Researching The Current Moral Construction From The Perspective Of Traditional Morality

Traditional morality is the core of Chinese thought and culture, which plays a decisive influence in the formation of the national spirit, psychology and character However, in the new period of socialist construction, traditional morality has not achieved important progress that matches its status. On the contrary, traditional morality has been ignored and trampled. The performance is as follows:On the one hand, the public is short of moral beliefs with the behavior of pursing material interests and overlooking morality. On the other hand, under the premise of social values diversity, individualism and utilitarianism expand unduly, which leading to a series of problems, such as social disorder and confusion of values. Investigating the reason for this current social conditions, we can find that there involves the loss of material foundation and spiritual foundation. The former is the result of the disintegration of the traditional society which is based on ethics. The latter is the result of the loss of humanistic spirit under the anti-subject effects of the market economy. Although the social division and the differentiation of interests in modern society are directly responsible for the plight of traditional morality, the construction of morality has to be established in this situation. So we should explore the content of traditional morality which is helpful to the current moral construction. In order to support the current moral construction, we should find out the characteristics of traditional morality, so that it can be targeted. As we know, traditional morality is formed in the agrarian age, which reflects the economic situation on that time. Since then traditional morality has its own cultural character. With the understanding of scholar Liang Shuming, I generalize the traditional culture into two aspects. On the one hand, since religion is replaced by morality, our traditional culture become precociously. On the other hand, in the traditional culture, the pursuit of spiritual progress is highly praised, so cultural rationality is produced early. In the former condition, because of ritual and moral enlightenment, people can enjoy themselves, trust themselves, and improve the sense of responsibility and mission. In the latter condition, people not only base themselves on reality but also transcend it, which represents that in order to create the ideal moral personality, people pursue spiritual progress in human relations. The reason why traditional morality has practical significance is its complementarity, Since the commodity economy envelops the world, money scale and interests become the most important criterion. Besides, democracy and legal system alone in modern society also lead to the poor effect. Considering the above, we should attach great importance on the traditional morality. The moral construction in modern society is a systematic project, which requires the concerted efforts. Perhaps exploring our traditional morality can contribute to this project. Exploring tradition is not a emotional retro feeling, but a realization to the value of life, which aims at the present. On the basis of analyzing the unique character of traditional morality, we may reference scholar Feng Youlan’s perspectives about morality, which is called abstractive inheritance. We can distinguish the two aspects:one is called unchanging morality which has transcendental value, the other is called changing morality which links to specific social conditions. We should inherit the former and make it be helpful to our society. At the same time, we should change our behavior, so that the latter can be consistent with the modern society in a new way. In a summary, on the one hand, we should find out the common thing between the traditional society and modern society. On the other hand, we should regain the humanistic spirit with an open mind in the situation of market economy. If dealing with traditional morality cautiously, we can find that its excellent character is still active in modern society. Obviously, this will be helpful to solve the current moral dilemma.