2. Flow of the Report Introduction to Confucius and Confucianism Getting to Know Confucius (more detailed) Ethics Virtues Right Ordering of State Evaluation and Critiques Summary/Conclusion * A more detailed outline is included in the handouts
3.
4.
5. Introduction to Confucius “ Confucius was a man who never led an army, ruled a kingdom, or conquered a nation, but shaped the flow of human history and established a system of ideas that has lasted over twenty five hundred years.’ (Bennett Sims, 1968)”
Golden Rule: on one hand it encourages reciprocity and motivation toward positive action. On the other hand, the amount of good that any individual can do is limited compared to the amount of damage anyone can cause. Silver Rule: on one hand it prohibited one to act negatively. On the other hand, they are less damaging and risk-adverse as you are free to pursue all the other ones which are good or are neutral.
Translations: “Benevolence”, “Goodness”, “Human-heartedness”, “Compassion”, “Pity”, “Love”, “Virtue”, “Virtue of Virtues”, “Supreme Goodness”, “Charity”, “Humanity” and “Kindness”.
In Ren , one’s actions are ruled by the rules of the heart and that such man is the truly virtuous man. Through Ren, Zhong and Shu society will have equity, justice, respect, love, pity, compassion, kindness and charity resulting to peace, tranquility and progress. Evil will be totally annihilated and all people from the world can benefit from the merits of these virtues.
1. See p. 256 of Creel.
Gustave Lanson, in his thesis, acknowledged the external influence of China in the philosophy of eighteenth century France and the political principles underlying the indigenous developments of the French Revolution. See p. 266 of Creel.
