道德与自我在现代道德理论中是分离甚至对立的：道德是一种无关乎个人幸福的责任和义务；道德行为选择是个人在悬置其情感欲望、立场和价值偏好的基础上通过无偏私的道德理性而做出的。与自我分离的道德，一方面是“不幸福”的利他道德、“无个性”的普遍道德、“无力量”的理性道德，造成了个体道德动机或道德积极性的疲软，另一方面也指向一个无道德特征的自我。自我并不必然是道德的对立面，自我关切或利己完全可以成为道德动机，关键在于自我如何理解它自身以及它想要什么。当道德与自我的偏好、目标、欲求和认同有了一定程度的结合，个体就能像关注自身的好那样去关心道德价值的实现。“道德自我”这一概念反映的是个体的道德偏好、道德欲望和道德目标，以及它们在个体的自我认同中所处的相对位置和所具有的相对显著性与重要性。 道德自我为个体提供和激发道德动机的方式（道德自我的心理动力机制）主要有以下特征。如果道德价值在个人的自我认同中具有重要位置，那么自我一致性就能作为一种重要的道德动机，维护自我一致性的需要促使个体能更有力地将道德认知转化为行为，因为不这么做将会是一种自我背叛。道德自我在做出道德选择时往往具有的“身不由己”或“缺乏选择”的主观经验并不是能动性不足的表现；相反，自我所具有的稳定的道德的情感欲望倾向、偏好、认同在限制了个体行为选择的范围的同时，也为个体的道德选择提供了充分的理由和动机，从而支持个体的道德能动性和选择能力。在对个人利益具有一定威胁的挑战性的道德情境中，道德自我会表现出反身性，即从具体情境中脱离出来，转而关注其“自我”或人格，并通过对它进行肯定来激发道德行为。道德自我所具有的骄傲情感，一方面起到了维护和巩固道德自我，使个体获得持久的道德行为和道德生活的动机，另一方面也可能激发个体去抵制不正义的社会权威。 道德教育应当以培养道德自我为目标。在基本立场上，道德教育要坚持道德与幸福的结合，关注个体内在的动机，把道德责任和道德要求与个体对幸福或“好生活”的自然向往结合起来。在具体任务上，道德教育要注意塑造个体的情感欲望倾向和培养个人能动性，帮助个体建立理性的道德自我，以及协助个体对自身的道德自我实现突破和完善。

Morality and self are separate and even opposite in modern moral theory: morality is a duty and obligation not related to personal happiness. It is also required that one should disengage from his own emotions, desires, passions and preferences, and use his impartial moral reasoning in making moral decisions. The separation between morality and self has on one hand, made moral life undesirable, moral decision impersonal and moral cognition powerless, thus leading to the weakness of individual’s moral motivation; on the other hand, it also denotes a “morally-neutral” self, a self that has no identifiable moral traits and moral characteristics. However, the self is not necessarily the enemy of morality. An individual’s self-concern can be a moral motivation, so long as the self understands himself as a moral person, and what the self wants is a moral life which incorporate the concern of other’s rights, welfare and of justice. When morality and personal preferences, goals, desires and identity have a certain degree of integration, individuals would care about the realization of moral values in the way they’re concerned with their own good. The concept of “moral self” thus reflects such integrations—the results of which are an individual’s moral preferences, moral desires and moral goals—and their relative position and salience in the structure of one’s self-identity or one’s sense of self. The way moral self provides and inspires one’s moral motivation (the psychological motivation mechanism of moral self) has the following characteristics. If moral value has an important position in the personal identity, self-consistency can serve as an important moral motivation. The need to maintain one’s self-consistency can motivate one to convert his moral knowledge to moral behavior more effectively, otherwise he or she would experience a sense of self-betrayal. A moral self might experience a feeling of “having or other choice” or “involuntariness”，which is not an evidence of lack of agency or initiative. Instead, while the self’s stable moral tendency, moral preferences, disposition and moral identity do limit or narrow the scope and potential possibility of the self’s choices, they also provide with sufficient reason to choose the morally right actions, thus improving the individual’s moral agency or the ability to choose. Under circumstances where the individual’s interest is threatened, a moral self would turn his or her attention away from specific situation and moral requirements, start to focus on the “self” or personality. By asking himself “What kind of act a person like me would do?” or “Am I like the person who would make such a (morally ugly) choice? ”, the self encourages itself to conduct the morally noble behavior, through affirming his own moral worth. It’s common for virtuous people in whom moral values and personal projects have a high degree of integration to have an emotion of pride. On one hand, pride helps maintain and strengthen the moral self, fuelling the individual’s consistent moral behavior and enduring moral commitments; on the other hand, it is also a powerful engine needed in moral resistance to unjust social authority. Moral education based on the students “self” should insist on the integration of morality and happiness or self-flourishing. By connecting moral responsibility and moral requirements with the idea of “happiness”, or “good life”, morality can appear to be more desirable. In childhood, the main task of moral education is to shape children's emotional desire and to cultivate children's personal agency; In late childhood and adolescence, moral education should be devoted to helping individuals construct their moral self-identity. In the later period of youth and adulthood, moral education should facilitate the moral self to achieve breakthrough and perfection.