Moral Construction In The Urban-Rural Integration In China

The urban-rural integration is a systematic and complicated project, which covers several fields. Up to now, scholars have discussed it from different perspectives, such as politics, economy and culture, and have offered many valuable suggestions. Literally, this process concerns the harmonious development of the urban and rural areas. However, it should be noted that one premise of the integration is the existence of the differences between the urban and rural areas. Some of the differences are natural factors such as geographic differences, yet others are man-made disparities caused by such factors as the social system. The latter ones are probably the breeding ground of latent conflicts which are represented in ethics as"moral conflicts". Certainly, the conflict here does not refer to the conflict of the fundamental interests, but are essentially caused by the differed regularities and values formed in the different lifestyle. Therefore, the ultimate goal of the integration is not simply ruralization or urbanization, but modernization on the basis of harmony.Many of the current theories, though having different backgrounds and goals from the current situation, are of value concerning the methods they employed and the spirits they revealed. The discourse ethics proposed by Habermas under the modern multi-cultural era with entangled interests is based on the communicative rationality and suggests that consensuses be reached through communication and negotiation, which both inherits and surpasses the traditional ethic ideas. Such ideas advocated in it as rationality, open, equality and communication are of both practical significance and theoretical guidance in dealing with many of the current issues.Borrowing the theoretical spirit of Habermas's discourse ethics, this thesis studies the moral construction in the process of urban-rural integration in China. It is proposed that in the changed communicative space, the moral subjects and the spirits they should have must be identified first. In the process of urban-rural integration, the closure of the living space of the rural residents has been broken gradually, and a new living state in which the life of urban and rural residents mingles together is formed. This requires every citizen participates in it with an open mind and the awareness of an independent subject. Secondly, the moral construction should be divided into two dimensions. One is to break the traditional method of passive inculcation while inheriting the traditional virtues; the other is to surmount the limits of concerning only personal morals and expand the scope to the public areas. In this way, the moral goal it will achieve is not the standards determined by some moral authorities, but some negotiable morals formed as a result of sufficient encouragement of the subjectivity of every individual. The way in which such a goal can be achieved is as follows: in the living space where open and equality have been achieved via the construction of a series of impartial systems, morals concerning all the participating subjects are formed through communication and negotiation; besides, moral subjects need to have tolerance in this process.