Philosophy
551 to 479 BC, Lu, China
Harmony, ritual, and the ethics of the well ordered society.
Start learning Confucius →Confucius’s central virtue - ren , humaneness or benevolence - the loving concern for others that is the heart of his ethics and the goal of moral cultivation.
Confucius’s teaching on li - ritual, propriety, the forms of proper conduct - which cultivate virtue, order society, and express the humane spirit in the proper forms of life.
Confucius’s ideal of the junzi - the cultivated, exemplary person of virtue and integrity - and his vision of the moral self-cultivation through which anyone may become noble in character.
Confucius’s teaching that filial piety - devotion to parents and family - is the root of humaneness and the foundation from which all virtue and social order grow.
Confucius’s vision of government - that rulers should govern by moral example and virtue, not by coercion and punishment, leading the people through the power of moral example.
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