An Analysis Of The Ethical Value Of Aesthetic Freedom And Commonness Of Emotions

From the angle of the value problems confronted in the post-religion-ethics era, this paper conducts a comparative study into the significance of the purport of aesthetic freedom and aesthetic gemeinsein in contemporary ethics between Chinese and Western culture backgrounds. And the separate role of purport of aesthetic freedom and aesthetic gemeinsein in value significance is illuminated, with the later-period thoughts of Mr Li Zehou, a representative figure in the domestic field of practical aesthetics, as an individual case. The paper illuminates the important role the purport of aesthetic freedom plays in Western ethic spirit’s characteristic of purposiveness by introducing the historical evolution of the interaction between Western ethics and aesthetics. Furthermore, against the Western cultural background, the paper discriminates and analyzes the ethic and aesthetic elements in Chinese traditional culture, so as to present the significance of emotional gemeinsein in Chinese traditional ethical ideas. Finally, the emphasis is shifted to the domestic field of practical aesthetics. With Mr. Li Zehou’s later-period thoughts as the horizon, a review is made on his ethics-aesthetics thoughts in the later period around the value problems of aesthetics in ethical terms.With the history of Western philosophy as the major clue in Chapter One of the paper, Section I generalizes the evolution of historical interaction between aesthetics and ethics; Section II provides analysis on the idiosyncrasy of Western ethic spirit, as well as causes for the interaction between ethics and aesthetics being situated in dynamic development; Section III makes an review of the diversion of Western postmodern ethics towards aesthetics; and Section IV analyzes the position aesthetic freedom takes in the post-religion-ethics era, from the perspective of "purposiveness".Chapter Two mainly analyzes the role sentiment plays in Chinese traditional ethics. Section I distinguishes the significance of rationality principle from that of psychological emotion principle in ethics/aesthetics by comparison between Chinese and Western classical humanistic spirits; Section II discriminates and analyzes the Confucianism dominated ethical ideas in traditional culture against the background of modernity, pointing out the deficiency of the "psychological emotion" principle in traditional ethical ideas with respect to the modern society; with the "May Fourth" Enlightenment Movement as node, Section Ⅲ discourses the consequence of traditional culture and its "psychological emotion" principle-as a hidden "metaphysical abstraction"-on the cultural horizon and relevant academics after May Fourth.With Mr. Li Zehou’s later-period thoughts as the horizon in Chapter Three, Section Ⅰ begins with a generalization of the developments of Mr. Li Zehou’s thoughts; Section Ⅱ discriminates and analyzes his later-period thoughts separately from four angles-rationality problems, humanity problems, value problems and freedom problems-and illuminates the interaction between and position of ethics and aesthetics in his later-period thoughts by contrast with the Western ethic spirit; finally, Section Ⅲ makes a review of Li Zehou’s later-period thoughts. Against the value and belief crisis in the contemporary society.Chapter Four makes a summary of the advantages of aesthetic freedom and aesthetics in the ethical value of emotion’s gemeinsein and problems they each are confronted with. Further, through a brief introduction to the ethic/aesthetic thoughts of Deng Xiaomang and You Xilin, two domestic scholars, this chapter illuminates how aesthetic gemeinsein can be incorporated with traditional culture theoretically so as to manifest value in the post-religion-ethics era and constitute another new possible trend of "ethics towards aesthetics" with respect to the Western postmodern aesthetic freedom.