In contrast to Western intellectualism and Indian spiritualism, Chinese culture is characterized by a virtue-oriented spirit that emphasizes morality and goodness. Amidst the impact of Western culture, numerous scholars and official documents have explored, argued for, and articulated this overarching spirit. The virtue-oriented spirit of Chinese culture is primarily manifested in the following aspects: morality as a distinctive feature in the formation and development of Chinese culture; morality as the core of all cultural elements; the supremacy of morality as fundamental to Confucian doctrine; and morality as the essence of cultural identity and daily life for the populace. The core and essence of promoting the fine traditional Chinese culture lie in fostering the virtue-oriented spirit of Chinese culture. This virtue-oriented spirit holds significant contemporary value in guiding and integrating society, harmonizing interpersonal relationships, and cultivating noble character.

Ethic and morality are key concepts for understanding ethics and moral philosophy. In previous research, the two notions are often indistinguishable and even interchangeable, because they share the same origin in terms of meaning, both referring to social customs, habits, protocols, and so forth. However, the development of academic history reveals important distinctions between ethics and morality, even regarding which of them holds the authority to interpret the other. For example, Hegel elevated morality to ethic, while Li Zehou advocated the study of morality from the perspective of ethic. Their studies indicate that ethics and morality have synchronic interpretations, meaning that they can be explained mutually. An obvious trend in the development of contemporary ethics is the gradual departure from the “stereotype” that “ethics is moral philosophy,” moving instead towards engaging with and serving the real and new “human relations” world with a broader horizon in a unique manner, thus achieving the “free development” characterized by distinction yet not separation from moral philosophy. This will propel moral philosophy to be oriented towards the shaping of individual virtues, and ethics to the regulation of interest relationships over ethical entities. In this context, it may become feasible to conceptualize morality without ethical norms and ethics without moral imperatives, and resolve the dispute between so-called virtue ethics and normative ethics.

A correct comprehension of the human-machine relationship in the age of intelligence is essential for preventing ethical risks associated with artificial intelligence (AI), and the comprehension of the ethical nature of the human-machine relationship delineates a boundary between humanism and technocracy. From the ethical perspective of humanism, mankind’s ethical world will not be subverted despite the presence of super AI, as human relations, ethical laws, and ethical orders are “exclusive” to mankind. While robots may “participate” in social ethical life through preset programs inside them, this does not qualify them as true ethical subjects. Furthermore, robots will not bear ethical responsibility given its basic provisions, as they lack the capability for self-awareness or the ability to explain their actions. Human beings bear full responsibility for AI, rather than simply sharing this responsibility. When we speak of strengthening the ethics of robots, we refer not to the ethics of machines, but to the ethics involved in mankind’s design, development, application, and operation of intelligent robots. Adhering to humanistic ethics is essential for discussing AI ethics, as it helps avoid ambiguity and confusion in comprehension.

Whether emotions can serve as the foundation for morality is what emotional ethics concerns and involves in the first place. Based on the theory of inherent humanity, pre Qin Confucian scholars established the foundation of ethics and morality by distinguishing humans from animals, that is, the “ease of heart” indicates the dynamics and rationality of humanity. They regarded “being true to conscience” and “ease of heart” as the basis for moral behavior. The heart is the source of moral consciousness, and its ease is the foundation of moral behavior. Morality is rooted in people’s natural needs and physical feelings. It concerns the self and evokes a sense of home. “Ease” is not only about ease of conscience but also involves benevolence, righteousness, and etiquette. The ease of heart represents a unity of “emotion and rationality” and “conscience and norms.” This paper reconstructs the basic problem domain of Confucian ethics of emotion from the perspectives of “what is ease,” “where to be at ease,” and “how to be at ease,” reflects on the dilemma posed when interpreting the dichotomy between emotion and rationality, and attempts to explore a “thick concept” approach to interpreting Confucian ethics, so as to better demonstrate the spiritual origin and embodied thinking characteristics of Confucian ethics.

Both Western and Chinese civilizations have constructed ethical worlds based on the structures of family and state. In the Western “country” civilization, the fate of this ethical world is marked by a “tragic sentiment,” whereas in the Chinese Guojia civilization, the cultural conditions and ethical spirit are characterized by “family-state sentiment.” This sentiment transcends mere family spirit or patriotism, embodying an integrated ethical sentiment that encompasses the individual, family, state, and all under Heaven. The ethical wisdom of family-state justice in Guojia civilization comprises both everyday wisdom and extraordinary wisdom. Everyday wisdom permeates the entire life and existence of individuals, manifesting through various national festivals. Extraordinary wisdom refers to the ethical wisdom that reconciles conflicts between family and state, historically and logically unfolding into two traditional forms: the state-centered “loyalty to the country” and the family-centered “mutual concealment out of kinship loyalty.” The issue of family-state ethical justice has accompanied the century-long process of modern Chinese civilization, from the Chinese revolution to the reform and opening-up period. This process reflects a dialectical progression of “ethical construction—ethical revolution—ethical liberation.” Modern Chinese civilization remains the Guojia civilization but has evolved into new forms and faces new challenges. It is imperative to achieve creative transformation and innovative development of the Guojia civilization through communal ethical justice, contributing to the creation of a new form of human civilization marked by distinct Chinese characteristics.

Since the implementation of the reform and opening up, China has made substantial progress and significant achievements in ethics research, leading to the establishment of a well rounded discipline system and the development of a distinctive research tradition. While it is essential to uphold tradition, it is equally important to transcend it. In future ethics research, we should transcend the traditional approach dominated by learning and imitating Western philosophy and organizing historical materials, and progress towards a more advanced stage that emphasizes innovative development. The new generation of scholars should effectively utilize mainstream academic resources, especially the main spirit reflected therein. While showing respect and appreciation for the theoretical contributions of earlier generations of ethics scholars, they should expand their horizons to foster an ethics research pattern and atmosphere that align with the new era.

In applied ethics, principlism demonstrates an approach to applying ethical principles to specific practices. Unlike proponents of deductivism, which relies on a moral system based on a supreme principle with universal applicability, and those of casuistry, which depends on analogical evaluation based on perceptual judgment, principle ethicists seek middle-level principles that bridge abstract moral theories and concrete moral practices. These principles provide a normative framework with value standards and argumentative foundations for addressing ethical conflicts. While non-maleficence, beneficence, justice, and autonomy are considered as traditional ethical principles, human rights, dignity, privacy, and responsibility have emerged as widely recognized modern ethical principles. The middlelevel principles in applied ethics are self-evident in nature, fundamentally rooted in human moral intuition. These principles maintain a coherent and coordinated relationship, requiring specific interpretation and flexible weighting according to different contexts in practice.

Algorithms are strategy mechanisms and run programs based on data as the basic resource, aimed at solving problems and completing tasks. They serve as the “nervous centralis” and “soul” of artificial intelligence (AI), but they are not “value-neutral.” When data is collected, stored, and analyzed with technologies such as machine learning for automated decision-making, the standpoint of the one who designs and writes algorithms, the source and accuracy of data supporting and training the algorithms, and the value load and value selection intrinsic to the algorithms, as well as the behavioral tendency of specific value subjects based on the algorithms and the independent evaluation and decision-making of intelligent systems, may all lead to a certain degree of algorithmic discrimination, ultimately affecting the realization of social justice. Compared with the social discrimination familiar to people, algorithmic discrimination is more extensive, diversified, accurate, targeted, concealed, and “cunning.” As we advance the intelligent transformation of society, it is essential to establish the status of all people as value subjects, “embed” the values of justice into intelligent algorithms, and establish dynamic evaluation and supervision mechanisms. Only through these actions can we make necessary regulations on algorithmic discrimination and reconstruct a just social order in the era of intelligence.

Developing a socialist moral evaluation system with Chinese characteristics should be rooted in the dynamic practice and practical needs of building socialism with Chinese characteristics while drawing on the intellectual resources and philosophical wisdom from the historical evolution of Chinese society and its rich cultural traditions. Traditional Chinese society has embraced a pluralistic moral cultural philosophy, creating a multifaceted moral evaluation system that integrates Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist elements. This system, marked by distinct Chinese characteristics, recognizes the moral values of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism as valid moral standards, applying them in various contexts to assess people’s moral attitudes towards work, achievements, and other aspects, thus forming a diverse pattern of traditional Chinese moral evaluations. This pluralistic moral evaluation system serves as a value beacon for the moral life of the Chinese nation in traditional society and continues to offer significant moral guidance in present-day Chinese society. The traditional Chinese moral evaluation system remains a powerful force in shaping the moral character of the present-day Chinese nation and promoting moral positivity, providing valuable insights for the development of a socialist moral evaluation system with Chinese characteristics.

Contemporary ecological ethics faces a narrative dilemma of how to narrate the moralities of non-human living entities. Western ecological narratives, which emphasize human- or nature-centered perspectives, tend to reduce the symbiotic relationship between humans and all living entities to a mechanical object relationship of either/or, which is neither in accordance with humanity nor aligned with the purpose of nature. Confucian ecological ethics, rooted in the fundamental spirit of “the unity of Heaven and man,” approaches the narrative from the perspective of the human conscience narrating the universe, using the logic of narrating material virtues through human benevolence. The narrative contents present a natural humanistic discourse characterized by the continuous and interactive interplay of “gained from Heaven and achieved through benevolence.” Methodologically, Confucianism narrates the transcendental “higher-level understanding” with the daily experience of “studying concrete things,” linking the unique value of humans as “the heart of Heaven and Earth” with the conscious responsibility of humans to “ordain conscience for Heaven and Earth,” thereby achieving a narrative effect that aligns with both the purposes humanity and nature. This approach helps to mitigate the internal “center” dispute within ecological ethics, integrate factual descriptions with value judgments, and construct a proactive humanistic practice theory through a positive temporal lens, thereby avoiding a negative, passive moral reductionism.

Based on the social identity theory, this paper analyzes the questionnaires collected from 405 employees in two stages to explore the mechanism of influence of Confucian ethical leadership on employees’ unethical pro-organizational behavior. The results show that Confucian ethical leadership negatively affects employees’ unethical pro-organizational behavior; ethical identity serves an intermediary role between Confucian moral leadership and employees’ unethical pro-organizational behavior; the superior-subordinate relationship not only positively regulates the relationship between Confucian ethical leadership and moral identity, but also further regulates the intermediary effect of moral identity.

The consciousness of sharing fostered by the digitizing transformation and development in society has overturned the economic ethical assumptions built upon the consciousness of ownership. The widespread utilization of intelligent machines and artificial agents has presented challenges to labor ethics. Furthermore, the subtle persuasion and manipulation of humans by technologies, such as algorithms, along with the technologization of both the human body and mind have made it challenging to adapt to principles such as fairness, justice, autonomy, and voluntariness. These changes have introduced new potential ethical risks, obscuring the distinction between private and public spaces, transforming cognitive practices into ethical ones, and elevating accountability to a new topic that connects epistemology, ethics, and ontology. Our actions, perceptions, intentions, and morality have become intertwined with modern information technology. Therefore, it is necessary to establish a new ethical framework based on the relational self, consciousness of sharing, leisure labor, and subversion of various dichotomous concepts. This signifies the initiation of the second process of “a man as a human being.”

“Eco-environmental governance” refers to a dynamic process of translating environmental governance knowledge into practice. Ethical governance of the ecoenvironment serves as an important link that facilitates the transition from environmental governance cognition to concrete implementation. The discussion on the ethical governance of the environment has been ongoing for a long time. However, reaching a consensus within the academic community remains challenging, and some scholars still question its rationality. From the perspective of Marxist environmental governance, “eco-environmental governance” refers to a governance system composed of the subject, content, and methodology of environmental governance. Accordingly, the rationality of ethical governance of the ecoenvironment should be analyzed based on the three most fundamental elements. Regarding the environmental governance subject, the dual existence of individual “ethical beings” and the collective “ethical community” indicates the possibility of the ethical governance subject in the eco-environment. In terms of the environmental governance object, a dual predicament of “ethical disorder” in the social sphere and “moral absence” in the natural sphere determines the inevitability of ethical governance content in the eco-environment. As for environmental governance means, the “ethical guidance” at the mind level and “ethical regulation” at the behavioral level prove the necessity of the ethical governance method in the eco-environment.

The concept of a good death is an important issue that ethics should focus on. With the rise of individualism, medical practices have undergone subtle changes, and Western bioethics has begun to consider, from a subjective perspective, which normative conditions constitute a good death. In contrast, the traditional Confucian view of shanzhong 善终 (good ending) emphasizes the unity of life and death and the transcendence of death from an objective perspective, regarding the moral value of living a good life as the moral requirement for judging a good death. By fully acknowledging the historical changes in the concept of death, we can facilitate a dialogue between these two perspectives, enriching each other and helping modern individuals attain a more comprehensive and morally desirable understanding of death.

Logic is an instrumental argumentative science that has been tightly interwoven with the development of Western philosophy as its foundational discipline since antiquity. But now Chinese logic (commonly referred to as the study of names and disputation [mingbianxue]) has been largely modeled after the pedagogical framework of traditional Western logic, which limits its capacity to serve as a philosophical cornerstone for Chinese philosophy. The original essence of Chinese logic is rooted in the specific intellectual ecosystem of traditional Chinese scholarship and culture. It fundamentally explores the relationships between names and objects, between things and classes, and between images and things. Rooted in this intellectual framework, Chinese logic explores names and associated issues by treating the rectification of names (zhengming) as its primary objectives, grounding in the doctrines of class, and employing the “generalization of classes” (tuilei) as its methodology. To rectify names, Chinese logic proceeds through investigating objects, differentiating things, and classifying them according to similarities and differences. The basic method entails transitioning from names to classes and classes to names through the generalization of classes. Moreover, Chinese logic has remained deeply integrated with the development and evolution of traditional Chinese philosophy.

Mohist logic exhibits a close connection with critical thinking. The Mohist three-factor logic, comprising premise, principle, and analogy, demonstrates a structural correspondence with the basic framework of critical thinking. Specifically, the Mohist “three-factor logic” stipulates that these three conditions should be satisfied to reach a valid conclusion, mirroring the three fundamental criteria for evaluating argumentation in critical thinking: truthfulness, sufficiency, and relevance. Furthermore, Mohist logic embodies several theoretical characteristics inherent in critical thinking. Fundamental features of critical thinking—including reflexivity, constructiveness, and normativity—are fully manifested within Mohist logic. The spirit of critical thinking is also evident in the practical application of Mohist logic within their social and political thought. In arguing for their core tenets, the Mohists frequently anticipated, analyzed, and addressed diverse viewpoints and potential objections, whether existing in their present reality or potentially arising in the future.

The driving force behind the development of bioethics stems from a concern for the weak or vulnerability. Mainstream bioethics advocates understanding vulnerability within the context of autonomy, interpreting it as a lack or reduction of autonomy, and emphasizing the protection of special vulnerable groups. Critics question the rationality of this traditional model, arguing that interpreting vulnerability with the context of autonomy in bioethics not only ignores the universal vulnerability of humanity but also easily dilutes social responsibility. In fact, in the real-life picture of humanity, autonomy and vulnerability are always intertwined. With a proper understanding of autonomy, bioethics can still effectively interpret vulnerability within the context of autonomy. However, bioethics requires a holistic theory of vulnerability that emphasizes the protection of particularly vulnerable groups while embracing the broad, universal vulnerability of humankind.

In the big data era, data has become a core element in biomedicine, with extensive applications across fields such as biogenomics, clinical medicine, and biobanks. These shifts bring new opportunities and severe challenges for Bioethics research. The opportunities are manifested in expanding the scope of bioethics from a focus on “individual good” to the “public good,” fostering a transition from purely qualitative or quantitative approaches to interdisciplinary integration, and enhancing bioethical governance from “Monhism” to “pluralism.” However, challenges also arise, such as the potential misalignment between data analysis and real bioethical issues, the risk of bioethics succumbing to dataism, and a lack of awareness and expertise regarding big data within the field. This dual situation highlights the trends and dilemmas facing bioethics research in the era of big data, which warrant the attention of contemporary bioethics scholars.

Pre-Qin masters extensively explored issues related to the names and disputation (mingbian), but these issues received limited attention from scholars following the Qin and Han dynasties. Research on this topic was not revived until the late Qing to the early Republican periods, and it has continued to the present day. Over the past century, research on pre-Qin study of names and disputation has primarily focused on the theoretical reconstruction of texts based on frameworks, such as logic (particularly traditional logic), philosophy, and semiotics. Some researchers have also concentrated on exploring the ancient approaches to issues of mingbian. Contemporary research emphasizes the importance of employing appropriate interpretative methods that align with the characteristics of texts, alongside the necessity for a solid and reliable literature foundation. The interpretation of “Baima Lun” of Gongsun Longzi indicates that concept clarification and argumentative analysis are valuable for grasping the intrinsic meaning of texts. This approach has proven effective for interpreting similar texts and addressing issues related to the study of names and disputation.

Logic in the modern Chinese context was primarily transplanted from the West. Driven by the eastward dissemination of Western learning during the late Qing period, the translated works of Western logic in the late Qing and early Republican periods largely fell into two categories: first, direct translations from English that rendered logic as bianxue (the study of disputation), mingxue (the study of names), or lizexue (the study of principles and orders); second, translations from Japanese works compiled by Japanese scholars that largely translated logic as the study of principles of reasoning. The publication of these Western logical works under such translated titles as the study of names, the study of disputation, the study of principles and orders, and lunlixue (the study of rational principles marked the inception and formation of modern Chinese logic. Building upon the existing translations of traditional Western logic texts, Chinese scholars synthesized various strengths to compile textbooks on logic suitable for Chinese readers and modern educational institutions in the late Qing period. With the widespread establishment of new-style schools in this period, logic secured its position in the new educational system under the designations of study of rational principles or study of names, becoming part of the curricula of normal schools and higher education institutions. As modern school curricula became increasingly systematized, this Western-transplanted discipline of logic gradually evolved into an independent modern academic field in China.

Gongsun Longzi: The Establishment of a Philosophical Paradigm

The Foundation, Limits, and Rigor of Generalization of Classes in Ancient China