On The Characteristics Of Universal Value

Looking forward "universal ethics" is a sweet dream of humankind from the ancient times. At present , the so-called "universal ethics" , mainly means the shared ethics by humankind as "global beings" at the top layer of subject——"human beings" on the critical problems of humankind involving survival and development. It emphasizes the shared ethic standards and moral principles all governments and people should observe in order to cope with a series of universal problems in social areas of economy, politics, culture,ecology etc. introduced by globalization, and, in turn, to construct a reasonable and harmonious social order in social areas of economy, politics, culture,ecology, etc.However, in social areas of economy, politics, culture, ecology, etc., are we able to construct a reasonable and harmonious order by finding "universal ethics"? This is a question concerns people for a long time. To reach such a charming goal, many scholars have developed all kinds of "universal ethics" concepts. But these "universal ethics" concepts often contradict with each other, for they couldn't agree on the issue of "what should be the characteristics of universal ethics". So they couldn't have the same idea on "universal ethics" itself. Directing at this phenomenon, this paper discussed the characteristics of "universal ethics" through four perspectives: historic and realistic, subjective and objective, unitary and pluralistic, theoretical and practical, with the method of dialectical contradiction and unity, in order to do good to the research of "universal ethics".Looking from the perspective of historic and realistic, "universal ethics" has the characteristics of both historic and realistic, it's the dialectical unity of historic and realistic. On the one hand, with the development of history, the intension of "universal ethics" is enriched and upgraded, from solely involving the simple relations between single persons to involving the relations between persons and society, then to involving the relations between humankind and nature, showing a trend of continuously evolution, so it has the remarkable characteristic of historic; On the other hand, "universal ethics" is always generated to meet the demand of reality as well as it is produced to serve the reality, therefore, it has the characteristic of realistic.Looking from the perspective of subjective and objective, "universal ethics" has the characteristics of both subjective and objective, it's the dialectical unity of subjective and objective. As for it's content, it's the common value claim of the people based on their objective common interests, need and desire, so, it has the characteristic of objective; As for it's form, people need to realize their objective common value claim so as to reach a uniform "universal ethics" concept in their minds in order to direct their practice so as to attain a reasonable and harmonious living order., therefore, it has the characteristic of subjective.Looking from the perspective of unitary and pluralistic, "universal ethics" has the characteristics of both unitary and pluralism, it's the dialectical unity of unitary and pluralism. It summarized the common characters of all specific subjects, and it can direct the common practice of humankind, so it is unitary; however it needs to take specific viewpoints of value as its raw material and to accomplish itself by abstracting common points from specific viewpoints of value, while after it is accomplished, it still need to be specified into specific viewpoints of value to direct specific practice of specific subjects, therefore, it is pluralistic.Looking from the perspective of theoretical and practical, "universal ethics" has the characteristics of both theoretical and practical, it's the dialectical unity of theoretical and practical. As for being the rational knowledge of the objective common value claim of humankind, it can direct the practice of humankind, so, it is theoretical; As for it comes from practice, gains m...