Nguyen Trai’s thought on philosophical ethics and its value for the Vietnamese society today

Abstract

Nguyen Trai is a military strategist, politician, diplomat as well as a philosopher and a big humanist in the history of Vietnamese thought. His thoughts are expressed in many fields and have contributed greatly to the history of Vietnamese thought. In particular, his ethical reflections continue to be meaningful to contemporary society in general and uniquely significant for Vietnam today in particular. This article focuses on clarifying Nguyen Trai's thought on ethics while extracting the value of that his intellectual heritage to the social life in Vietnam today. The article further clarifies the basic contents of Nguyen Trai's ethical thinking as follows: Firstly, the thought of benevolence and righteousness -the core and basic content in Nguyen Trai's thought on ethics; secondly, the so-called 'Three Moral Bonds -Five Constant Virtues,' which are the basic standards and value scales of ethics; thirdly, his notion of 'Tolerance and spirit of solidarity' as these relate to interpersonal human relationships in their endeavor to build a wealthy and happy society; fourthly, Trai's 'Aspiration for peace and love for nature.' From these contents, the article comes to draw the values of Nguyen Trai's thought on ethics for the social life in Vietnam today, such as: contributing to preserving and promoting compassion, promoting tolerance and solidarity, and contributing to the formation and development of ecological ethics.

A philosophical assessment of the changing trends of Buddhism in contemporary Vietnam

“…The existing (diverse) trends in Buddhism constitute together with the Confucian philosophical heritage a strong moral substrate for the population. (Nguyen -Le, 2019) It is now the task of both teachers and officials to draw wisely from this fountain of knowledge and use it appropriately to Vietnam's current situation. Buddhist self-examination and meditation has the potential to help cultivating one's personality and moral character (Truong, 2019) and help in achieving a higher level of human development in Vietnam (Truong, 2020).…”

“…Regarding the conversion of a part of the Khmers in the Southwest Region to Christianity, Huu Hop Tran showed statistics on the number of the Khmer Catholics and Protestants. (Nguyen et al, 2019) According to his data, by 2015, there were 3,202 Catholics and 2,195 Protestants in the Southwest region. (Tran, 2017: 100,103).…”