Conflict And Harmony

This paper carried through a thorough analysis of the various representative moral education theories resulting from western countries in their coping with the moral plights caused by value-pluralism since 1960s.Firstly, this paper pointed out that in western democratic societies which faced the pluralistic culture and values and advocated religion freedom and the separation of politics and education, that any reasonable moral education theories would confront the problem of proving their legitimacy, that is , the question of "teaching morals to whom?" and "whose value?" The answer to this question determined how various moral education theories viewed "what is moral"? Based on this analysis, the paper classified the strategies of various western moral education theories in the era of pluralistic culture and values into three approaches: the relativism approach, the universalism approach, and the approach which tries to surpass the relativism and universalism approach.This paper holds that it is still possible to reach a consensus in a society with value-pluralism. The possibility lies in different cultural groups and individual social needs, the common nature of human and the need for human sociality existence and solving the common contemporary moral problems. In a society with value-pluralism, we must pay attention to the pursuit of personal virtues and the caring between people based on the priority of respecting general human dignity and rights.Secondly, the paper maintains that human is a moral existence by birth. However, in contrast to the mono-value traditional society, people in the modern society with pluralities in culture and values are faced with an abundance of plights for moral existence. Consequently, a sound theory of moral education should emerge for matching response. Based on the moral circumstance people are under, the dissertation carries out an analysis of the strategies resulting from three corresponding paths. With this taken as foundation, a sound theory of moral education and practice pattern are learnt. The youth should be trained in terms of the ability in moral choice and moral decision, the construction of a relatively identical value pattern, mentality of endurance and competence for dialogue in order to deal with the problem of moral existence in plural-value society.Lastly, from the comments and analysis of the three approaches, this paper reflected the legitimacy of Chinese traditional moral education (Confucianism tradition and revolutionary moral education tradition) in contemporary Chinese society. According to this reflection, this paper put forward the idea of establishing a moral conception on the base of respecting individual moral rights, deciding the contents of moral education through cultivating acceptable moral virtues in a changing society and the consensus reached by conversation and carrying out moral education in different areas by differentiating public and private areas: social morality and personal morality.