xun Zi ,Chap.23)

In Xun Zi's opinion, Mencius had not clarified the difference between human nature and acquired practice. Human nature is evil. The reason of that man has the good mind and good behaviors is the acquired education and self-cultivation

Xun Zi said:

Men were born with desire. When these desires are not satisfied, they cannot stop seeking their satisfaction. When these seeking for satisfaction are without measure or limit, there can only be contention. When there is contention, there will be disorder.

(Xun Zi, Chap.9)

More than 2000 years later, Hobbes presented a very similar opinion as Xun Zi's view.

Human Nature is Good or Evil? This is an important problem of Good Philosophy. In this book, it will be discussed in detail in Part 3.

  2. Xun Zi's Political Philosophy

Xun Zi paid much attention to politics .He had following saying related to politics:

①King is the origin of people.(Chap. 12)

②King is the boat. People are the water. Water can carry the boat .Water also can swallow the boat.(Chap.9)

③A king who loves for people will build a stable state.(Chap.12)

④A king who knows how to make his state strong does not use his military power, but does his best to practice virtual politics.(Chap.9)

⑤Law is the beginning of governance (Chap.12)

⑥Without rites, a state cannot be governed. Rites is the way to govern a state.(Chap.11)

⑦Using rites to entertain the good men and using punish to treat the evil men (chap.9)

The above statements showed some basic opinion of Xun Zi's political philosophy:

  1. The statements ① shows that Xun Zi supported the political system of King Autocracy. But he denied the Dictatorship of King. He advocated the Kind-hearted Politics: King must love people,(③)

B. Statement ② was very famous in Chinese history , which showed the idea of People Orientation.

C. Xun Zi was a pioneering philosopher who presented an important theory of combining Rites and Law as the main method for governing a state. (④,⑤,⑥,⑦)

3. Han Fei and Legalists

Legalism was an important philosophy school in ancient China.

Han Fei lived in 279-233 BC. He was the main representative of Legalism in China. He was a son of a feudal prince In Han(韩) state. He was the most important student of Xun Zi. He delivered suggestion to King of Han many times for reforming politics, but was refused. But King of Qin (秦) appreciated his theory very much . Later, he was framed by others and died in jail.

He combined Law, Strategy and Power together to establish a complete Ruling philosophy of Law.

In the Spring and Autumn period, the division of noble class and civilian class was clear. In noble class, rites were used to regulate the behaviours of noble class. Punishment was used to regulate the behaviours of civilian class. But in Waring States period, there was great change in society. Some men in noble class became members in civilian class , and some men in civilian class became members in noble class. So, only depending on Rites, it was impossible to rule the country. Under such background , the Legalism appeared .

Some important saying of Han Fei were:

Manage the country by rule of law

The law does not protect the powerful persons.

Punishment does not avoid the minister . Rewarding the good does not leave the ordinary man

(The Work of Han Fei )

The prime minister of Qin state, Li Si(李斯), who was also a student of Xun Zi , implemented the philosophy of Han Fei and made Qin state becoming strong rapidly, and finally united whole China.

But ,the theory of Han Fei and other Legalists gave up the Confucian Kind-hearted Politics , exacerbated the contradiction between King and people, inspired the strong opposition of people Qin dynasty remained only a very short period(14 years ,221-207 BC)

But we should not underestimate the function of Legalism in ancient China. In fact , in the history of ancient China , the emperors applied both Confucianism and Legalism together .

The views of Legalism , as "Manage the country by rule of law","The law does not protect the powerful persons"etc. are still valuable in modern China.

3.Discussion about the Relation between Mo Zi , Xun Zi and Legalists' Good Philosophy and Modern Common Value

1) From the view of modern common value, in Mo Zi's philosophy, there are more factors that have active meanings

Mo Zi's thinking of Universal Love is closed with the modern idea of Fraternity. Especially, his thinking of Mutual Benefit conforms to the principle of modern marketing economics.

His concerning for the weak conforms to modern social security policy and thinking of Socialism.

His thinking of No Attacking conforms to the modern trend of the world: Peace and Development.

2) The theory of Evil Human Nature should not be regraded as an incorrect thinking. In fact, in the West countries .most political principles , as Democratic election and supervision ,Power Separation , etc. are based on the thinking of Evil Human Nature.

This problem will be discussed in detail in Part 3 of this book.

Xun Zi's thinking paid attention to both Rites and Law. In modern age , of course , any country must have Rule of Law , but the education of social morality ( similar to the function of Rites in ancient ages) is still essential for the progress of society.

3)Chinese ancient Legalism was a ruling philosophy of emperors. So it is not suitable in modern age .But it involves some valuable element ,as "Manage the country by rule of law","The law does not protect the powerful persons", that are meaningful in modern society .

Chapter 2-4 Philosophy in Han and Tang Dynasty

1, Periodical and Ideological Changes in period from Han to Tang Dynasty

The period of Qin Dynasty was 221-206 BC, of Han dynasty was 202 BC -220 AD.

Qin state won other states depending on theory of Legalism, not Confucianism. After Qin united China, many Confucians expressed unsatisfied voice in society。, Prime minister of Qin, Li Si(李斯),a Legalist, presented a suggestion of Burning Books and Killing Confucians . Such autocratic policy attacked Confucianism seriously and provoked strong resistance. Qin dynasty remained only 15 years.

After establishment of Han dynasty, the early several emperors paid much attention to recover the classics of Confucianism . School of Classics was formed

Han dynasty (from West Han to East Han) maintained more than 400 years., After Han dynasty, there was periods of Three Counties, Wei and Jin dynasties.

In that period , China was politically separated ,but there was a great fusion of different nations and also different religions:Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism, which brought great influence upon Chinese civilization.

After then, Sui and Tang dynasty united China again. Tang dynasty was the richest and strongest country in the world in that period

2.Good Philosophy of Two important classics in Han Dynasty

In the Book of Rites (《礼记》) edited in Han dynasty , there were two important articles , The Great Learning (《大学》) and Doctrine of Mean (《中庸》). Both of them attained a high level in Good Philosophy.

  1. Great Learning

The first sentence in The Great Learning is:

What The Great Learning teaches is—to illustrate illustrious virtue; to renovate the people; and to attain the upmost Good.

In Chapter 1-2 of this book , it is introduced that ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle had talked on Highest Good.

So , in both the West and China, Upmost (or Highest ) Good

is the common Goal that Man is pursuing..

From the sentence in The Great Learning, it may be seen that in ancient Chinese philosophy, the upmost Good was related to men's virtue and pointed to men's renovation (giving men creativity and new knowledge) and love for people.

In The Great Learning, there was a famous statement:

Things are investigated; knowledges are complete; thoughts are sincere; hearts are rectified; persons are cultivated; family are regulated; states are rightly governed; the whole world is peaceful.

These eight actions were named by Zhu Xi (famous philosopher in Song dynasty) : Eight Rules of human life.

In these eight rules, the first two are related to study ; the middle four rules are related to man's morality; the last two are related to political goal .

So it is a complete series of procedures and goals of human life. It pointed out that the final goal of human life is to make a state being well governed and the peace and happiness of the whole world. So its whole thinking conforms to Kind-hearted Love the kernel value of Confucianism.

  2. Doctrine of Mean

Doctrine of Mean was an article of high philosophic level.

The most important paragraph in it is:

The Mean (or Equilibrium) is the great root from which grow all human acting in the world, and the Harmony is the universal path which they all should pursue. Let the states of Mean and Harmony exits in perfection , and a happy order will prevail throughout heaven and earth, and all things will be nourished and flourish .

Here, it presented two very important idea of philosophy: Mean and Harmony.

Mean means the a middle (or equilibrium) state of things in the world ,which is different from an extreme state

Harmony means a harmonious relation between different components of anything in the world.

In another book of mine, On Synthesis Philosophy, I elucidated a theory that any thing in the world is a synthetic body , which is composed of different components that exist together harmoniously

Any thing in the world, only when it is in a state of Mean ( not extreme) and its components are in a state of harmony , it could be able to exist stably and to grow well .

In Doctrine of Mean, there are some important sayings , as

All things are nourished together without their injuring one another; all ways run parallel without interfering with one another.,

This sentence has a broad meaning that all men may living together friendly; all countries may cooperate between them without conflict; and all academic theories may exit and discuss together peacefully.

The key idea in Doctrine of Mean is Harmony, which is one of modern common value contributed by ancient Chinese philosophy.

3. Dong Zhongshu (董仲舒)

Dong lived in 179-104 BC and experienced the early period of Han dynasty. He was a famous and influential philosopher in Chinese philosophy

During the period of Emperor Wu, he suggested a policy of Exclusive domination of Confucianism, which had strong influence upon later 2000 years in China. This policy suppressed other valuable thinking of Lao Zi , Zhuang Zi , Mo Zi, etc. and also liberty of thinking in Chinese history .

He also led Confucianism towards a road of mystification .He regarded that all natural disasters were caused by the wrong actions of King.

He presented the Principles of Three Guide: King is the guide of officers; Father is the guide of sons; Husband is the guide of wife.

It was an unreasonable thinking in both moral and political philosophy.

Saying objectively, Dong's philosophy was helpful to consolidation of feudal system in ancient China, but it impeded the liberty of thinking in China for a long period.

4.Metaphysics in Wei and Jin Dynasties

After Han dynasty, there were Wei and Jin dynasties in China. In academic circle, there appeared a school of Metaphusics(玄学), which was a bright page in history of Chinese philosophy.

The main philosophers was Wang Bi (王弼), Ruan Ji (阮籍) and Ji Kang(嵇康)

Wang lived in 226-249 AD , Ruan lived in 210-263 AD , Ji lived in 224-262 AD. So , they lived in the same period .

The emperors of Jin dynasty advocated Ethical code(名教), ( Doctrines of Confucianism) for limiting the liberty of thinking. But there own evil behaviours did not conform to the Doctrines. It aroused the contempt of scholars.

Wang presented the thinking of "Let ethical codes adapt to Nature".

Ruan and Ji presented the thinking of "Following the Nature and transcending the ethical codes"

All of there theories advocated the respect of Nature and the Liberty of thinking, that are progressive in that period

5, Han Yu(韩愈): The representative philosopher of Confucianism in Tang Dynasty.

Tang dynasty was the strongest period with high level of civilization in Chinese history. .

Han Yu lived in 768-824 AD , the middle period of Tang dynasty. He studied diligently and had high ambition in his young age. He served as senior official in Ministry of Military and of Personnel. He had important achievement in literature and also in philosophy. He wrote many important articles on philosophy , as The Origin of Dao (《原道》),The Origin of Human Nature(《 原性》),The Origin of Man(《原人》),etc.

As introduced above, in Han dynasty, Dong Zhongshu had led Confucianism to a path of deviation. The main contribution of Han Yu was to recover Confucianism to the real tradition of Confucius and Mencius.

His main contribution to the philosophy of Goodness was his following saying:

Fraternity is Kindheartedness. The appropriate behavior is Righteousness. Dao(道) is the path towards Kindheartedness and Righteousness. De(德) or Virtue is that one has Kindheartedness and Righteousness in his mind

The important meanings of the above saying are as follows:

  1. He presented a very important concept in Chinese philosophy: Fraternity.

Fraternity was one of three demands of the great French Revolution: Freedom, Equity and Fraternity. French Revolution happened in 18 century. 1000 years ago, Han Yu had already presented this concept.

Fraternity means Comprehensive Love or Love for all people. It is a high ideological level of Kind-hearted Love. So it is involved in modern common value.

6. Discussion about Relation between Good Philosophy in Han to Tang dynasty and Common Value

1) The Great Learning and The Doctrine of Mean in Han dynasty attained a very high level of Good Philosophy

The Upmost Good presented in the Great Learning means the happiness of all people which is the final goal of modern common value.

The idea of Mean means the Equilibrium of things in the world which is the basis of Harmony of things in the world. Harmony is an very important idea in modern common value, which is essential for the Peace and Cooperation between different countries, nations civilizations and religions in the world

2) In Han dynasty, Dong Zhongsuo's suggestion of "Exclusive domination of Confucianism"and also this theory of Three Guides had negative effect on development of Chinese philosophy and civilization . It did not conform to Common Value.

3)In Wei and Jin dynasties , the thinking of Wang Bi , Ruan Ji and Ji Kang had progressive meaning in Chinese philosophy. They advocated the idea of Liberty, which conformed modern common value.

4) In Tang dynasty, Han Yu was a pioneer scholar who presented the idea of Fraternity (love for all people), which is an important thinking in modern society.

Chapter 2-5 Philosophy in Song and Ming Dynasties

1, Periodical and Ideological Background

In Chinese history, Song dynasty was in 960-1279 AD ;Yuan

Dynasty was in 1271-1368 AD ;Ming dynasty was in 1368-1644 AD .

The Middle Ages of Europe was in 5-15th centuries, that was the same period of China's Song, Yuan and Ming dynasties. This was a dark period in Europe controlled strongly by religion. But in China, the New Confucianism of Song and Ming dynasties appeared more rational thinking. This is a reference point to cognize the philosophy in China's Song and Ming dynasties.

The new development of Confucianism of Song and Ming dynasties was named New Confucianism. The periodical backgrounds of New Confucianism were as follows:

  1. Economic development in this period. The tenant farmers had more freedom for managing their land. In South China, rice production had been developing rapidly. The productions of tea , textile ceramic and shipbuilding were famous in the world. The cities of Suzhou, Hangzhou, Yangzhou, and Quanzhou were quite prosperous.

  2. Progress of science, technology and civilization .The inventions of letterpress printing technology, gunpowder, compass, etc. were propagated to whole world. Poetry of Song and Drama of Yuan and Ming attained high level in literature and art.

  3. In philosophy there was a great fusion of Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism. New Confucianism accepted the elite elements of Daoism and Buddhism.

  4. In this period, many famous academies were established. There were free arguments between different academic schools that made influence upon the formation of New Confucianism.

Comparing with Pre-Qin (先秦) Confucianism(represented by Confucius and Mencius), New Confucianism was more complete. The theories of Confucius and Mencius were mostly related with ethics and political philosophy. New Confucianism involved ontology , cosmogony, epistemology, ethics , psychology, political philosophy, etc.

But it could not be said that New Confucianism was more perfect than Pre-Qin Confucianism. It involved deficit , which was criticized by later philosophers .

In general, New Confucianism were classified into three schools: ①Theory of Gas(Qi)(气学);the representative philosopher was zhang Zai(张载).② Theory of Principle (Li)(理学); the representative philosophers were two Chen(二程) and Zhu Xi(朱熹); ③ Theory of Mind(Xin)(心学), the representative philosopher was Wang Yang Ming(王阳明).

This book mainly discusses Good philosophy, but following introduction will be related with wider fields, as ontology , epistemology ,etc.

2, Zhang Zai' s Philosophy

Zhang lived in 1020-1077 AD. He was born in Changan (长安) and lived in Shanxi (陕西) for a long time. He had studied military books, and books of Lao Zi and Buddhism. But he was not satisfied and finally he studied Confucianism and established his own philosophy.

His main work was Zheng Meng(《正蒙》). Its last chapter Xi Ming(《西铭》) was an excellent article of New Confucianism.

  1. Zhang's theory of Qi (Gas)

In Xi Ming ,he wrote:

The great Harmony is known as Dao. In it there are interacting qualities of floating and sinking, rising and falling, movement and quiescence.

So , Zhang's term of Gas has the similar meaning as Material.

This is a thinking of Ontology. Confucius and Mencius had not presented their thinking of Ontology. Zhang made an important supplement for Confucianism.

Zhang explained the meaning of Gas:

One thing contains two facets. This is Gas.

Yin and Yang, these two terminals originally is one .

In his theory, Yin and Yang are two basic facets of all things.

In Western philosopher Hegel's theory of Dialectics, he also pointed out that there are two opposite facets in a thing. But he emphasized the Negation of the opposite facets.

Zhang's theory emphasized the coordination between two facets of a thing ,so that the Harmony is created

  2. Man's Natural Nature and Temperamental Nature.

Zhang classified human nature into two parts: one is Natural Nature(or Heaven and Earth Nature; the other is Temperamental Nature.

He regarded that man's natural nature is inborn , as Good nature , kind-hearted love , etc. are unchanged for ever. But man's temperamental nature is changeable and different between men. So there are difference of Good and Evil, Wise and Ignorance, etc.

So he supported the theory of Good Human Nature presented by Mencius.

  3. Zhang's Life philosophy

Zhang had a very famous saying:

I love people just as I love my compatriot. All things are my friends

This saying attained a very high realm of life philosophy. It shows a comprehensive love for all people. It also shows that man should live harmoniously with all things in great nature.

3.Theory of Principle (Li ,理) in Song dynasty

1) Two Chens

Two Chens means two brothers : Chen Hao (程颢) and Chen Yi (程颐). Both of them were founders of theory of Principle in Song dynasty. Chen Hao lived in 1032-1085, Chen Yi lived in 1033-1107.

What is the meaning of Li? Li means the basic principle of nature and human society.

Their main work was Literary Remains of Two Chens(《程氏遗书》)

Their main opinions are as follows:

  1. Li(Principle)has the same meaning of Dao

They wrote:

The reason of one Yin and one Yang is Dao

In their philosophy, Li (Principle) has the same meaning of Dao . So Li means the basic principle and inner reason of all things in the world..

  2. Relation between Li ( Principle) and Qi (Materials)

Chen Yi wrote:

Qi is physical and Dao is metaphysical .

He pointed out that Qi is physical things , not the principle; And Dao (Li ) is the metaphysical principles. This was a supplement for Zhang Zai's theory of Qi (Materials)

  3. Unity of Heaven and Man

Chen Yi wrote:

Man and Heaven-Earth is one thing.

(4)Nature is the Principle

Chen Yi wrote:

Nature (性)is the principle(理)

Theory of Unity of Heaven and Man was an very important philosophic opinion in Chinese traditional philosophy. It has two meanings: one is that Nature and Man are in a same system ; this view conforms to modern ecology; the other is that Man and Nature have a same essence, which is the combination of Qi (material ) and Li (Principle)

My opinion is: the first meaning is correct , but the second meaning is not completely correct . From the view of science , natural world follows the natural principle , discovered by natural sciences, but human world follows the social principles, discovered by social sciences.

Chen Yi's opinion of "Nature is the Principle"means Human' Good Nature is the principle of human world. Here , he inherited Mencius's theory of Good Human Nature. But Human Nature related to human world. It may be said that Good human nature is the principle of human world , but its not suitable to say that human nature is the principle of natural world.

So ,Chen's philosophy had important meaning ,but it was not completely correct

2) Zhu Xi (朱熹)

Zhu was the most important philosopher of New Confucianism. His philosophy was regarded as the official philosophy in ancient China.

He lived in 1136-1200 AD. He was born in Longxi (龙溪),Fujian province. In his youth age, he studied Daoism, Buddhism ; later he turned to study Confucianism. He served as local officers in some provinces. His main effort was establishment of some famous academies at Lushan (庐山) and Zhangzhou( 漳州),and educating of many students.

He wrote a great amount of works: The Complete Collections of Zhu Xi (《朱文公全集》) had 120 Volumes.

His main philosophic opinions are:

  1. Li (Principle) is ahead of Gas(Materials)

He wrote:

As to essence, there is Li (Principle) ahead, and then there is Qi (Materials)

This was a creative thinking in ancient China. 700 years later, In 18-19th century, Western philosopher Hegel had the similar thinking.

In science, there are facts conforming Zhu's thinking . For example, the rule of Evolution in biological circle is a principle of biology, which appeared at the beginning of organism history . All plants and animals have been evolving following this principle.

  2. Every thing has its Ultimate

Everyone has his Ultimate. This is a famous saying of Zhu Xi. He used Moon as example. He said: there is only one moon but you can see moon at every river and lake.

Ultimate means the highest existence. "Everyone has his own Ultimate" means that everyone has his own personality and his own will. This was a scarce thinking in ancient Chinese philosophy; it conforms to the thinking of Individualism and Liberty. So , this thinking is worthy to be paid attention to .

  3. Heart controls Nature and Emotion

He wrote:

Human Nature is the principle of Heart; Emotion is the function of Heart. Heart is the master of Human Nature and Human Emotion.

Here, he separated man's spirit into two parts: human nature and human emotion. Human nature, according to the theory of Mencius, means Good, Kind-hearted Love, Loyalty, Filiality, etc. Emotion means man's feelings and desires

Based on this theory, he presented an opinion : Man should give up all desires and recover the principle.

This was an incorrect opinion which did not conform to real human nature. This opinion was criticized by many later Chinese philosophers.

  4. Zhu Xi's Epistemology

He wrote:

To pursue knowledge, you must investigate things and find the rules in the things.

This was a rational method of cognizing the world. Zhu introduced this thinking from Great Learning and made further development.

This thinking basically conforms to the method of modern science. So it is precious in ancient Chinese philosophy.

  3. Theory of Mind in Ming Dynasty.

The founder of theory of Mind was Lu Juanyuan(陆九渊)in South Song dynasty.

Lu lived in 1139-1193, the same period of Zu Xi.

Lu wrote:

The cosmos is my mind. My mind is the cosmos.

Mind is the principle.

Chinese traditional philosophy, generally, discussed the outer world or human society. Beginning from Lu, philosophy transmitted to human mind, which led to the philosophy of Mind in Ming dynasty..

Two philosophers of Mind philosophers are introduced below:

  1. Wang Yangming( 王阳明)

Wang lived in 1472-1528 AD in Ming dynasty. He was not only a great scholar , but also an excellent military strategist and politician. At his age of 34, he opposed treacherous court official Liu Jing(刘瑾)。Then he was arrested and put into jail. He was demoted to Guizhou province ( South west of China) as a low officer of small transportation station. He meditated deeply on philosophy and finally presented a complete theory of Mind. After Liu Jing died, he returned to high position and made great contribution in suppressing the rebellion..

His main work was Record of Instruction (《传习录》)

His main philosophic opinions are:

  1. Mind is the principle

He wrote:

Mind is the principle. Are there things outside the mind? Are there principles outside the mind?

This thinking is quite similar as the Western philosophy of Ideology.

  2. On Conscience

To pursuit knowledge, Zhu Xi emphasized the method of investigating outside things. Wang's opinion was different .He regarded that the main method is to ask your conscience.

He wrote:

You could distinguish Right and Wrong without consideration and leaning. This is , Conscience .

Wang 's theory of Conscience was inherited from Mencius's theory of Four Beginning(see Chap. 2-2)

In Western philosophy, Locke, Rousseau and Kant , all had the thinking of Conscience.

So, it is the common idea of both Chinese and Western philosophy. It is a basic problem in Good philosophy.

2) Li Zhi( 李贽)

Li lived in 1527-1602, middle to late period of Ming dynasty. He was born in Quanzhou, Fujian province.

In that period, there were rather developed handcraft industry and commerce in South of China.. Civil class was rising. Li's thinking expressed a certain degree of progress, opposing the feudal doctrines.

His main works were Burned Book (《焚书》) and Stored Book (《藏书》)

He wrote:

Private interest is man's mind. Man must have private interest , then his mind may be seen . Without private interest man has no mind.

This was a scarce thinking in Chinese traditional philosophy. It may be said as the beginning of modern thinking of Individualism in China.

As we know that individualism is the starting thinking of modern idea of Liberty, Equity , Democracy ,Rule of Law etc.

The Mind philosophy of Liu and Wang made a change of Chinese philosophy turning from outside world towards man's mind. Then people must ask what does man think in his mind? Li Zhi answered the question . Man must think of his own interest . So Li's philosophy inherited the Mind philosophy of Liu and Wang

  3. Discussion about the Relation between Good philosophy in Song and Ming dynasties and Common Value

  1. Philosophy in Song and Ming dynasty was the second peak in history of Chinese traditional philosophy. It enlarged the extent of Chinese philosophy to involve more fields , as ontology , epistemology, theory of human nature ,moral and political philosophy, etc,

  2. Zhang Zai's theory of "Two terminals originally is one "expressed that all things in the world are synthetic bodies of different components. This is the philosophic basis of the idea of Harmony which is a very important idea contributed by Chinese philosophy to the world

Zhang Zai's thinking of "I love people just as I love my compatriot. All things are my friends"was a high realm expressing Love for people and Love for nature, attaining a very high level of modern common value of Kind-hearted Love and Harmony

  3. The thinking of Theory of Principle (理学) was that

There is basic principle in the nature and human world . To know the principle, according to the theory of Zhu Xi , man should investigate things firstly .This thinking conforms to the idea of Reason and Science in modern common value

  4. The basic thinking of Mind philosophy is that Man's moral rule exists in man's mind (or heart).This thinking was same as Kant's thinking of Moral Demand. Wang Yangming (1472-1528) was about 300 years earlier than Kant (1724-1804) .

Many ideas in modern common value, as Kind-hearted Love, Liberty, Reason, etc. come from man's mind .

Chapter 2-6

Chinese Modern Philosophy

  1. Periodical Change after Qing Dynasty

Beginning from late Ming dynasty, handcraft industry separated from agriculture. In Qing dynasty ,industry of textile, iron, ceramics, etc. were developing rapidly . China's tea, silk .ceramics were exported well in foreign market. Economic development , improvement of life excited people's desire to be rich , that attacked the theory of New Confucianism of "give up all desires and recover the principle".

In field of civilization, in this period, The Western science and technology was introduced to China. Xu Guangqu( 徐光启。1562-1633) was the first one who introduced advanced European science to China. Emperor Kangxi (康熙) of Qing dynasty studied Western Geometry seriously. Those scientific knowledge must attack the cosmogony and ontology of New Confucianism.

Related to Good philosophy, some important philosophers in recent and modern China are introduced below:

  1. Dai Zheng (戴震)

Dai lived in 1723-1777, the early period of Qing dynasty. He was a scholar of wide knowledges, as classics research, philology, textual research, astronomy, mathematics, etc.

This was the last prosperous period of China's feudal society. But social conflicts were serious. The Man (满族) rulers were afraid of the opposition of intellectuals of Man (汉)—the majority nation of China and implemented the policy suppressing different ideas

Under such background, Dai wrote some important work , as Origin of Good, Textual Research of Mencius, etc. He presented many opinions different from the official theory of Two Chens and Zhu Xi.

His opinions related with Good philosopher were as follows:

  1. Theory of Human Nature: Body and Spirit

Two Chens and Zhu Xi's theory of Human Nature was: Human nature is the principle of the world.

Dai wrote:

While man is born, he has desire, emotion and wisdom. These three are man's nature of body and spirit.

It means that human nature is not principle of the world. Human nature is composed of two parts: Body and Spirit.'

Body is man's physical ability. Spirit is man's spiritual ability.

His theory conforms to modern understanding of human nature

  2. Theory of Principle remaining in Desire

He wrote:

What is principle? Principle is that man does not lose his emotion.

A high moral society should make every one realize his own desire and also make all men realize their desire. It should make every one obtain fully his emotion and make all men obtain fully their emotion .

His theory was completely different from the theory of Zhu Xi, who asked people give up all desires and recover the principle.

So Dai's philosophy gave great enlightenment to Chinese people entering modern period.

2.Liang Qichao ( 梁启超)

Liang lived in 1873-1929 .He was a very important politician and philosopher in modern China. He was born in Guangdong province (south China) in a farmer's family. He was very clever in his childhood. At his age of 17, he studied in a school established by Kang Youwei(康有为), a famous politician and scholar in the period of late Qing dynasty. In 1895, China failed in the war with Japan, whole country was astonished. Liang joined actively the student movement of presenting public suggestions to the Emperor. He was one of the main members of political reform movement in 1898. After the movement failed, he escaped to Japan and established some famous newspapers there. He wrote a lot of articles with warm emotion and strong persuasive power that gave great influence upon later Chinese politicians, including leaders of CCP (China Communist Part), as Mao Zedong , Zhou Enlai,etc. In his late period, he was doing academic research and wrote many important works as Introduction to Learning in Qing Dynasty , History of Learning in Recent 300 years in China , etc.

His important philosophic thinking is summarized as follows:

  1. Political philosophy of Reformism

Through his whole life, he was a reformist .

He wrote:

Based on the existent political regime to promote the improvement of the politics , is the only responsibility of a politician

(A Surprised Problem of Country Regime)

Before the revolution in 1911, he supported the Constitutional monarchy. After then, he supported Republic of China and opposed restoration of monarchy.

Generally to say, if reformation is possible, reformation is better than revolution. In fact in most modern countries in the world, including contemporary China, the success of improvement of a country depends on reformation, not revolution.

  2. Theory of New People with Free Personality

Liang paid high attention to cultivate a generation of New People . He wrote :

Country is a collection of people[...]. If you want a country to be peaceful , rich and respectable ,it is essential to talk on the way of New People

( Theory of New People)

About New People, he had following opinions:

  1. "To pursue true liberty, it must begin with the remove of man's slave in heart."

Such thinking is scarce in ancient Chinese philosophy

  2. Combination of Self–benefit and Group-benefit

Liang asked people to pursuit self-benefit first , and then ,to pursuit group (or people)-benefit .

  3. Spirit of adventure

Liang encouraged people to have spirit of adeventure.

He wrote:

From ancient time, Chinese people are lack of adventured spirit..[...] New people must begin with overcome the nature of inertia.

Liang 's theory of New People is valuable even today. His own whole life demonstrated a good example of personality of New People.

  3. Advocating Fusion of Chinese and Western Civilization

As to the relation between Chinese and Western civilization, he advocated the opinion of fusion of Chinese and Western civilization.

He wrote:

Study Chinese learning, but give up Western learning, Chinese learning must be useless. Study Western learning, but give up Chinese learning, Western learning must be no basis.

Liang himself had deep understanding of Chinese learning. And he had goon to many Western countries. He had lived in Japan for a long period .He had travelled to France, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Italy and Germany, etc. So he also had

deep understanding of Western civilization .So ,he had the strong belief of fusion of Chinese and Western civilization .

3.Sun Zhongshan (孙中山)

Sun was a great politician of modern China, He lived in 1806-1925 ; he was born in Guangdong province. In his youth age, he had strong patriotic thinking , accepting Western thinking of Democracy against ruling of Qing. At his age of 38 (1894), he organized Association of Rising China (兴中会) and began military uprising . Through 10 times failure, finally, he got success in 1911 and established ROC (Republic of China); overthrowing Autocratic monarchy, that maintained in China more than 2000 years. He died in 1925 at Beijing.

His bright achievement obtained comprehensive reputation by all Chinese people.

His main political thinking was Three People's Principles : Nationalism, Democracy, People's Livelihood.

  1. Principle of Nationalism

In early period of Sun, his Nationalism mainly meant : expelling Mang ruler and recovering the Chinese nation.

In 1924, his thinking of Nationalism had been developing.

He wrote:

We do not only want to recover the position of our nation; we should help other weak nations to resist the strong countries in the world.

His thinking of Nationalism pushed the establishment of POC . Even today, it has active meaning in the great career of Rejuvenation of China.

  2. Principle of Democracy

What is Principle of Democracy? Sun pointed out :

  1. Democracy is the political power of people

  2. The trend of the world is : from power of God to power of King; from power of King to power of people.

About Liberty, Sun's opinion was: The character of Chinese people is lacking spirit of cooperation. So Chinese people already have full liberty.

Sun's opinion on Democracy is correct. Democracy has important meaning in modern China, even today.

Sun's opinion on Liberty is not correct. Liberty is the basis and goal of Democracy. It is impossible to have Democracy without Liberty.

  3. Principle People's Livelihood.

Sun's thinking of People's livelihood had several origins: Great Harmony Thought of Confucianism, Western Socialism, American economist Henry George's theory of Land Nationalization.

About People's Livelihood, he had following opinions:

  1. People's Livelihood is life of people—Existence of society, Livelihood of the people and Life of the masses.

  2. He partially accepted Marx's theory of Socialism. He said several times that Principle of People's Livelihood is Socialism. But he did not agree with Marx's opinion that Substance is the main point of history. He presented the opinion that people's livelihood is the key of social progress.

  3. He regarded that in China, there is no difference between rich and poor, but only difference of greater poor and less poor.

  4. He advocated the policy of "average land ownership, control of capital".

It may be said that his theory was a reform of Capitalism . After 1949 , Chinese Nationalist Party in Taiwan implemented Sun's theory of People's Livelihood and got success.

His theory of People's Livelihood also has certain influence upon mainland China after 1978 and got certain success.

4, Chen Duxiu (陈独秀)

Chen was a politician and philosopher who had special contribution to modern China. He lived in 1880-1942 and was born in Anhui province. In his youth, he studied in Qiushi Academy at Hangzhou and then he went to Japan and studied there, joining Anti –Qing movement. In 1915, he was the main editor of a magazine of New Youth. In 1917, He was a professor in Beijing University and Head of Department of Social Science. In 1919 he was the leader of famous May 4th movement of new civilization in China. In 1921, he and some others established CCP(Chinese Communist Party) . He was the leader of 1-5 session of the party. In 1927 , due to failure of revolution caused by the incorrect guidance, of Communist International , he was criticized unfairly. In 1929 , he was expelled from the party . In 1932, he was put into jail of the government of Chinese Nationalist Party (GMD ) and was released in 1937. In his late ages, he wrote many valuable articles . He died in 1942 in poverty.

Chen's main contributions to modern history of Chinese ideology are as follows:

  1. Strong Criticism on the thinking of Three Guide

The thinking of Three Guide was presented by Dong Zhongshu (董仲舒), a famous philosopher in Han dynasty

Chen regarded that such thinking controlled Chinese morals for more than 2000 years, but was completely not suitable for modern China . Chen's criticism gave great progressive influence upon people's thinking after 1911's revolution. From then, social morality had been changing greatly. Especially, the young get their freedom of love and marriage. Chinese women began have the equal position with man in the society.

  2. Introducing the Ideas of Democracy and Science to China

Chen wrote:

If due to my support of Mr.D (Democracy) and Mr. S (Science) , I'll meet all oppression of government and scolding of society , even death , I 'll not refuse my responsibility

Today, while we are reading these words, we must respect his firm will to introducing the valuable idea from the West.

  3. Introducing the thinking of Socialism and Re-understanding of Socialism.

Chen was one of the earliest philosopher introducing Marxism and Socialism to China and the founder of CCP .

Chen was a man who dares to think and dare to act. After he accepted Marxism and Socialism, he joined some others , as Li Dazhao (李大钊),Deng Zhongxia(邓中夏),etc. prepared to establish party. In 1921, CCP was established

The final goal of Marxism is to establish Association of Freemen .This is a valuable thinking. Marx presented the method of Proletarian Dictatorship which should be a short period during revolution.

But in USSR in 20 century, Linin and Stalin took Proletarian Dictatorship as a long period policy of country, causing terrible massacre.

In 40th years, last century, Chen depended on his Independent thinking, wrote many articles with high value.

He wrote:

Proletarian Dictatorship is Party Dictatorship .Its only result is Leader Dictatorship. Any Dictatorship could not been separated from cruelty, deception, fraud, corruption and bureaucracy

The lesson of USSR and modern China in 1949-1976 proved that Proletarian Dictatorship must cause tyranny. The only correct way of country ruling is Democracy and Rule of Law.

Chen's opinion in his late ages had very important meaning for modern China.

6.Hu Shi (胡适) .

Hu was one of the most important leaders of Chinese New Civilization Movement (May 4th Movement) in 1919. Advocating the application of Vernacular Chinese (Modern Chinese language) was one of his contributions. He had many contributions, including contribution to philosophy.

He lived in 1891-1962 and was born in Anhui province. When he was 13, he went to Shanghai and studied in Chinese School (中国公学) beginning contact Western knowledges. In 1910 ,he wen to US and studied philosophy in Columbia University following John Dewey(1859-1952). After he returned China, he had served as President of Beijing University and Chinese ambassador to US. After 1949 he was President of Central Research Institute at Taiwan. He wrote many works. His main work on philosophy was Outline of History of Chinese Philosophy.  
His opinions related to Good philosophy were as follows:

  1. Methodology of Pragmatism.

Pragmatism is the Dominant philosophy in US. American philosophers of Pragmatism were Charles Peirce (1839~1914),William James(1842-1910),John Dewey(1859-1952), etc.

Pragmatism is a view of Truth. James said: It is useful, so it is true.

Dewey presented the steps of pursuing Truth:

  1. Meet difficulty; ②Make clear where the difficulty exists;③ Consider the method overcoming the difficulty;④ Go through reasoning;⑤ Obtain conclusion of affirmation or negation by observations and experiments.

Hu summarized the above method into two sentences:

Bold assumptions; careful confirmation

Hu applied this method successfully solved the problems in the research of a famous Chinese Novel , The Dream of Red Mansion(《红楼梦》)

Hu and his philosophy were criticized strongly in China from 1949 to 1976.

After 1976 (end of Cultural Revolution), the leaders of CCP presented an idea that Practice is the criterion for testing truth. This idea made great contribution to the reformation of China's politics

British philosopher Bertrand Russell(1872-1970)pointed out that these two thinking –the view of truth of Pragmatism and view of Practice of Marxism are basically the same.

In natural sciences, the criterion of truth is coincidence of theory and objective natural facts through observations and experiments..

In social sciences, the criterion of truth is coincidence of theory or policy and the social progress and people's welfare through practise.

  2. Cultural view of Full Globalization

In 1935, he wrote an article , he suggested a view of Completely Globalization. His main opinion was :

We should accepted the new civilization of the new world completely , then we could overcome the civilizational inertia and build a compromise Chinese civilization.

Later, for avoiding the meaningless argument ,he changed the term of Complete Globalization to Full Globalization.

Objectively to say, Hu's opinion is correct. He did not refuse Chinese civilization. He hoped to have a combination of Chinese civilization and Western civilization

3) Political philosophy of Liberalism

Hu was a firm liberalist. In 1948, he published an article—On Liberalism and wrote:

Liberalism, its first meaning is Liberty; its second meaning is Democracy ; Its third meaning is Tolerance for against Party; its forth meaning is peaceful and gradual reformation

3.Discussion of the Relation between Modern Chinese Philosophy and Modern Common Value

1) From Han dynasty to early Qing dynasty, China had been a strong and rich country in the world. Since 17-18th centries, after the Enlightenment Movement, democracy, science and industry were developing rapidly in Western counties; China was becoming backword. After the Opium War in 1840, China was continuously bullied by Western countries; China lost it's power and land ; people's life was getting poor

Began from late Ming dynasty, China's intellectuals introduced many progressive ideas from the West, as Science, Liberty, Democracy, Equity, Rule of Law, etc. This trend forms the basic character of modern Chinese Good philosophy.

2,Dai Zheng was an important philosopher who criticized the unreasonable views of New Confucianism , as "give up all desires and recover the principle".

Man's normal desire, emotion and will were recognized. This was a great progress of Chinese Good philosophy.

  3. Liang Qichao advocated the fusion of Chinese and Western civilization and philosophy. This is a correct direction of the progress of modern China.

4) Sun Zhongshan accepted rather complete ideas of Nationalism and Democracy from the West . He also accepted some thinking from Western Socialism.

5) Chen Duxiu introduced two very important ideas—Science and Democracy to Chins. This was his great contribution to the progress of modern China.

6)Hu Shi introduced the theory of Pragmatism and Liberalism to China. After 1976, China began political and economic reformation; Hu's philosophy shows its value in modern China.

Part 3

Basic Problems of Good Philosophy

Part 1 of this book introduces development of Good philosophy in the West. Part 2 of this book introduces development of Good philosophy in China. Based on the above two Parts, in Part 3 , I'll summarize some basic problems of Good philosophy ,using the view of Synthesis thinking presented in my other book---On Synthesis Philosophy.

Good philosophy is the basis of modern common value, so it is essential to understand the basic principles of Good philosophy.

Chapter 3-1

What is Good? Theory of Virtue and of Pleasure

What is good? Undoubtedly, this is the primary problem of Good philosophy,.

Good is a word to describe that the character of a man is good or evil, or the behavior of a man is good or evil, or the social rule is good or evil for people, or the policy of government is good or evil .

But what is the criterion to judge good or evil? This is the basic problem of Good philosophy, which had been arguing in the West for a long period. In China, from ancient to modern period, the views was basically the same .

  1. The Western Views

In the West , there are basically two theories: one is theory of Virtue and the other is theory of Pleasure

This was a problem related to the difference between ancient Western philosophy and modern Western philosophy, and also to the difference between modern Western philosophy and traditional Chinese philosophy.

  1. Theory of Virtue

Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle combined Good with Virtue.

He said:

The Good of Man comes to be "working of the Soul in the way of Excellence" or, if Excellence admits of degrees, in the way of the best and most perfect Excellence. (Ethics of Aristotle, Vol 1-7,translated by T Taylor)

The meaning of "a working of Soul in the way of Excellence" is very close to the meaning of "Virtue" or Man's morality

Christian philosopher Thomas Aquinas said: "God is the highest Good." Christian Good is expressed in three Virtues: Virtue of belief, Virtue of hope and Virtue of love

2)Theory of Pleasure

The thinking of"Good is Man's pleasure " was presented firstly by Epicurus(341-270 BC)in ancient Greece period. He classified happiness into two kinds: physical and spiritual. He said that spiritual happiness is higher than physical happiness.

This thinking was covered in the Middle Ages of Europe

17 century was the beginning of Enlightenment Movement of Europe. In that period ,there appeared some philosophers who presented the theory of "Good is 'Man's Pleasure".

Thomas Hobbes(1588-1679) combined Good with Man's desire. He said:

But whatsoever is the object of any man's Appetite or Desire; that is it, which he for his part call the Good: And the object of his Hate and Aversion, Evil. ( Leviathan,Part 1 ,Chap.6)

John Locke(1632-1704)is the most important philosopher who advocated that Good is Pleasure. He wrote:

Good and evil, what? Things then are good or evil, only in reference to pleasure or pain. That we call good, which is apt to cause or increase pleasure, or diminish pain in us;... And, on the contrary, we name that evil which is apt to produce or increase any pain, or diminish any pleasure in us.( An Essay of Concerning Human Understanding, Book 2,Chap.20)

Locke's thinking of "Good is Pleasure" had the same meaning as Hobbes's thinking of "Good is Desire", because everyone has the desire to have pleasure. And Locke was just the pioneering philosopher of modern idea of Liberty. Locke's thinking of Good has been accepted comprehensively by modern Western philosophers.

An important difference of Chinese and modern Western moral philosophy is that Chinese moral philosophy emphasizes "Good is Man's Virtues". And Western modern moral philosophy emphasizes "Good is Man's Pleasure".

2. Chinese View

In Chinese philosophy, the thinking that Good is Virtue was dominant. From ancient China up to modern China, all philosophers and politicians affirmed that Good is Virtue.

Confucius said:

Kindheartedness is loving men."

Mencius said:

The feeling of commiseration is the beginning of Kindheartedness

Han Yu said:

Fraternity is so called Kindheartedness.

All their thinking came from the theory of "Good is Virtue".

The first sentence of Chinese Classics The Great Learning(《大学》) was:

What the Great Learning teaches is to illustrate illustrious virtue,to renovate the people, to attain the highest Good.

In 1934,the leader of The Kuomintang Party of Republic of China —Jiang Jieshi (蒋介石)initiated the New Life Movement . He advocated "the sense of Courtesy, righteousness, integrity, and shame(礼义廉耻)". All these are Man's virtues, not Man's pleasure.

In the period before and after the establishment of PRC, Mao Zedong(毛泽东) advocated the spirit of "Doing everything for other's benefit and nothing for one's own." This demand also belongs to the Man's virtue .

In summary, from ancient to modern periods ,it has been recognized continuously that Good is Man's virtue.

Even in China today, the idea that Good is Man's morality is accepted by people comprehensively.

4. Synthesis of Theory of Virtue and Theory of Happiness

What is Good? This is the first problem of moral philosophy. The dominant thinking of Western modern philosophy is :Good is Man's Pleasure . The dominant thinking of Chinese philosophy is: Good is Man's Virtue..

Theory of Virtue (Good is Man's Virtue) and theory of Leasure (Good is Man's Pleasure) , these two theories seem opposite. From the view of theory of Virtue, the theory of Pleasure is vulgar. From the view of theory of Pleasure, the theory of Virtue is conservative

But these two theories are possible to be synthesized

Aristotle said:

The Good of Man comes to be'a working of the Soul in the way of Excellence'.

" A working of the Soul in the way of Excellence" has the same meaning of Man's Virtue.

He also said:

What is the highest of all the goods which are the objects of action?

 0...So far as name goes, there is a pretty general agreement: for HAPPINESS

(The Nicomachean Ethics, Book 1,1095)

Happiness , basically ,has the same meaning of Pleasure. Only man's pleasure makes man feel Happiness

So, in Aristotle's opinion, Good is Man's Virtue and also, Good is Man's Happiness.

Immanuel Kant had a statement on Liberty which expressed the unification of morality and Man's desire:

Freedom and the consciousness of it as a faculty of following the moral law with unyielding resolution is independence of inclinations, at least as motives determining our desire, and so far as I am conscious of this freedom in following my moral maxims, it is the only source of an unaltered contentment . .... This may be called intellectual contentment.

( The Critique of Practical Reason, Book 2,.Chap.2)

This statement has several meanings:

  1. He took Liberty as Man's unyielding resolution which means that Liberty is Man's highest will.

  2. This resolution (Liberty) follows the law of morality;

③ While Man follows morality to have his Liberty ,he will obtain the intellectual contentment or pleasure

According to Kant's statement, the Liberty following the law of morality (Virtue) must give man pleasure , which is the true Good.

Kant's statement reached a very high level in Western moral philosophy

In Chinese philosophy, Mencius had statements:

. ①The feeling of commiseration is the beginning of Kindheartedness.

(Mencius,Chap.4)

②What Man can desire is called Good

(Mencius,Chap.14)

The first statement shows that Kindheartedness is Man's inborn nature. So , to be Kindheartedness is Man's inborn desire

From the second statement, it may be understood that Kindheartedness is Good, since it is Man's desire. It will give Man pleasure and happiness

Here, Mencius linked Man's Virtue(Kindheartedness) and Man's Pleasure(satisfaction of desire) together.

Summarizing the thinking of the Chinese and Western sages, It can be understood that the theory of Virtue and the theory of Happiness are possible to be synthesized.

A reasonable and complete cognition is that the greatest Virtue of Man is to pursue the greatest Pleasure and Happiness of Man .

Today , China and all the world require the synthesized opinion of Good. Your Good should be expressed in loving others and loving people , and at the same time it should be expressed in pursuing your own Liberty and in realizing your own right ,desire and value, which gives you pleasure and happiness.

The progress of the cognition of Good will push forward the progress of whole society in the world.

Chapter 3-2

Good and Human Nature: Good Human Nature and Evil Human Nature

The relation between Good and Human Nature is the basic problem of Good philosophy. Either in Chinese traditional philosophy or in Western philosophy, it was a problem being argued for a long time.

1. The Theory of Good human nature and the Theory of Evil human nature in Chinese philosophy.

The kernel of Confucius's philosophy was Kindheartedness. The basic meaning of Kindheartedness is "loving men ".

But where Kindheartedness comes from? It is inborn or acquired from education or practice?

Confucius himself hadn't answered this question.

Confucius remarked:

Men ,in their nature, are alike; but by practice they become widely different.

(Analects of Confucius ,Chap.17)

Mencius clearly presented the Theory of Good human nature. His famous statement was:

The feeling of commiseration is the beginning of Kind-heartedness. The feeling of shame is the beginning of righteousness. The feeling of modesty is the beginning of propriety. The sense of right and wrong is the beginning of wisdom. Man has these four beginnings just like he has four limbs. (Mencius, Book 5)

According to Mencius, the four .beginnings are the human nature. The feeling of commiseration is just man's Kindheartedness. He put it as the first of four beginnings which showed that he paid high attention to Kindheartedness.

Four beginnings are men's inborn nature and men's essential characteristics. If men have not the feelings of commiseration, shame, modesty and the sense of right and wrong, then men has no difference from animals.

Mencius didn't think that education is not important. He named these feelings as four beginnings which mean that they are the beginnings of morality. Education and practice are still important.

Mencius's theory of Good human nature had been the dominant thinking in traditional Chinese moral philosophy. Han Yu (in Tang dynasty), Zhu Xi (in Song dynasty), and Wang Yangming ( in Ming dynasty),etc, even though they had different theories in other aspects; but as to the theory of Good human nature, they all had the same opinion..

In ancient time, Chinese philosopher, Xun Zi(荀子) clearly presented the theory of Evil human nature. In the book (Xun Xi) ,there is a special Chapter titled: "The Evil human nature". He said:

The nature of man is evil, his goodness is acquired by training.

(Xun Zi ,Chap.23)

In Xun Zi's opinion, Mencius had not clarify the difference between human nature and acquired practice. Human nature is evil. The reason of that man has the good mind and good behaviors is the acquired education and self-cultivation

Xun Zi said:

Men were born with desires. When these desires are not satisfied, they cannot stop seeking their satisfaction. When the seeking for satisfaction is without measure or limit, there can only be contention. When there is contention , here will be disorder. (Xun Zi, Chap.9)

In the history of Chinese philosophy, only few philosophers agreed Xun Zi's opinion. In Song dynasty ,Chen Yi (程颐)criticized Xun Zi clearly. He said:

Mencius's talking on the Good human nature is correct. Xun Zi and Yan Zi ,didn't understand human nature. Mencius was outstanding in Confucius's school .because he understand human nature. Human nature is Good at all. Those evil persons are owing to their acquired characters. (Posthumous book of Cheng Yi)

The later Chinese philosophers had the same opinions as Cheng Yi .So, the theory of Good human nature has been dominant in Chinese moral philosophy.

  2. The Theory of Evil human nature and the Theory of Good human nature in Western philosophy.

Christianity had deep influence upon Western culture and philosophy. In the doctrines of Christianity, all men had original sin(because Adam ate the forbidden fruit). This is the background of the theory of Evil human nature in Western culture. Just due to that all men have their original sin , they hope the redemption from God.

In the history of Western philosophy, the first philosopher who presented the theory of Evil human nature was Thomas Hobbes(1588-1679).He wrote:

if any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies; and in the way to their End, [...] endeavor to destroy, or subdue one another.

There is always War of Every One Against Every One

(Leviathan, Book 1, Chap.13)

This is "the Law of the Jungle", which mentioned by people often. Its meaning is that men struggle with each other, just like the animals struggle in the jungle

The design of Western political systems, as democratic election, the separation of three powers ,the independence of judicature, the supervision by public opinion ,etc .all of them are established on the theory of Evil human nature

Because human nature is evil, it's essential to establish these systems to do supervision and precaution.

In Western philosophy, the theory of Good human nature also existed

Plato remarked:

Of this (means Good) then, which every soul of man pursues and makes the end of all his actions,(The Republic,Vol.6)

In 18 century ,the famous British philosopher David Hume(1711-1776)wrote:

The epithets SOCIABLE, GOOD-NATURED, HUMANE, MERCIFUL, GRATEFUL, FRIENDLY, GENEROUS, BENEFICENT, or their equivalents, are known in all languages, and universally express the highest merit, which HUMAN NATURE is capable of attaining.

( An Enquiry Concerning the Principle of Morals,Chap.2)

So, in Western philosophy, there are both the theory of Good human nature and the theory of Evil human nature. But from the view that Christianity had great influence upon Western culture , and also from the design of political systems in Western countries, it may be said that the theory of Evil human nature has been the dominant thinking in the Western philosophy.

3.Analysis of Two Theories of Human Nature

To discuss two theories mentioned above, it's necessary to understand them from the original nature of human being

In the original nature of human being, there are two basic characters: Individuality and Sociality, both came from the fact that Man is a kind of advanced social animal.

Any kinds of organism have their Individuality. They have the instinct to live and to breed individually. Between individuals, while resources are limited, there must have competition and content.. The survival competition caused the evolution of all organisms. This is the theory that clarified by the great biologist Charles Darwin in 19th century.

The theory presented by Xun Zi and Hobbes that there must be competition between men is coincident with the original nature of human being.

The pursuing of Liberty ,from the view of its essence, is the awakening of Man's Individuality. Man cognizes that the Liberty of himself is his basic desire and pleasure. So , pursuing Liberty is Good. And Liberty is one of kernel common values in modern society,

Therefore, Man's Individuality has two facets, one is Good (Liberty),and the other is Evil(Harm others to benefit oneself)

At the same time, there is Sociality in Man's original nature. Not all animals have the nature of Sociality. But all social animals (as honey bee, ant, etc. ) have their Sociality. They have the instinct to have cooperation and to help others in their group

Human being is the highest kind of social animal. Man has highly developed wisdom and emotion. Both of them cause Man to have love and sympathy for others. Love makes Man to be cooperative and harmony that raises apparently the ability of existence and makes Man become the master of the earth. The Sociality of human being establishes the Good in Man's nature.

This is the reason that both the Good human nature and the Evil human nature came from the original nature of human being. We can't say which is right and which is wrong.

4. Synthesis of Theory of Good Human Nature and Theory of Evil Human Nature

In Chinese philosophy, the theory of Good human nature is dominant. In Western philosophy, the theory of Evil human nature is dominant.

Theory of Good human nature and theory of Evil human nature seem to be two opposite theories. But they are possible to be synthesized.

The reason is that Man has the nature of both sociality and individuality. Man's sociality produced the Good of human nature. Man's individuality has dual character. Under the condition of not interfering the other's liberty and happiness, but pursuing one's own liberty and happiness, individuality is Good. If one harms others to benefit himself, then individuality causes Evil. So , in general , Man has both Good nature and Evil nature,

In the author's opinion, human nature is basically Good. And Evil nature is existent.

Why to say that human nature is basically Good. There are the following reasons:

  1. From the view of Human nature. Man's sociality causes the Good nature. Man's individuality causes both Good and Evil nature. To see human nature synthetically, the proportion of Good nature is more than that of the Evil nature.

  2. From the view of the origin of human being, Human being was originally one of the higher animals. Why human being can become the master of the earth? It was because that he had highly developed wisdom and also highly developed emotion. These two factors caused human being to be the highest social animal. His wisdom let him cognize that to get success in the struggle against beasts or natural disasters , he must depend on the power of Man's group.. His emotion made him love and concern each other. Both wisdom and emotion caused Man became the master of the earth,.

  3. From the view of the history of Mankind, even though there were many wars between countries or nations, but in general , Man has been getting great progress in both material civilization and spiritual civilization, Today, peace and development is the dominant trend of the world development. So the whole history of Mankind tells us that in the Human nature, the Good nature is dominant.

  4. From the view of worldwide religions. All religions has a common doctrine— Love. Christianity has the doctrine of "Love others as love yourself". Islam has the doctrine of "Believe in God and be good". Buddhism has the doctrine of "Deliver all people from torment.". Taoism has a doctrine of " Respect Tao and Virtue". The number of believers of different religions is more than 80% of the world population.

That is why to say that the human nature basically is Good

But, actually, the evil human nature is existent.

In Western philosophy, Thomas Hobbes, in Chinese philosophy, Xun Zi both of them presented the theory of Evil Human Nature.

Their theories explained that in Human nature, there exists the nature to content with each other. In the content, Evil is not avoidable.

In modern Western politics, the theory of Evil human nature is the basis of political system. Western politics emphasizes the separation of powers, the democratic supervision of government, etc. All of these political systems relate to the cognition of the Evil human nature. In modern society, if the Evil human nature is not recognized, it's impossible to have a good design of political system

Therefore, as to Human nature, a reasonable cognition is that: Human nature is basically Good, but the Evil nature is existent.

The synthesis of the theory of Good human nature and the theory of Evil human nature is beneficial to understand the essence of human being, to understand the history of mankind, to maintain the peace and cooperation between countries, to respect religions and to establish a perfect political system.

Chapter 3-3

Categories of Good: Individual and Social

Any society is composed of individuals (or personals). If there is no individual, there is no society. And person is impossible to live in isolating state. He must live in society. This was determined by the nature of man of a high social animal

Human Good must be beneficial to society , and at the same time, beneficial to individuals

Karl Marx had a saying appreciated by many scholars:

We shall have an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all

(Marx:Manifesto of the Communist Party)

This saying means that all men should have freedom. For reaching this goal, every man should have freedom.

This saying shows that Human Good must be both social and personal

But while we observe the history of philosophy, we may find most ancient philosophers talked more on social Good, which means that Good or Morals should be beneficial to society. Society is more important , individual is less (or not ) important.

Beginning from Enlightenment Movement in 17-18 centuries, some philosophers paid attention to personal desire, interest and freedom and presented the Good philosophy emphasizing personal Good. This was the footstone of modern civilization and modern common value.

  1. On Social Good

  1. Philosophers' Views in Ancient West and Middle Ages

Plato presented his opinion that man should have four virtues that are: Wisdom, Courage, Restraint and Justice.

Four virtues were served for the requirement of city state. He regarded that the state should be ruled by men of Wisdom (king or philosopher), protected by men of Courage (soldiers) and supported by men of Restraint (farmers and workers)

If these parts of men could cooperate harmoniously, then the state was of Justice.

Aristotle said:

The end (of Good) is the same for a single man and for a state, that of the state seems at all events something greater and more complete whether to attain or to preserve.

(Nicomachean Ethics,1094)

So , in his opinion, State Good is more important than Personal Good

In Middle Ages, according to Thomas Aquinas, God is the highest Good. Any person can have three virtues towards God: Belief, Hope and Love. So , in the doctrines of Christianity , Good is social, since God loves all men in the society

  2. Philosophers' Views in Ancient China

In Confucius's Moral philosophy, the kernel idea was Kind-heartedness(仁). In Analects of Confucius, there were many sayings about Kindheartedness that contained many demands of the moral behaviors for being an upright man.

There were following sayings:

Confucius remarked:"When directing the affairs of a great nation, a man must be serious in attention to business and faithful in his engagements. He must study economy in the public expenditure and love the people. He must employ the people at the proper time of the year."(Chap.1)

  2. Confucius remarked:"My aim would be to be a comfort to old men, to be trustworthy by my friends; and to care for the young people.(Chap.5)

These sayings of Confucius were related to many Man's virtues, such as: Respect, Consideration for others, Trustworthiness, Diligence, Generosity, Conscientiousness, Charity , Loving people, Care for the old and young men ,etc.

These saying showed that Confucius idea of Good was social. He did not consider too much the interest of individuals, but considered more public or people in the society.

Mencius remarked:" When he obtains the desire for serving the public, to practice his principles for the good of the people; (Mencius, Book 6 )

So, in Mencius' view, Good was expressed in serving the public and people. This was also social Good.

In Tang dynasty, famous philosopher Han Yu said:

Fraternity is so called Kindheartedness.

Fraternity means love for all people. This was also social Good

In Song dynasty, Zhu Xi presented an opinion:

Man should give up all desires and recover the principle.

It may be seen that in Chinese traditional philosophy, philosophers paid much attention to Social Good and little ( or no ) attention to personal Good.

  2. On Personal Good

  1. Modern Western philosophers' awakening of Personal Good

In the Renaissance in 14-15 centuries, man's awakening of personal began.

Dante's Divine Comedy described the suffering of persons in hell.

Da Vinci's paint "Mona Lisa" expressed the beauty of a lady (not of God)

In the Enlightenment movement in 17-18 centuries, Hobbes was the first philosopher presenting the idea of Personal Good. He wrote:

The object of anyone's desire is Good for him. And the object of his hate or detestation is Evil for him

(Leviathan, Chap. 6)

This was the pioneering thinking of Personal Good in philosophy of the West

In 17 century, Locke elucidated his idea on Personal Good and wrote:

Things then are good or evil, only in reference to pleasure or pain. That we call good, which is apt to cause or increase pleasure, or diminish pain in us.

(An Essay of Concerning Human Understanding, Book 2, Chap.20)

Locke's idea of Personal Good was related closely with his ideas of Democracy, Liberty, Rule of Law, etc.

In 18th century, Kant presented Four Principles of his Practical Reason . The fourth principle was:

Your moral rule should be Self disciplined , which means that it is determined only by your own will and not enforced by others  
( Critique of Practical Reason, Chapter 1)

He took Liberty (Self-discipline) as a main principle of man's morality. Liberty, apparently, belongs to individual, not to society.

In 19th century , Mill presented the most complete theory on Liberty. He used the term -- Happiness, instead the term –Pleasure as the main goal of his Utilitarianism .He pointed out that man should have a series of Freedom---thinking .speaking, will association, etc.

  2. Modern Chinese philosophers' awakening of Personal Good

As Introduced above, ancient Chinese philosophers did not pay attention to personal interest or freedom.

This situation had been changed in Qing dynasty.

Dai Zheng presented his theory of Body and Spirit

He wrote:

While man is born, he has desire, emotion and wisdom. Thee three are man's nature of body and spirit.

Man's desire, emotion and wisdom belong to individual not to society. So Dai was the pioneering philosopher led Chinese philosophy facing the Personal Good.

Liang Qichao was one of few philosophers who advocate Liberty in China. He wrote:

To pursue true liberty, it must begin with the remove of man's slave in heart.

In modern philosophers, Hu Shi was the one who had the most clear cognition of Liberty and Personal Good.

In the period of 1949-1976, the leader of CCP advocated the thinking of "Not to be benefit oneself at all, only do things benefit to others". This is a thinking being not conform to human nature and in fact, harmful to the progress of society and country

  3. Synthesis of Social Good and Personal Good

1, Man is a social animal. No one could live separately from the society. A stable , orderly and harmonious society is beneficial to all men.

In morality of a society, maintaining Social Good is correct and important. Many teachings of ancient Chinese philosophy , as what Confucius talked, Respect, Consideration for others ,Trustworthiness, Diligence , Generosity., Conscientiousness ,Charity ,Loving people, Care for the old and young men ,etc. are reasonable and valuable in modern society, even today.

It is incorrect to deny these traditional morals .

Beginning from 90th years last century, as the economics of modern china has been developing rapidly, there appeared many phenomenon of immorality, as officials' corruption, businessmen's fraud, the widening gap between the rich and the poor, the destruction of environmental resources, etc. Under this situation, it is essential to insist on the morals of Social Good and advocate the ideas of Kind-hearted Love, Honesty, Integrity, Law-abiding, etc .

2, Society is composed of individuals. If there is no interest and liberty of persons, there must have no progress of society.

So it is essential to advocate and protect Personal Good. A progressive society or country must promote and protect Personal Good, especially protect the liberty of property ownership, the freedom of thinking, speaking, publishing, supervising , creativity , etc. The rule of modern marketing system encourages every one pursuing his own interest and satisfying one's own desire within the allowance of Law. If modern people follow the teaching of Zhu Xi : "Give up all desires and recover the principle".and the teaching of Mao: "Not to be benefit oneself at all, only do things benefit to others", the progress of modern China is impossible.

3.In Summary, modern society should have combination of Social Good and Personal Good. This is the only correct principle of Good philosophy, which will push forward the progress of country and happiness of people.

# Chapter 3-4

Principle of Good: Self-Benefit and Others-Benefit

The relation between Self-Benefit and Others-Benefit is one of main problems in Good philosophy. It relates to the problem of Social Good and Personal Good, but there is some difference.

In the relation between Society and Individual, Individual is very small entity, Society is a great entity, which relates with the interest of people and country. So, all philosophers in the West and in China paid much attention to Social Good

In relation between one self and others, they are equal. For example, the relation between family members ( parents and children, husband and wife), between friends, they have equal positions.

In relation between one self and others, there is human nature commonly existed in whole mankind: Kind-hearted Love (or Benevolence). The basic character of Kind-hearted Love is beginning from Self Love towards Others Love.

As to the relation between Self–benefit and Others-benefit, ancient Chinese and Western philosophers had deep elucidations.

The relation between Self-benefit and Others-benefit could be extended to wider fields, as relation between different classes, different nations, different countries. Hence, the relation between Self-benefit is extended from an ethic relation towards a political relation. So, relation between Self-benefit and Others-benefit is a problem of great realistic significance.

  1. Chinese philosopher's view on Self-benefit and Others-benefit

In Analects of Confucius, there are two famous sayings:

Do not do to others what you do not wish yourself.(Chap.15)

Desiring to sustain oneself, one should sustain others. Desiring to develop oneself, one should develop others.(Chap.6)

Both of these two sayings involve the thinking of combination of Self-benefit and Others-benefit.

What you do not wish yourself? They are violence, fraud, abuse, poverty. This is a thinking of Self- benefit.

Beginning from it, you should not do these behaviours towards others. This is a thinking of Others-benefit.

So , "Do not do to others what you do not wish yourself", this saying, expresses fully the thinking of combination of Self-benefit and Others-benefit.

Desiring to sustain oneself, one should sustain others. Desiring to develop oneself, one should develop others.

This is an active expression of the thinking of combination of Self-benefit and Others-benefit.

Mencius had a famous saying:

Treat with the reverence the elders in your own family, so that the elders in the other's families shall be similarly treated. Treat with the kindness the young in your own family, so that the young in the other's families shall be similarly treated. (Mencius, Chap.1)

You respect and love your parents so you should respect and love others' parents. You love and concern your children, so you should love and concern others' children

This is a very noble thinking and morality, which also expresses the combination of Self-benefit and Others-benefit.

The thinking of combination of Self-benefit and Others-benefit is completely different from the thinking of Mao. Not to be benefit oneself at all, only do things benefit to others".

Mo Zi had a famous saying:

If a man loves others, the others must love him. If a man benefits others, the others must benefit him.

(Chap.16, Mo Zi)

This saying may be expressed briefly: mutual love and mutual benefit.

In theory of Confucianism, there is difference Love between Love for family members and Love for non-family members. But in theory of Mo Zi, there is no different Love for family members and non-family members.

So, Mo Zi's thinking of Love was close to Fraternity.

In real life, man will love his family member firstly, then love for other people.

But in morality, man's love should not be limited in the extent of family. Man should have love for other people.

The correct thinking is the combination of family love and fraternity.

In Mo Zi' thinking, the relation between men should not be limited in Love , men should be benefit with each other. This thinking has very important meaning in modern market economics and international relations.

  2. Western Philosophers' View on Self –benefit and Others-benefit

In the first century, there was a saying in Bible:

And he said to him, have love for the Lord your God [.... This is the first

and greatest rule.

---

And a second like it is this, have love for your neighbor as for yourself.

On these two rules, all the law and the prophets are based.

(Matthew, 22, 37)

So, Love for God and Love for neighbour as for yourself are two greatest rules of Christianity

"Love for neighbour as for yourself" is a thinking of combination of Self Love and Others Love . It is also the thinking of combination of Self–benefit and Others-benefit

In modern period, there are many philosophers affirmed the thinking of combination of Self- benefit and Others-benefit.

In 18 century, British philosopher David Hume presented his opinion in his A Treatise of Human Nature:

Man has emotion of Self –benefit and emotion of Others-benefit, the later came from man's feeling of sympathy. Feeling of sympathy makes man concern others and society. It is the emotional bond between men.

French philosopher Rousseau wrote in his novel Emile:

The child's first sentiment is self-love. His second which is derived from it is love of those about him, for in his present state of weakness, he is only aware of people through the help and attention received from them.

(Emile, Part 4)

Here Rousseau explained that the combination of Self Love and Others Love is an inborn human nature

From above introduction, we may understand that the combination of Self-benefit and Others-benefit has been a thinking accepted comprehensively in the world as the ethic principle of Good philosophy

  3. Self-benefit and Others-benefit in International Relations

In a broader field , the thinking of combination of Self benefit and Others-benefit is equal to the thinking of Win-win relation in international relations.

It is a pity that this thinking has not been accepted commonly by international society whish caused mush disasters in the history:

  1. In last century, German Fascism (or National Socialism ) advocated that German nation was the best nation in the world and the Jews are inferior nation. In world War II, Germany killed 6 millions of Jews people

  2. In last century, Japanese army invaded China and many East South countries for grabbing land, resources and labours. In 1937-1945, Japanese army killed 35 millions people in China.

Cruel wars are the most important reason of human tragedy.  
After World War II, for avoiding the repeat of human tragedy and maintaining the eternal peace of the world , United Nation was established,

The peaceful cooperation between different countries and nations is based on the principle of Good—the combination of Self-benefit and Others-benefit.

But, there are still terrorism, extremism and hegemony existing in the world. Attaining this goal of Win-win cooperation , the world has a long way to go.

Chapter 3-5

Cause of Good: Internal and External

Why to do Good things, and not to do evil things? What is the motivation of doing Good things? What is the limiting factor of doing evil things? This is another important problem of Good philosophy.

From the elucidation of Chinese and Western philosophers , the motivation of doing Good things comes from man's heart(internal cause) and social moral or political factors (external cause )

  1. Internal cause of Good ( Conscience)

  1. Chinese philosophers' views on conscience

Comparatively , Chinese philosophers talked on conscience earlier than Western philosophers.

More than 2000 years ago , Confucius wrote:

Is Kindheartedness remote and difficult? If a man wishes to have Kindheartedness, then Kindheartedness will come to him.

(Analects of Confucius Chap.7)

It means that your Kind-heartedness comes from your heart, so ,if you wish it , it will come to you.

Mencius wrote:

The feeling of commiseration is the beginning of Kindheartedness.

(Mencius, Book 5)

It also means that Kind-heartedness comes from one's heart.

In Ming dynasty, Wang Yangming made the clearest statement on conscience.

He wrote:

You could distinguish Right and Wrong without consideration and learning. This is Conscience .

( Complete Collection of Wang Yangming)

It means that man could distinguish Right and Wrong by his own Conscience.

  2. Western philosophers' views on conscience

In Western philosophy , the earliest philosopher who presented the thinking of Conscience was Plato.

He wrote:

Every soul is pursuing Good and takes Good as the goal of his all activities,

(Republic, 504 E )

It means that everyone has the nature to pursue Good and takes Good as the goal of his activity.

In 17 century, British philosopher John Locke presented the idea of Conscience clearly. He wrote:

What is consciousness? Consciousness is man's judgment or Good and Evil.

(An Essay of Concerning Human Understanding, Part 1,Chap.2)

In 18 century, British philosopher David Hume developed the understanding of Conscience

He wrote:

### But though reason, when fully assisted and improved, be sufficient to instruct us in the pernicious or useful tendency of qualities and actions; it is not alone sufficient to produce any moral blame or approbation.[...] It is requisite a SENTIMENT should here display itself, in order to give a preference to the useful above the pernicious tendencies.

### (Appendix,  An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals)

Here, he expressed his complete opinion on judgment of morals: for distinguishing Good or Evil of a certain behavior, you should make clear the fact firstly, this process requires Reason. When the fact is clear, the moral judgment of Good or Evil of the behavior will depend on emotion.

So , his opinion was that for distinguishing Good or Evil, man's reason is required. But the more important factor is man's emotion.

We know that both reason and emotion come from man's heart (actually , from man's brain)

In 18th century , Kant, in his theory of Moral Demand he emphasized that moral behaviors comes from the demand of man's heart.

In summary, the idea that man's Conscience has been affirmed by most famous Chinese and Western philosophers.

  2. External Cause of Good: Politics ,Law and Moral Education

Only depending on man's Conscience, is it possible to ensure that all men will do Good things and not to do evil things? The answer of Chinese and Western philosophers is : No. For maintaining social morality, it is essential to have good politics and good law.

  1. Chinese traditional politics: Rule of Virtue and Rule of Law.

In ancient China, there were two methods of ruling of country: Rule of Virtue and Rule of Law

  1. Rule of Virtue

Confucianism advocated the theory of Rule of Virtue

Confucius said:

If a man is upright in his own conduct, he will have his orders be practiced without trouble. But if a man himself is not upright in his own conduct ,his orders will be disobeyed

(Analects of Confucius ,Chap.13)

Mencius said :

Let the prince be kindhearted, there will be no one who is not kindhearted. Let the prince be righteous, there will be no one who is not righteous. Let the prince be upright, there will be no one who is not upright. Once rectify the prince, and the kingdom will be firmly settled.

(Mencius,Chap.7)

These sayings of them means that only when the governor himself is upright , kindhearted and righteous, then all officers and the people will be upright , kindhearted and righteous.

  2. Rule of Law

In Chinese history ,the first politician who presented the theory Rule of Law was Guan Zi in the Spring-Autumn period

Guan Zi was a book written by the successors of the theory of Guan Zhong .it said:

If the government was not carried on by the law, then the country affairs will not be in order, the political commands will not be practiced. If the King practiced the law by himself, then it will be practiced by the people.

(Guan Zi ,Chap.16)

Xun Zi was a Confucian, but he presented the Theory of Joint use of Ritual and Law. He said:

If there is no Ritual, the society will be no order.

What is Law? Law is the beginning of governance

(Xun Zi, Chap.11,12)

After Xun Zi , there was a school of Legalism formed in ancient China. The most important Legalist was Han Fei. He wrote:

Manage the country by rule of law

The law does not protect the powerful persons.

Punishment does not avoid the minister. Rewarding the good does not leave the ordinary man

(The Work of Han Fei )

Both theory of Rule of Virtue and Rule of Law had positive effect in ancient China, which regulated the behaviours of people to be Good.

But both of them were not very successful. There was no way to guarantee the behaviors of the kings or emperors them self to do Good. As to the theory of Legalism, it carried tyranny ruling in Qin dynasty and caused a very short ruling of Qin.

2) Western modern politics: Democracy and Rule of Law.

In ancient Greece there was Democratic politics. But it was only limited in freemen, Slaves did not have any right.

In Middle Ages, all politics and human life were controlled strictly by Christian churches. People did not have freedoms and rights.

In the West, began from 17th century in Britain, especially after the Independent War of US and the great French Revolution, the politics of Democracy and Rule of Law were popularized gradually. The political system of Democracy and Rule of Law are effective ways to ensure the behaviours of officers and also people to do Good things and not to do Evil things.

Of course, moral education in schools and in whole society are also very important to ensure officers and people to do Good things.

These are the external causes of Good.

  3. Combination of Internal and external cause of Good

  1. For raising the moral level of whole society, both internal and external causes are important. It should have a combination of internal and external causes.

  2. Man's Conscience is a strong and very valuable human spiritual resource. A good society should perish man's conscience. Moral education in schools and society is essential. Any government should pay enough attention to social moral education.

  3. Democracy is essential to ensure the Good behaviours of all officers. Rule of Law is essential to ensure all citizens to do Good, and not to do Evil.

Chapter 3-6

Evaluation of Good: Motivation and Effect

How to evaluate Good or Evil of a man or a man's behaviours? Is it should be evaluated by motivation, or by effect? This is a problem argued in Good philosophy for a long time.

  1. Theory of Motivation of Good

In ancient Greece, theory of motivation was dominant.

Plato said: Good is the highest idea. Idea is a product of man's mind( or heart ). It relates to man's motivation.

Good in Christianity is expressed in three Virtues: Belief , Hope and Love . All of these come from man's heart.

In modern Western philosophy, Kant supported strongly the theory of motivation of Good

In moral philosophy, he presented four rules of morality. The forth rule is:

Your moral rule should be Self-disciplined, which means that it is determined only by your own will and not enforced by others  
Principle of Self-disciplined means that Good is determined by motivation in your heart.

In Chinese traditional philosophy, Both Confucius and Mencius supported theory of motivation.

Confucius said: Kind-heartedness means loving men.

Mencius said : The feeling of commiseration is the beginning of Kindheartedness .

Love and the feeling of commiseration come from man's heart.

In Ming dynasty, Wang Yangming presented clearly the theory of conscience, which means good motivation.

Theory of Good Motivation is correct. If a man has no motivation to concern others or help others, he could not do Good things.

  2. Theory of Effect of Good

Aristotle said:

The Good of Man comes to be "working of the Soul in the way of Excellence"

In his opinion, Good must be a working practice. Here , his definition of Good involved the effect ,not only motivation.

In 18th century, David Hume wrote:

### Personal Merit consists altogether in the possession of mental qualities, USEFUL or AGREEABLE to the PERSON HIMSELF or to OTHERS.

### It might be expected that this principle would have [...] been received from its own evidence, without any argument or disputation.

### (An Enquiry Concerning the Principle of Morals, Chap.9):

### His principle of morals is composed of four rules:

  5. ### Useful to oneself;

  6. ### Useful to others;

  7. ### Pleased (or Agreeable) to oneself;

  8. ### Pleased to others.

All these four rules belong to effect, not motivation.

In 18th century , the most influential economist Adam Smith presented a unique opinion:"Impartial Spectator"of moral judgement.

Impartial Spectator has the following meanings:

To have the moral judgement of the behaviours of one self or others, one should not only use the view of himself based on his own emotion or interest; he should have the view of public using objective and justified attitude.

Utilitarianism is an important school in philosophy, which was established by British philosopher J. Bentham (1748-1832)

Bentham's ethics took man's pleasure as the criteria of judgement of Good or Evil. He presented the thinking that rule of morals is the greatest happiness of the most people.

After Bentham , the important contribution of Mill was the establishment of the term , Utilitarianism.

Mill made modification of Bentham's ethics:

  3. Mill regarded that high (spiritual )pleasure is superior to low (body)pleasure.

Mill took the greatest happiness of all people as the main goal of man's Utility.

  3. Synthesis Theory of Motivation and Effect of Good.

The above two theories are both partly correct. A complete opinion is to synthesize these two theories : the evaluation of Good should be depended on both motivation and effect.

  1. Motivation of Good is essential

The sayings of Mencius and Kant are correct. The essential condition of a man to do Good things is that he has the motivation of doing Good in his heart.

According to Mencius, feeling of commiseration is inborn . Every one has inborn love for others.

According to Kant , moral rule should be Self-disciplined , which means that it is determined only by your own will and not enforced by others.

In modern China as the marketing economics is developing, there appear many Non- moral phenomena, as officials' corruption, businessman's fraud, etc. To solve these problems, of course, it should depend on Rule of Law, But It is also essential to have social education and media supervision to raise the moral consciousness of whole society.

  2. Paying Attention to Effect of Good  
Whether a behaviour of a man or a policy of government is Good or Evil? We should not only ask the motivation of him or of the government ,we must see the effect

We can see mush examples in modern China.

In 1958, the leader of China advocated the Great Jump Movement. The motivation of him may be Good. He hope that through such movement, China could have a rapid progress, which will be beneficial to people. But, since the movement disobeyed the objective rule of economics, the movement was absolutely failed which caused the death of countless people.

In 1966-1976, the leader of China launched the Cultural Revolution for 10 years. The motivation of him might be Good( in his own opinion)---to prevent the restoration of Capitalism . But the result was that this"Revolution"made China's economy go to the brink of collapse .

So to judge Good or Evil of a behaviour or a policy, it should see both the motivation and the effect .It should have a synthetic consideration of motivation and effect.

  4. Motivation of Self–benefit and Effect of Others-benefit

In the relation between motivation and effect of Good , there is a special but popular case: motivation of self-benefit and effect of others-benefit

This is a social rule discovered by Adam Smith in his famous work-- An Inquiry into the nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

His opinion was: under a normal marketing economy, every one pursuit his own benefit, within the extent of law, will promote the benefit of the whole world.

This is a very important social rule pushing forward the progress and prosperous of society and country.

How to explain this rule? The only explanation is: under the premise of following the law, every one's pursuit of his own benefit is Good.

In modern society, many ideas, as Liberty, Democracy, Equity, etc. are related with this idea of Good.

In ancient China , all moral rules, as Loyalty, Filiality, Benevolence, Righteousness emphasized Others-benefit, not Self-benefit .

In modern China, we should accept the new idea of Good: combination of Self-benefit and Others-benefit.

Part 4

General Discussion of Common Values

Beginning from this part, we'll discuss the other theme of this book: Common Values. Firstly, we should elucidate the general problems of Common Values; then discuss the different Common Values.

Chapter 4-1

General Discussion of Common Values

  1. Meaning of Common Value

The term Value is usually used in economic science, which shows the characters of a commodity, as Use value, exchange value, etc.

But Value also means Idea in the relation of men. Common values mean that these values are created by the whole world and have common active meaning for all countries in the world.

There is another term commonly used in academic and ideological circle: Universal Value.

Common Value and Universal Value, these two terms basically have the same meaning.

Why I used Common Value instead of Universal Value?

The concept of Universal Value came from Christianity. In the early period of Christianity, due to the purpose of popularizing the Belief that God and Jesus would rescue all men, not only the Jews. It was emphasized that the doctrine of Christianity had the Universal Value.

Of course , today ,the term Universal Value is not limited in its original meaning . It includes many modern ideas of politics as Liberty , Democracy, Equality, Rule of Law, etc. But usually, the term of Universal value involves those Values coming from the West and neglect some important Values coming from other civilized country , as China, etc.

The term of Common Value emphasizes that those important Values are created commonly from the whole world and they are benefit commonly in the whole world.

In this book, the term of Common Value means Modern Common Values . It shows that these common values are suitable and valuable in modern society. These two terms, Common Value and Modern Common Value are alternatively used in this book . They have the same meaning.

Up to now, there is no public cognition of the contents of common values in the world.

In this book, the author summarizes 12 common values from the Good philosophy of Western and Chinese philosophy for discussion.

They are:

1) Humanity (or Man-orientation),

2) Human Love (or Kind-hearted Love, Benevolence) ,

3) Liberty,

4) Reason (or Science),'

5) Democracy,

6) Rule of Law,

7) Equality,

8) Human Right,

9) Constitutionalism,

10) Justice,

11) Harmony

12) Happiness.

How many and what ideas should be included in extend of Modern Common Values? In China and the world, there are some consensuses, but there are also different opinions.

My opinion is opened for discussion.

In these 12 values, most of them are recognized commonly in the world, as to some values, there may be different views..

These 12 common values have some common characters:

  1. They all relate with human nature;

  2. They all relate with reasonable social rules;

  3. They are all essential for modern society;

  4. They all relate with human happiness.

So , the complete meaning of common value is: they are created by the whole world; they are beneficial to the whole world; they all conform to human nature; they are all essential for modern society ; and they all lead toward to human happiness..

  2. Contents of common Values

About these 12 common values, some problems may be discussed:

  1. On Humanity (or Man-orientation)

Talking on common value (or universal value) , people usually mention Human Right, not Man-orientation. In fact the idea of Men-orientation has more basic meaning than Human Right. I regard that Man-orientation is the basis idea of all other common values. Other ideas in common value all come from the idea of Man-orientation.

In the world, the first philosopher who presented the idea of Man-orientation was Confucius. He said that:

It is the Man that can make the Way great, and not the Way makes the Man great.

( The Analects of Confucius, Chapter 15)

  2. On Human Love ( or Kind-hearted Love, Benevolence)

In modern period, someone does not put Human Love or Kind-hearted Love in Common Value.

But the facts are: the idea of Human Love (or Love, Kind-hearted Love, Benevolence) has been comprehensively accepted by philosophers in the ancient and modern China and the West.

In ancient China, Confucius and Mencius put Kind-hearted Love at a very important position. In the West, Plato, Aristotle, Hume, Rousseau, Smith, etc. all paid high attention to Love or Benevolence.

Love is an idea accepted by all religions in the world.

So I insist on putting Human Love (or Kind-hearted Love, Benevolence) in Common Value in this book.

  3. On Reason

In the articles discussing Common value (or Universal value), generally people do not discuss the idea of Reason. But modern civilization is established on the basis of Human Reason. The idea of Reason is accepted by all countries in the world .We have no reason to delete this important idea in Common Value.

  4. On Harmony

This is an idea of Chinese traditional philosophy. Is it Suitable to put this idea in Common Value? We'll discuss this problem in Chapter 5-6 of this book.

  5. Liberty, Democracy, Equality, Rule of Law, Human Right ,etc. are accepted by all people in the world without argument .

  3. The Commonness of Common Value

Some people have doubts about Common Value. They regard that different nations, different countries and different social classes must have different value. So, there is absolutely no common value in the world.

So, it is necessary to discuss why there are common value in the world which could be accepted by all nations, countries and social classes in the world..

In my opinion, there are mainly two reasons that common value existing in the world.

  1. Common Value comes from Common Human Nature

All men in the world, no matter their country nation, class , religion, all belong to mankind. Mankind is the highest animal on the Earth. All men come from the same species.so they must have same human nature.

Liberty and Equality are common values of men recognized by all people in the world. Why is it the case?

Rousseau answered the question: All men ere born equal and free.

It means that Liberty and Equality come from human nature.

From the view of biological evolution, Equality has earlier origin . Individuals of any animal are born equal. The ability of individuals may have some small difference, but there is no privilege of one individual over others. There is difference between queen bee and worker bee. But this is only instinctive division of labour, not difference of classes.

As to Liberty, according to Rousseau, Liberty is a unique nature of human being. While meeting a tiger or wolf, all sheep will escape. But men, due to their different will, will have different free decisions. Some men may escape; but some men may fight with tiger or wolf using their tools. This is man's free will, which makes man different from all other animals.

As to Kind-hearted love, according to the theory of Mencius, it belongs to man's inborn nature.

Mencius presented his theory of Four Beginnings (see Chap.2-2)

The feeling of commiseration is the beginning of Kind-heartedness [...] Man has these four beginnings just like he has four limbs. (Mencius, Book 5)

So, four beginning of man all come from human nature, just like four limbs of man

Reason is an unique nature of human being . Among all animals , only human being has the nature of Reason . This nature makes man become the master of the Earth

  2. Common Value is Essential for Modern Society

The other ideas of common value as Democracy, Rule of Law, Human Right, etc. could not be said come from human nature. But they are essential for building a modern society.

Some ideas were not recognized in ancient period, neither in China, nor in the West. But since Enlightenment Movement in 17-18 centuries, those ideas have been comprehensively in the world.  
In modern society, three factors are essential:

  1. Progress of Science and technology ( related with Reason)

  2. Rapid development of economy

  3. Establishment of modern politics of Democracy and Rule of Law.

The practices proved that any country, if its goal is to establish a modern society, it is absolutely necessary to recognize and implement the progressive political system of Democracy and Rule of Law. You cannot find any exception in the world.

  4. Good Philosophy is the Theoretical Basis of Modern Common Value

Why is Good philosophy the theoretical basis of modern common value? The reasons are as follows:

  1. Good philosophy is the combination of moral philosophy and political philosophy. In the above 12 common values, some come from moral philosophy, as Man-orientation, Liberty, Kind-hearted Love, Equality; some from political philosophy ,as Democracy ,Rule of Law, Human Right , Constitutionalism, etc.

In fact , there is a common theme of moral and political philosophy , That is Good(or Goodness). Moral philosophy discusses Good behaviours; Political philosophy discusses Good governance.

Many philosophers regard that there is very close relation between moral philosophy and political philosophy.

Aristotle said:

The end (of Good) is the same for a single man and for a state..

(Nicomachean Ethics, 1094)

The Good of single man is morals. The Good of state is good politics.

His saying showed that there is close relation and sameness between good morals and good politics

  2. Aristotle said: Happiness is the highest Good of mankind. All ideas of modern common value take Happiness as their final goal .

For reaching the final goal—happiness, only a few ideas are not enough. It requires a set of ideas. They form a complete system of ideas.

For example, Liberty is an important idea for reaching man's happiness. But Liberty is closely related with Democracy , Rule of Law, Equality , Human right, etc. If there is no the later ideas , there will be no Liberty at all.

  3. Good is a social concept. As to a single man , there is no meaning of Good.

Aristotle said:

In essence, Man is a political animal.

(Politics, 1253)

It means that Man is a social animal. This saying conforms to human nature.

So, Man's happiness must be found in Man's social life. Modern Common Values are just the social rules conforming Man's happiness,

According above reasons, modern common value should take Good philosophy as its theoretical basis.

5, Common Value is the Inner Rule of Modern Society

Modern Common Value is not Outer Rule designed by some philosophers or politicians. It is Inner Rule existed in a reasonable modern society.

Just like Law of Universal Gravitation and Theory of Relativity were discovered by Newton and Einstein respectively. These two great theories were not designed by them. They are the inner rules existed in the cosmos.

In Common Values, some ones were discovered in ancient period of man's history . For example the idea of Kind-hearted Love was found by Confucius and Mencius more than 2000 years ago.

The early meaning of Equality was an idea existed in Bible. And the philosophic meaning of Equality was discovered by Hobbes in 17 century.

As to Liberty, the original meaning of it was found by Lao Zi , Zhuang Zi more than 2000 years ago . And the philosophic or political meaning of Liberty was found by Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, etc. in 17-18th centuries. They presented the theory that Liberty is the natural right of Man. Natural Right means that Liberty is Man's inborn nature.

As to Rule of Law, someone might regard that it was designed by some philosophers or politicians. But the fact is that there was Natural Law existed in human society in very early period of Man's history.

  6. Common Value is summarized from historical experience of mankind

From ancient to modern period of Man's history , some great philosophers had presented some Ideals of mankind, as "Republic" presented by Plato(427-347 BC) , "Utopia" presented by Thomas More in 1516, "World of Great Harmony" presented by Chinese philosopher Kang Youwei(康有为) in 1902. , Communism presented by Karl Marx.

Those ideals of mankind gave men enlightenment and encouragement. But some of them are fantasies; some of them have not been proved yet.

Modern common value is not an ideal of mankind presented by philosophers or politicians. It is the summary of Man's historical practice in more than 2000 years.

Some ideas in common values were presented firstly by some philosophers, but they have been enriched and revised by many other philosophers. Especially they have been proved in the practical experiences in human history

For example the ideas of Liberty, Democracy , Equality , Rule of Law, etc. had been proved by British Glorious Revolution in 1688, American War of Independence in 1775-1783, The great French Revolution in 1789, European Revolution in 1848, Two World Wars in 20th century, Disintegration of USSR in 1991, China's Reformation began from 1978, etc.

Just because modern common value is summary of practice of the people in the whole world, it has the character of Openness. It will continue to be developing and enriching in the future.

So, Modern Common Value belongs to the whole world . It dose not only belong to a few countries. .

  6. Common Value is not the Ultimate Value and it is not a Belief or a Doctrine

People like to have an Ultimate Value or an Ultimate Belief. In different religions, there are different Ultimate Believes.

There is freedom of Belief protected by law in most countries in the world. So, we could not deny these Ultimate Believes. Different Ultimate believes should be allowed to be believed in the extent of Law.

But modern common value is not an Ultimate belief or a certain kind of Doctrine.

Modern common value is opened for discussion, for argument and opposition. Since in modern common value, there is the idea of Liberty. Any discussion, even opposition should be allowed in modern society. To understand Modern Common Value, the only thing which is required is man's Reason .Anyone, through his own Reason may understand the rationality of those ideas in modern common value

The contents of modern common value are opened to be discussed or opposed. Through free discussion, people will obtain a more perfect understanding of modern common value

  6. Modern common value does not provide fixed model, each country will have its own model.

Modern common value involves a series of Ideas. So called Idea or Value is an abstract concept. It does not mean special political model.

For example, Democracy is one of modern common values. But different countries could have different Democratic models.

In Britain, the country implements Democratic politics , but it remains the position of Queen.

USA implements the presidential democratic system, combining with Two parties system.

France implements the half presidential democratic system combining with Multi-Party system

In China today, it implements the Socialism system with Chinese Character. It takes the system of one party ruling and multi-party's cooperation. China implements the form of democratic system of National People's Congress.

  6. All countries in the world are awaiting the endless improvement of modern common value

Up to now, no country in the world is dare to say that it has perfectly implemented the modern common value.

Since 2008, USA has emerged in the financial crisis and Europe has emerged the debt crisis. The problem of inequality between the rich and the poor is serious in many countries including China .

After the reformation began from 1978, China's economy has been developing rapidly, but the problems of corruption of officers and deterioration of the environment, etc. are serious.

All countries in the world have not realized perfectly modern common value. All of them have a long way to go to be perfect implementing modern common value.

  6. Modern Common Value is the Guarantee of the Peace and Progress of the world .

After the finish of World War II in 1945 and of Cold War in 1991, the world is going on the correct way of Peace and Development.

But the world is not really peaceful yet. There are Terrorism, Extremism, local war and regional conflicts existed in the world

There are about 1 billion people still lived below the poverty guideline.

As the world economy is developing, the earth's environmental resources have been seriously damaged.

Modern Common Value, summarized by all people in the world may provide powerful thinking to overcome those problems in the world.

Modern Common Value will lead mankind to go forward on the road of Peace, Cooperation, Prosperous and man's Happiness.

Of course, all ideas in Modern Common Value should be deepened and enriched continuously in the future.

Part 5

Partial Discussion of Modern Common Values

In this book, 12 modern common values are listed

They are:

1) Humanity (or Man-orientation),

2) Human Love (or Kind-hearted Love, Benevolence) ,

3) Liberty,

4) Reason (or Science),'

5) Democracy,

6) Rule of Law,

7) Equality,

8) Human Right,

9) Constitutionalism,

10) Justice,

11) Harmony

12) Happiness.

How many and what ideas should be included in extend of Modern Common Values? In China and the world, there are some consensuses, but there are also different opinions.

My opinion is opened for discussion.

Above 12 modern common values may be classified into three catalogues:

  1. Related with basic human nature: Man-orientation, Kind-hearted Love, Equality , Liberty, and Reason;

  2. Related with reasonable social rules: Democracy , Rule of Law, Human Right and Constitutionalism;

  3. Related with goals of human society: Justice , Harmony and Happiness

The next six chapters will discuss them respectively.

Chapter 5-1

Humanity and Human Love

  1. Humanity(or Man-orientation)

The basic meaning of Humanity (or Man-orientation) is: All activities of human society should take Man as the goal; there is no any other goal

I regarded that among all modern common values, Humanity (Man-orientation) is the fundamental idea. It is the starting point of all other ideas.

Humanity (or Man-orientation) is related with Humanism , but they are not the same concept., Humanity (or Man-orientation) is an idea ; Humanism is a modern theory f philosophy.

  1. Humanity (Man-orientation ) in Chinese philosophy

The idea of Humanity (Man-orientation) was presented much earlier in China than in the West. It may be said that Man-orientation was the basic idea of Chinese philosophy.

In ancient period, the basic philosophy in ancient Greece and Middle Ages was the theory of God. But the basic philosophy in ancient China was the theory of Man.

Confucius had many sayings expressing his idea of Man-orientation.

Fan Ci (a Confucius's disciple) asked: "What is Kindheartedness?" Confucius answered: "Loving men."(Chap.12)

Confucius did not talk on Strange, Power, Disorder and God. (Chap.7)

Desiring to sustain oneself, one should sustain others. Desiring to develop oneself, one should develop others.(Chap.6)

Do not do to others what you do not wish yourself.(Chap.15)

Mencius inherited the thinking of Man-orientation of Confucius. He said:

Kindheartedness is Man's heart and Righteousness is Man's road

(Chap.11)

Mo Zi's thinking also took Man as the starting point. He said:

One has universal love must give food to hungers, give cloth to whom feeling cold; give concern to whom getting sick, give funeral to the dead.

(Chap.16, Mo Zi )

In Song dynasty, Zhang Zai had a famous saying:

I love people just as I love my compatriot. All things are my friends

The thinking of Man-orientation had been also expressed in many famous ancient and modern poetries, novels and dramas.

2) Elucidation of thinking of Humanity in the West

(1) Theory of God in ancient and Middle Ages of the West

In Ancient Greece, the dominant thinking was theory of God , not Man .

Plato said:

The Creator is perfect. He is justice for all things and not partial to anything. He hopes all things alike himself. This is the starting point for creating all things and the cosmos.

(Timaeus,29E)

The Creator in his saying meant God.

In Middle Ages, Aquinas said:

Since Good exists in God as the most perfect form, so, God is regarded as the highest Good

( _Summa theologian)_

(2) Rising of Humanism in the Renaissance

Renaissance began at Italy in 14th century and was rising in west European countries in 15-16 centuries.

Dante's poetry: "Divine Comedy" , Da Vinci's paint: "Mona Lisa", Shakespeare' s dramas were the mark works of Renaissance, All those famous literatures and arts awakened the conscience of Man and let people return to the world of Man , instead of the world of God.

(3) Enlightenment Movement and Humanity in Kant' philosophy

Kant was the most important philosophers in the Enlightenment Movement happened in Europe.

He presented a very important thinking: Man is the Goal .He wrote:

Man is the Goal

This conflict with the principle of other men is even clearer if we cite example of attacks on their right of men intends to make use of the person of others merely as means without consider that, as rational being, they must always be esteemed at the same time as ends (i.e. only as beings who must be able to embody in themselves the purpose of the same action.)

There is one purpose which not only can have but which we can

presuppose that the all do have by a necessity of nature. This is happiness.

(Foundations of the metaphysics of morals, Chapter 2)

Here, the term End was same as the term Goal or Purpose. He pointed out the only Goal of Man is Man's happiness.

This is the classic saying of the idea of Humanity in Western countries

3) Great meaning of the idea of Humanity

(1) Meaning of the idea of Humanity in society or country

The idea of Humanity (Man-orientation) answered the question that in a society or a country, what is the most important goal?

This is a problem determining the general policy of a country

There may be different answers and policies:

A. Taking being strong of country as the goal: Before World War II , Germany , Italy and Japan ,all took the goal of being strong of their country. The result was they killed countless people in Europe and Asia, and finally , they got completely failure.

B. Taking Class Struggle as the guiding principle of country: this is the key policy in USSR and modern China in 1949-1976. The results were causing great disaster of the countries

C. Taking the policy of GDP-orientation. After 1978, China implemented Reformation policy; economy has been developing rapidly. But some regions or cities took the policy of GDP- orientation. They pursue the increase of GDP as their only goal and neglect the environmental protection and livelihood of people which caused much negative effect.

So, the idea and policy of Humanity (Man-orientation), pursuing people's happiness as the goal of country is the only correct policy

(2) Meaning of the idea of Humanity (Man-orientation) in personal life

What is the goal of personal life?

The idea of Humanity (Man-orientation) tells that one should take the happiness of himself, of his family and of people as the goal of his life. There is the combination of Self-love and Others-love which will create the combination of Self – happiness and People-happiness.

In last century, before 1976, leaders of China advocated the theory of Tool and Screw which means that every young man should be a tool or screw of the country (or the party) . This is an incorrect thinking for the young, which must inhibit the creativity of wisdom of the young. This thinking is opposite to the thinking of Man is the goal of man self.

  2. Human Love( Kind-hearted Love , Benevolence)

Human Love, Kind-hearted Love and Benevolence , these three terms basically have the same meaning. In Chinese philosophy, Kind-hearted Love(仁爱) is used more often, In the West, Benevolence is used more often .

The term Love is usually understood as the love between man and woman.

The term Human Love means Man's comprehensive love : love for lovers , spouses, parents , children, friends , people, motherland , science, art , liberty , nature and mankind.

The author regards that Human Love and Liberty are two key ideas in common values.

Why is the case?

Because Liberty expresses Man's Self-love ; Human Love expresses Man's Others-love. The combination of Self-love and Others-love is the basic pushing power of the progress of human society.

Among all common values, Human Love gets the most comprehensive recognition in the world from ancient to today

The reason is: Human Love belongs to human nature.

Liberty expresses the man's individuality; Human Love expresses man's sociality. The combination of these two is the complete human nature

  1. Elucidation on Kind-hearted Love by Chinese philosophers

Confucius was the earliest philosopher in the world who presented the idea of Kind-hearted Love.

In Analects of Confucius, there is a saying:

Fan Ci (a Confucius's disciple) asked: "What is Kindheartedness?" Confucius answered: "Loving men."(Chap.12)

Mencius inherited Confucius' thinking on Kind-heated Love.

He said:

The feeling of commiseration is the beginning of Kindheartedness

The feeling of commiseration is man's feeling of sympathy.

Mencius's saying meant that kind-hearted love comes from human mature.

Ancient Chinese philosopher Mo Zi said:

If a man loves others, the others must love him. If a man benefits others, the others must benefit him.

(Chap.16, Mo Zi)

This thinking of Mo Zi is quite close to the thinking of famous British economist Adam Smith (1723-1790)

In Tang dynasty, Han Yu said:

Fraternity is Kindheartedness

He raised Kind-hearted Love to the level of Fraternity---Love for all people.

  2. Western philosophers' talking on Love

In ancient Greece, Plato paid much attention to Love He said:

Of all Gods, Love is the best friend of men, the helper and the healer of the ills which are the great impediment to the happiness of the race.

(Plato :Symposium)

So, Plato regarded that Love relates closely to Good and Love gives man the great happiness.

In Middle Ages of Europe, Aquinas regarded that Love virtue is higher than Belief virtue and Hope virtue. In other words, Love is the highest virtue in all virtues

In 18th century, British philosopher David Hume supported the idea of Benevolence strongly. He wrote:

### In his work,  An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, there is a chapter, titled: Of Benevolence. He wrote:

It may be esteemed, perhaps, a superfluous task to prove, that the benevolent or softer affections are estimable; and where ever they appear, engage the approbation and good-will of mankind. The epithets SOCIABLE, GOOD-NATURED, HUMANE, MERCIFUL, GRATEFUL, FRIENDLY, GENEROUS, BENEFICENT, or their equivalents, are known in all languages, and universally express the highest merit, which HUMAN NATURE is capable of attaining.

(An Enquiry concerning the Principle of Morals. Chapter 2 Of Benevolence),

He regarded Benevolence as the highest value of mankind

### His idea of Benevolence, basically, is same as the idea of "Kindhearted Love" in the philosophy of Confucius and Mencius in ancient China. So it is a very important idea in Both China and the West.

  3. Idea of Human Love in Religions

Religion has great influences upon mankind. In 1997, the total number of believers of different regions is 81% of world population.

Even though different religions have different doctrines, but on the idea of Love, they have high degree of sameness.

Christianity takes Love for God and Love for others as two general principles of its doctrine.

Islam's doctrine is: Believing God and Doing Good

Buddhism's doctrine is : Rescuing all people.

4. Great Meaning of Human Love in Human Society

Human Love has great meaning in human society:

  1. Mutual Love between men is the basic condition of human existence

We may imagine, in the life of original men , while men met with attack of beasts or natural disasters, men could be alive depending only the collective power of one's family or group . Hence the mutual love is essential for human existence.

Up to now, there are highly developed economy and civilizations in the world, the Internet makes the whole world becoming a small town, all progresses of mankind and the protection of global environment depend on the mutual love and mutual cooperation between all people in the world.

  2. Human love is a creative power that can create all Good things in the world. Love for spouses, love for parents and love for children are the creative power of a happy family. Love for liberty, for science, for literature, for art are the creative power of human civilization .Love for nature is the protective power of our mother—the Earth. Love for mother land, for people and for mankind are the strong pushing power of the peace and progress of the world.

  3. Love for people is the guarantee of welfare of people and peace of the world .It should be the basis of all policies of a good government.

Chapter 5-2

Reason and Liberty

Among modern common values, Reason and Liberty are two key values. Many other values are started from these two values. It may be said that these two values opened the door of modernization of the world.

  1. Reason (or Science)

  1. Reason opened the door of modernization

Generally, people regards that Liberty, Democracy, Equity, Rule of Law are common values. Some one does not put Reason in the list of modern common value.

But if you observe the history of mankind, you will find that Reason was the idea that opened the door of modernization and will carry forward the endless progress of human civilization.

Reason (or Wisdom) is the unique character of mankind. It was reason that made mankind different from other animals. It was Reason that made man creating Science. Science is completely established on the basis of man's Reason. In many (not all) cases, Science and Reason have the same meaning.

In ancient Greece , some important philosophers as Socrates Plato and Aristotle paid high attention to Knowledge and man's Wisdom . But due to the limit of period, their theory could not be separated from the will of God. So , in their philosophy ,the cognition of Reason was incomplete.

In the long period of Middle Ages( 5-15th centuries) , man's thinking was strictly controlled by religion . Man's Reason had to be concealed

Up to the great Enlightenment movement in 17-18th centuries , mankind raised the banner of Reason.

Kant wrote an famous article in 1784: An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?

He wrote:

The public use of one's reason must always be free, and it alone can bring about enlightenment among mankind

This was the classic definition of Enlightenment, that is the freedom of using one's Reason.

After Enlightenment Movement , since the comprehensive use of man's Reason , various Science has been developing rapidly.

  2. The great meaning of Reason for mankind

It may be said , all modern human civilizations(natural and social sciences, philosophy, etc.) come from the free use of Man's Reason. .

  1. Contribution of the development of natural sciences.

Physics: discovering the basis rules of powers in the nature and making the utilization of electric power, radio , atomic power etc.

Chemistry: discovering the basic substances and chemical rules in the nature and making the utilization of various chemical products.

Biology and Medical sciences: discovering the basis rules in biological world and helping man cure various diseases and prolong man's life

Agricultural sciences: Raising the yield and quality of various agricultural products.

Information sciences: Making very rapid communication between people . The technology of Internet is carrying mankind go towards a common shared society.

  2. Contribution of the development of social sciences

Economics: helping man establish reasonable marketing economy, which carries great prosperous of the world.

Political science: helping man establish reasonable political system and law system.

Sociology: helping man improve the social structure and human relations

Philosophy: helping man understand the basic rule in the relation between man and nature.

In summary, Reason is the basis of all sciences and has a wider meaning of Science. It may be said that all modern common values come from man's Reason.

2. Liberty

1) Periodical Background of the Idea of Liberty

Even though Liberty belongs to human nature. But man cognized this human nature passed a long period.

Different from the ideas of Humanity and Human Love, Western philosophy had earlier cognition of the idea of Liberty than Chinese philosophy.

The affirmation of the idea of Liberty was related with the development of Capitalism.

Development of Capitalism required freedom of property ownership, freedom of management and marketing, freedom of personality . Economic freedom must asked the political freedom to be the guarantee.

When the idea of Liberty was presented by some philosophers and politicians , it was welcomed not only by the capitalists but by all people in the society.

  2. Elucidation of the Idea of Liberty by Western philosophers:

  1. Hobbes(1588-1679)

Hobbes was the pioneering philosopher who presented the idea of Liberty.

He wrote:

The "Liberal Right" named by writers is that everyone may apply the method which he likes to preserve his own nature---which means his own life. Such freedom is the liberty that he can apply the most suitable measure to do anything according his own judgment and rational cognition.

(Leviathan, Chap. 14)

  2. Locke(1632-1704)

Locke was the philosopher who firstly combined liberty with Democracy and Rule of Law

  3. Rousseau (1712-1778)

The contribution of Rousseau was :he presented the opinion that Liberty is a human nature making man different from any animals

  4. Smith(1723-1790)

Smith was an economist . He had special contribution to the idea of Liberty.

He found a rule in a marketing society that freedom of management will promote a rapid development of economy

  5. Kant (1724-1804)

Kant presented a theory of Self-disciplining of Will--establish Law for yourself. His theory deepened man's cognition of Liberty

  6. Mill( 1806-1873)

Mill presented the most complete theory of Liberty , a classic definition of Liberty :

The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it.

He presented a series of freedom: thinking, speaking personality , practising , association , etc.

  7. Roosevelt( 1882-1945)

He presented the famous Four Freedoms:

The first is freedom of speech and expression; the second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way; the third is freedom from want; the fourth is freedom from fear.

  8. Hayek (1899-1992)

His special contribution to the idea of Liberty was the he presented the theory opposing Totalitarian which protected the idea of Liberty in 20th century

3)Idea of Liberty in Chinese Philosophy

In ancient China, Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi had the thinking of Freedom.

Lao Zi presented the thinking of Inactiveness

Lao Zi said:

Dao always remain inactive,

Yet it acts upon everything in the world.

If lords and kings can keep it,

All creatures will grow and develop naturally.

(Chapter 37, same book)

In political philosophy, Inactiveness means giving and protecting more freedom of people.

The first chapter of the book Zhuang Zi is titles Happy Excursion. Zhuang Zi described a big bird ,which expressed the spirit of Freedom (see Chapter 2-1 of this book)

In Wei and Jin dynasties Ji Kang(嵇康) and Ruan Ji (阮籍) also presented the thinking of Freedom

In modern China, Liang Qichao(梁启超) and Hu Shi(胡适)affirmed and advocated the thinking of Liberty.

  2. Great Meaning of the Idea of Liberty

According to the elucidations of philosophers, it may be understood that Liberty is one of the key ideas in modern common values. In modern society , Liberty has following meanings:

  1. Liberty is the primary character of human being

The main character of man that make him deferent from other animals are : Liberty , Reason and Love.

All other animals activates by their instinct. Only Man has his liberal will, Man activates according his own will. Different man has different will. This is the source of Man's all energy.

Why could Man's wisdom and ability transcend all other animals and use the natural resource, overcome natural disasters and finally become the master of the Earth . It depends on Man' liberal will.

  2. Man's Economic Freedom is the basic guarantee of economic prosperous

In 1959-1961, there was serious famine in China. The main reason was that farmers did not have the freedom to manage the land. After 1978, the government implemented new policy giving all farmers the freedom of managing their own land. China's agriculture has been developing rapid. The problem of people's eating was solved in a short time.

Since 1978 in China , the planned economy was reformed to be marketing economy. In only 30 years , The total GDP of China becomes the second biggest in the world.

In the whole world , the facts prove that economic freedom is the primary factor of economic development.

  3. Political freedom of people is the basic guarantee of human society going on the way of Democracy and Rule of Law

Experiences of all countries in the world prove that Democracy and Rule of Law are the basic factors of a reasonable political system. If there is no Liberty of people, there must be no Democracy and Rule of Law.

In democratic politics people should have the right to vote, to recall, to supervise, to know and to question the government and officers.

The system of Rule of Law allows people have their representatives to establishment Laws and join in judicial proceedings and defence.

All these rights require the fully Liberty of people.

  4. Liberty of thinking, speaking and research is the basic guarantee of progress of science and prosperous of culture.

The whole history of the development of natural and social science and literatures in the world has proved that the basic guarantee is Liberty of thinking and creating.

In modern China ,except a few philosophers , (as Liang Qichao , Hu Shi, etc.) most philosophers did not pay enough attention to the idea of Liberty , even today. This situation is not benefit to the further progress of modern China.

.

Chapter 5-3

Democracy and Rule of Law

Democracy and Rule of Law are two main ideas of modern politics and also main marks of modern reasonable society. The two have close inner connections

  1. Democracy

  1. Western philosophers' talking on Democracy

Plato denied democratic regime. In ancient Greece , there was direct democracy. Plato's teacher Socrates was sentenced to death by direct vote. So , Plato was impossible to support democracy

Aristotle had detailed evaluation of different political regimes. The best regime that he supported was Republic regime which was a mixed regime taking middle class as its supporter. This was an Elite politics, not democratic politics.

In Middle Ages, all political power was controlled by the church. So, there was no democracy.

In 17th century , Hobbes supported King's power. He did not support democracy.

The pioneering philosopher who supported democracy was Locke. He presented the theory of Contract and theory of Legitimacy of government

He regarded that Contract signed between the people and government is the legal basis of government.

He also presented the theory of Limited Government which means that people only transfer partial power to the government.

In 18th century, Rousseau presented the theory of People's Sovereignty which means the sovereignty of a country belongs to all people of the country completely.

In 19th century Mill discussed the problem of Representative Government. He regarded that the best political system is Representative Government.

In fact , almost all countries in modern world implement the political system of Representative Government.

Mill answered the question of why democracy is the best political system. He wrote:

Each is the only guardian of his own rights and interests.

So, only Democracy could provide the best service for the people.

  2. Chinese philosophers' opinions on Democracy

In traditional Chinese philosophy, neither Lao Zi, Confucius, Mo Zi , nor others had established the theory of Democracy.

In politics ,theory of People-Orientation was the main theory in ancient China , but no theory of Democracy.

Theory of People-orientation means that the government should have policies beneficial to the people as much as possible .

It was a reasonable political theory which helped China maintaining stable and unity more than 2000 years .

But this theory could not ensure that all kings or emperors could serve people well. In fact, in Chinese history there were many disabled or tyrannical Emperors.

In modern China, Sun Zhongshan and Chen Duxiu had the most important elucidations on Democracy .

  3. Great meaning of the idea of Democracy

Sun Zhongshan had a famous saying:

The trend of the world goes forward with great strength and vigour. Who compliances the trend will be success , who disobeys the trend will be failed.

What he talked on the trend is the trend of Democracy,

His saying is correct. Today, in the world, any country must implement the system of Democracy, then it will have well development. If it disobeys the trend of Democracy, it will be denied by people.

Why is Democracy very important in a country , The reasons are as follows:

  1. Democracy is the only basis of Legitimacy of government

In ancient Greece , Plato and Aristotle did not have a clear statement on the origin of political power.

In Middle ages of Europe, The Christian philosopher Thomas Aquinas(1224-1274)had a clear statement that political power was given by the God. He said:

The governor can only belong to both a man and the God, who is Jesus Christ

In China, from ancient time up to the revolution in 1911,the theory of the legitimacy of political power was Theory of Destiny. Especially as to the first emperor of a new dynasty, why he could obtain the imperial throne? The only answer was that he obtained the throne from the Heaven. The Heaven determined that he should be the emperor.

But neither the theory of God in the West , nor the theory of Heaven in China has no persuasive power in modern period.

The theory of Contract in the new theory of Legitimacy of government presented by Hobbes and Locke in 17th century, It was accepted comprehensively in democratic counties,.

Some other famous philosophers (as David Hume) pointed out that in the history; there was no fact that people signed Contract with the government. They were correct. But the real meaning of Theory of Contract is that any legal government must obtain the agreement of people.

In modern society, all leaders of democratic government should be produced by the voting of people directly or indirectly (through their representatives), that shows the agreement of people.

If a party has contribution during the establishment of new government, as through revolution, it is not a complete reason for its legislation . Because getting the power and manage the country are not the same thing. The party should have its policy and activities conforming the interest of people and obtaining the support of people so that to consolidate its ruling power.

(2) Democracy could guarantee all the liberal rights of people and Liberty of people is the basic condition of social progress.

In 18th century, British Economist Adam Smith had proved theoretically that economic freedom is the main factor of economic prosperous ;In 19th century , British philosopher John Mill had proved that People's freedom of thinking , speaking, researching, association etc. are the basic guarantee of progress of science, civilization and politics.

Only democratic system could ensure all these freedom. So only Democracy could ensure the economic prosperous and cultural prosperity of a country

(3)Democracy could ensure the government doing the best for people and preventing corruption and abuse of officers.

In democratic system , if the leaders and officers do not serve people well enough or they are corrupt or abusing their power , people have the right to recall them . So Democracy has the ability to improve the policy and activities of the government and behaviours of officers.

(4)Democracy could guarantee the consolidation and prosperous of country.

Before World War II, Germany , Italy and Japan were all strong countries. But they all failed in the War II.

USSR was also a strong country , but it was finally disintegrated in 1992.

There are many reasons of their failure or disintegration, but the main reason were the Autocratic system of their countries.

Only democratic system could help a country to be stable, consolidated, strong and prosperous .

4) Perfection of Democracy

Democracy is a good political system .But Democracy is not a system without deficit .

  1. The principle of Democracy is Majority decision. But Mill pointed out that the opinions of majority are not certainly correct . There were many example:

  1. In 399 BC ,Socrates was sentenced to death by the majority decision

  2. Before World War II, Hitler's coming to power was determined by majority decision in German Parliament.

  3. In 2003, USA launched the war against Iraq. It was decided by the democratic procedure in the American Congress with the reason that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction. But at the end of the war ,such weapon was not found there. In this war .more than 110 thousands soldiers of Iraq and 4366 American soldiers died.

So , democratic systems in different countries should have further improvement of reformation The opinions of minority should be respected by the design of democratic system.

In recent years, the system of Deliberative Democracy is implemented in more countries, including China.

  2. In Capitalism countries, democracy, especially the voting system, is often controlled by financial group or the Rich men. This phenomenon often causes injustice of politics.

  3. In some countries or regions, Democracy could be led to Populism, which causes conflict and instability in country.

So , while people affirm the advantages of Democracy , at the same time , they should notice the deficit of Democracy and make effort to improve it .

  2. Rule of Law

Rule of Law is a principle of Country management. Rule of Law is the opposite of Rule of Man. Rule of Law manages the country according to constitution and laws. Rule of Man manages the country by the will of a certain man.

  1. Western philosopher's talking on Rule of Law.

In ancient Greece, Plato had the thinking of Rule of Man. He presented the opinion that a state should be governed by philosopher. It was the thinking of Rule of Man.

Aristotle supported the idea of Rule of Law. He said:

Rule of law must be better than rule of one man. Even though sometimes the governance of a state requires someone's wisdom, but there must be limitation for him to use his wisdom in the extent of law.

(Politics, 1287)

In Middle Ages of Europe, the highest Power was the, Church and the representative of Church was Bishop of Rome. So it was rule of Man.

In 17th century , Locke was the pioneering philosopher who supports the idea of Rule of Law. He said:

And so whoever has the legislative or supreme power of any common-wealth, is bound to govern by established standing laws, promulgated and known to the people, and not by extemporary decrees;[...] And all this to be directed to no other end, but the peace, safety, and public good of the people.

(John Locke: Two Treatises of Government, The Second,Chap.9)

Locke's thinking of "govern by established standing laws, promulgated and known to the people" may be regarded as the beginning of modern Rule of Law.

In 18th century, Kant paid high attention to Rule of Law. Even though he did not recognize he fact of social contract in history ,but he regraded that Law must express the common will of people, and respect every citizen's will, just as every one agree the common will expressed by Law

In 20th century, Hayek supported the principle of Rule of Law strongly. His opinion was: in a marketing society, all men have selfish thinking .If there is no law, there must be conflict between men. The function of Rule of Law is to establish certain rules making the harmony of society. So, in a liberal society, it is essential to have Rule of Law.

Hayek was a liberalist. His opinion showed that Liberalists do not oppose Rule of Law at all

  2. Chinese philosopher's Talking on Rule of Law

In ancient China, there were two philosophic schools that have different opinions on the principle of Country management: One was Confucianism and the other was Legalism.

  1. Confucianism advocated Rule of Virtue, which had the essence of Rule of Man.

Confucius said:

Politics means uprightness, if you are upright,who dares to be not upright?

(Analects of Confucius ,Chap.12)

If a man is upright in his own conduct, he will have his orders be practiced without trouble. But if a man himself is not upright in his own conduct, his orders will be disobeyed

(Analects of Conficius ,Chap.13)

Mencius said :

Let the prince be kindhearted, there will be no one who is not kindhearted. Let the prince be righteous, there will be no one who is not righteous. Let the prince be upright, there will be no one who is not upright. Once rectify the prince, and the kingdom will be firmly settled.

(Mencius,Chap.7)

Kind-hearted politics, in reality, was a kind of Rule of Man. It had some positive effect in Chinese history. But there was no guarantee that all emperors would implemented the Kind-hearted policy. In fact , there were many emperors who were disabled or tyrant. The good management of a country could only depend on Rule of Law, but not on Kind-heatedness of the ruler.

  2. Legalism

Xun Zi himself was a Confucianist, but he presented the Theory of Joint use of Ritual and Law. He said:

If there is no Ritual , the society will be no order.

What is Law? Law is the beginning of governance

(Xun Zi, Chap.11,12)

The first saying was the thinking of Confucianism. The second saying was the thinking of Legalism. So, the thinking of Xun Zi was the combination of Confucianism and Legalism.

An important successor of Legalism was Shang Yang (商鞅)。He carried on the famous Reform of Shang Yang ,which helped Qin State (秦国) become very strong and finally unified the whole China.

Han Fei (韩非) was the most important philosopher of Legalism. He said:

Manage the country by rule of law

The law does not protect the powerful persons.

Punishment does not avoid the minister . Rewarding the good does not leave the ordinary man

(The Work of Han Fei )

In modern China, Sun Zhongshan paid attention to Rule of Law. He presented the Constitution of Five Powers.

But in the ruling period of CNP(Chinese Nationalist Party)in1927-1949 and CCP( Chinese Communist Party) in 1949-1976 , the real principle implemented by government was Rule of Man.

3) Great Meaning of Rule of Law in Human Society.

The meanings of Rule of Law for a country are as follows:

  1. Only Rule of Law could ensure the liberty of personal property ownership and freedom of economic management ,which is the basis of economic prosperous of country

  2. Only Rule of Law could be the guarantee of various democratic rights of people, which is the basic energy of political progress of a country.

  3. Only Rule of Law could be the guarantee of social Justice in the society for anyone, no matter one's position and property.

  4. Only Rule of Law could ensure the fully freedom of thinking , speaking, publishing, researching , association etc. within the extent of laws. This is the essential condition of progress of science and civilizations

Today, China's leaders take Rule of Law as the main principle of country governance. This is the hope of modern China..

Chapter 5-4

Equality and Justice

Among modern common values, the ideas of Equality and Human Right relate with basic human nature, They are also basic rules of modern society.

1, Equality

  1. Western philosopher's elucidations on Liberty.

The idea of Equality, same as Liberty, is an idea did not exist in ancient period,

In ancient Greece, both Plato and Aristotle supported the Slave system. They regarded that there was difference and inequality between slave owners and slaves naturally. Slaves were only tools of slave-owners.

In the doctrines of Christianity: Facing Gad, every one is equal. It should be recognized that Christianity has contribution to the idea of Equality.

But in Christianity, Equality is conditional. As to pagans, there was no equality.

Hobbes was the first philosopher who elucidated the thinking of Equality on the basis of human reason.

He affirmed the idea of Equality in his description of human's Natural State.

He wrote:

Nature makes men very same in man' s body and mind. So that although some one's body might be stronger than others; some one's wisdom might be clever than others , but combining all those , it could not make the difference between men becoming so large that some one could asks for any benefit different from others.

(Leviathan , Chap.13)

He affirmed the idea of Equality from human nature

In 18th century Rousseau had special concern on the problem of Human Inequality. His famous work was titled: on the Origin and Basis of Inequality among Men (1754)

His famous saying was:

All men were born free and equal.

He made detailed analysis of the reasons that caused the inequality of Men.

His final conclusion was that the origin of men's inequality was private ownership of property. This conclusion had its reasonable facet, but also unreasonable facet , which gave negative influence upon the later history.

In 19th century, Mill had important elucidation of the idea of Equality. His used his idea of Utility to explain Justice and Equality. His opinion was: since all men are equal in front of law, so both Justice and Utility involve the idea of Equality

In 20th century, Hayek presented his special thinking on Equality: He pointed out that before the law, everyone should be equal. But man's liberty must produce a certain degree of inequality, which is inevitable.

I regard that he thinking is reasonable and valuable

American philosopher John Rawls presented his theory on Equality. A .society should insist on the principle of Liberty, especially in the field of economy.

B.A society should have equal opportunity of education , employment , etc. for all men.

C, But , equality should not be limited in the extent of opportunity , a good society should pursuit practical equality

I regard that Rawls' theory on Equality is the most reasonable

and complete one, up to now.

2) Chinese philosopher's talk on Equality.

The basic thinking of Confucius was that there should be different classes in a society. He advocated a stable and normal relations in a class society.

In Mo Zi's philosophy, there was the factor of Equality.

He had deep concern for the weak. He said:

One has universal love must give food to hungers, give cloth to whom feeling cold; give concern to whom getting sick, give funeral to the dead.

(Chap.16 , Mo Zi )

Mo Zi' s thinking of Equality advocated the equal concern for all people; so he must pay special attention to the old , the weak, the sick, etc.

In Han dynasty, Dong Zhongshu presented the theory of Three Guides: king is the guide of officers, husband is the guide of wife . father is the guide of son .

So, he advocated the Inequality in a society. His thinking has been criticized strongly by modern Chinese philosophers , as Chen Duxiu, etc.

3) Great meaning of Equality in human history

Pursuing Men's equality was a great energy pushing forward the progress of human society.

Equality, Liberty and Fraternity were three famous slogans in the great French Revolution.

But Rousseau's theory that the origin of social inequality is the private ownership of property and the theory of Marx that class struggle is the only way to solve the problem of social inequality gave negative influence upon the later history.

Both in USSR and China in the period of 1949-1976,the government implemented the policy of diminishing all right of private ownership of property , The result was serious backward of national economy and poverty of people.

In West countries and in the reformation period of China after 1978. The policy implemented are basically followed the theory of Rawls: protecting the ownership of private property and the marketing system of free management, and at the same time do much effort to concern the poor and the weak by social security system to solve the problem of social inequality. This is a correct and successful policy.

Of course, a prosperous and more equal society in different countries is still a hard task for all countries in the world.

2. Justice

From ancient to modern period, Justice has been always a very important idea

  1. Western philosophers 's talk on Justice

In ancient Greece, Plato presented his theory of four virtues (Wisdom, Courage, Restraint and Justice.) and put Justice at the highest position.. He regarded that Justice was the summation of other three Virtues.

Aristotle regarded that Justice is the highest Good in a state.

In 18th century, Da vid Hume regarded that Justice is a useful rule of society

He said: if the rule of distribution of property conforms to social interest. It is Justice

In 19th century, John Mill said:

If Utility pursuits the greatest happiness of all people then Justice pursuits the reasonable distribution of happiness.

All problems related to justice are related to utility also.

(Utilitarianism)

He regarded that Justice must be related to law and morals.

In 20th century, American philosopher John Rawls wrote his famous work, A Theory of Justice.

He said that: his goal is to present a theory of Fair Justice

So, in his philosophy, Justice means Social Fairness

  2. Chinese philosopher's talk on Justice

Ancient Chinese philosopher often used the term- Righteousness, which had the similar but not the same meaning of Justice .

Mencius wrote:

Kindheartedness is Man's heart and Righteousness is Man's road

(Mencius .Chap.11)

So , Righteousness has the meaning of good practice

  3. Common understanding of the idea of Justice.

Summarizing the talking of Western and Chinese philosophers on Justice (or Righteousness), the term Justice has the following meanings:

  1. Justice is a synthesized and compound idea. The idea of Justice involves many other ideas.

In ancient Greece, it involved the idea of Wisdom, Courage, and Restraint.

In modern period, it involves the idea of Liberty, Human Love, Equality, Democracy, Rule of Law etc.

  2. Justice is an practical and social idea . It is related with human utility. It is a useful idea of whole society

  3. Justice is a idea related with the fair distribution of social interest. It relates to social equity.

  4. Great Meaning of the Idea of Justice ,

Through the thinking of philosophers from ancient to modern period, the importance of Justice is understood more clearly by contemporary people.

Rawls work on Justice is an excellent summation and development of the idea of Justice , He presented three basic principles of Justice (see above) is a complete and reasonable theory of modern understanding of the idea of Justice.

Three principle of Justice are suitable to all countries in the world.

Chapter 5-5

Human Right and Constitutionalism

These two ideas, Human Right and Constitutionalism are both produced in Modern periods. They were not appeared in ancient period and Middle Ages in the West. They were also not appeared in ancient China

  1. Human Right

  1. Theory of Natural Human Right

In 17th century, British philosopher John Locke was the pioneer who presented the idea of Human Right . He wrote:

In Natural State, there is Natural Law playing the control function that everyone must follow it. Reason, which is just the Natural Law, teaches that all men are equal and independent; any one cannot hurt other's health, freedom and property

(Two Treatises of Government, Book 2, Chap 2)

In this paragraph the important idea he presented was that in natural state , every man had three basic rights: Health, Freedom and Property. So , he presented firstly the theory of Natural Human Rights

In Locke's theory of Natural Right, the view that gave the greatest influence upon later period is his theory of Property Right.

Why natural things originally belonged to nature became private property. Locke's explanation was:

Everyone has the ownership of his own body. The labor that he does and the works done by his hand belong to him properly. So, any thing that makes the state of thing separated from Nature are added his labor, which becomes his property [...] then exclude the common right of others.

(Two Treatises of Government, Book 2, Chap 5)

So, according to Locke's theory, anyone's labor creates the Right of Property.

This is the classical explanation of human right of private property, which gave great influence upon the economic development of later period, even today

  2. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Two Convention on Human Rights

In last centuries, there were two World Wars. Especially in World War II, Fascism of Germany, Italy and Japan did brutal persecution and slaughter of people. 20 millions people were killed. Painful lessons caused government and people of all countries cognize the great importance of Human Right.

World War II had also led two worldwide trends:

One was the national liberation and independence movement in Asia , Africa and Latin America.

The other was the minorities and women's struggle for equality and human rights.

Under such periodical background, in 1946, the United Nations (UN) established Commission on Human Rights. In 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted.

In this Declaration some important points are as follows:

  1. Human Right is the basis of man's Liberty, Justice and Peace.

(2) Everyone has the right to have freedom of speaking, freedom of belief , freedom from want and freedom from fear.

(3) Human Right should be protected by Law

(4) Human Right and basic freedom are beneficial to the promoting of friendly relationship between people in different countries

(5) UN asks all countries fulfil the commitments and compliance with the Declaration of Human Rights

Two Conventions on Human Rights are:

  1. International Convention on Civil Rights and Political Rights

  2. International Convention on economic, social and cultural rights

In 1998, Permanent representative of China to the United Nations signed the first Convention.

In 2001, the National People's Congress of China approved the second Convention.

It shows that the modern China accepts the idea of Human Right seriously.

2. Constitutionalism

1)History and meaning of the idea of Constitutionalism

Some scholars traced back trace back to Great Charter passed in 1215. But most scholars regarded that the idea of Constitutionalism was established by Locke and Montesquieu

, Hamilton, Madison etc.in 17-18th century. They presented the idea of Constitutionalism, which is composed of ideas of Human right, Separation of power and Rule of Law

The tern Constitutionalism appeared after Constitutional activities after American Independent War (1775-1783).

Constitution of the United States of America (1787) and Declaration on Human Rights and Civil Rights of France (1789) were that marks of confirmation of the idea of Constitutionalism

So, compared with other ideas in modern common values , Constitutionalism was a rather new idea..

In circle of Law science, the explanation of Constitutionalism is: it is a modern political system which takes the form of Rule of Law the method of Separation of power and Liberty as the goal.

In 20th century, Hayek wrote his work The Constitution of Liberty(1960), Italian philosopher Giovanni Sartori (1924- ) wrote Comparative Constitutional Engineering.

These two works made deep elucidation on the idea of Constitutionalism.

It may be regarded that Constitutionalism is a synthetic Institutional concept of Liberty, Equality, Democracy, Ruler of Law, etc. It is not only an idea, but also a political, practical and Institutional rule.

  3. Important Meaning of the idea of Constitutionalism

From 18 to 21th century, positive experiences and negative lessons, all proved that Constitutionalism is essential for a modern country. The meanings of Constitutionalism are as follows:

  1. Only Constitutionalism could ensure that a country not to go toward Militarism and to launch invading war

Before World War II , although they were strong, but there all implemented the system of Dictatorship, not Constitutionalism . So thet were possible launched war invading many counties and killing countless people..

  2. Only Constitutionalism could ensure that not to go toward Totalitarian

USSR (1922-1991) was a strong country in 20th century and had contribution to defeat Fascism. But its political system was Totalitarian. According the saying of Zyuganov (Chairman of RCP(Russian Communist Party), USSR implemented three monopoly—monopoly of politics , of economy and of thinking. In 1991 , Totalitarian and three Monopoly caused the disintegration of USSR.

All Socialist countries , including China , must learn the lesson of USSR.

  3. Only Constitutionalism could guarantee Democracy, Rule of Law of country and Liberty, Equality and Human Right of people .Those are the basis of Country's prosperous and people's welfare.

,

Chapter 5-6

Harmony and Happiness

Harmony and happiness are the ideal state of human society and the goal of mankind.

  1. Harmony

  1. Chinese philosopher's talking on Harmony

In the system of modern common value, Harmony is an idea that has most characteristics of Chinese philosophy.

(1)Idea of Harmony in Book of Change(《易经》)

Book of Change was a book composed of two basic Element : Yang and Yin. Yang represented Sun or Male; Yin represented Moon or female

It said:

A Ying combined with a Yang is the Dao. (Book of Change)

Dao is the Noumenon of the world .Dao is composed of Yin and Yang. It means that all things in the world are composed of the Harmony of Yin and Yang.

(2)Confucius saying on Harmony

Confucius had a very famous saying:

Harmony and not Sameness

(Analects of Confucius, Chap.13)

This is the classic saying of the idea of Harmony. Harmony means Coordination between different components

(3) Thinking of Harmony in Doctrine of Mean (《 中庸》)

In Han dynasty, there was an important book, Doctrine of Mean. It said:

The Mean (or Equilibrium) is the great root from which grow all the human actions in the world, and the Harmony is the universal path which they all should pursue.

2) Western Philosopher's Talking on Harmony

(1) Aristotle's thinking of Mean

In both moral and political philosophy, Aristotle advocated Way of Mean, which means not to be extreme.

He said:

There are three properties: two evils---one is excess and the other is deficiency---and one virtue which is suitable, between the above two.

The thinking of Mean is very close to the thinking of Harmony, since Harmony is just the state of mean, not the state of extreme.

(2) Kant's thinking on Harmony

In his work, The Metaphysics Elements of Justice, he presented his opinion on Justice and Harmony

He regarded that Justice is a social idea. While everyone does will could be harmonious coexistence under the principle of Liberty, there is Justice.

(3) Rawls thinking on Harmony

We are led to the notion of the community of humankind; the members of which enjoy one another's excellences and individuality elicited by free institutions, and they recognize the good of each as an element in the complete activity, the whole scheme of which is consented to and gives pleasure to all.

His thinking of community of mankind is very close to the idea of Harmony in human society

3)Great meaning of the idea of Harmony

(1) Harmony will promote Peace and Cooperation between different countries and different nations in the world. So harmony will ensure eternal Peace of the world

(2) Harmony will promote Harmonious coexistence of different classes of people in a country

(3)Harmony will promote the development of Multi-culture. People of different civilizations and different religions will respect and learn from each other to avoid the unbeneficial conflict between them. It will guarantee the prosperous of the whole civilization in the world.

2. Happiness

Happiness is the last idea in common values. It is due to that Happiness is the final goal of human society.

Modern common values began from Humanity, end at Happiness. Happiness is an idea directly linked with Humanity. Since Man's final goal is Happiness

1)Western philosophers' talking on Happiness

(1) Plato's talk on happiness

About man's happiness, Plato had direct statement:

The goal of our establishment of country is not the isolated, prominent happiness of certain class, but the greatest happiness of all citizens. Our primary goal is to build a country of whole happiness.

(Republic, 520 B) .

So, according Plato's view, to realize the greatest happiness of all citizens is the highest Good in human society.

(2) Aristotle's talk on Happiness

In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle wrote the title of Part 1(4):

Happiness is the highest Good.

To this problem, Aristotle had the same opinion with Plato.

Aristotle's understanding of happiness was:

Happiness should be regarded as a working activity which takes itself, but not other things, to be pursued.

(Ethics, 1176)

Generally, any practical activity has a goal. For example, you do physical exercise; your goal is to have health.

Happiness, itself is the goal. Man has no goal higher than his own happiness.

(3) Locke's talking on Happiness

View on Good and Evil is the kernel problem in ethics, or moral philosophy. Locke's view was completely based on Empiricism.

He wrote:

Good and evil, what? Things then are good or evil, only in reference to pleasure or pain. That we call good, which is apt to cause or increase pleasure, or diminish pain in us;,[...] And, on the contrary, we name that evil which is apt to produce or increase any pain, or diminish any pleasure in us.

(An Essay of Concerning Human Understanding, Book 2, Chap.20)

It should be said that Locke's opinion conforms to human nature. As to all men, pleasure gives them happiness and pain makes them unfortunate. .

So, in Locke , Good is man's Happiness.

(4) Kant's talking on Happiness

Kant wrote:

There is one purpose which not only can have but which we can

presuppose that the all do have by a necessity of nature. This is happiness.

(Foundations of the metaphysics of morals, Chapter 2)

The above sentences show an important thinking of Kant, which is: Man's happiness is the goal of himself , but not a mean of any others.

The general thinking of Kant is: every man must take himself as his goal , and at the same time, he should consider other one is the goal of the other one self.

So , man should love and take care of himself and at the same time love and take care of others.

According to the thinking introduced above , we may agree with Kant's opinion: In the whole world . only Man and Man's happiness is the final goal.

  2. Chinese Philosophers' Talk on Happiness

In Chinese ancient philosophy, the term of Happiness was not used often. But the term of Pleasure was used quite often. The two terms have similar meaning.

  1. Confucius' Talk on Pleasure.

Confucius said:

It is indeed a pleasure to acquire knowledges and to review them frequently

(Analects of Confucius .Chap.1)

Confucius had a famous saying:

Men of intellectual character delight in water scenery; men of moral character delight in mountain scenery.

(Chap. 6)

It means that: Morals is firm without changing. It has the character as mountain. Knowledge is developing continuously. It has the character as water.

Here, the term of Delight had the same meaning as Feeling Happiness

So, Confucius regarded that to be moral and to pursue knowledge are man's great happiness.

  2. In Song dynasty , Zhang Zai said:

Zhang Zai had another famous saying:

All people are my compatriot and all things are communicated with me

(Ximing)

"All people are my compatriots" showed his deep love for all people.

The above saying showed that: he took love for all people and love for all things in the nature.as his highest happiness

  3. Sun Zhongshan .

He wrote:

Fraternity is our Infinite hope and the greatest thinking.

Saving the world, saving the people and saving our country , their natures are all Fraternity

To server for the happiness of 400 million people is Fraternity.

(Collection of Works of Sun Zhongshan)

So, he took serving the happiness of 400 millions people as his final goal

3. Great meaning of the Idea of Happiness

The idea of Happiness answers an important question of mankind: What is the final and the highest goal of Man . The only correct answer is: the Happiness of all people in the world.

In history, philosophers had presented different goals of mankind.

Plato presented his idea of Republic

Augustine presented his idea of City of God

Christianity presented the idea of Heaven

Buddhism presented the idea of West Sky

Marx presented the idea of Communism

In ancient China, philosopher presented the idea of World of Great Harmony(大同世界)。

But the most modern philosophers accepted the opinion that the greatest happiness of all people is the final goal of mankind

Science and technology will have endless development. So the real situation of future world is impossible to be predicted now. But the direction is possible to be predicted.

Kant's opinion is reasonable:

Human being will be going on the direction of continuous improvement..

The direction of continuous improvement and progress of mankind must be the greatest Happiness of all people in the world.

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Book of Changes, Translated by Wand Rongpei.etc Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 2007

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The Republic, Plato

Symposium, Plato

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Leviathan, Hobbes

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Locke

Two Treatises of Government, Locke

An Enquiry concerning the Principle of Morals, Hume

A Treatise of Human Nature ,. Hume

The Critique of Pure Reason, Kant_

The Critique of Practical Reason, Kant_

The Critique of Judgement, Kant

Considerations on Representative Government, Mill

Manifest of the Communist Party, Marx

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Routledge of History Philosophy, C.C.W.Taylor, translated by Han Dongfei, etc. China People University Press, 2003

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Selection of Marx and Engels, People Press, 1975

# **Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis,** Sigmund Freud, translated by Peng Shen, Shanxi People Press, 2001

Collection of Michel Foucault, translated by Pi Xiaozhen, Shanghai Fareast Press, 1998

The Protestant Ethic and the spirit of Capitalism, Max Weber, translated by Yu Xiao, Sanlian Book Co., 1987

# Specters of Marx , Jacques Derrida, translated by He Yi, China People University Press, 1999

Philosophical Apprenticeships, Hans-Georg Gadamer,translated by Xia Zhengping, Shanghai Literature Translation Press,2004

Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, Joseph Schumpeter, translated by Wu Liangjian , Commercial Press, 2002

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Essentials of Western Contemporary Philosophy, Zhao Dunhua, Beijing University Press, 2001

History of Western Philosophy, Edited by Ye Xiushan, Jiangsu People Press, 2004

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Ethic (in English), Baruch de Spinoza, Tower Babel

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Theory of Good and Evil, Ni Suxiang, Wuhan University Press, 2001

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Virtues of Chinese People, edited by Jing Huiming, China People University Press, 2006

The History of Western Ethic Thoughts, Song Xuren, China People University Press, 2004

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Politics, Aristotle, translated by Wu Shoupeng, Commercial Press, 2010

Human Right and Liberty, John Locke, translated by Shi Rui, Tianjing Social Science Press, 2011

Metaphysics Principle of Law, Immanuel Kant, translated by Shen Suping, Commercial Press, 2003

On Liberty, John Stuart Mill, translated by Xu Baokui, Commercial Press,2010

Lectures of the History of Political Philosophy, John Rawls, translated by Yang Tongjing, China Social Science Press, 2007,

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Politics, Andrew Heywood, translated by Zhang Lipeng ,China People University Press,2006

On Democracy of America, Tocqueville, translated by Zhang Xiaoming, Beijing People Press, 2007

History of Western Democracy, Ying Kefu, China Social Science Press, 1997

Chinese Traditional Political Philosophy, Zhou Guitian, et.al. Hebei People Press, 2001

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Chinese Philosophy and Western Philosophy, Xiong Shili, Shanghai Book Co. Press, 2008

Eastern and Western Culture and Philosophy, Liang Shuming, Commercial Press, 2012

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Comparison of Chinese and Western Culture, He Yi, Metallurgical Industry Press, 2007

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Chinese and Western Philosophy of Life and Death, Feng Fuxiang, Beijing University Press, 2002

8. Works of Philosophy of the Author

Essay on Synthesis Philosophy, Gao Liangzhi, China Culture Press, 2007

Strolling on Western Philosophy, 2nd Edition, Gao Liangzhi, Wuhan University Press, 2014

A Brief Discussion on Chinese Philosophy, 2nd Edition, Gao Liangzhi, Wuhan University Press, 2014

Philosophy of Human Love, Gao Liangzhi, Zhejiang University Press, 2011

Beauty Philosophy, Gao Liangzhi, Wuhan University Press, 2014

Does Man have Soul? —Soul Philosophy and Scientific Rational Belief, Gao Liangzhi, Zhejiang University Press, 2015

Fusion of Chinese and Western Wisdom, Zhejiang University Press, 2015

(Other references are noted in the related chapters of this book)

(End of the whole book)

