| Abstract: | For any people, country or society, while in the process of shaping up its values, a
process which also includes establishing common standards used to differentiate between
right and wrong and good and evil, the most important factor that needs evaluation is the
common shared environment. This is especially true in cases where major environmental
factors and conditions such as climate, resources, population and external threats, among
others, could potentially influence survival or safety. Naturally these major factors require
evaluation from a long term perspective. It is also important to adopt these common
standards as a foundation to fall back on during the formation of the determining factors
for commonly accepted standards of right and wrong and good and evil. In the passive
sense, these major background factors are adopted for common preventative purposes or
for protection; in the proactive sense, they are mutually and effectively used in the pursuit
of inspired values which exploit these standards as the basis for a higher meaning.
The background factors that are decisive or have the impact of shaping and forming
the value system for a cultural entity could be infinite in number; nonetheless, they can be
dichotomized into scenarios or conditions described as either “adequate” or “inadequate”,
“poor” or “rich”, “safe” or “unsafe” and “serious” or “inconsequential”. In concrete terms,
there are sufficient or insufficient factors that affect overall living or are overall either
safe or unsafe. In some cases, the answers are positive, in other words, living basics are
sufficient as well as safe, and in this situation, what should be focused on should be a
matter of distribution. Questions as to whether the distribution is fair or not, methods by
which distribution occurs, and how to set up a firm distribution system or architecture
become important and should be of concern. Thus, in this environmental context, for any
people, nation or society, the cultural value system that they formulate should be
buttressed by a set of fair distribution values and systems of thinking. The cultural value
system from the west is a product of the evolution of this kind of environmental
background.This paper is focused on how Confucian ethico-political thought shaped from
environmental Perspective—according to the analysis from the cultural essence and the
functionality of politics. I will start by discussing the relation between the environment
and the Confucian values formed in ancient China, and also explain how Confucian
specific environment-value theory is different from the perspective of the modern
Western idea of “environmental determinism”. Then I will further discuss why traditional
Chinese politicians adopted these collective values of “non-individualism”,
“non-materialism” and “non-sensationalism” to seek solution to the problems that they
faced. |
