Key words: harmony between man and nature, people-oriented, human relative centralism, Scientific Outlook on Development.
Holding high the great banner of Deng Xiaoping Theory and Theory of Three Represents, starting from the overall situation of building a well-off society in an all-round way and creating a new situation in Socialism with Chinese characteristics, the important task of building a socialist harmonious society was clearly put forward. A harmonious socialist society should be one characterized by democracy and the rule of law, fairness and justice, honesty and friendship, vitality, stability and order, and harmony between man and nature. In the history of realistic socialist development, it is the first time that the harmonious coexistence between man and nature marked by the development of production, affluent life and good ecology is clearly defined as the inherent requirement of socialist construction, which has important theoretical and practical significance. There are different arguments at home and abroad about how to deal with the relationship between man and nature. This paper will study these problems from the perspective of Marxist philosophy.
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The first question: What kind of attitude should human beings take towards nature?
In China's academic debate, one side advocates that human beings should maintain a "awe" attitude towards nature, while the other side thinks that they should adopt a "conquest" attitude. I think it all makes sense, but it's all too extreme. In history, the relationship between man and nature is not fixed. It has experienced three basic forms, from awe to conquest, and then from conquest to building harmony. This is a spiral process of negation of negation.
In ancient primitive times, the relationship between people was very narrow and naturally formed by blood relationship. Man and nature are in a state of chaos, and there is no distinction between man and nature, subject and object. At that time, the productivity was extremely low, and human beings made a living by gathering and hunting, completely obeying the gift of nature. As Marx said: "Nature is originally opposed to human beings, and it is a completely strange, infinitely powerful and uncontrollable force. The relationship between human beings and them is exactly the same as that between animals and them, and people fear nature as livestock." [ 1]
Although, as humans learn to slash and burn, "environmental problems" begin to appear. For example, the residents of Mesopotamia, Greece, Asia Minor and other places cut down all the forests in order to get cultivated land, but they never dreamed that these places would become barren. However, under the natural and economic conditions characterized by "human dependence", this situation does not have overall and universal significance. Because, "the narrow relationship between man and nature determines the narrow relationship between man and nature." [2] The complete dependence of human beings on nature has caused people to regard nature as a god and reverently worship and fear nature. This is the first basic form of the relationship between man and nature.
Marx pointed out that "human dependence" is the initial form of society, and "human independence based on material dependence is the second form. In this form, a universal social material exchange, a comprehensive relationship, a variety of needs and a comprehensive ability system have been formed. " [3] This is the era of capitalism. The logic of capital proliferation is to pursue unrestrained profits, that is, "to multiply the use value of labor or production departments as much as possible, so that the production of capital will constantly and inevitably improve the intensity of labor productivity, on the other hand, it will cause infinite diversification of labor departments, that is, it will make production have all-encompassing forms and colorful contents, so that all aspects of nature will be dominated by production." [4] The combination of capital and technology makes people frantically explore, utilize, conquer and rule nature from all aspects, in an attempt to make nature a useful slave of mankind. This has completely changed the relationship between human beings and nature. "Compared with this social stage, all previous social stages were only manifested in the local development of human beings and the worship of nature. Only under the capitalist system, nature is just an object of human beings and a useful thing; It is no longer considered as a self-acting force; The understanding of the theory of the law of independence of nature itself is only cunning, and its purpose is to make nature (whether as a consumer product or as a means of production) serve people's needs. " [5]
In order to meet the needs of capital to conquer and dominate nature, modern western philosophers have made a binary distinction between subject and object, especially advocating human subjectivity. From Descartes, a French philosopher, to Kant, a German philosopher, it is believed that man should "make himself the master and ruler of nature with the help of practical philosophy"; From "knowledge is power" put forward by British philosopher Bacon to "denying nature is the road to happiness" put forward by Locke, people are trying their best to explain the concept of human conquest and domination of nature. Under the impetus of this philosophy, natural science has developed unprecedentedly, and the power of human beings to conquer nature has expanded unprecedentedly. Economists represented by Adam Smith put forward the definition of "rational economic man", which promoted the development of economics in the direction of studying wealth growth. This philosophical concept disintegrated primitive people's mysterious and sacred sense of nature and changed people's crawling attitude of doing nothing in front of nature. Modern natural science and modern industry have changed the whole nature together, ending people's naive attitude towards nature and other naive behaviors. [6] It is not the worship and awe of nature, but the conquest and rule of nature. This is the second basic form of the relationship between man and nature in history.
With the conquest and domination of nature, ecological problems in a comprehensive sense will go hand in hand. Historical data show that environmental pollution in the modern sense began around 1800, which is consistent with the industrial revolution in Europe. In the next 200 years, the expansion of capital will make environmental pollution more and more serious. From 65438 to 0949, vogt, an American scholar, called the ecological characteristics of the natural environment formed over thousands of years "ecological balance" for the first time, and called the ecological changes caused by the over-exploitation of the natural environment "ecological imbalance". In view of the rapid deterioration of global ecological imbalance, thinkers put forward the concept of "ecological crisis" and summarized this crisis as "economic development" and "human management of the environment", which is mainly manifested in population explosion, excessive consumption and destruction of natural resources, environmental pollution, etc., which greatly threatens human survival and development. In this grim situation, a new concept about the coordinated development of nature, economy and society has gradually formed. 1980, the International Union for Conservation of Nature put forward for the first time: "We must study the basic relations among nature, society, ecology, economy and the process of utilizing natural resources to ensure the sustainable development of the world". 1987, the World Commission on Environment and Development revealed the severe ecological crisis faced by mankind with abundant data, systematically expounded the strategic thought of sustainable development, and emphasized that "the strategy of sustainable development aims at promoting harmony between people and between man and nature". [7]
Marx had foresight. After analyzing the social form based on "human dependence" and "material dependence", he thinks that "the free personality based on the all-round development of an individual and his social production capacity as his social wealth is the third stage". [8] The sharp opposition between man and nature can only be truly solved after overcoming all kinds of alienation in capitalist society. This is socialist capitalism. "This kind of * * * productism, as a complete naturalism, equals humanism, and as a complete humanism, equals naturalism; It is to truly solve the contradiction between man and nature, between people, and to truly solve the struggle between existence and essence, objectification and self-confirmation, freedom and necessity, and between individuals and classes. " [9] Engels also clearly pointed out that "the two major changes facing our world are the reconciliation between man and nature and the reconciliation between man and himself". [10] In fact, this has clearly put forward the task of "harmony" as the third basic form of building the relationship between man and nature.
History has its own rhythm. Contradictions guide thinking forward. If we regard the worship and awe of nature as a topic and the conquest and domination of nature as an opposite, then building harmony between man and nature should be a common topic. As a more advanced stage, "harmony" is not only a denial of "worship" and "awe", but also a denial of "conquest" and "rule". But this negation is not a complete abandonment of metaphysics, but a sublation of dialectics, which contains a conscious reservation of all the positive achievements of the first two forms. To build a harmonious relationship between man and nature, we should take the reasonable core of ancient human beings' "awe" of nature-respect nature and get rid of its mystery and passivity; We should learn from the positive factors of modern people's "conquest" of nature-transforming nature and getting rid of its arrogance of trying to rule nature. As long as we truly achieve the dialectical unity of "respect" and "transformation", it is possible to build a harmonious relationship between man and nature.
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The second question: How to treat "anthropocentrism"?
Facing the ecological crisis that threatens the survival and development of mankind day by day, the debate about "anthropocentrism" and "naturalism" has been triggered. "Anthropocentrism" advocates that everything except human beings exists for human beings, which is only instrumental compared with human beings. Kant said: "The object of all natural desires has at most one conditional value. If it is not based on some desire or need, these items are worthless. ..... Irrationalists in nature, they exist independently of human will, so they have the value as tools or means at most, so we call them' things'. On the contrary, rational people are called' people'. " [1 1] "Nature-centered theory" disagrees with this view, pointing out that it is driven by this philosophical concept that human beings wantonly destroy nature and cause ecological crisis from their own interests. They violently criticized the two theoretical pillars of anthropocentrism-the principle of rationality and the principle of subjectivity. Heidegger pointed out: "When we regard nature and its things as' objects', all we care about is a mandatory and abstract meaning. We force nature to provide knowledge and energy, but we have no patience to listen to the voice of nature, to listen to life and things hidden in it, and to provide them with shelter. We dominate, exploit and dismember nature, which naturally determines that our objects and' things' will oppose us, and they will dialectically punish us in turn. When we turn our backs on nature, we lose our home. " [12] The "nature-centered theory" in western ecological ethics is manifested in the theory of animal liberation rights, or the theory of biological center, or the theory of ecological center.
How should we treat the debate between these two opposing views? Dialectical thinking is also needed here. To build a harmonious society between man and nature, on the one hand, we should seriously reflect on the excessive expansion of rational principles and subjective principles in modern western philosophy; On the other hand, we must clearly adhere to the principle of "people-oriented". Therefore, we cannot exclude "anthropocentrism" in any sense, but should only oppose "absolute anthropocentrism". The so-called "absolute" in philosophy means eternal, unconditional and infinite. Anthropocentrism in this sense is one-sided and its extreme form is even wrong. Because human itself is the son of nature and the product of its long-term development, it cannot be eternal; Man's initiative in nature is bound to be restricted by objective laws, which is not unconditional; Man's conquest of nature is limited and should be limited to the range that the natural ecosystem can accommodate. It is not infinite. Because of this, we must overcome and prevent "absolute centralism of human beings". However, this does not mean giving up human subjectivity in nature and canceling anthropocentrism. The correct proposition is "human relative centralism", that is, "anthropocentrism" in the sense of concreteness, restriction and limitation of practice.
"People-oriented" is the most important social value orientation of Marx's practical materialism. It emphasizes respect for human existence value, demand value and development value. Therefore, Marx founded the theory of "humanized nature". He believes that the existence and development of human society cannot be separated from the foundation of material nature, and the "priority position" of nature must be recognized. However, as the object of human labor, nature is not pure nature directly presented to human beings. Only the nature transformed by human labor is the realistic nature. This is the humanized nature and socialized nature. Marx said: "In the history of mankind, that is, the nature formed in the process of the emergence of human society is the realistic nature of human beings". [13] Nature is the real nature for human society. Only as a humanized nature can human nature be realized. By criticizing Feuerbach's intuitive materialism, Marx pointed out: "What is understood in an abstract and isolated way and fixed as a natural thing separated from people is nothing to people." The meaning of "nothing" here does not mean "non-existence", but "it has no meaning or only external meaning that should be discarded" [14]. In other words, the relationship between man and nature is inseparable from the relationship between people. The two are unified in labor and practice. In a word, man is an "objective existence" with "the essential power to pursue his own object strongly", and the relationship between man and nature is an "objective relationship", [15] that is, the interactive relationship between man and nature. The basis of this relationship is human perceptual practice. Human beings transform nature through labor, create wealth and meet the needs of human survival and development. Therefore, it is completely abstract or meaningless to talk about nature without human existence.
The anthropocentrism in the sense of "people-oriented" is relative and conditional. Can't understand absolutely unconditionally. Marx and Engels have the following exposition: (1) There is an inherent unity between man and nature. Man himself is the product of the development of nature to a certain stage. He is a direct natural existence. Social history itself is a realistic part of the process of nature becoming a human being. Therefore, we must always remember that when dealing with the relationship between man and nature, we "never rule different nations like conquerors, never like people standing outside nature-on the contrary, we, together with our flesh and blood and brains, belong to and exist in nature". We should "realize our consistency with nature". [16](2) Nature is the prerequisite for human survival and development. Marx said: "Nature, as long as it is not human body, is an inorganic human body. Man lives by nature. In other words, nature is a human body that people must constantly interact with in order not to die. " He also pointed out: "Without the natural and perceptual external world, workers can't create anything. It is a substance that laborers use to realize their own labor, carry out labor activities in it, produce from it, and produce their own products. " [17] (3) The relationship between man and nature is the unity of initiative and passivity, purpose and regularity. People's transformation of nature through practice is different from that of animals. It has its own internal scale, that is, it has a certain purpose and plan, reflecting its own needs and self-awareness of activities. However, this kind of transformation activity must follow the external scale of nature, that is, it cannot violate the attributes and laws of nature. The laws of the external world and nature are the basis of people's purposeful activities. [18](4) People's transformation of nature has the duality of utilization and adjustment. Marx pointed out: "Man uses his own activities to cause, regulate and control the process of material transformation between man and nature". [19] In the relationship between man and nature, man is the active side. People should shoulder the responsibility of rationally regulating nature and coordinating natural evolution.
There are still two issues to be discussed and explained.
First, the analysis of the reasons for the deterioration of human ecology is indeed related to the excessive expansion of the consciousness of "human center", but in the final analysis it is caused by "capital center". The ecological crisis is inevitably related to the capitalist system. The purpose of capitalist production is to constantly pursue high profits and surplus value, not to meet the actual needs of the broad masses of working people. The alienation of labor not only destroys the body and mind of workers, but also destroys natural forces such as land and resources. Engels pointed out long ago: "When a capitalist produces and exchanges for direct profits, he can only pay attention to the most direct results recently. When a factory owner or businessman sells the goods he manufactures or buys, he will only be satisfied with ordinary profits, and he will no longer care about the future situation of the goods and buyers. So are the natural effects of these behaviors. When Spanish growers burn forests on Cuban hillsides, thinking that wood ash is enough as fertilizer for the most profitable generation of coffee trees, how can they care that tropical rainstorms will wash away the bare fertile soil, leaving only bare rocks? Under today's mode of production, we only pay attention to the most remarkable achievements in nature and society. However, people are surprised that the actions taken to achieve the above results have had a far-reaching impact, but this is completely another matter, and in most cases it is even the opposite. " [20] A large number of facts show that the main producer of contemporary global ecological crisis is the western capitalist powers. Therefore, the fundamental way to solve the ecological crisis is to abolish the capitalist system and establish the socialist system.
Second, when building the harmony between man and nature, we advocate that "man" in "people-oriented" is not a minority, but the broadest masses of the people; Not an abstract "economic man", but a person who strives to promote all-round development; Not isolated people, but people in the sense of "class" existence. The most important knowledge that mankind gained in the past 20 th century is to put forward the strategy of sustainable development. In dealing with the future development of mankind, it advocates the principle of intergenerational equality and emphasizes that contemporary people should shoulder the responsibility of creating a better life for future generations, and never eat ancestral meals and cut off future generations. It advocates the principle of equality in the era of dealing with the real development of human beings. It is emphasized that the development of any country or region should not be at the expense of the development of other countries and regions, especially the interests and needs of developing countries and regions should be taken into account to prevent the polarization between the rich and the poor among countries, nationalities and regions. To this end, "Our Common Future" pointed out: "Sustainable development is to meet the basic needs of all people and provide them with opportunities to realize their desire for a better life. A world characterized by poverty will never get rid of ecological and other disasters. " The Rio Declaration on Environment and Development pointed out: "Human beings are at the center of the sustainable development problem that has been widely concerned. They have the right to live a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature. " Marx said: "man does not reproduce himself in a certain stipulation, but produces his comprehensiveness;" Not trying to stay on what has become, but in the absolute change movement. "[2 1] sustainable development is to focus on this" uncertainty ",promote the continuous progress of mankind through the ages, and prevent interruption or reversal." People-oriented "especially needs this sense of overall situation."
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The third question: How to build a harmonious society between man and nature?
Building the harmony between man and nature is particularly important for our country. Compared with the population of1300 million, the per capita natural resources in China are very short. In the process of China's modernization, there always exists the contradiction between population reproduction and material reproduction, the deviation between the production value and ecological value of natural resources, the imbalance between free possession of environmental capacity and conscious maintenance of environmental quality, and the disharmony between quantity and speed, quality and benefit. Generally speaking, extensive economic's development model has led China to consume 55%, 26% and 30% of the world's cement, steel and coal respectively, while only creating 4% of the world's GDP. China's environmental problems are very prominent, which can be described as "partial improvement and overall deterioration". The area of acid rain has accounted for 1/3 of the country, the area of soil erosion has reached 38%, the area of harbors has expanded to more than 18%, nearly half of the seven major river systems have been seriously polluted, and more than 300 million people in rural areas have no access to clean water. The huge economic losses caused by environmental pollution and ecological destruction accounted for 15% of the GDP in 2003. There are also health problems. At present, 75% of chronic diseases in China are related to waste pollution in production and life, and 70 ~ 80% of cancer patients are related to environmental pollution. Statistics show that in 2002, China's Environmental Sustainable Development Index (ESI) ranked 144 countries and regions in the world. If we don't pay attention to the construction of people and environment, it will be difficult to achieve the goal of modernization and harmonious society in China. To this end, it is necessary to update the way of thinking, production and lifestyle.
First, establish a new concept of "society-nature". The traditional view of "society-nature" is used to only regard social structure as the relationship between people, while ignoring the relationship between people and nature in social structure. Even simply regard nature as an unchangeable metaphysical entity outside human society and as an external cause of social development. This is not comprehensive. In fact, the social structure of human beings has two dimensions, one is the relationship between people, and the other is the relationship between people and nature. The two are interrelated, interactive and influential. As Marx and Engels pointed out, "the first fact that needs to be confirmed" in the whole history is "the relationship between individual and nature", and "any historical record should start from these natural bases and the changes that have taken place in the historical process due to human activities". [22] Society is not only the realistic unity between people, but also the realistic unity between man and nature. Humanized nature and humanization of nature are the fundamental dimensions of social development. We can't think that society is changeable and naturally unchangeable. Plekhanov pointed out: "The interaction between social people and geographical environment is extremely changeable. Every step forward in the development of human productive forces will change this relationship once. " [23] Our party now stipulates that "harmony between man and nature" is the inherent requirement of building a harmonious socialist society, which is completely correct.
Establishing a new concept of "society-nature" also requires us to fully understand the multiple meanings and values of nature for human survival and development. With the development of modern capitalist industrial society, people have turned people into one-dimensional economic animals and treated nature only from the economic perspective. This is also one-sided, which is not conducive to the survival and development of mankind. With the reflection on ecological crisis, some scholars pay more and more attention to the diversity of natural ecosystem values. Rolston believes that there are 14 kinds of cross values in nature, such as economic value, entertainment value, scientific value, aesthetic value, historical value, philosophical and religious value, life support value, genetic and biodiversity value, cultural symbolic value, character building value, life value, unity and diversity value, stability and spontaneity value. [24] In the process of building a harmonious society between man and nature, we should pay special attention to nature as the cradle of life and health, as the aesthetic object, as the cultural foundation, as the object of scientific research, as the leisure value of pleasure, and at the same time attach importance to the economic value of nature. Integrating the multiple values of nature can avoid the ecological crisis aggravated by overemphasis on economic value. Second, establish a new concept of development. Historical practice at home and abroad shows that it is very important to establish the concept of development. Different development views will produce different development models, and different development models will bring different results in dealing with the relationship between man and nature. The concept of development formed with the rise of capitalism once dominated modern society for a long time. Its core is to take economic growth as the goal, and to unilaterally pursue economic benefits as the only measure of social development. The consequence of this development model is inevitably to sacrifice the ecological environment for economic growth and ignore the healthy development of society and people for the pursuit of GDP. The destruction of environment makes people face the loss of ecological home, and the lag of ethics makes people face the loss of spiritual home. People are living in a rootless world more and more.
In the process of reflection, a new concept of development is gradually formed, which is different from the traditional concept of development. The main feature of this development view is that (1) no longer pursues economic growth unilaterally, but aims at the all-round development of people and society. (2) No longer focus on the "object" (thing) of development unilaterally, but on the subject (person) of social development. (3) It is not to separate science and technology from humanistic spirit, but to realize the synchronous development of science and technology and philosophy and social sciences. (4) No longer think that there is no limit to development, but limit human activities to the range that can be accommodated by natural ecology. This new Scientific Outlook on Development is based on the premise of affirming the unity between man and nature, and fully recognizes the positive initiative of man in front of nature. It treats nature wisely and moderately, which not only affirms that the survival and development of human beings can not be separated from the transformation of nature, but also requires that this transformation activity be kept within a reasonable threshold. The coordinated development between man and nature advocated by it requires the harmony between social productive forces and natural productive forces, economic reproduction and natural reproduction, and economic system and ecological system, so as to realize the sustainable development on the premise of maintaining the quality and sustainable supply capacity of natural resources and the healthy development of human society on the premise of not exceeding the capacity and renewal capacity of environmental systems.
Third, change economic growth and consumption patterns. Agenda 2 1 Century pointed out: "One of the most serious problems facing the earth is inappropriate consumption and production patterns, which leads to environmental deterioration, increased poverty and uneven development among countries". [25] Developing circular economy is the fundamental way to realize from extensive production to intensive production, solve the contradiction between environment and development, and solve ecological problems in development. The basic principles of circular economy are "reduction, reuse and recycling" (3R principle for short), all of which are indispensable. The so-called "reduction" is to reduce the material flow into the production and consumption fields, with the aim of minimizing the exhausting exploitation and utilization of non-renewable resources. The so-called "reuse" means to use the things people buy as much as possible or in many ways, effectively extending the cycle of products and services and saving resources to the maximum extent. The so-called "recycling" means recycling, and its purpose is to recycle the wastes in the production process for many times by improving the technical level of green industry, so as to minimize the emission of pollutants. Circular economy requires covering the whole process of economic activities and using resources efficiently.
In addition to the change of economic growth mode, it is also necessary to advocate the change of consumption concept. Under the contemporary capitalist system, there are not only labor alienation, but also consumption alienation. The so-called "consumption alienation" refers to forcing people to consume by creating "false demand". The purpose of people obtaining goods through money is only to possess and realize a stimulated illusory satisfaction. As Fromm pointed out, "Man himself is becoming a greedy passive consumer. Articles are not used to serve people. On the contrary, people become slaves to articles. " [26] This extravagant consumption has aggravated environmental pollution and ecological crisis. Curb people's endless desire expansion, guide and establish a reasonable and civilized consumption concept. With a large population and limited resources, China is still in the primary stage of socialism. It is particularly necessary to advocate a civilized, healthy and moderate consumption concept.