What is the relationship between the rule of law and the rule of virtue in modern society?

Under the condition of socialist market economy, the rule of law and the rule of virtue promote and complement each other. To establish a socialist legal system and moral system that adapts to the development of socialist market economy, we must closely combine the rule of law with the rule of virtue. In the process of building a Socialism with Chinese characteristics and developing a socialist market economy, we should unremittingly strengthen the construction of the socialist legal system and govern the country according to law. At the same time, we should unremittingly strengthen socialist moral construction and govern the country by virtue.

First, the rule of law and the rule of virtue are completely complementary.

Socialist law and morality are an important part of the superstructure of the socialist economic base, which serves to consolidate and develop the socialist system. Both of them reflect the will and interests of the broad masses of people led by the working class and are fully complementary.

According to Marxist viewpoint, law is a tool used by the ruling class to govern, and it must be closely related to economic, political and moral factors and adapt to each other. The idea of combining the rule of law with the rule of virtue is based on the practice of China's reform, opening up and modernization, and it is a new understanding of the regularity of Socialism with Chinese characteristics's construction. Law and morality in China's socialist market economy are essentially the same, with the same economic, political and ideological basis. The basic principles and contents of the law reflect different levels of moral requirements. Legal norms and moral norms are both forces that constrain and motivate people's behavior. They have the function of guiding people's behavior by constraining and motivating people's behavior, thus serving a certain social and economic foundation and certain class interests and promoting social development. Socialist law is an effective means to spread socialist morality. "Law shoulders the task of maintaining social morality." "The ultimate goal of law is to make people morally kind. In order to achieve the greatest kindness that all people can achieve, secular law adapts itself to various lifestyles recognized by various moral creeds, but it also resists the changes that people demand because of the real relaxation and degradation of moral concepts. It should always keep the general direction of moral life, so that the behavior of * * * tends to the full realization of moral laws on the first standard. "

Socialist morality is the evaluation standard and motive force of socialist law, and it is also a useful supplement to socialist law. In some cases, the two can be transformed into each other. "Morality and law are inseparable. Without moral support, the law is not a part of society, but the words written on official documents, which are empty and have nothing to do with society. " The two promote each other and complement each other, realizing the adjustment of social relations. However, socialist law itself belongs to the category of political superstructure, which directly interferes with people's behavior with the will of the state. It only judges whether a person's behavior is illegal, whether it constitutes a crime and the degree of illegality or crime. Socialist morality belongs to the category of ideology. Only by interfering with people's thoughts and spirit can we interfere with people's behavior, because ideological problems cannot be solved by the coercion of state power. In the process of governing the country according to law and building a socialist country ruled by law, we must attach great importance to moral construction and closely combine the rule of law with the rule of virtue. On the one hand, the full realization of socialist laws will inevitably improve the moral standards of the broad masses of people and cadres; On the other hand, the establishment and development of socialist morality will inevitably promote the formulation and realization of laws.

Second, the difference between the rule of law and the rule of virtue.

Although the rule of law and the rule of virtue are consistent, they are always two different ways to govern the country and society.

"Generally speaking, legal provisions always avoid questions involving conscience, but ask what their intentions are and only consider their behaviors and attitudes; On the contrary, the scope of moral choice is intention. For the law,' whatever is not prohibited is allowed'. On the other hand, however, people can say that in terms of sanctions, law is more mandatory than morality. Violation of a moral code will lead to accusations, which can not be ignored, because accusations, even ridicule, may lead to serious consequences, such as mental disorders, ruin the future, and even suicide. But after all, it is not branded like the behavior of public power such as criminal judgment. "

The rule of virtue emphasizes serving the people as the core and collectivism as the principle; The rule of law emphasizes civic awareness. All citizens are equal before the law, and the law takes into account the interests of the state, the collective and the individual. When the legitimate rights and interests of citizens and organizations are infringed by state organs and their staff and suffer losses, they have the right to bring an administrative lawsuit and demand state compensation. Rule by virtue requires people to do more obligations and dedication; The rule of law requires the protection of human rights. While enjoying rights, citizens should fulfill their obligations stipulated by law, and their rights and obligations are consistent. The rule of virtue requires carrying forward the traditional virtues and revolutionary traditions of the older generation, while the rule of law requires following the existing laws and the rule of law to be in line with international standards. Rule by virtue regulates people's inner world and behavior from the perspective of governing the mind, and the standards for implementation are a bit empty and inconvenient to operate; The rule of law is to regulate people's behavior from the perspective of governance behavior, and the implementation standard is law, which is clear, specific and easy to operate.

In the history of China, there have been two different views. Ancient jurists clearly put forward the idea of "ruling the country by law". They think that "the sage should govern the country without relying on others to be kind to me, but there should be no mistake in using it", so he should "be for the law, not for the virtue". In ancient China, the rule of law advocated by jurists was actually to impose heavy penalties and maintain absolute monarchy. On the other hand, Confucianism opposes the legalist thought of rule of law. They believe that the country should be governed mainly by a saint with noble morality through moral means. "The road to politics, together with punishment, people are free and shameless. Tao is virtue, courtesy, shame and dignity. " "You are ruthless, you are righteous, you are reasonable, you are reasonable, and the country is determined." This is the rule of virtue advocated by Confucianism. The rule of law that we emphasize now is essentially different from the "rule of law" advocated by ancient jurists. The principle of socialist "rule of law" is that everyone is equal before the law, not "courtesy can't stop Shu Ren, punishment can't stop doctors"; We put forward the rule of virtue, which is also essentially different from the "rule of virtue" advocated by ancient Confucianism. Socialist "rule by virtue" emphasizes serving the people as the core and collectivism as the principle. What ancient Confucianism called "rule by virtue" was actually rule by man.

Emphasizing the combination of rule of law and rule of virtue is a scientific summary and deepening development of our party's theory and practice of governing the country. Law is an external compulsory control, focusing on adjusting people's external activities, and it is an heteronomy guaranteed by the state's compulsory force; Morality is self-restraint from the heart and the external force of public opinion acts on inner activities, focusing on regulating people's inner activities, which is generally reflected in the condemnation and self-discipline of public opinion. The long-term stability of the country can only be achieved by combining internal and external factors.

Third, the socialist market economy needs the unity of rule of law and rule of virtue.

"The concept of the rule of law comes from the West, while the rule of virtue comes from the traditional legal culture of China. The combination of the two conforms to the trend of combining root-seeking consciousness with global consciousness and combining nationality with the times. " In a sense, the market economy is the economy ruled by law. Building a socialist market economy is inseparable from socialist laws and ethics. Socialist law plays a guiding, promoting, guaranteeing and restricting role in the operation of socialist market economy. The law confirms the legal status of the subject of economic activities, adjusts various relations in economic activities, resolves various disputes in economic activities, and maintains the normal economic order. However, due to the contradiction between the abstraction and stability of law and real life; The fact that the law is applicable cannot be determined. "The remedy for these defects of socialist law is socialist morality. Socialist morality is an idea and norm that permeates the economy, politics, administration, culture, education, habits, traditions and public opinion of socialist society. No matter how well a law is formulated, it also needs the support of the overwhelming majority of social members. If members of society lack the ideological and moral fashion of obeying the law and have no moral resistance to any illegal acts, the law cannot be effectively implemented. Furthermore, due to the imperfection of the law, if members of society lack the minimum moral level, they will do behaviors that are not illegal but endanger social morality and affect the healthy and orderly development of society. The socialist market economy needs both socialist laws and socialist morality, and both hands should be hard. The development of morality is influenced by law, the formulation and implementation of law are promoted by morality, and the shortcomings of law are made up.

In the west, social governance depends on the law on the one hand and the Bible on the other. The law governs behavior, and the Bible governs soul and mind. "Law and morality represent different normative orders, and their control ranges overlap. Some areas of morality are beyond the jurisdiction of law, and some departments of law are almost unaffected by moral judgment. However, there is a substantial system of legal norms, the purpose of which is to ensure and strengthen the observance of moral norms, and these moral rules are crucial to the soundness of a society. " (E. Bodenheimer, author of Beauty: Jurisprudence-Philosophy of Law and Its Methods, p. 368). Under the condition of China's socialist market economy, the national reform has shifted from economic reform to comprehensive reform and development of economy, society, politics and ethical culture. The overall moral evaluation of socialist market economy has turned to the concern and evaluation of moral order and behavior norms in the market, and socialist law and morality have become an indispensable and important means of governing society. To build a socialist market economy, we should not only establish a corresponding system of socialist legal norms, but also establish a corresponding system of socialist moral norms. It is necessary to strengthen the construction of socialist rule of law and govern the country according to law; At the same time, we should strengthen socialist moral construction, govern the country by virtue, and combine the rule of law with the rule of virtue.

China's socialist market economy promotes people's self-reliance, competition, efficiency and pioneering spirit, but the weaknesses and negative aspects of the market itself will also be reflected in personal morality. At present, the social situation and problems in China are first of all credit crisis, which is manifested as follows: on the macro level, on the one hand, government managers use the "three chaos" to increase fiscal revenue, even small coffers and indiscriminate bonuses; On the one hand, social units (including enterprises, institutions and associations) transfer and conceal profits in various ways of tax evasion. Taking advantage of the long-standing dual-track system between social organizations (especially enterprises), "triangular debt" is the most prominent manifestation of large-scale illegal occupation and transfer of rights and interests. Within social organizations, managers make use of the "absence of all owners" of the country and the "autonomy" given to them by the reform to seek benefits for individuals; Workers generally use the abstract "master" status to go slow and pursue the expansion of distribution interests, while the state has laid off workers without social security and their interests have been damaged. In this way, on the one hand, the credit problem almost curbed social and economic activities, on the other hand, the society unanimously condemned the credit crisis, and the establishment of the credit crisis became a universal need of the whole society. Secondly, it is the motivation and orientation of pure profit, which is manifested in materialism, money worship and hedonism; Third, the problem of unscrupulous means shows that getting rich is related to commercial bribery, commercial deception, commercial speculation, commercial theft and predatory development and management; The second is the attitude towards economic interests, which is manifested in bullying the market, buying and selling hard, trading unequally and signing contracts forcibly. There is also the problem of "hitchhiking" or "riding without a ticket". Many people still hold the idea of "having the right not to use it, and it will become invalid when it expires", which leads to the abuse of state power and the repeated prohibition of corruption and bending the law in society. Although various measures have been taken, all kinds of duty crimes are still rampant. The seriousness of these phenomena lies in that social organizations and individuals generally "fall into" the quagmire of immoral economic behaviors, lose trust in the moral rules that should be followed, and seek benefits by immoral means as the universal code of conduct.

For this phenomenon, the whole society should act together, pay close attention, coordinate and cooperate, and give play to the authoritative role of law and moral influence. People's congresses at all levels should give full play to the leading role of power organs, actively exercise the powers entrusted by the Constitution and laws, and strengthen supervision. In particular, the People's Congress and its Standing Committee, which have legislative power, should actively adapt to the requirements of the situation and, according to the actual situation, promptly formulate laws and regulations necessary for the establishment of a socialist ideological and moral system, so as to provide a strong legal guarantee for the establishment of a socialist ideological and moral system. Law enforcement agencies should, in accordance with the requirements of governing the country by law and by virtue, administer according to law, strictly govern politics, impartially administer justice and strictly enforce the law. At the same time, through various specific law enforcement activities, we should integrate the requirements of basic moral concepts into various specific policies and social management, and constantly promote the formation and improvement of the socialist ideological and moral system. Vigorously rectify social order and market economic order, create a socialist civilized legal environment, and further promote social progress and economic development.

conclusion

To develop the socialist market economy, we must improve the socialist legal system and form socialist market morality. The market economy and the rule of law require us to carry forward and inherit the traditional virtues of the Chinese nation. Under the condition of socialist market economy, we should build a socialist moral system and framework with the characteristics of the times and do a good job in strengthening the education of social morality, professional ethics and family virtues advocated at present. We should let traditional virtues and new norms penetrate each other, let law and morality complement each other, constantly improve the rule of law, and let the rule of virtue be deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. Create a good social environment for reform and opening up.