Charity Ethics

Public Welfare Ethics is an important topic of study that is drawing wide attention. The study of the topic is of both theoretical and practical significance.Traditional Chinese culture contains colorful pub1ic-welfare ethical thoughts. For example,Confucianism advocates the idea of beneficence and that of Great Unity; Buddhism propagates of causal justice; Daoism emphasizes the importance of Dao and morality. In modern China, public welfare is even of the historical significance of saving the country from perishing and reviving the Chinese nation. Humanism comes into public welfare ethics. What′s more, Public Welfare Ethics get a kind of support based on plural values. Public Welfare Ethics can be traced back to early western history. It includes public welfare ethics thoughts in the Middle Ages. And it is also found in emotionalism, utilitarianism, deontology, and the theory of evolution in modern west as well as liberalism, communicationism, and the theory of The Third Road in contemporary west.The weak in society should enjoy the same living rights, developing rights, working rights, and the rights of being treated equally as the strong. Ethically speaking, these basic rights are rights granted to the weak by morality to maintain their social status, freedom, and demands. Accordingly, these basic rights finally become the moral duties of the subjects of public-welfare activities. It is no question that the weak really have the moral right of being aided by the society; however, they also have duties to gain self-pride, self-reliance, and self-help to change their own destiny. They should learn to overcome the difficulties and setbacks in their lives.There are four parts in the article. The first part is the definition of the concept of charity; the second part it is the analysis of the importance to the development of charity at present. The third part is the narration of the status of the development of charity in our country, and also an analysis of the current problems in charity; and finally in the fourth part, it is the analysis of the relationship between the development of a harmonious society and charity. And also some proposals to the development of charity at present.