On Public Value

This paper mainly considers and discusses about the issue of modernity. It is trying to answer the following questions: What are public values? Why can they arouse so much conscern and attention? What are the bases, the prerequisites and the conditions to generate them? How can they be fully and effectively realised? The writer of this paper believes that the problems in modernity can be solved by realising public values?Public values are the public uses that objects can be made to meet the needs, desires and purposes of the subjects. They are the shared ideas and expressions of the people who are conscerned about the criteria of the evaluations of objects within the same community. They are the general standards based on public interests that people use in public interactions and life to judge, to choose and to modify in order to realise public interests. They are also the unification of the following three: the public uses of objects, the public expressions of subjects and finally the general standards based on public interests.Public values distinguish themselves from the modern sociaty because it is the crises of individualism, validity and globalization in this modern sociaty that make people realise the existence of public values. People begin to be aware of the fact that only by reconstructing public values can they handle effectively the different kinds of crises and realise the dream of a harmonious sociaty.Public values are based objectively on the publicity of objects that are generated and presented in the relationships among "the division between subjects and objects" and "subjects-objects". They are discovered and revealed by the theory of public objects, including the non-competitivity and non-otherity in the course of consuming. Although they are relatively flexible and changeable as people and situations are changing, they are basically objective and not changing in a way people like.Public values are subjectively based on public reasons. Public reasons are the reasons of citizens who share equal rights and freedom. They are done by means of public inferring and public discourses aiming at public interests. They are not only a kind of thinking but also a sort of moral ability. Public values can not be genarated and realised without public reasons. Without equally free citizens, public reasons and public discourses, there will be no public uses of objects, no public expressions and no general standards guided by public interests, thus no public values.Public values are presupposed by public areas. Public areas are the social spaces where all subjects co-exist, where public interests arise and public reasons happen. Of course, public values can be only produced in public areas. Without public areas, there will be no public life, no co-existence of subjects, no public interests, or even no public reasons, hence, no public values. However, if there is a public area, surely there will be a public value.Public values are best realised by way of public running. They are realised dynamically by efforts of the public. So they require organizing and controlling the public effectively. Generally speaking, there are three ways to organise and control public behaviors: one is done by government, one by public management and the other by public running. Accordingly, there will be three ways to realise public values. The governmental way, a poor way to realise public values, stresses the functions of government and authorities while it neglects the values of the public, thus there is such a thing as "government failures". The public manegement can not fundamentally solve the problems caused by "government failures", hence, still remaining the appeals to enlarge citizens' freedom, to upraise their values and truly realise public values. However, the public running can surpass those limitations of the public management and solve the problems of "government failures", because it is open, public, fair, equal, effective, law-controlling, democratic, multi-natured and interactive. Thus, it is the ideal way to realise public values.Public values cannot be generated and realised without the mental and moral refinements. Public values are the shared public values of the people. To promote and enhance the generation and realization of public values, we should have a equally-free and a jointly-cooperative enviroument. It needs certain moral levels and some self-disciplines of the public. And people's moral levels and self-disciplines can only be made possible and modified by mental and moral refinements. The mental and moral refinements can make possible ideal subjects for public values while public values can provide goals and conditions for the mental and moral refinements.