"The law is the bottom line of morality", or "morality is the bottom line of the law"?

September 20, is the Party Central Committee issued the "Citizen Moral Construction Implementation Outline" 6 anniversary, but also China's fifth "Citizen Moral Awareness Day". In recent days, with the National Moral Model Selection and Recognition Activity, a number of moral role models from ordinary people out of the fire of their lives lit a beautiful moral candle, in the full display of moral and spiritual strength of people moved at the same time, once again triggered the relationship between the construction of morality and the rule of law construction of the people's deep thoughts.

Over the years, the concept of building a society based on the rule of law has been gaining popularity through the promotion of the government, the appeal of scholars, and the participation of the public. In daily life, more and more people are accustomed to consciously abide by the law, the use of law, in the acceptance of the law "constraints" at the same time, enjoying the law to bring us a variety of "benefits": good social governance ecology, convenient dispute resolution, The law has brought us a variety of "benefits": good social governance ecology, convenient dispute resolution, honest civil and commercial transaction order, and a stable and predictable way of life.

However, while we respect and praise the rule of law, we should also recognize the fact that the rule of law is only one of the ways of social governance, and that although the characteristics of fairness, equality, efficiency, convenience, and stability have been proved by history and reality, there are still some shortcomings. For example, although fines like Damocles sword hanging over the head, but spitting, running red lights, drunk driving, "psoriasis" small ads, trampling on the lawn and other phenomena are still unchecked. Just as there is market failure in the field of economic operation, there is also a "legal failure" in the field of social governance. One of the panaceas to solve the "legal failure" is to strengthen the construction of civic morality. The law of the land, without the construction of morality.

Law is the bottom line of morality, morality is a high standard of law. Legal governance vision of the "people", neither comrade Lei Feng like the "good people", nor amnesty "bad people", but the "middle man ": this person can not do good things, but can not do bad things; can do whatever you want within the scope of the law, but can not go beyond the boundaries of the law to do whatever you want; this person does not need to have how noble moral qualities, as long as the behavior is in line with the norms of the law. A society composed entirely of "middlemen" may be a super-stable society, but it is not destined to become a sustainable society with a promising future. A society cannot be full of good people, "utopia" is destined to be our long-term ideal, so this society needs the law as a means of governance to adjust social relations; but a society can not be without good people, the polarization of the "valley of evil" will only appear in the novels. But a society cannot do without good people, and a polarized "valley of evil" will only appear in fiction. Therefore, this society also needs moral construction to educate people's hearts and guide their good deeds, so that the public can still do good deeds on the basis of not doing wrong. It is from this perspective that the law pursues the bottom line of fairness, justice and social stability, while morality advocates the ultimate commonwealth of the world and social harmony.

Law is hard, morality is flexible. Precisely because the law is hard, will have authority, impartiality, will let the public perception, recognition and obedience, as the so-called law without faith. But on the other hand, the hard character of the law makes the guiding and educating function of the law not as obvious as the flexible means of morality. "The net of law is wide open, but no leakage", "the law does not tolerate mercy", "the prince violates the law and the common people the same crime", the law in the face of justice and ruthlessness, to a certain extent, has already been doomed. The law can regulate the behavior, but can not penetrate into the heart; the law can cure the symptoms, but not necessarily cure the root cause. The flexible character of morality is a useful supplement to the law, in the "law is not responsible for many" type of minor violations of the governance, straight to the hearts of the people's indoctrination may be much more effective than only the punishment of the behavior.

After all, the law is a "luxury", but morality is "cheap". The operation of the law, that is, the realization of the rule of law, there is a cost, from legislation to law enforcement to justice and then to abide by the law, the cost of each link can not be underestimated. Seemingly simple design of a system, intangible will increase the burden of how much behavior, trading constraints and law enforcement and judicial support, the account is difficult to calculate precisely, but certainly not a small number. Therefore, the law is a kind of "luxury goods", limited resources can only be spent on the blade, in order to achieve the desired governance goals. But morality is indeed "inexpensive", and the cost of sensitizing people's hearts and minds is certainly much smaller than the cost of restraining behavior. If we can achieve some of the goals of governance in an inexpensive way, why don't we do it, and allocate the limited resources for the operation of the law in a more necessary place.

So, today, in the "Citizens' Moral Awareness Day", we reintroduce the old topic of the relationship between law and morality, not to stir up again the "rule of law" and "moral rule" of the theoretical controversy, not to mention that it is not from the "rule of law" and "moral rule". It is not to provoke another theoretical dispute between the "rule of law" and the "rule of morality", and it is not to go from one extreme to the other, abandoning the rule of law as a mode of social governance. Comparing the strengths and weaknesses of law and morality in the field of social governance is just to illustrate that the mode of governance of any society is pluralistic, and that a single mode of governance is not only fraught with disadvantages, but also fails to bring out the best results. The rule of law has become the mainstream of development, but at the same time, we also need to pay attention to the construction of morality and promote moral construction. After all, the moral model is only a few, only the good people in this society more, the cost of social operation will be reduced, the implementation of the rule of law will be unimpeded.