Journal of East China Normal University (Philosoph ›› 2019, Vol. 51 ›› Issue (1): 3-10.doi: 10.16382/j.cnki.1000-5579.2019.01.001

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The Dimension of Human Science in the Construction of Contemporary Chinese Ethics: A Possible Way to “Rewrite Chinese Ethics”

LI Jian-hua   

  • Online:2019-01-15 Published:2019-01-22

Abstract: The return to human science in reshaping or constructing contemporary Chinese ethics is essentially required by ethics or moral philosophy. The fact that ethics and human science are partially consistent in the content makes such return possible and consequently improve ethics. The dual dimensions of human beings as biological and social beings, and their individual differences make ethics necessary. At the same time, ethics always contains two kinds of ideal hypotheses, that is, the hypothesis of the sage and that of the perfect person. Both of them are the normative pursuit of ethics but difficult to achieve in real life. Then we meet a practical dilemma in ethics:the distance between the sacred and the secular, the alienated and the perfect restricts the development of individuals' moral ability, and thus make moral ideals "hang in mid-air". Therefore, it is a more sensible choice to realize the transformation of ethics from over-idealism to realism.

Key words: ethics, human science, idealism, naturalism, compound-type ethics