In 1873 J.S. Mill said that the utilitarian moral viewpoint affirmed the capacity of human beings to sacrifice their own welfare for that of others. Today the classical utilitarian, including Mill and modern consequentialists, are criticized by many British and American philosophers. But what Mill affirmed is still an undeniable fact, that the human being has this valuable moral capacity. Of course, Mill himself never explained this concept. Here, we are concerned with this capacity with respect to economic development. This study will seek to clarify: first, the nature of this capacity; second, the relation between this capacity and economic development, regarded as determinative in social development; and third, how to treat this capacity. It will be important to discuss this topic with respect to present moral theories and practice.

Thanks to Marx’s epoch-making contribution, we know first that morality, as a form of superstructure and ideology, is deter-mined and, in turn, greatly influences the structure of society; and second, that the law of moral development and its social function exists in and is realized only through conscious human action. However, we have neglected to investigate the inner structure and the law of the human mind and of human abilities in performing moral act. Especially when the domestic economy changes greatly, we consider merely how to change the existent morals in order to meet the requirements of the reform, ignoring the actual state of the capacity, its philosophical explanation, and the proper practical attitude in its regard. This is the task of moral philosophy.

As we know, there are various human capacities, but so far we have neither heard of a human moral capacity nor found it in psychology, philosophy or ethics. However, some thinkers have made note of this capacity. Apart from Mill, Kant said that only rational beings have the capacity to act in accord with a conception of law, i.e., had a will. This referred to a human capacity in the moral realm, though will differs from this capacity, as will be ex-plained subsequently. John Rawls used the term, "moral capacity" when he described the features of a moral person; he thought that the majority of humankind possessed such a capacity. However, he spoke of the capacity for acquiring a sense of justice; this, however, differs from what will be defined below. According to the theory of the ancient Chinese thinker, Mencius, human nature is what, in contrast to brutes, enables one to be the master of one’s fate. It enables one to be benevolent, just, strict and wise; to feel shame; to be sympathetic and polite; and to distinguish right and wrong. This theory affirms that humans have the capacity to choose what is better; this is what I shall probe.

Though these thinkers have noted in various ways this human capacity, none has ever given a clear and proper definition. Human moral capacity is the proper capacity of human beings to act in terms which go beyond simply one’s utility. This has the following two properties:

1. Moral capacity is essential to human beings. The human essence usually is considered to be the sum total of all kinds of social relations. Labor as conscious and free human activity dis-tinguishes humankind directly from all else and should be taken as the human essence according to Marx. Concretely, it is the sum total of social relations. Marx noted that the differences between humans and animals is that humans can not only produce in response to bodily needs, but also know how to produce according to the criteria of the whole species and of beauty, and so have a moral capacity. Though there is so-called "altruism" in some co-lonies of animals, e.g. the so-called "moral behavior" of sacrificing a few individuals for the survival of their colony, only a human being can consciously exercise morals which are accepted by oneself and willingly give one’s own life on the basis of obligations and duties with regard to the existence and development of com-munities. Humans undertake social relations in material production and spiritual relations (including moral ones) which reflect material requirements of certain societies or groups for those who live in these communities. Animals, of course, have no such rich social nature, let alone the autonomy of acting consciously ac-cording to the interests of the community and the morals which reflect those interests. Only human beings have such a nature and are able to do so. Marx said that the basis of morality was the au-tonomy of the human spirit, whether that spirit be of one’s gender, race, nation or the whole of humankind. Therefore, both the acti-vities of human life and one’s social nature show that the human moral capacity is specific to human nature. Just as one’s ears are sensitive to music and one’s eyes are sensitive to beauty, moral capacity is a natural power.

2. Human moral capacity is the psychological character needed by humans for successfully performing moral actions. Usually we think that a moral act has two properties: it must be based on a conscious recognition of the other, that is, on social in-terests; and it must be the result of a free choice made by the agent. It follows that, psychologically, human moral actions involve human reason and will. These are considered by Kant to be the same for pure reason has a practical capacity and reason itself suffices to determine will; pure reason is practical reason or will in the moral realm. Kant was concerned only with the will being in accord with the law of pure reason, not its real capacity. Like cog-nition and emotion, as a part of the psychological process will is a psychological activity for doing or not doing according to one’s aim. The moral capacity is a characteristic or stage developed and consolidated in the psychological process. For moral actions it is not enough to have good will without good capacity. Doing or not doing moral actions is determined by the will, but the actual exe-cution of moral actions is through one’s capacity for moral activities. For humans the performance of moral actions is an exercise or manifestation of the moral capacity and relates to the will.

We might say that this is the capacity to make one’s bio-logical nature obey one’s social nature, and that it derives from, and develops in, the process of the will. The constant use of this ca-pacity finally will become a habit or moral character. Therefore moral capacity, as an effect of the will, is the beginning of the formation of moral character. This view accords also with the relations between the individual psychological aspects. Usually it is noted that moral actions are those which benefit others and society under the direction of a moral conscience; moral character is the inner key to moral action. As these are realized by the ca-pacity which derives from process of the will, moral character is none other than the habitual use of the moral capacity. Thus, moral actions manifest the capacity which differs from, and never yields to, animal instincts. This is the substance of ethics.

Through history, the requirement and capability of human autonomy, and the scope for applying moral capacity have been expanding. In primitive society, the autonomy and the scope generally were limited to their own people and tribe -- for Engels tribes always were delimitations of people. After entering class societies, on the one hand, social beings turned egoistic and in-dividualistic. On the other hand, the emergence and awareness of the interest of classes, cities, countries, nations and even the whole of humankind opened the scope for applying human capacities beyond the bounds of the tribe and gradually expanded them to these large communities, although such an evolution and expansion of these capacities in the majority of human beings was concurrent with its decline in the minority. Nowadays, there appears to be a moral tendency to assume a moral attitude towards not only all people but all living beings and even the environment. This sug-gests that humans can expand it to the whole natural world, and that human behavior must be restrained by the spirit of the natural world, rather than that of human beings alone.

If this general tendency be granted, we may ask how this capacity forms and is developed, and whether it evolves along with economic development as does morality.

In the formation of this capacity, economic activities as fundamental practical activities, play a determinant or foundational, though indirect role. Socio-biologist F.O. Wilson said that the altruistic ability of humankind, like that of social insects, vio-lence through the choice of members of the same clan. But the non-rational altruism he spoke of is not the human moral capacity. The latter differs from the altruist capacity (which should be called an instinct) of insects in being a willing and conscious capacity for moral actions. At most, it might be accepted or rejected by the members of the clan, but such choice cannot be endowed with the willing and conscious character which distinguishes it from in-stinct. Human moral capacity can only be a result of human history.

It is necessary to inquire how the property is formed. It is based on a fundamental human practical activity, i.e., material pro-ductive activity. While the relations between man and nature, between person and person, were formed in material production, animal psychology was transformed into human psychology with human consciousness and language. The development of material production and the division between labor, especially between mental and manual labor, further divided human consciousness into a variety of forms, including moral consciousness. Since then moral consciousness has functioned in two ways: on the one hand, as a form of ideology, it performs social functions to serve the economic basis; on the other hand, it carries out its personal function, with other structural factors of moral capacity. One of these factors is its structural form, that is, human reason, emotions and will. The other is its structural content: moral principles or norms. When agents combine form with content, they get the moral cognition, emotion and the will to carry out moral actions and form the structure of moral capacity. Since moral cognition and emotion combine in the process of the will to perform moral actions, such a structure can be called the structure of will.

As mentioned above, a structure is founded and consolidated over a long period. It follows that the structural forms and contents of the moral capacity would not have come into being without human material production. As animals are never engaged in ma-terial production they cannot have these two structural factors. For man, the need to combine these factors derives from the deter-minative role of economic relations in morality. The possibility of their combination depends on the activity of these structural forms and also on moral influences or moral surroundings. Hence, in this respect, the economy has only final significance; it cannot directly determine or realize the combination of the two factors, nor form moral capacity directly.

It is difficult to trace exactly how the initial human moral capacity came into existence. The morality of the long primitive societies (in fact, of all the societies in later history) required the submission of individual interests to collective interests. The moral surroundings of primitive societies encouraged a long and stable combination of form and content and the construction of a relevant structure of the will. As a result, humans obtained moral capacity as a psychological character. This cannot be directly inherited by biology, but is had by every person one meets. It exists in every normal person as a congenital potentiality, that is, as a possibility which subsequently can be realized under certain conditions. The ethics and moral education of all societies presuppose that people have this potentiality or possibility, but do not explain it. The development of the economy and the various moral surroundings (which accompany the former) influence and help to bring about or impede the realization and development of the potentiality, but they cannot rule out this potentiality. Here, economic development exerts but a subordinate influence.

Thus, we turn to the development of moral capacity: how congenital moral potentiality becomes an actual ability and how the moral capacity, as a psychological character of humankind, de-velops in individuals. As in the brief description of the tendency at the beginning of this section, a sign of the development of moral capacity is the extension of the scope of application of moral ca-pacity, that is, improving its latitude. Let us see how economic development plays its role here.

First, the development of interconnections in the economy brings about these broader interests of individuals, clans, tribes cities, countries, nations, even the whole of mankind, along with the morals which confirm, reflect and defend these interests. Eco-nomic development generates and strengthens the conflicts be-tween persons and nature. Conflicting interests between groups and the evils visited upon humans in retaliation by the natural world also influence the formation of certain morals and the need to obey them. Just as "resistance to great evils makes a sage", to a certain degree evils expand the scope of application of the moral capacity. However, the positive or negative results of economic development regulate merely the direction in which morals or the structural contents of the moral capacity develop, and exert pre-ssure on the combination of content with form, but they do not directly construct moral capacity or determine the latitude with which agents exercise their moral capacity. Both of these can only call for the activity of human consciousness, and for the inner influence of moral surroundings upon moral agents.

Hence, regarding the influence of economic development upon human moral capacity, economic development is the basis of the structural forms and contents of human moral capacity, but can neither deprive human beings of this capacity nor directly create it. It is the chief cause by which the activity of human consciousness and the influence of moral surroundings upon moral agents moves human moral capacity from potentiality to actuality, from the small to the great.

1. In the West, especially England, some post-utilitarians deny any human capacity in the moral realm, and regard altruists as "moral paralytics". They see persons as characterized by partiality, and consider impartiality and impersonal moral requirements as beyond normal human capacity. While not denying the partiality of individuals in real life, morality lies in transcending partiality and performing moral actions which are decided by oneself but in terms which go beyond one’s own utility. Such capacity can extend to heroic sacrifice of one’s own life for the welfare of countries, nations and humankind. It can also be exercised in sacrificing one’s petty gains in order to observe social morality or to perform one’s duties. As a matter of fact, most people exercise this capacity every day. It is in us, not beyond us.

2. Since in form any morals is impartial and impersonal, it represents, in essence, the interests of a certain people. In most societies, on the one hand, this capacity of the majority of people has been utilized by the ruling class or the privileged stratum as the most convenient and effective means to their private goals. On the other hand, the situation of meaningless sacrifice and the abuse of moral capacity has changed gradually in pace with the awakening of individual consciousness and the raising of a critical level regarding morals. This side of the situation allows for no optimism. So the problem does not lie in whether humans have moral capa-city, but how to respect and promote that capacity: moral capacity too must be treated morally.

3. The economic system in China is now in a transition from a planned to a market economy. Ethics must work out a corres-ponding new moral system according to the principles of economic relations which determine morality.

It is said that the principle of utility as posed by the classical utilitarians should be taken as the fundamental moral principle of the new era. In contrast to the principle of maximizing happiness posed by the classical utilitarians the utility claims that to become rich lawfully is moral, or that effective economic action is morality itself. Therefore, individual interests become the ultimate judge of morality. This has not the form of a universal principle, even that of classical utilitarianism it can be taken at most as the moral principle in the economic realm. This cannot be regarded as a fundamental principle for one’s whole moral life, for persons are not only economic agents, but also moral ones. As an economic agent one has a lawful right to pursue one’s own interests; as a moral agent one should accept certain moral principles and moral ideals, and undertake certain moral obligations. Individual utility often is not the aim for which individuals perform moral obligations; it may even conflict with such obligations. So the principle of utility may be of no help in human social activity. The reason why such a principle overlooked the moral capacity of most people. Moral principles occupy a dominant position and penetrate deeply into the structure of people’s moral capacity. As in social morality, most such principles are not in step with the changes in the economic system.

Hence, the principle of morality should be taken as the main morality in our moral life. Where conflicts of economic interests cannot be resolved by appeal to laws, and moral problems in economic activity cannot be settled by appeal to the principle of utility. These conflicts or problems must be solved under the guidance of principles of morality on the moral level. The human moral capacity will never be out-of-date.

4. In fact, all respect those who display a high moral capacity, whether one denies or affirms the capacity, for it manifests the differences between man and animals and is the inner essence of being human. Though economic development has nourished or tested the capacity with its productions of various kinds, it does not of itself produce so noble a reality as the moral capacity.

countries, women are exploring molding ideal personalities. They are not the traditional good mothers and wives who sacrifice themselves in a closed family context, nor are they the so-called strong women of industrial times. They develop their own standard and hope to get a valuable job with flexible hours and a good location; they hope to take account of both family and career. Some women give up work and become housewives while bring up their children, but their return to the family is for the purpose of educating their children and giving their children the natural love of a mother so that the children can grow soundly. In the meantime, they engage in further studies to give play to their potentialities or to develop their interests, so that they will be more competitive when they take up a career after their children have grown up. Such exploration is praiseworthy under the conditions of a modernized economy; it advances the civilization of the whole society.

Third, the high educational level of society, the high degree of democracy and the modernization and socialization of house work due to the modernization of the economy will enable women to elevate their quality as human beings, to demonstrate their personality, to strengthen their competitive power in social life, and to realize a sound personality. There will be a day when we need no longer emphasize that the male and the female differ and recognize that there is something common to both sexes. Then the peculiar and varied beauty of the character and personality of the female will demonstrate itself naturally in the world.

Of course, molding the female personality depends not merely on the progress of economy and is not merely a matter for women alone. It depends on the consistent efforts of the whole society; this requires theoretical work by scholars to find the incompatibilities and in time eliminate them.