On Civic Virtue

The concept of virtue derives from the Greek arete or excellence,by way of the Latin virtus.As a role-related concept, virtue refers to the disposition to act in accordance with the standards that define the role or roles a person performs.The classical virtues include wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice.Virtues are valuable because they promote the good of the community, not because they just promote the good of the individual.Civic Virtue refers to a particular role of citizen,this concept certainly persisted in the classical republican theorists' use of civic virtue;and this is a connection between the concept of virtue and the concept of good.The vituous citizen is one who act with the common good in mind.Some scholars regard traditional Chinese culture as culture of virtue,in the meantime, they regard the western culture as culture of wisdom.There are lots of valuable statement of intelligence in culture of virtue,And also culture of wisdom contains many valuable virtue statement. Virtue was divided into two kinds:that of intellect and that of moral by Aristotle,they were mainly discussed in Nicomachean Ethics written in a general sense, which laid the foundation and gave clear direction for subsequently studying and developing the virtue ethics that was called Aristotelianism. All virtues contribute to republican citizenship from the classical virtues to the Christian virtues of faith, hope,and charity.A book named After Virtue written by Maclntyre became a new turning point of virtue ethics' development.According to Maclntyre, virtue ethics was revitalized just because the western moral life and theory of ethics were in deep crisis,the main reason was that it deviated from the tradition of Aristotle's virtue ethics.The crisis of the moral life and theory of ethics are also faced in China at present. For instance, knowing of virtue deviated from doing of it virtue disunited from happiness, lost of moral judgment and evaluation standard,and so on.The Program for Improving Civic Morality was implemented throughout the country,and it really is an important measure to deal with the crisis from the national level, but the result was barely satisfactory.This thesis tries to put civic virtue forward as the best way to deal with the crisis of modern moral life and theory of ethics. The scientific development of citizen is kept on directly with the development of mankind of Marxism at present, and we argue that cultivating civic virtue is equal to promoting scientific development of citizen.This thesis is made up of seven parts.The origin of civic virtue studying is mainly elaborated in Part 1.Mainly owing to these moral antinomy,namely knowing of virtue deviated from doing of virtue in moral life, and virtue disunited from happiness in practice in which the value of civic virtue studying embodied, the value of civic virtue studying is also importantly embodied here.The basic research framework of civic virtue is also the important content of this part.Achievement of Chinese and Western virtue exploration was statemented and commented in Part 2 and Part 3.The concept of the Western and Chinese virtue are discussed, and the concept of virtue is interpreted in different system of virtue existence,virtue persue and virtue aim in Part 2. Theory of Quality put forword by Aristotle,theory of Power put forword by Spinoza,theory of obligation put forword by Sidgwick,theory of conscience put forword by Hegel and theory of interest put forword by Macintyre were mainly discussed in the Western virtue concept.The Western and Chinese virtue research is campared in Part 3,in which theory of virtue put forward by Confucius, Mencius and Socrates,Plato,Zhongshu Dong,Aristotle and Aquinas'and some other chief scholars in modern history are arranged and analysed. The cultural difference between Western and Chinese virtue is discussed.For instance, intellectual and moral virtue are all important virtues in Western and Chinese virtue ethics, but in the West,intellectual virtue is more emphasized,wisdom was put in the top place of classical virtues of wisdom,courage, temperance and justice.However, moral virtue is more emphasized in China.In Four Virtues put forwarded by Mencius and Five Constant Virtues put forwarded by Zhongshu Dong,wisdom is the last.From the comparation between the Western and Chinese virtue,we argue that the order of virtue,the content and the kind of virtue not only reflected the commonality of human civilization.but also reflected the difference between different cultures. The concept, the level and type of civic virtue are discussed in Part 4 and Part 5, which is the main body and innovations of this thesis.In Part 4,the concept and the level of civic virtue are discussed.Scholars from home to abroad have mainly researched human virtue, but never defined the concept and also never analysed systematically the connotation of civic virtue. However, there is obvious difference between human virtue and civic virtue, and the difference has been noticed by some scholars.In this part, the concept of civic virtue is firstly put forword, and the basic implication of the concept of civic virtue is understood in terms of human nature, reason and theory of mankind, which based on different cognition about human virtue and civic virtue. Defining the concept of the civic virtue and connotation in modern significance is the first main innovation of this thesis.Dividing the type of civic virtue, the main subdirectory and the relationship between different virtues are chiefly discussed in Part 5.Civic virtue is of three kinds:civic moral virtue, civic intellectual vitue and civic practical vitue.And we put forword table of the main virtues which is contained in different kinds of virtues.This classification of civic virtue is different from that of Aristotle's and Aqinas', and the concept of practical virtue is put forword and discussed,and the practical nature is highlighted,which is the second main innovation of this thesis.Civic virtue and scientific development of citizen are mainly discussed in Part 6. Scientific development of citizen is the immediate continuation of theory of human science of Marxism. Cultivating civic virtue is not only the effective approach of but also the components of promoting the scientific development of citizen, which is the third main innovation of this thesis. The scientific development of citizen is embodied in the correctness of development direction, completeness of the content, scientificity of the method and continuity of the process.Current situation and construction of civic virtue in China belongs to empirical study In order to grasp the current situation of civic virtue, Chinese Civic Virtue Survey is done just for this thesis.According to experts, and is analysed by SPSS v16. The result of the survey is presented in Part 7.Based on critical thought and analysis of the survey,approach of Chinese civic virtue cultivating are put forword. Throughout this thesis, the author concludes and analyses the thought of virtue brought up in different historical periods and social systems following the guides of Marxism.The method of comparative analysis is adopted in the thesis to understand the difference between Chinese and Western virtue ethics;documentary analyzing method and method of interviewing the experts are used to confirm scientificity of viewpoint that put forword in the thesis;questionnaire is used for obtaining the first-hand data to improve pertinence and effectiveness of the method of cultivating virtue.All these achievements are embodied in the above-mentioned three main innovations, namely defining the concept of civic virtue in modern significance, the level of civic virtue and three kinds of civic virtue, the viewpoint that cultivating civic virtue can realize scientific development of citizen.