The Root Of Religious Ethics And Secular Economic Spiritual Guide

With the advance of Western modernization process, the expansion of an instrumental rationality, the loss of value rationality, the absence of religious belief, people have been detained in an "iron cage" of rationality, which inevitably led to a series of crises in the areas of politics, economy, and culture in the modern western society. In order to explore the way out of the predicament for modern capitalism, Weber drew in the features of the Protestant ethic, which was an important spiritual motive force to nurture the spirit of capitalism and give birth to rational capitalism in the early times of capitalism. He hoped to rebuild the Christian ethics so as to provide a new spiritual power for the further development of modern capitalism. Therefore, Weber specially focused on exploring the characteristics of the Protestant ethic and the relationship between the Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism.This paper develops study on the main issue that what characteristics the rebuilt Christian ethics possess that it can effectively guide the secular ethics and regulate people's rational economic activities, thus to promote the development of the society. Therefore, this paper describes Weber's Protestant ethic, which emerged after the religious reform, effectively guided the secular economic theories, shaped the spirit of capitalism and gave birth to the modern rational capitalism in the process of secularization from the positive aspect. Then, it discusses with an intention to highlight the uniqueness of the Protestant ethic from the negative side that because of the weaker tension between the sanctification and secularization of religious ethics in China and India, it can not effectively norm the secular economic activities, thus there is no way to first generate capitalism at home.According to this comprehension of Weber's economic ethic ideas, this thesis is divided into six chapters to carry out as follows:The first chapter mainly introduces the social and ideological background of the times Weber lived and dresses the concepts in Weber's thought of economic ethics such as "religious ethic and economic ethic", "belief ethic and duty ethic", "the asceticism and the mysticism". Meanwhile, it analyzes "the Weber Proposition", that is why modern capitalist civilization originated from western countries rather than other places and the theoretical sources of Weber's economic ethic thought.The second chapter mainly discusses Weber's opinion that the Protestant ethic shaped the spirit of capitalism. It describes firstly the conditions needed by production of capitalism and the spirit of capitalism in Weber's eyes. Weber held that the spirit of capitalism included the values of professional work, such as diligence, thrift, honesty, punctuality and financial management, and so on. The spirit of capitalism was an attitude of reasonable profit-making and respect for the ethics. Pursuing profit was calling task. The desire of pursuing profit was restricted by the rationality and ethics. Meanwhile, it explores Weber's opinions on the Protestantism that was Christ reformed and returned to the main secular world, as well as the relationship between the Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. Weber believed that the Protestant ethic, which included the concepts of the predestination, calling task and the secular asceticism, had conceived the spirit of capitalism and promoted the generation of the capitalism.The third chapter mainly focuses on Weber's views about that the Confucian ethics could not provide effective spiritual guidance for the secular economic activity and not promote the production of rational capitalism in China. Through the analysis of China's social system, Weber thought that the characteristics of Chinese society could not provide material conditions that helped China take the capitalist road. China did not take the capitalist road. The main reason was that China was lack of a kind of rational spiritual guidance. So Weber analyzed the essence of the Confucian ethics. Weber believed that the Confucian ethic was a political norm and ritual code that was regarded the "rite" as the core concept and the "piety" as the basic virtue. It pursued a gentleman ideal that is combination of benevolence and braveness and co-existence of wisdom and integrity. He thought that the Confucianism has some rational factors to access the world while did not completely get rid of magic effects and was lack of absolute rationalization. The absence of focus on the metaphysics made the Confucianism shackled by traditionalism. The gentleman ideal of the Confucian ethics could not promote the formation of economic rationalism. Traditional value of human relations in Confucian ethics restrained the formation of rational organization. Confucian ethics were short of the calculation rule of a rational capitalism. Therefore, Weber pointed out that these factors hindered China to develop into capitalism.The fourth chapter mainly describes Weber's view that the Hinduism pursued spiritual afterlife relief through the endless "Comeuppance and Samsara" and was far from the madding crowd, thus it can not effectively guide the secular economic activity and give the spiritual power that helped to generate the capitalism within the local community in India. Weber illuminated on the Indian caste system and the characteristics of the privileged Brahmin, then analyzed the Hindu doctrines of "Comeuppance and Samsara", "the unity of Brahman and me", spiritual liberation and yoga practice. Meanwhile, Weber studied the redemption ethics of the Hindu's "Comeuppance and Samsara" and "the unity of Brahman and me", the ethics of caste system and the ethics of adherence to the profession. Weber also analyzed the "clean" and "dirty" ideology of the caste system, the values of eternal division of labor, the strict occupational hereditary, the spiritual liberation of "the unity of Brahman and me", the fatalism theory of "Comeuppance and Samsara" and the attitude of workers without discipline and the Hindu's magic features. So in Weber's opinion, these characteristics of Hindu ethics were the important reasons that the rational capitalism could not be generated inner India itself.The fifth chapter mainly illuminates the opinions how Weber got a conclusion through analyzing the ethical doctrines of the Daoism and Indian Buddhism that because escaped from the reality and did not actively transform the secular world, they could neither provide a spiritual power nor help to generate capitalism inner their homeland.The sixth chapter mainly analyzes the major deficiencies of Weber's economic ethic ideas and makes some critiques. This chapter criticizes the limitations of Weber's opinions on his research viewpoint and cultural position, the sidedness of his understanding of capitalism causes, oriental religious culture and the nature of capitalism, as well as the self-contradiction of his views. It draws on Marx's critique on capitalism and gets a conclusion that we can only take the transformation of the capitalist system itself as a precondition to resolve the crisis of modern capitalist society.The last part gives a summary. It holds that though Weber did not definitely propose specific solutions to resolve the crisis of modern society, the intention that he hoped to reconstruct the Christian ethics provided some revelations on how to resolve the crisis of modern society for us.