Desperately seeking an essay on Confucianism analyzing typology

This paper analyzes the structure and function of Confucian ethical theories using typology. It tries to show whether Confucian ethics can play a proper role in the process of industrialization. It is subject to two conditions, i.e., it is subject to its existing typological stipulations, and it is subject to whether it can complete the transformation from tradition to modernity in terms of its typology. This highlights a conclusion, as a typical normative ethics of Confucian ethics, in order to realize its function of regulating "what people should do", and at the same time, regulating the modern management process of people - things, people - people relations, is the energy of the modern management process, it is the energy of the modern management process. To realize its function of regulating "what people should do", and at the same time, to regulate the modern management process of people - things, people - the energy of human relations, it is necessary to deconstruct and reconstruct the integration of the times.

I. The Origin of the Problem: From Elemental Analysis to Typological Analysis

Elemental analysis is the mainstream research orientation of analyzing and evaluating Confucian ethics, which is to disassemble and analyze the factors of Confucian ethics as separate elements. Elemental analysis is a way of analyzing and evaluating Confucian ethics by dismantling its constituent factors, treating them as separate social factors, and observing their social functions accordingly. In terms of methodology, it is a way of comparing these dismantled ethical factors with similar factors in Western ethics, and then analyzing the similar roles of the two in social operation, and finally judging the promotion and hindrance of these factors to the social process, and then deducing the function and magnitude of the entire Confucian ethical theory. Undoubtedly, the analysis of the factors is helpful in improving people's micro-understanding of Confucian ethics. First, the positive influence of Confucian ethics on personal morality is discovered. The radical viewpoint of the early modern period, which rejected Confucian ethics on the grounds that private virtue is evil, is hereby revised. Confucian ethics emphasizes that individuals should pay attention to the cultivation of virtues ("one should cultivate oneself"), maintain a noble character ("rich and noble, mighty and mighty, poor and lowly"), and condense the spirit of the subject ("I want to be benevolent, and I am benevolent to the end"), which is the main point of Confucian ethics. "), is of unquestionable modern value. Secondly, it confirms that there is a factor in Confucian ethics that leads to the growth of trade ethics and business ethics, and that the anti-commercial nature of Confucian ethics, which was generally recognized in the early modern period, has been corrected here. It can be affirmed that Confucian ethics emphasize sincerity and truthfulness ("正心誠意"), put profit in the forefront ("先富後教"), and advocate the right way to get things ("义以生利") and the right way to make profit ("義以生利"), The concepts of "thinking of righteousness in the face of profit" and "thinking of righteousness in the face of profit" can fully become the ideological resources for modernized business ethics. Thirdly, it highlights the self-renewal ability of Confucian ethics in terms of its constituent elements. In the early modern period, the view that Confucian ethics had been completely ossified by the Ming and Qing dynasties was rejected.

However, the conclusions drawn from the elemental analysis are quite limited. First of all, the part cannot represent the whole. No matter how reliable the argument that the components of Confucian ethics can promote modernization is, it cannot prove that Confucian ethics as a whole has the same function, because the whole is not equal to the sum of its parts. Secondly, the micro-meaning is not enough to show the macro-meaning. Micro-analysis can only be a combination of factual descriptions and value recognition. Although it can achieve the effect of "seeing the big in the small", it is impossible to arbitrarily match this fact with its significance, which restricts the broad vision of the social functions of Confucian ethics. For example, no matter how much it is proved that Confucian ethics emphasize personal cultivation, it is not enough to say that it can lead to the asceticism of each individual and thus promote the development of capitalism (commerce). Once again, analogical analysis of elements cannot avoid the possibility of far-fetchedness. When people always take the modern function of a certain factor of Western ethics as a reference point, and go to deliberately comb through the role of a similar factor of Confucian ethics in Chinese social history, their credibility is very doubtful. In this regard, typological analysis shows a unique value. Typological analysis focuses on the construction of ideal type. The construction of ideal type requires that the specific relations and events of historical life be assembled into a complex, and the relations and events are a system with internal consistency, thus showing the "typicality" of this complex; at the same time, in order to illustrate the "individual history" of this complex, the "individual history" should be analyzed in terms of the "individual history" of this complex. At the same time, in order to explain the "individual history" of this complex, the causal analysis of relations and events should be placed in the exploration of objective possibilities, following the empirical rules. Under the guidance of this method, the construction of ideal types actually becomes the construction of social action types, in which the paradigm of action guided by the attitude of purpose is directly oriented to value. The analysis of the individual events and relationships of the elements is not enough to explain the problem.

It was in this way that Max Weber analyzed the relationship between an ethical type and capitalism. In The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, he pointed out that, in terms of individual factors, almost all the elements of capitalism in the West are present in the rest of the world. However, from the analysis of the internal consistency of events and relationships, the science of ancient civilizations has not reached the general social acceptance, has not generated the axiomatic system of universal application, the Chinese history, the Indian political thought, the music and art outside the West, architecture, higher education, administration, and the power mechanism are not as strict and reasonable as that of the West. The West is unique in its mystical vision, economic life, technology, scientific research, military training, rationalization of law and administration, and especially in the asceticism of the Protestant ethic, which is the spiritual temperament of the society capable of adopting the type of rationalized action, and which constitutes the composite mechanism for the genesis of capitalism. 1 In China, the failure to produce the empirical result of capitalism is related to the Confucian ethic of rational adaptation to this world. Confucianism maintains the existing society, advocates the middle way, attaches importance to blood relations, deprives the pursuit of unity of personality, thus restricting the growth of reason, the division of occupations, the rational organization and calculation of labor, plus the influence of the Taoist concept of recluse, as well as the lack of an efficient monetary system, the inefficient administrative system of the family bureaucracy, the ultra-legal operation of the system of blood relations, the non-independence of the urban guilds, so that capitalism can not take place in China. The lack of an efficient monetary system. [ 2]

Max Weber's typological analysis, compared with the aforementioned elemental analysis, has enhanced its credibility: first, it views the interaction between ethics and society as a complex, overcoming the limitations of elemental analysis in terms of local evidence for the whole; second, it looks through the economic phenomenon and searches for the spiritual temperament that supports a certain type of economic behavior, overcoming the weakness of elemental analysis that makes it difficult to grasp the essence of the problem; third, theoretical judgments and empirical facts have a complete relationship with one another, which is the same as in the case of the other. Thirdly, theoretical judgment and empirical facts have complete consistency, which can explain the inevitability of the occurrence of capitalism in the West and the impossibility of its occurrence in China, overcoming the weakness of factor analysis that cannot explain why the capitalist mode of production has occurred in the West but has not developed in China under the same conditions in both the East and the West.

However, Weber's typological analysis was challenged because of three opportunities: first, the "historical fact" that Confucian ethics played a driving role in the so-called emergence of industrial East Asia; second, the re-examination of the relationship between Confucian ethics and the merchant's spirit in the study of China's recent history "proved" that Weber's judgment was not correct; and third, the fact that Weber's analysis of the relationship between Confucian ethics and the merchant's spirit "proved" that Weber's judgment was not correct. Secondly, in the study of ancient Chinese history, the re-examination of the relationship between Confucian ethics and the spirit of merchants "proved" the immaturity of Weber's judgment; thirdly, the Western scholars criticized Weber's typological analysis by the historical research method of anti-reduction and re-deduction (especially Carl Popper, who thought that Weber's typological analysis had not been confirmed as a representative of the type of Weber). The first leads to the assertion that Confucian ethics can be not only normative, but also managerial (applied); the second leads to the idea that Confucian ethics can itself give rise to managerial (applied) ethics, thus contributing to the growth of capitalism, which is characterized by rationalization; and the third provides methodological support for this.

For this reason, it is useful to answer the question: if Confucian ethics can be both a managerial and a normative ethical system, then there is no lack of ethical impetus for the development of capitalism in China. On the contrary, Confucian ethics can only be a classical normative ethical system that focuses on the regulation of human relations, and cannot promote the rational organization of labor in capitalism.