The Research On Ethics Of Song Shu

During late Qing Dynasty,China was at a time of “a major change after a history of over three thousand years”.The country was facing internal and external problems,and the politics,economy,military,and culture aspects were facing unprecedented crises.Moral customs also underwent changes——the officials were marally corrupted,the scholars were degenerate,and the folk customs deteriorated.The old rituals,especially the three main-stays and five constant virtues seriously restrict the renewal of the ethical spirit of the people.In the face of serious social problems and moral crisis,in the spirit of benevolence and love for the people,on the basis of inheriting the traditional ethical culture of Confucianism,Song Shu criticized the anachronistic moral customs and proposed a series of suggestions and measures for reformation.It is a unique way of reinventing the ethical spirit of the Chinese people,leaving us with a valuable practical experience and spiritual wealth.Based on the main text of The Library of Modern Chinese Thinkers: Song Shu Juan,this thesis conducts a comprehensize and systematic study of Song Shu’s ethical thoughts by exploring and refining his ideas in depth.The main contents and viewpoints are as follows.The first chapter of the thesis briefly introduces Song Shu himself,as well as the background and source of the formation of Song Shu’s ethical thoughts.Song Shu was born in a scholarly family and had a good tradition of Confucian education since childhood.His brothers and sisters were numerous,and his elder brother was not benevolent to him,which led to a family suffering and had a bad impact on him.Song Shu’s study was based on the“Three Wang”(Wang Chong,Wang Tong,Wang Yangming),and he also fed on a hundred schools of thought,especially the thoughts of Huang Zongxi and Yan Yuan’s theories.His writings Liu Zi Ke Zhai Bei Yi(《六字课斋卑议》)is the important text to study Song Shu’s ethical thoughts.Consciously integrating himself into the tide of the political reforms,with the aim of protecting the national destiny,he committed himself to drawing useful resources from the Confucian tradition and from the East and West,and finally gave a set of his own solutions.The second chapter of the thesis points out the philosophical foundation,methodological characteristics and the festure of Song shu’s ethical thoughts.Song Shu has a different philosophical tendency from many of his contemporaries’ idealism,and “extremely advocates the theory of materialism.It is also because of his materialism proposition that he tends to proceed from reality and adhere to the methodology of seeking truth from facts.Song Shu also has a simple dialectic thought.He insists on the principle of the change and development of things,and thus looks at the changes,reforms and progress of morality.He insists on two point theory in all things,and sees the causal connection and mutual transformation of things.Therefore he can always adhere to the specific analysis of specific issues.Song Shu’s research and analysis of ethics and morality mainly adopts methods of skepticism and criticism,historical comparison and Indian classical logic,rendering his ethical thoughts more speculative,forward-looking and rational.Song Shu’s ethical thoughts reflect the characteristics of typical radical and conservative entanglements.The third chapter of the thesis expounds Song Shu’s inheritance and promotion of Confucian traditional ethics.Song Shu holds the overall position of advocating Confucianism and restraining the Legalism,and adheres to the original true meaning of Confucianism.He believes that Confucianism since the Qin Dynasty has been misrepresented and changed by the Legalists,and it has become“Yang Confucianism and Yin Legalism”(“阳儒阴法”),and this is also the root cause of“the Divine Land’s Long Night”.To this end,Song Shu devotes all his life to powershot the Yang Confucianism and Yin Legalism,trying to“reform the world of Legalism into the world of Confucianism”.In order to realize this goal of governance,he puts forward the idea of“taking Huang’s theory as the body and using Yan’s theory as the function”,that is,politically promoting Huang Zongxi’s people-oriented benevolent government,and adopting Yan Yuan’s method of cultivation.With such a combination of politics and religion,a well-off and Great Harmony can be expected,the general mood of society of Emperors Yao and Shun the three as well as ancient dynasties can be restored.In response to the prevailing protection and reforming ideas at that time,he also puts forward a statement of“Restore Confucianism”.Song Shu also inherited the humanity theory of Mencius’s theory of good nature and the consistent Confucian tradition of people-oriented thought.The theory of good nature is to serve the moral theory of transforming old ethics,of expanding goodness,as well as the theory that everyone can be civilized.The people-oriented principle is the starting point and the foothold of his ethical thoughts.It is also a major feature that is different from his contemporaries,who regard“country”as their starting points to solve problems.The fourth chapter of the thesis focuses on Song Shu’s criticism and transformation of traditional moral customs.In late Qing Dynasty,Chinese traditional moral customs evolved:the officials were marally corrupted,the scholars degenerated,and the folk customs deteriorated.From the perspective of moral subjects or social classes,Song Shu re-modifies the morals,habits and customs of the officials,scholars and the common people.The first is to create a political style from the three levels of law,official system and the House,thus improving the level of official morality and administrative efficiency.As the head of the four classes of people,the“scholar bureaucrat”has deteriorated,mainly due to the imperial examination system and the talent-selection method of the Eight-part essay writing.Song Shu has strongly criticized it,and has advocated“the abolition of the eight-legged essay”and“the reform of examination law”.He has proposed a set of reformation propositions of the imperial examination system,put foreward the theory of establishing a modern educational system,and made educational attempt to reform the style of study and rebuild the scholar discipline.Song Shu’s transformation of the“people”has focused on women,a group that has been at a weak and suppressed position for a long time,and has changed the marriage and schedule ritual laws regulations that are untimely and unreasonable.He worked out“ritual laws of San Chu and Wu Qv”(“三出、五去礼律”)and the law that states men and women both have the division of family property to safeguard women’s rights and interests.He also endorsed for the four types of“extremely miserable people”,including child brides,whores,slave girls and concubines and proposed relevant rescue measures for them.As for the custom of women’s foot-binding,Song Shu also traced to its source,proposing practical countermeasures and promoting conscious prohibition of foot-binding.The fifth chapter of the thesis refines some of the characteristic ways of teaching that Song Shu directly or indirectly advocates for remoulding the spirit of national ethics.There are four main points.First,Song Shu emphasizes the “plain beauty” of the argument,and believes that there is a “disease of estrangement” and “disease of confusion” in the discussion,therefore it needs the “eight-character soup of placing oneself in others’ position together with seeking truth from facts” and the“four-character soup of literacy and study tour” to prescribe the right treatment for specific problems.Something very important is the standard of moral judgment and evaluation,that is,seeking truth from facts.In addition,Song Shu also proposed that political discussion should be awere of the “overstatement and inanity” disease,and should start from “humble-reality” toward the goal of “high-reality”.China has always been politically and ethically integrated,which is also a standard issue of moral judgment.That is,we should proceed from reality and seek truth from facts.Second,Song Shu put forward the idea of “indirect education” and “special education”with regard to moral education methods,and advocates the establishment of the society,the library,the translation bureau,the newspaper office and the publicity workshop to gradually reduce some bad customs,that to improve the cultural level and moral quality of the people as a whole.The third is to propose the criteria for distinguishing between “national quintessence” and “national chaff”,namely“privateness” and “love of the public”,so as to correctly treat the moral legacy left over from history and to achieve the reconciliation between “national quintessence”and “Europeanization” to let the value of the true quintessence be protected and promoted.Finally,it seeks the support of moral norm from religion.Religious doctrine contains the function of moral exhortation,such as not killing,not doing evil,etc.,which are beneficial to the casting of people’s virtue.The conclusion part points out the meaning and inadequacies of his theory.His bold doubts and critical spirit,the attitude of seeking truth from facts,strong patriotism and humanitarian spirit are precious treasures that we still need to adhere to today.Of course,there are still some deficiencies in its ethical thinking,which is also giving us negative thinking and enlightenment.