Ethical Thought Huainanzi Study

Huai Nan Tzu is accomplished in Early Han Dynasty, which was an era of Chinese ancient society that would tend towards unification. So its thoughts have character of conformity. Its ethic thoughts are based on Taoist school, and absorb other schools, and finally form abundant and complicated ethics.The thesis consists of three parts, uses historical method, combines the thoughts of Chinese ethical history with ethical theory, and discusses the ethical thoughts of Huai Nan Tzu roundly.The ethical thoughts of Huai Nan Tzu is based on Taoism, and involved with every aspect of Chinese ancient social ethics. In the theory of Man's nature, Huai Nan Tzu advances that nature deprives from Taoism, affirms the correctness of man's desires, points out it is a changing process of nature and sociality and analyses the importance of humanity. In the morality genesis and essence, it brings forward that Taoism is the primitive of everything, and say nothing of morality. It points out the morality's material ground, historicity and practicality. As for the question of the criterion morality and action, it puts forward Taoism is the highest. It is cling to Taoism that Morality, Humanity, Justice, Ceremony, and Music. As to the culture of morality, moral education must be based on Taoism and follow humanity. It also advances the highest perfect personality morality for the lives.Huai Nan Tzu is open to other schools, and absorbs them in the ground of criticism. It criticizes the thoughts of Confucian, Legalists and Mohist earnestly, and tries its best to bring them into itself. As to Confucian, it criticizes their Humanity, Justice, Ceremony, and Music and funeral. However, it affirms some viewpoints, for example their educational effect, the ideas between justice and benefits. Furthermore there is the highest perfect personality morality of Confucian in the book. It opposes to luxury funeral, so has some common ground with Mohist. It thinks much of the law's action, definitudes the importance and fairness, but it advances the points of using Law assisting Humanity. Its ideas between justice and benefits have some character of Confucian. Of course it does not exclude benefits.The ethical thoughts of Huai Nan Tzu reflect its attention to political questions of realism and endeavor to seek new social order. However its ethical thoughts have self-contradiction, and in practice have a lot of difficulties to perform. So it is difficult to be adopted by the emperor.But the ethical thoughts of Huai Nan Tzu plays an important role in Chinese ethical history whose thoughts provides useful data and methods to construction of Dong Zhongshu's ethical moral system of Confucian, as well as metaphysics of the Wei-jin Dynasty.