Volume 45 - 2000-07-31

The Creation of Self-life--The Ethical Thoughts of Foucault and Mencius and Their Implications to Moral Education

自我生命的樹立--傅柯與孟子倫理思想及其對現代道德教育的啟示

Author:
H u a n g - k u n C h a n g / 張鍠焜
Keyword:
Foucault、Mencius、Ethics / 傅柯、孟子、倫理
  • Summary
  • Chinese Summary
  • Reference
  • Scholarly references
Foucault proposed that man should be the subject of ethics to invent the life of himself by some “technologies of the self”, as to create an artwork. Foucault argued that man ought to escape from the ethics and orders prescribed by society, and positively work out his own unique life-style. Similarly, Mencius asserted that the practice of ethics is not simply to accommodate oneself to the prescriptive norms. According to Mencius, everyone must exercise and aggrandize his moral feelings, so that he can make himself moral. Both Foucault and Mencius viewed ethical life as a kind of self-exercise. However, there is a clear distinction between their doctrines. Mencius insisted that self-exercise must be oriented to the cultivation of moral personality. For Foucault, one’s life type could be decided by himself only, and need not be moral.