Study Of Hsun Tsun’s Moral Theory In The View Of His Idea About Heaven And Human

It is well-known that the ancient Chinese philosophy was started with the debate on relationship of heaven(tian) and human(ren). As an important representative of Confucianism, Hsun Tsu(Xunzi) also made an deep discussion on the debate about the relationship between heaven(tian) and human(ren),which was mainly written in an article-- A Discussion on Heaven in the book of Master Xun. The main point of that article is understanding the distinction between heaven and human (明于天人之分). This article attempts to explain the Xunzi’s theory about "understanding the distinction between heaven and human". This whole paper mainly divided into four parts to discuss. The first part attempt to figure out the main question of the "understanding the distinction between heaven and human" by summing up the previous research results about that topic. The second part discuss the background of Xunzi’s thesis on heaven and human. The third part focuses on understanding Xunzi’s notion about "heaven" and "human". The fourth part attempts to discuss Xunzi’s view of the construction of moral and value order by investigate the path of the argument about "understanding the distinction between heaven and human". Xunzi believes that human value cannot be reflected in heaven but in human themselves, and the most important principle is "rite(Li)". At the end of this article, I try to think about Xunzi’s moral theory which depends on his concept of heaven and human and point out that his theory of heaven and human highlights the subjectivity of human.