On The Confucian Ethics Of Responsibility In The Pre-Qin Period

Responsibility is the objective requirement of the society to human beings as a duty.Ethically,responsibility mainly refers to moral responsibility at two different levels,namely,"must" and "ought to".In practical terms,a responsible behavior demonstrates the unity of heteronomy and self-discipline,utilitarianism and non-utilitarianism.Responsibility performance needs not only a certain system as the guarantee,but also the consciousness of the subject as the powerful internal motive for the subject to fulfill its responsibilities.While in the contemporary era.it is just the the lack of responsibility value and the weak responsibility consciousness of the subject that gives rise various irresponsibility.Early in the pre-Qin period,thinkers of Confucian school recognized the value of responsibility when the exploring ways to shape an orderly society.As Confucius insisted,a good society is a society where everyone has his own rights and responsibilities.On that theoretical basis,he raised the idea of "rectifying the name"which laid a solid basic foundation for Confucian ethics of responsibility in the pre-Qin period.With the further theoretical development by Mencius and Xunzi later,a systematic theory of responsibility ethics was finally established.In Confucian responsibility ethics in pre-Qin Dynasty,"harmony" is the value pursuit,"propriety" the system guarantee,responsibility consciousness the internal requirement,and "sincerity" the moral pursuit.The idea facilitated establishing a path to implement responsibility that features the order of "self-cultivation,family unity,rightly country and then world peace".The theory also witnessed remarkable effectiveness in ensuring the implementation of responsibility,and cultivated a group of talents with lofty ideals who took the world as their duty.With the change of the times,such as the arrival of a large stranger society,the rapid development of science and technology and the popularization of the concept of rights,the responsibility ethics in Confucianism in Pre-Qin Dynasty have inevitably been challenged in modern times.Amid the absence of responsibility and responsibility consciousness of social members,the modernization of traditional responsibility is indispensable to better deal with the irresponsibility and ensure responsibility is well performed.While in that process,the most important is to give a full play to the values-orienting role of pre-Qin Confucian responsibility ethics,establish the concept of benevolence and responsibility,and ensure the adherence to the responsibility standard.