What is meta-ethics? Ethics includes meta-ethics, general ethics and applied ethics. Meta-ethics is also known as ethical philosophy which is the most important elements of ethics. It mainly studies people's outlook of values, which is the ultimate motive of human behavior and ultimate standard of all worth. Value outlook include outlook on life, moral and ethics.
Meta-ethics is the foundation of all of philosophy and science. When we discuss epistemology and ontology later, we will recognize the fundamental role of meta-ethics. However, meta-ethics has always been a big gap in the development of philosophy, even lacking a decent theoretical framework. What we should talk about meta- ethics are common problems, they have just been scattered all over, not being gathered under the topic of meta-ethics. These issues include the meaning of life, human needs and interests, individualism and altruism,liberalism, humani- tarianism, good and evil, cultivation, win-win, justice, the source of morality and law, the relationship between efficiency and fairness, small family and extended family. These questions belong to philosophy, but neither the ontology and epistemology nor general ethics, but meta- ethics.
We have a lot of value standards in our common sense, but most of them are not universally applicable. For example, people usually prefer to be neat, but sometimes chaos is better. If a child broke the clock, it shows that he has the spirit of exploration. People all like beauty, but Chinese believe that ugly wife and the field near home are treasures of family. Everyone wants to be smart, but sometimes ignorance is bliss,it's folly to be wise. The mission of the doctor is to save people, the military's mission is to kill, but both of them may be justice. People sometimes praise the firm stand that rather die than surrender, and sometimes believe that whosoever understands the times is a great man. Sometimes people firmly maintain discipline, sometimes they worship rebellious spirit. Sometimes they advocate individual liberation, and sometimes they also advocate the the quality of humility and restraint. These values are not universally applicable.
People often argue about the relationship between the little family and extended family in the Cultural Revolution in 1960-70s. How can extended family exist without little family? How can little family exist without extended family? Which is right? Philosophers cannot answer it, either. Many ethical norms proposing by philosophers and ethicists are usually contradictory. For example, Kant put forward some moral injunctions including “never kill”, “never steal”, “never lie”. However, some people must be killed, most countries do not abolish the death penalty. And sometimes we have to fight, war has always been an effective means for peace. Now the Chinese socialist core values include prosperity, democracy, civilization, harmony, freedom, equality, justice, legal system, patriotism, dedication, integrity and friendli- ness. But there is likely conflict between these moral norms. For instance, civilization and freedom may conflict, freedom will be limited in some standards of civilization. Legal and friendly may conflict, the police can not be friendly to anyone. Harmony and integrity may also conflict, telling the truth may offend people. Which one we should obey when these values conflict? And which one is the most important principle of them?
Each historical stage has a certain standard of value, and every social revolution is the remodeling of the standard of value, then what is the basis in the remodeling?
Taiji Evolutionism believes that the ultimate standard of value is individualism, humanism and evolutionism, the relationship of them is dialectical unity.
When it comes to individualism, we often think of selfishness, greed, shamelessness and even evil. In fact, individualism has a positive side. We work every day to make money mainly to meet our own needs, which is individualism. We watch movies, visit parks, marry and bear child to meet our own needs, which are also individualism.
When it comes to the benefits of people, we should not only think of food, beauty, music and other pleasures, but also think of the suffering from famine, plague and war. To bring benefits to people means to fight against heaven, land and human, means to build the entire economic base and superstructure, means that the world is getting compli- cated and orderly. Individualism safeguards the interests of both the success of the glory of the fame, and lonely and helpless people's expectations, as well as the future fate of all mankind. Meta-ethics is not a kind of simple preaching, it shoulders the burden of the fate of the world.
What is humanism? Humanism regard the value of the majority as the ultimate criterion. Humanism is a kind of reflection of individualism. Desiring to take his stand, one who is ren helps others to take their stand; wanting to realize himself, he helps others to realize themselves.
The principle of humanism means that everyone is equal, but in many cases, people are not equal. If you are a boss who want to recruit staff, facing many candidates, will you say that everyone is equal, anyone can come? You will definitely look for good person with high qualifications, good character, hard-working spirit, or people who have a relationship with you. Obviously, human beings are not equal. It means that you abandon the principle of humanism and follow the principle of evolutionism. The principle of evolution is complexity and order, people with higher education and good character has a complex and orderly brain.
People always want to do things well, create more efficient tools, establish more reasonable systems and so on, which are all evolutionism. Evolution is a means of achieving human benefits. However, this measure may be against the interests of human beings. You will lose freedom if you abide by the system. So evolutionism sometimes is opposite of humanism.
We often mention freedom, equality, fraternity, truth, kindness, beauty, benevolence, righteousness, wisdom, faith, prosperity, democracy, civilization, harmony, freedom, equality, fairness, rule of law, patriotism, dedication, integrity and friendliness. Among these values, truth, beauty and freedom are the direct appearance of human interests, they belong to the outlook on life of individualism; Love, goodness, benevolence, equality, honesty, friendship and harmony are all moral principles of humanism; Justice and democracy belongs to ethics principles of humanism; Wisdom, faith, patriotism and dedication are the means of realizing the benefits of individual. They belong to the outlook on life of evolutionism; prosperity, civilization and the rule of law belong to the ethics principles of evolutionism.
Individualism, humanism and evolutionism are three kinds of value standards, and all of them are the ultimate standard of value, is it contradictory? Actually, people have been fighting all the time, everyone fighting with himself or other people, fighting between companies, between nations, human's thousands years history is a kind of history of struggle and war. The reason of fighting is three final standards exist at the same time, and we must accept this reality. Does this problem can be solved? It is impossible to solve fundamentally, but we can find some ways to ease the contradictions and achieve the unity of them.
The value theory of meta-ethics study the relationship of the unity and opposite of these three values.
Firstly, the unity between individualism and evolu- tionism. It often manifests between immediate interests and long-term interests of one’s own. The treatment of it reflects the wisdom of individuals, it is the issue of outlook on life.
Graph 1: The ultimate standards of value
Secondly, the unity of individualism and humanism, that is, the contradiction between true feelings and virtues, which belongs to the moral principles. Love and dedication have always been the mainstream moral values. However, modern Western countries advocate liberation of personality, and “down with the Confucianism” in the period of May 4th movement in China reflects the resistance of individualism to humanism.
Thirdly, the unity of between humanism and evolution- ism belongs to ethics principles. Social evolution has produced a variety of social organizations, including families, companies, countries and international organi- zations. The unity of opposites between humanism and evolutionism is mainly the relation between individual and social organization. Social organization is not only a tool to safeguard people's interests, but also requires people to sacrifice their own interests.