| Engels' scientific ethical conception is an important component of the Marxist theoretical canon and the quintessence of human civilization in its historical development. On the basis of Engels' theory of philosophy, the formation and development of this scientific ethical conception is a process integrated with the development of Engels' philosophical ideas. In the founding process of the dialectical materialism and the historical materialism, Engels inherits with discrimination the previous ethical theories, especially from German Classic Ethics and the 19th century Utopian Socialism, and constantly summarizes the revolutionary struggle of the working class, and social life and ethical phenomena in the capitalist society. After the gradual transformation from humanism to communism in the ethical conception, Engels founds the theoretical system for his scientific ethical conception, and realizes a revolutionary change in the history of ethical ideas, which is further enriched and developed through Engels' revolutionary practice in his later years. Engels' scientific ethical conception explicates scientifically a series of fundamental tenets in ethics, such as the fact that social economic relation determines ethics, that ethics are characterized by class nature, specification and historic significance, and that the development of ethics are has their own regular patterns and historic types, and expounds systematically the ethical categories, for example, good and evil, freedom and necessity, and love, marriage and family. All of these benefit not only the Marxist ideological canon, but also the construction of socialism with Chinese characteristics nowadays. In constructing a well-off society in an all-round way and with more attention paid by the Communist Party of China and all the people in China to the ethical construction, we should study Engels' scientific ethical conception, and take it firmly as our guideline for the correct analysis and understanding of the ethical situation under the socialist economic conditions; found an ethical system suitable for the socialist marketing economy, bringing the function of ethics into full play and combining the government by ethics with the government by law; and carry forward with discrimination the traditional ethics and set up new ethics, thus bringing about an overall progress in both man and society and advancing the construction cause of the socialist modernization. |
