中欧社会论坛 - China Europa Forum

Authors: Fei Xiaotong

Date: 1992

Published by Berkeley: University of California Press, pp.71-79.

In this chapter, Fei Xiaotong develops the idea that the “organizational mode of association” (tuantigeju) and the “differential mode of association” (chaxugeju) have led to different types of morality. In the Western pattern, morality is built on the relationship between the organization and the individual, whereby the organization is the force controlling the individual behavior. Morality is a common will that precedes the individual members of the organization. In such an organization, all individual members are equal and the organization is not any individual’s private possession. Organizations should protect individual rights. In the Chinese context, morality extends out from the self to the social spheres formed by one’s personal relationships. Each sphere is sustained by a specific type of social ethic. There are no ethical concepts that transcend specific types of human relationships, i.e., there is no comprehensive moral concept.

This document in different languages

• Chinese: morality_of_person.pdf (240 KiB)

Page translations:

• 系维着私人的道德