## 1. Confucius as Chinese Philosopher and Symbol of Traditional Culture



Because of the wide range of texts and traditions identified with him,
choices about which version of Confucius is authoritative have changed
over time, reflecting particular political and social priorities. The
portrait of Confucius as philosopher is, in part, the product of a
series of modern cross-cultural interactions. In Imperial China,
Confucius was identified with interpretations of the classics and
moral guidelines for administrators, and therefore also with training
the scholar-officials that populated the bureaucracy. At the same
time, he was closely associated with the transmission of the ancient
sacrificial system, and he himself received ritual offerings in
temples found in all major cities. By the Han (202 BCE-220 CE),
Confucius was already an authoritative figure in a number of different
cultural domains, and the early commentaries show that reading texts
associated with him about history, ritual, and proper behavior was
important to rulers. The first commentaries to the *Analects*
were written by tutors to the crown prince (e.g., Zhang Yu Zhang Yu , d. 5 BCE),
and select experts in the "Five Classics"
(*Wujing* Wu Jing ) were given scholastic positions in the government.
The authority of Confucius was such that during the late Han and the
following period of disunity, his imprimatur was used to validate
commentaries to the classics, encoded political prophecies, and
esoteric doctrines.



By the Song period (960-1279), the post-Buddhist revival known
as "Neo-Confucianism" anchored readings of the dialogues
of Confucius to a dualism between "cosmic pattern"
(*li* Li ) and "*pneumas*" (*qi*
Qi ), a distinctive moral cosmology that marked the tradition off
from those of Buddhism and Daoism. The Neo-Confucian interpretation of
the *Analects* by Zhu Xi Zhu Xi  (1130-1200)
integrated the study of the *Analects* into a curriculum based
on the "Four Books" (*Sishu* Si Shu ) that
became widely influential in China, Korea, and Japan. The pre-modern
Confucius was closely associated with good government, moral
education, proper ritual performance, and the reciprocal obligations
that people in different roles owed each other in such contexts.



When Confucius became a character in the intellectual debates of
eighteenth century Europe, he became identified as China's first
philosopher. Jesuit missionaries in China sent back accounts of
ancient China that portrayed Confucius as inspired by Natural Theology
to pursue the good, which they considered a marked contrast with the
"idolatries" of Buddhism and Daoism. Back in Europe,
intellectuals read missionary descriptions and translations of Chinese
literature, and writers like Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
(1646-1716) and Nicolas-Gabriel Clerc (1726-1798) praised
Confucius for his discovery of universal natural laws through reason.
Enlightenment writers celebrated the moral philosophy of Confucius for
its independence from the dogmatic influence of the Church. While at
times he was criticized as an atheist or an advocate of despotism,
many Europeans viewed Confucius as a moral philosopher whose approach
was in line with rationalism and humanism.



Today, many descriptions combine these several ways of positioning
Confucius, but the modern interpretation of his views has been
complicated by a tendency to look back on him as an emblem of the
"traditional culture" of China. In the eyes of some late
nineteenth and twentieth century reformers who sought to fortify China
against foreign influence, the moral teachings of Confucius had the
potential to play the same role that they perceived Christianity had
done in the modernization of Europe and America, or serve as the basis
of a more secular spiritual renewal that would transform the
population into citizens of a modern nation-state. In the twentieth
century, the pursuit of modernization also led to the rejection of
Confucius by some reformers in the May Fourth and New Culture
movements, as well as by many in the Communist Party, who identified
the traditional hierarchies implicit in his social and political
philosophy with the social and economic inequalities that they sought
to eliminate. In these modern debates, it is not just the status of 
Confucius in traditional China that made him such a potent symbol.
His specific association with the curriculum of the system of education of
scholar-officials in the imperial government, and of traditional moral
values more generally, connected him to the aspects of tradition worth
preserving, or the things that held China back from modernization,
depending on one's point of view.



As legacies of Confucius tied to traditional ritual roles and the
pre-modern social structure were criticized by modernizers, a view of
Confucius as a moral philosopher, already common in European readings,
gained ascendancy in East Asia. The American-educated historian Hu Shi
Hu Shi  (1891-1962) wrote an early influential history
of Chinese philosophy, beginning with Laozi Lao Zi  and
Confucius, explicitly on the model of existing histories of Western
philosophy. In it, Hu compared what he called the conservative aspect
of the philosophy of Confucius to Socrates and Plato. Since at least
that time, Confucius has been central to most histories of Chinese
philosophy.


## 2. Sources for Confucius's Life and Thought



Biographical treatments of Confucius, beginning with the
"Hereditary House of Confucius" (*Kongzi shijia*
Kong Zi Shi Jia ), a chapter of Sima Qian's
Si Ma Qian  (c.145-c.86 BCE) *Records of the
Grand Historian* (*Shiji* Shi Ji ), were initially
based on information from compilations of independently circulating
dialogues and prose accounts. Tying particular elements of his
philosophy to the life experiences of Confucius is a risky and
potentially circular exercise, since many of the details of his
biography were first recorded in instructive anecdotes linked to the
expression of didactic messages. Nevertheless, since Sima Qian's
time, the biography of Confucius has been intimately linked with the
interpretation of his philosophy, and so this section begins with a
brief treatment of traditional tropes about his family background,
official career, and teaching of 72 disciples, before turning to the
dialogue and prose accounts upon which early biographers like Sima
Qian drew.



Confucius was born in the domain of Zou, in modern Shandong Province,
south of the larger kingdom of Lu. A date of 551 BCE is given for his
birth in the *Gongyang Commentary* (*Gongyang zhuan*
Gong Yang Chuan ) to the classic *Spring and Autumn
Annals* (*Chunqiu* Chun Qiu ), which places him in
the period when the influence of the Zhou polity was declining, and
regional domains were becoming independent states. His father, who
came from Lu, was descended from a noble clan that included, in Sima
Qian's telling, several people known for their modesty and
ritual mastery. His father died when Confucius was a small child,
leaving the family poor but with some social status, and as a young
man Confucius became known for expertise in the classical ritual and
ceremonial forms of the Zhou. In adulthood, Confucius travelled to Lu
and began a career as an official in the employ of aristocratic
families.



Different sources identify Confucius as having held a large number of
different offices in Lu. Entries in the *Zuo Commentary*
(*Zuozhuan* Zuo Chuan ) to the *Spring and Autumn
Annals* for 509 and 500 BCE identify him as Director of
Corrections (*Sikou* Si Kou ), and say he was charged
with assisting the ruler with the rituals surrounding a visiting
dignitary from the state of Qi, respectively. The *Mencius*
(*Mengzi* Meng Zi ), a text centered on a figure
generally regarded as the most important early developer of the
thought of Confucius, Mencius (trad. 372-289 BCE), says
Confucius was Foodstuffs Scribe (*Weili* Wei Li ) and
Scribe in the Field (*Chengtian* Cheng Tian ), involved
with managing the accounting at the granary and keeping the books on
the pasturing of different animals
(11.14).[1] In the
first biography, Sima Qian mentions these offices, but then adds a
second set of more powerful positions in Lu including Steward
(*Zai* Zai ) managing an estate in the district of Zhongdu,
Minister of Works (*Sikong* Si Kong ), and even acting
Chancellor (*Xiang* Xiang ). Following his departure from Lu,
different stories place Confucius in the kingdoms of Wei, Song, Chen,
Cai, and Chu. Sima Qian crafted these stories into a serial narrative
of rulers failing to appreciate the moral worth of Confucius, whose
high standards forced him to continue to travel in search of an
incorrupt ruler.



Late in life, Confucius left service and turned to teaching. In Sima
Qian's time, the sheer number of independently circulating texts
centering on dialogues that Confucius had with his disciples led the
biographer to include a separate chapter on "The arranged
traditions of the disciples of Confucius" (*Zhongni dizi
liezhuan* Zhong Ni Di Zi Lie Chuan ). His
account identifies 77 direct disciples, whom Sima Qian says Confucius
trained in ritual practice and the *Classic of Odes*
(*Shijing* Shi Jing ), *Classic of Documents*
(*Shujing* Shu Jing , also called *Documents of the
Predecessors* or *Shangshu* Shang Shu ), *Records
of Ritual* (*Liji* Li Ji ) and
*Classic of Music* (*Yuejing* Le Jing ). Altogether, some 3000
students received some form of this training regimen. Sima
Qian's editorial practice in systematizing dialogues was
inclusive, and the fact that he was able to collect so much
information some three centuries after the death of Confucius
testifies to the latter's importance in the Han period. Looked
at in a different way, the prodigious numbers of direct disciples and
students of Confucius, and the inconsistent accounts of the offices in
which he served, may also be due to a proliferation of texts
associating the increasingly authoritative figure of Confucius with
divergent regional or interpretive traditions during those intervening
centuries.



The many sources of quotations and dialogues of Confucius, both
transmitted and recently excavated, provide a wealth of materials
about the philosophy of Confucius, but an incomplete sense of which
materials are authoritative. The last millennium has seen the
development of a conventional view that materials preserved in the
twenty chapters of the transmitted *Analects* most accurately
represent Confucius's original teachings. This derives in part
from a second century CE account by Ban Gu Ban Gu 
(39-92 CE) of the composition of the *Analects* that
describes the work as having been compiled by first and second
generation disciples of Confucius and then transmitted privately for
centuries, making it arguably the oldest stratum of extant Confucius
sources. In the centuries since, some scholars have come up with
variations on this basic account, such as Liu Baonan's
Liu Bao Nan  (1791-1855) view in *Corrected Meanings
of the Analects* (*Lunyu zhengyi*
Lun Yu Zheng Yi ) that each chapter was written by a
different disciple. Recently, several centuries of doubts about
internal inconsistencies in the text and a lack of references to the
title in early sources were marshaled by classicist Zhu Weizheng
Zhu Wei Zheng  in an influential 1986 article which argued
that the lack of attributed quotations from the *Analects*, and
of explicit references to it, prior to the second century BCE, meant
that its traditional status as the oldest stratum of the teachings of
Confucius was undeserved. Since then a number of historians, including
Michael J. Hunter, have systematically shown that writers started to
demonstrate an acute interest in the *Analects* only in the
late second and first centuries BCE, suggesting that other
Confucius-related records from those centuries should also be
considered as potentially authoritative sources. Some have suggested
this critical approach to sources is an attack on the historicity of
Confucius, but a more reasonable description is that it is an attack
on the authoritativeness of the *Analects* that broadens and
diversifies the sources that may be used to reconstruct the historical
Confucius.



Expanding the corpus of Confucius quotations and dialogues beyond the
*Analects*, then, requires attention to three additional types
of sources. First, dialogues preserved in transmitted sources like the
*Records of Ritual,* the *Elder Dai's Records of
Ritual* (*DaDai Liji* Da Dai Li Ji ),
and Han collections like the
*Family Discussions of Confucius* (*Kongzi jiayu*
Kong Zi Jia Yu ) contain a large number of diverse
teachings. Second, quotations attached to the interpretation of
passages in the classics preserved in works like the *Zuo
Commentary* to the *Spring and Autumn Annals*,
or *Han's Intertextual Commentary on the Odes* (*Han
Shi waizhuan* Han Shi Wai Chuan ) are particularly
rich sources for readings of history and poetry. Finally, a number of
recently archaeologically recovered texts from the Han period and
before have also expanded the corpus.



Newly discovered sources include three recently excavated versions of
texts with parallel to the transmitted *Analects*. These are
the 1973 excavation at the Dingzhou site in Hebei Province dating to
55 BCE; the 1990's excavation of a partial parallel version at
Jongbaekdong in Pyongyang, North Korea, dating to between 62 and 45
BCE; and most recently the 2011-2015 excavation of the tomb of the Marquis
of Haihun in Jiangxi Province dating to 59 BCE. The Haihun excavation
is particularly important because it is thought to contain the two
lost chapters of what Han period sources identify as a 22-chapter
version of the *Analects* that circulated in the state of Qi,
the titles of which appear to be "Understanding the Way"
(*Zhi dao* Zhi Dao ) and "Questions about
Jade" (*Wen yu* Wen Yu ). While the
Haihun *Analects* has yet to be published, the content of the
lost chapters overlaps with a handful of fragments dating to the late
first century BCE that were found at the Jianshui Jinguan site in
Jinta county in Gansu Province in 1973. All in all, these finds
confirm the sudden wide circulation of the *Analects* in the
middle of the first century BCE.



Previously unknown Confucius dialogues and quotations have also been
unearthed. The Dingzhou site also yielded texts given the titles
"Sayings of the Ru" (*Rujiazhe yan*
Ru Jia Zhe Yan ) and "Duke Ai asked about the
five kinds of righteousness" (*Aigong wen wuyi*
Ai Gong Wen Wu Yi ). A significantly different
text also given the name "Sayings of the Ru" was found in
1977 in a Han tomb at Fuyang in Anhui Province. Several texts dating
to 168 BCE recording statements by Confucius about the
*Classic of Changes* (*Yijing* Yi Jing ) were
excavated from the Mawangdui site in Hunan Province in
1973. Additionally, a number of Warring States period dialogical texts
centered on particular disciples, and a text with interpretative
comments by Confucius on the *Classic of Poetry* given the name
"Confucius discusses the *Odes*" (*Kongzi
shilun* Kong Zi Shi Lun ), were looted from tombs in the 1990s, sold on the black market, 
and made their way to the Shanghai Museum. Finally, the 59 BCE tomb of the
Marquis of Haihun also contains a number of previously unknown
Confucius dialogues and quotations on ritual and filial piety, along
with materials that overlap with sections of transmitted texts
including the *Analects*, *Records of Ritual* and the
*Elder Dai's Records of Ritual*.



Some excavated texts, like the pre-Han period "Thicket of
Sayings" (*Yucong* Yu Cong ) apothegms excavated
at the Guodian site in Hubei Province in 1993, contain fragments of
the
*Analects* in circulation without attribution to Confucius.
Transmitted materials also show some of the quotations attributed to
Confucius in the *Analects* in the mouths of other historical
figures. The fluidity and diversity of Confucius-related materials in
circulation prior to the fixing of the *Analects* text in the
second century BCE, suggest that the *Analects* itself, with
its keen interest in ritual, personal ethics, and politics, may well
have been in part a topical selection from a larger and more diverse
set of available Confucius-related materials. In other words, there
were already multiple topical foci prior to any horizon by which we
can definitively deem any single focus to be authoritative. It is for
this reason that the essential core of the teachings of Confucius is
historically underdetermined, and the correct identification of the
core teachings is still avidly debated. The following sections treat
three key aspects of the philosophy of Confucius, each different but
all interrelated, found throughout many of these diverse sets of
sources: a theory of how ritual and musical performance functioned to
promote unselfishness and train emotions, advice on how to inculcate a
set of personal virtues to prepare people to behave morally in
different domains of their lives, and a social and political
philosophy that abstracted classical ideals of proper conduct in
family and official contexts to apply to more general contexts.


## 3. Ritual Psychology and Social Values



The *Records of Ritual*, the *Analects*, and numerous
Han collections portray Confucius as being deeply
concerned with the proper performance of ritual and music. In such works, the description of the attitudes and affect of the performer became the foundation of a
ritual psychology in which proper performance was key to reforming
desires and beginning to develop moral dispositions. Confucius sought
to preserve the Zhou ritual system, and theorized about how ritual and
music inculcated social roles, limited desires and transformed
character.



Many biographies begin their description of his life with a story of
Confucius at an early age performing rituals, reflecting accounts and
statements that demonstrate his prodigious mastery of ritual and
music. The archaeological record shows that one legacy of the Zhou
period into which Confucius was born was a system of sumptuary
regulations that encoded social status. Another of these legacies was
ancestral sacrifice, a means to demonstrate people's reverence
for their ancestors while also providing a way to ask the spirits to
assist them or to guarantee them protection from harm. The
*Analects* describes the ritual mastery of Confucius in
receiving guests at a noble's home (10.3), and in carrying out
sacrifices (10.8, 15.1). He plays the stone chimes (14.39),
distinguishes between proper and improper music (15.11, 17.18), and
extols and explains the *Classic of Odes* to his disciples
(1.15, 2.2, 8.3, 16.13, 17.9). This mastery of classical ritual and
musical forms is an important reason Confucius said he "followed
Zhou" (3.14). While he might alter a detail of a ritual out of
frugality (9.3), Confucius insists on adherence to the letter of the rites,
as when his disciple Zi Gong Zi Gong  sought to substitute another animal for a
sheep in a seasonal sacrifice, saying "though you care about the
sheep, I care about the ritual" (3.17). It was in large part
this adherence to Zhou period cultural forms, or to what Confucius
reconstructed them to be, that has led many in the modern period to
label him a traditionalist.



Where Confucius clearly innovated was in his rationale for performing
the rites and music. Historian Yan Buke Yan Bu Ke  has
argued that the early Confucian (*Ru*) tradition began from the
office of the "Music master" (*Yueshi*
Le Shi ) described in the
*Ritual of Zhou* (*Zhou Li* Zhou Li ). Yan's view is that
since these officials were responsible for teaching the rites, music,
and the *Classic of Odes*, it was their combined expertise that
developed into the particular vocation that shaped the outlook of
Confucius. Early discussions of ritual in the Zhou classics often
explained ritual in terms of a *do ut des* view of making
offerings to receive benefits. By contrast, early discussions between
Confucius and his disciples described benefits of ritual performance
that went beyond the propitiation of spirits, rewards from the
ancestors, or the maintenance of the social or cosmic order. Instead
of emphasizing goods that were external to the performer, these works
stressed the value of the associated interior psychological states of
the practitioner. In *Analects* 3.26, Confucius condemns the
performance of ritual without reverence (*jing* Jing ). He also
condemns views of ritual that focus only on the offerings, or views of
music that focus only on the instruments (17.11). Passages from the *Records of
Ritual* explain that Confucius would rather have an excess of
reverence than an excess of ritual ("*Tangong,
shang*" Tan Gong Shang ), and that reverence is the most important aspect of
mourning rites ("*Zaji, xia*" Za Ji Xia ). This emphasis on the
importance of an attitude of reverence became the salient distinction
between performing ritual in a rote manner, and performing it in the
proper affective state. Another passage from the *Records of Ritual*
says the difference between how an ideal gentleman and a
lesser person cares for a parent is that the gentleman is reverent
when he does it ("*Fangji*" Fang Ji , cf. *Analects*
2.7). In contexts concerning both ritual and filial piety (*xiao* Xiao ),
the affective state behind the action is arguably more important than
the action's consequences. As Philip J. Ivanhoe has
written, ritual and music are not just an indicator of values in the
sense that these examples show, but also an inculcator of them.



In this ritual psychology, the performance of ritual and music restricts
desires because it alters the performer's affective states, and
place limits on appetitive desires. The *Records of Ritual*
illustrates desirable affective states, describing how the Zhou
founder King Wen Wen  was moved to joy when making offerings to
his deceased parents, but then to grief once the ritual ended
("*Jiyi*" Ji Yi ). A collection
associated with the third century BCE philosopher Xunzi Xun Zi  contains a
Confucius quotation that associates different parts of a ruler's
day with particular emotions. Entering the ancestral temple to make
offerings and maintain a connection to those who are no longer living
leads the ruler to reflect on sorrow, while wearing a cap to hear
legal cases leads him to reflect on worry ("*Aigong*" Ai Gong ). These are examples of the way that
ritual fosters the development of particular emotional responses, part
of a sophisticated understanding of affective states and the ways that
performance channels them in particular directions. More generally,
the social conventions implicit in ritual hierarchies restrict
people's latitude to pursue their desires, as the master
explains in the *Records of Ritual:* 



> 
> 
> The way of the gentleman may be compared to an embankment dam,
> bolstering those areas where ordinary people are deficient
> ("*Fangji*"). 
> 
> 
> 



Blocking the overflow of desires by adhering to these social norms
preserves psychological space to reflect and reform one's
reactions.



Descriptions of the early community depict Confucius creating a
subculture in which ritual provided an alternate source of value,
effectively training his disciples to opt out of conventional modes of
exchange. In the *Analects*, when Confucius says he would
instruct any person who presented him with "a bundle of dried
meat" (7.7), he is highlighting how his standards of value
derive from the sacrificial system, eschewing currency or luxury
items. Gifts valuable in ordinary situations might be worth little by
such standards: "Even if a friend gave him a gift of a carriage
and horses, if it was not dried meat, he did not bow" (10.15).
The Han period biographical materials in *Records of the
Historian* describe how a high official of the state of Lu did not
come to court for three days after the state of Qi made him a gift of
female entertainers. When, additionally, the high official failed to
properly offer gifts of sacrificial meats, Confucius
departed Lu for the state of Wei (47, cf. *Analects* 18.4).
Confucius repeatedly rejected conventional values of wealth and
position, choosing instead to rely on ritual standards of value. In
some ways, these stories are similar to ones in the late Warring
States and Han period compilation *Master Zhuang* (*Zhuangzi*
Zhuang Zi ) that explore the way that things that are
conventionally belittled for their lack of utility are useful by an
unconventional standard. However, here the standard that gives such objects currency is ritual importance rather than longevity, divorcing
Confucius from conventional materialistic or hedonistic pursuits. This
is a second way that ritual allows one to direct more effort into
character formation.



Once, when speaking of cultivating benevolence, Confucius explained
how ritual value was connected to the ideal way of the gentleman,
which should always take precedence over the pursuit of conventional
values: 



> 
> 
> Wealth and high social status are what others covet. If I cannot
> prosper by following the way, I will not dwell in them. Poverty and
> low social status are what others shun. If I cannot prosper by
> following the way, I will not avoid them. (4.5) 
> 
> 
> 



The argument that ritual performance has internal benefits underlies
the ritual psychology laid out by Confucius, one that explains how
performing ritual and music controls desires and sets the stage for
further moral development.


## 4. Virtues and Character Formation



Many of the short passages from the *Analects*, and the
"Thicket of Sayings" passages excavated at Guodian,
describe the development of set of ideal behaviors associated with the
moral ideal of the "way" (*dao* Dao ) of the
"gentleman" (*junzi* Jun Zi ). Based on
the analogy between the way of Confucius and character ethics systems
deriving from Aristotle, these patterns of behavior are today often
described using the Latinate term "virtue". In the second
passage in the
*Analects*, the disciple You Ruo You Ruo  says a person who behaves with
filial piety to parents and siblings (*xiao* and *di* Di ),
and who avoids going against superiors, will rarely disorder society.
It relates this correlation to a more general picture of how patterns
of good behavior effectively open up the possibility of following the
way of the gentleman: "The gentleman works at the roots. Once
the roots are established, the way comes to life" (1.2). The way
of the gentleman is a distillation of the exemplary behaviors of the
selfless culture heroes of the past, and is available to all who are
willing to "work at the roots". In this way, the virtues
that Confucius taught were not original to him, but represented his
adaptations of existing cultural ideals, to which he continually
returned in order to clarify their proper expressions in different
situations. Five behaviors of the gentleman most central to the
*Analects* are benevolence (*ren* Ren ), righteousness
(*yi* Yi ), ritual propriety (*li* Li ), wisdom (*zhi* Zhi ),
and trustworthiness (*xin* Xin ).



The virtue of benevolence entails interacting with others guided by a
sense of what is good from their perspectives. Sometimes the
*Analects* defines benevolence generally as "caring for
others" (12.22), but in certain contexts it is associated with
more specific behaviors. Examples of contextual definitions of
benevolence include treating people on the street as important guests
and common people as if they were attendants at a sacrifice (12.2),
being reticent in speaking (12.3) and rejecting the use of clever
speech (1.3), and being respectful where one dwells, reverent where
one works, and loyal where one deals with others (13.19). It is the
broadest of the virtues, yet a gentleman would rather die than
compromise it (15.9). Benevolence entails a kind of unselfishness, or,
as David Hall and Roger Ames suggest, it involves forming moral
judgments from a combined perspective of self and others.



Later writers developed accounts of the sources of benevolent
behavior, most famously in the context of the discussion of human
nature (*xing* Xing ) in the centuries after
Confucius. Mencius (fourth century BCE) argued that benevolence grows
out of the cultivation of an affective disposition to compassion
(*ceyin* Ce Yin ) in the face of another's
distress. The anonymous author of the late Warring States period
excavated text "Five Kinds of Action" (*Wu xing*
Wu Xing ) describes it as building from the affection one
feels for close family members, through successive stages to finally
develop into a more universal, fully-fledged virtue. In
the *Analects*, however, one comment on human nature
emphasizes the importance of nurture: "By nature people are
close, by habituation they are miles apart" (17.2), a sentiment
that suggests the importance of training one's dispositions
through ritual and the classics in a manner closer to the program of Xunzi (third century
BCE). The *Analects*, however, discusses the incubation of
benevolent behavior in family and ritual contexts. You Ruo winds up
his discussion of the roots of the way of the gentleman with the
rhetorical question: "Is not behaving with filial piety to
one's parents and siblings the root of benevolence?"
(1.2). Confucius tells his disciple Yan Yuan Yan Yuan  that
benevolence is a matter of "overcoming oneself and returning to
ritual propriety" (12.1). These connections between benevolence
and other virtues underscore the way in which benevolent behavior does
not entail creating novel social forms or relationships, but is
grounded in traditional familial and ritual networks.



The second virtue, righteousness, is often described in the *Analects* relative to
situations involving public responsibility. In contexts where
standards of fairness and integrity are valuable, such as acting as
the steward of an estate as some of the disciples of Confucius did,
righteousness is what keeps a person uncorrupted. Confucius wrote that
a gentleman "thinks of righteousness when faced with gain"
(16.10, 19.10), or "when faced with profit" (14.12).
Confucius says that one should ignore the wealth and rank one might
attain by acting against righteousness, even if it means eating coarse
rice, drinking water, and sleeping using one's bent arm as a
pillow (7.16). Later writers like Xunzi celebrated Confucius for his
righteousness in office, which he stressed was all the more impressive
because Confucius was extremely poor ("*Wangba*"
Wang Ba ). This behavior is particularly relevant in official
interactions with ordinary people, such as when "employing
common people" (5.16), and if a social superior has mastered it,
"the common people will all comply" (13.4). Like
benevolence, righteousness also entails unselfishness, but instead of
coming out of consideration for the needs of others, it is rooted in
steadfastness in the face of temptation.



The perspective needed to act in a righteous way is sometimes related
to an attitude to personal profit that recalls the previous
section's discussion of how Confucius taught his disciples to
recalibrate their sense of value based on their immersion in the
sacrificial system. More specifically, evaluating things based on
their ritual significance can put one at odds with conventional
hierarchies of value. This is defined as the root of righteous
behavior in a story from the late Warring States period text
*Master Fei of Han* (*Han Feizi* Han Fei Zi ). The tale relates how
at court, Confucius was given a plate with a peach and a pile of
millet grains with which to scrub the fruit clean. After the
attendants laughed at Confucius for proceeding to eat the millet
first, Confucius explained to them that in sacrifices to the Former Kings,
millet itself is the most valued offering. Therefore, cleaning a
ritually base peach with millet: 



> 
> 
> would be obstructing righteousness, and so I dared not put [the peach]
> above what fills the vessels in the ancestral shrine.
> ("*Waichu shuo, zuo shang*"
> Wai Chu Shuo Zuo Shang ) 
> 
> 
> 



While such stories may have been told to mock his fastidiousness, for
Confucius the essence of righteousness was internalizing a system of
value that he would breach for neither convenience nor profit.



At times, the phrase "benevolence and righteousness" is
used metonymically for all the virtues, but in some later texts, a
benevolent impulse to compassion and a righteous steadfastness are
seen as potentially contradictory. In the *Analects*,
portrayals of Confucius do not recognize a tension between benevolence
and righteousness, perhaps because each is usually described as
salient in a different set of contexts. In ritual contexts like courts
or shrines, one ideally acts like one might act out of familial
affection in a personal context, the paradigm that is key to
benevolence. In the performance of official duties, one ideally acts
out of the responsibilities felt to inferiors and superiors, with a
resistance to temptation by corrupt gain that is key to
righteousness. The *Records of Ritual* distinguishes between the
domains of these two virtues: 



> 
> 
> In regulating one's household, kindness overrules righteousness.
> Outside of one's house, righteousness cuts off kindness. What
> one undertakes in serving one's father, one also does in serving
> one's lord, because one's reverence for both is the same.
> Treating nobility in a noble way and the honorable in an honorable
> way, is the height of righteousness. ("*Sangfu
> sizhi*" Sang Fu Si Zhi ) 
> 
> 
> 



While it is not the case that righteousness is benevolence by other
means, this passage underlines how in different contexts, different
virtues may push people toward participation in particular shared
cultural practices constitutive of the good life.



While the virtues of benevolence and righteousness might impel a gentleman to adhere to ritual
norms in particular situations or areas of life, a third virtue of
"ritual propriety" expresses a sensitivity to one's
social place, and willingness to play all of one's multiple
ritual roles. The term *li* translated here as "ritual
propriety" has a particularly wide range of connotations, and
additionally connotes both the conventions of ritual and etiquette. In
the *Analects,* Confucius is depicted both teaching and
conducting the rites in the manner that he believed they were
conducted in antiquity. Detailed restrictions such as "the
gentleman avoids wearing garments with red-black trim" (10.6),
which the poet Ezra Pound disparaged as "verses re: length of
the night-gown and the predilection for ginger" (Pound 1951:
191), were by no means trivial to Confucius. His imperative, "Do
not look or listen, speak or move, unless it is in accordance with the
rites" (12.1), in answer to a question about benevolence,
illustrates how the symbolic conventions of the ritual system played a
role in the cultivation of the virtues. We have seen how ritual shapes
values by restricting desires, thereby allowing reflection and the
cultivation of moral dispositions. Yet without the proper affective
state, a person is not properly performing ritual. In the
*Analects*, Confucius says he cannot tolerate "ritual
without reverence, or mourning without grief," (3.26). When
asked about the root of ritual propriety, he says that in funerals,
the mourners' distress is more important than the formalities
(3.4). Knowing the details of ritual protocols is important, but is
not a substitute for sincere affect in performing them. Together, they
are necessary conditions for the gentleman's training, and are also
essential to understanding the social context in which Confucius
taught his disciples.



The mastery that "ritual propriety" signaled was part of a
curriculum associated with the training of rulers and officials, and
proper ritual performance at court could also serve as a kind of political
legitimation. Confucius summarized the different prongs of the
education in ritual and music involved in the training of his
followers: 



> 
> 
> Raise yourself up with the *Classic of Odes*. Establish
> yourself with ritual. Complete yourself with music. (8.8) 
> 
> 
> 



On one occasion, Boyu Bo Yu , the son of Confucius,
explained that when he asked his father to teach him, his father told
him to study the
*Classic of Odes* in order to have a means to speak with
others, and to study ritual to establish himself (16.13). That
Confucius insists that his son master classical literature and practices
underscores the values of these cultural products as a means of
transmitting the way from one generation to the next. He tells his
disciples that the study of the *Classic of Odes* prepares them
for different aspects of life, providing them with a capacity to: 



> 
> 
> at home serve one's father, away from it serve
> one's lord, as well as increase one's knowledge of the names of birds,
> animals, plants and trees. (17.9) 
> 
> 
> 



This valuation of knowledge of both the cultural and
natural worlds is one reason why the figure of Confucius has
traditionally been identified with schooling, and why today his
birthday is celebrated as "Teacher's Day" in some
parts of Asia. In the ancient world, this kind of education also
qualified Confucius and his disciples for employment on estates and at
courts.



The fourth virtue, wisdom, is related to appraising people and
situations. In the *Analects,* wisdom allows a gentleman to
discern crooked and straight behavior in others (12.22), and
discriminate between those who may be reformed and those who may not
(15.8). In the former dialogue, Confucius explains the virtue of
wisdom as "knowing others". The "Thicket of
Sayings" excavated at Guodian indicates that this knowledge is
the basis for properly "selecting" others, defining wisdom
as the virtue that is the basis for selection. But it is also about
appraising situations correctly, as suggested by the master's
rhetorical question: "How can a person be considered wise if
that person does not dwell in benevolence?" (4.1). One
well-known passage often cited to imply Confucius is agnostic about
the world of the spirits is more literally about how wisdom allows an
outsider to present himself in a way appropriate to the people on
whose behalf he is working: 



> 
> 
> When working for what is right for the common people, to show
> reverence for the ghosts and spirits while maintaining one's
> distance may be deemed wisdom. (6.22) 
> 
> 
> 



The context for this sort of appraisal is usually official service,
and wisdom is often attributed to valued ministers or advisors to sage
rulers.



In certain dialogues, wisdom also connotes a moral discernment that
allows the gentleman to be confident of the appropriateness of good
actions. In the *Analects*, Confucius tells his disciple Zi Lu
Zi Lu  that wisdom recognizes knowing a thing as knowing it,
and ignorance of a thing as ignorance of it (2.17). In soliloquies
about several virtues, Confucius describes a wise person as never
confused (9.28, 14.28). While comparative philosophers have noted that
Chinese thought has nothing clearly analogous to the role of the will
in pre-modern European philosophy, the moral discernment that is part
of wisdom does provide actors with confidence that the moral actions
they have taken are correct.



The virtue of trustworthiness qualifies a gentleman to give advice to
a ruler, and a ruler or official to manage others. In the
*Analects*, Confucius explains it succinctly: "if one is
trustworthy, others will give one responsibilities" (17.6, cf.
20.1). While trustworthiness may be rooted in
the proper expression of friendship between those of the same status (1.4, 5.26),
it is also valuable in interactions with those of different status. The disciple Zi Xia Zi Xia  explains its effect on superiors and
subordinates: when advising a ruler, without trustworthiness, the
ruler will think a gentleman is engaged in slander, and when
administering a state, without trustworthiness, people will think a
gentleman is exploiting them (19.10). The implication is that a
sincerely public-minded official would be ineffective without the
trust that this quality inspires. In a dialogue with a ruler from
chapter four of *Han's Intertextual Commentary the Odes*,
Confucius explains that in employing someone, trustworthiness is
superior to strength, ability to flatter, or eloquence. Being able to
rely on someone is so important to Confucius that, when asked about
good government, he explained that trustworthiness was superior to
either food or weapons, concluding: "If the people do not find the
ruler trustworthy, the state will not stand" (12.7). 



By the Han period, benevolence, righteousness, ritual propriety,
wisdom and trustworthiness began to be considered as a complete set of
human virtues, corresponding with other quintets of phenomena used to
describe the natural world. Some texts described a level of moral
perfection, as with the sages of antiquity, as unifying all these
virtues. Prior to this, it is unclear whether the possession of a
particular virtue entailed having all the others, although benevolence
was sometimes used as a more general term for a combination of one or
more of the other virtues (e.g.,
*Analects* 17.6). At other times, Confucius presented
individual virtues as expressions of goodness in particular domains of
life. Early Confucius dialogues are embedded in concrete situations,
and so resist attempts to distill them into more abstract principles
of morality. As a result, descriptions of the virtues are embedded in
anecdotes about the exemplary individuals whose character traits the
dialogues encourage their audience to develop. Confucius taught that
the measure of a good action was whether it was an expression of the
actor's virtue, something his lessons share with those of
philosophies like Aristotle's that are generally described as
"virtue ethics". A modern evaluation of the teachings of Confucius as
a "virtue ethics" is articulated in Bryan W. Van
Norden's *Virtue Ethics and Consequentialism in Early Chinese
Philosophy*, which pays particular attention to analogies between
the way of Confucius and Aristotle's "good life".
The nature of the available source materials about Confucius, however,
means that the diverse texts from early China lack the systematization
of a work like Aristotle's *Nicomachean Ethics*.



The five virtues described above are not the only ones of which
Confucius spoke. He discussed loyalty (*zhong* Zhong ), which
at one point is described as the minister's behavior toward a
ritually proper ruler (3.19). He said that courage (*yong*
Yong ) is what compels one to act once one has seen where
righteousness lies (2.24). Another term sometimes translated as
"virtue" (*de* De ), is usually used to
describe the authority of a ruler that grows out of goodness or favor
to others, and is a key term in many of the social and political works
discussed in the following section. Yet going through a list of all
the virtues in the early sources is not sufficient to describe the
entirety of the moral universe associated with Confucius.



The presence of themes in the *Analects* like the ruler's
exceptional influence as a moral exemplar, the importance of judging
people by their deeds rather than their words (1.3, 2.10, 5.10), or
even the protection of the culture of Zhou by higher powers (9.5), all
highlight the unsystematic nature of the text and underscore that
teaching others how to cultivate the virtues is a key aspect, but only
a part, of the ethical ideal of Confucius. Yet there is also a conundrum inherent in any attempt to derive abstract moral rules from the mostly dialogical form of the *Analects*, that is, the problem of whether the situational context and conversation partner is integral to evaluating the statements of Confucius. 
A historically notable example of an attempt to find a generalized moral rule in the *Analects* is the reading of a pair of
passages that use a formulation similar to that of the "Golden
Rule" of the Christian Bible (Matthew 7:12 and Luke 6:31) to
describe benevolence: "Do not impose upon others those things
that you yourself do not desire" (12.2, cf. 5.12, 15.24). Read
as axiomatic moral imperatives, these passages differ from the kind of
exemplar-based and situational conversations about morality usually
found in the *Analects*. For this reason, some scholars,
including E. Bruce Brooks, believe these passages to be
interpolations. While they are not wholly inconsistent with the way
that benevolence is described in early texts, their
interpretation as abstract principles has been influenced by their perceived similarity to the Biblical examples. In
the *Records of Ritual*, a slightly different formulation of a
rule about self and others is presented as not universal in its scope,
but rather as descriptive of how the exemplary ruler influences the
people. In common with other early texts, the *Analects*
describes how the moral transformation of society relies on the
positive example of the ruler, comparing the influence of the
gentleman on the people to the way the wind blows on the grass,
forcing it to bend (12.19). In a similar vein, after discussing how the personal
qualities of rulers of the past determined whether or not their
subjects could morally transform, the *Records of Ritual*
expresses its principle of reflexivity: 



> 
> 
> That is why the gentleman only seeks things in others that he or she
> personally possesses. [The gentleman] only condemns things in others
> that he or she personally lacks. ("*Daxue*"
> Da Xue ) 
> 
> 
> 



This is a point about the efficacy of moral suasion, saying that a
ruler cannot expect to reform society solely by command since it is
only the ruler's personal example that can transform others. For
this reason, the ruler should not compel behaviors from his subjects
to which he or she would not personally assent, something rather
different from the "Golden Rule". 
Historically, however, views that Confucius was inspired by the same Natural Theology as Christians, or that philosophers are naturally concerned with the generalization of moral imperatives, have argued in favor of a closer identification with the "Golden Rule," a fact that illustrates the interpretative conundrum arising from the formal aspects of the *Analects*. 


## 5. The Family and the State



Early Zhou political philosophy as represented in the *Classic of
Odes* and the *Classic of Documents* centered on moral
justification for political authority based on the doctrine of the
"Mandate of Heaven" (*tianming*
Tian Ming ). This view was that the sage's virtue
(*de*) attracted the attention of the anthropomorphized cosmic
power usually translated as "Heaven" (*tian*
Tian ), which supported the sage's rise to political
authority. These canonical texts argued that political success or
failure is a function of moral quality, evidenced by actions such as
proper ritual performance, on the part of the ruler. Confucius drew on
these classics and adapted the classical view of moral authority in
important ways, connecting it to a normative picture of
society. Positing a parallel between the nature of reciprocal
responsibilities of individuals in different roles in two domains of
social organization, in the *Analects* Confucius linked filial piety in the family to
loyalty in the political realm: 



> 
> 
> It is rare for a person who is filially pious to his parents and older
> siblings to be inclined to rebel against his superiors... Filial
> piety to parents and elder siblings may be considered the root of a
> person. (1.2) 
> 
> 
> 



This section examines Confucius's social and political
philosophy, beginning with the central role of his analysis of the
traditional norm of filial piety.



Just as Confucius analyzed the psychology of ritual performance and
related it to individual moral development, his discussion of filial
piety was another example of the development and adaptation of a
particular classical cultural pattern to a wider philosophical context
and set of concerns. Originally limited to descriptions of sacrifice
to ancestors in the context of hereditary kinship groups, a more
extended meaning of "filial piety" was used to describe
the sage king Shun's Shun  (trad. r. 2256-2205 BCE)
treatment of his living father in the *Classic of
Documents*. Despite humble origins, Shun's filial piety was
recognized as a quality that signaled he would be a suitable successor
for the sage king Yao Yao  (trad. r. 2357-2256
BCE). Confucius in the *Analects* praised the ancient sage
kings at great length, and the sage king Yu Yu  for his filial
piety in the context of sacrifice (8.21). However, he used the term
filial piety to mean both sacrificial mastery and behaving
appropriately to one's parents. In a conversation with one of
his disciples he explains that filial piety meant "not
contesting", and that it entailed: 



> 
> 
> while one's parents were alive, serving them in a ritually
> proper way, and after one's parents died, burying them and
> sacrificing to them in a ritually proper way. (2.5) 
> 
> 
> 



In rationalizing the moral content of legacies of the past like the
three-year mourning period after the death of a parent, Confucius
reasoned that for three years a filially pious child should not alter
a parent's way (4.20, cf. 19.18), and explains the origin of
length of the three-year mourning period to be the length of time that
the parents had given their infant child support (17.21). This
adaptation of filial piety to connote the proper way for a gentleman
to behave both inside and outside the home was a generalization of a
pattern of behavior that had once been specific to the family.



Intellectual historian Chen Lai Chen Lai  has identified two
sets of ideal traits that became hybridized in the late Warring States
period. The first set of qualities describes the virtue of the ruler
coming out of politically-oriented descriptions of figures like King
Wen of Zhou, including uprightness (*zhi* Zhi ) and
fortitude (*gang* Gang ). The second set of qualities is
based on bonds specific to kinship groups, including filial piety and
kindness (*ci* Ci ). As kinship groups were subordinated
to larger political units, texts began to exhibit hybrid lists of
ideal qualities that drew from both sets. Consequently, Confucius had
to effectively integrate clan priorities and state priorities, a
conciliation illustrated in
*Han's Intertextual Commentary the Odes* by his
insistence that filial piety is not simply deference to elders. When
his disciple Zengzi Ceng Zi  submitted to a severe beating from his
father's staff in punishment for an offense, Confucius chastises
Zengzi, saying that even the sage king Shun would not have submitted
to a beating so severe. He goes on to explain that a child has a dual
set of duties, to both a father and ruler, the former filial piety and
the other loyalty. Therefore, protecting one's body is a duty to
the ruler and a counterweight to a duty to submit to one's
parent (8). In the *Classic of Filial Piety* (*Xiaojing*
Xiao Jing ), similar reasoning is applied to a redefinition of filial
piety that rejects behaviors like such extreme submission because
protecting one's body is a duty to one's parents. This
sort of qualification suggests that as filial piety moved further
outside its original family context, it had to be qualified to be integrated
into a view that valorized multiple character traits.



Since filial piety was based on a fundamental relationship defined
within the family, one's family role and state role could
conflict. A *Classic of Documents* text spells out the possible
conflict between loyalty to a ruler and filial piety toward a father
("*Cai Zhong zhi ming*"
Cai Zhong Zhi Ming ), a trade-off similar to a story in
the *Analects* about a man named Zhi Gong Zhi Gong 
(Upright Gong) who testified that his father stole a sheep. Although
Confucius acknowledged that theft injures social order, he judged
Upright Gong to have failed to be truly "upright" in a
sense that balances the imperative to testify with special
consideration for members of his kinship group:




> 
> 
> In my circle, being upright differs from this. A father would conceal
> such a thing on behalf of his son, and a son would conceal it on
> behalf of his father. Uprightness is found in this. (13.18) 
> 
> 
> 



In this way, too, Confucius was adapting filial piety to a wider
manifold of moral behaviors, honing his answer to the question of how
a child balances responsibility to family and loyalty to the state.
While these two traits may conflict with one and other, Sociologist
Robert Bellah, in his study of Tokugawa and modern Japan, noted how
the structural similarity between loyalty and filial piety led to
their both being promoted by the state as interlinked ideals that
located each person in dual networks of responsibility. Confucius was
making this claim when he connected filial piety to the propensity to
be loyal to superiors (1.2). Statements like "filial piety is
the root of virtuous action" from the *Classic of Filial
Piety* connect loyalty and the kind of action that
signals the personal virtue that justifies political authority, as in
the historical precedent of the sage king Shun.



Of the classical sources from which Confucius drew, two were
particularly influential in discussions of political legitimation. The
*Classic of Odes* consists of 305 Zhou period regulated lyrics
(hence the several translations "songs",
"odes", or "poems") and became numbered as one
of the Five Classics (*Wujing*) in the Han dynasty. Critical to
a number of these lyrics is the celebration of King Wen of
Zhou's overthrow of the Shang, which is an example of a virtuous
person seizing the "Mandate of Heaven": 



> 
> 
> This King Wen of ours, his prudent heart was well-ordered. He shone in
> serving the High God, and thus enjoyed much good fortune. Unswerving
> in his virtue, he came to hold the domains all around. ("*Daming*" Da Ming ) 
> 
> 
> 



The Zhou political theory expressed in this passage is based on the
idea of a limited moral universe that may not reward a virtuous person
in isolation, but in which the High God (*Shangdi*
Shang Di , *Di* Di ) or Heaven will intercede to
replace a bad ruler with a person of exceptional
virtue. The *Classic of Documents* is a collection that
includes orations attributed to the sage rulers of the past and their
ministers, and its arguments often concern moral authority with a
focus on the methods and character of exemplary rulers of the past.
The chapter "Announcement of Kang" ("*Kanggao*" Kang Gao ) is addressed to one of the sons of
King Wen, and provides him with a guide for behaving as sage ruler as
well as with methods that had been empirically proven successful by
those rulers. When it comes to the mandate inherited from King Wen,
the chapter insists that the mandate is not unchanging, and so as
ruler the son must always be mindful of it when deciding how to
act. Further, it is not always possible to understand Heaven, but the
"feelings of the people are visible", and so the ruler
must care for his subjects. The Zhou political view that Confucius
inherited was based on supernatural intercession to place a person
with personal virtue in charge of the state, but over time the
emphasis shifted to the way that the effects of good government could
be viewed as proof of a continuing moral justification for that
placement.



Confucius himself arguably served as a historical counterexample to the
classical "Mandate of Heaven" theory, calling into question the
direct nature of the support given by Heaven to the person with
virtue. The Han period *Records of the Historian* biography of
Confucius described him as possessing all the personal qualities
needed to govern well, but wandering from state to state because those
qualities had not been recognized. When his favorite disciple died,
the *Analects* records Confucius saying that "Heaven has
forsaken me!" (11.9). Wang Chong's Wang Chong 
(27-c.97 CE)
*Balanced Discussions* (*Lunheng* Lun Heng ) uses the phrase
"uncrowned king" (*suwang* Su Wang ) to describe the
tragic situation: "Confucius did not rule as king, but his work
as uncrowned king may be seen in the *Spring and Autumn
Annals*" (80). The view that through his writings Confucius
could prepare the world for the government of a future sage king
became a central part of Confucius lore that has colored the reception
of his writings since, especially in works related to the *Spring
and Autumn Annals* and its *Gongyang Commentary*. The
biography of Confucius reinforced the tragic cosmological picture that
personal virtue did not always guarantee success. Even when
Heaven's support is cited in the *Analects*, it is not a
matter of direct intercession, but expressed through personal virtue
or cultural patterns: "Heaven gave birth to the virtue in me, so
what can Huan Tui Huan Tui  do to me?" (7.23, cf. 9.5). As
Robert Eno has pointed out, the concept of Heaven also came to be
increasingly naturalized in passages like "what need does Heaven
have to speak?" (17.19). Changing views of the scope of
Heaven's activity and the ways human beings may have knowledge
of that activity fostered a change in the role of Heaven in political
theory.



Most often, in dialogues with the rulers of his time, references to
Heaven were occasions for Confucius to encourage rulers to remain
attentive to their personal moral development and treat their subjects
fairly. In integrating the classical legacy of the "Mandate of
Heaven" that applied specifically to the ruler or "Son of
Heaven" (*tianzi* Tian Zi ), with moral teachings
that were directed to a wider audience, the nature of Heaven's
intercession came to be understood differently. In the
*Analects* and writings like those attributed to Mencius,
descriptions of virtue were often adapted to contexts such as the
conduct of lesser officials and the navigation of everyday life.
Kwong-Loi Shun notes that in such contexts, the influence of Heaven
remained as an explanation of both what happened outside of human
control, like political success or lifespan, and of the source of the
ethical ideal. In the *Analects*, the gentleman's awe of
Heaven is combined with an awe of the words of the sages (16.8), and
when Confucius explains the Zhou theory of the "mandate of
Heaven" in the *Elder Dai's Records of Ritual,* he
does so in order to explain how the signs of a well-ordered society
demonstrate that the ruler's "virtue matches Heaven"
("*Shaojian*" Shao Xian ). Heaven is still
ubiquitous in the responses of Confucius to questions from rulers, but
the focus of the responses was not on Heaven's direct
intercession but rather the ruler's demonstration of his
personal moral qualities.



In this way, personal qualities of modesty, filial piety or respect
for the elders were seen as proof of fitness to serve in an official
capacity. Qualification to rule was demonstrated by proper behavior in
the social roles defined by the "five relationships"
(*wulun* Wu Lun ), a formulation seen in the writings
of Mencius that became a key feature of the interpretation of works
associated with Confucius in the Han dynasty. The Western Han emperors
were members of the Liu clan, and works like the *Guliang
Commentary* (*Guliang zhuan*
Gu Liang Chuan ) to the *Spring and Autumn Annals* emphasized
normative family behavior grounded in the five relationships, which were
(here, adapted to include mothers and sisters): ruler and subject,
parent and child, husband and wife, siblings, and friends. Writing
with particular reference to the *Classic of Filial Piety*,
Henry Rosemont and Roger Ames argue that prescribed social roles are a
defining characteristic of the "Confucian tradition", and
that such roles were normative guides to appropriate conduct. They
contrast this with the "virtue ethics" approach they say
requires rational calculation to determine moral conduct, while filial
piety is simply a matter of meeting one's family obligations.
Just as the five virtues were placed at the center of later theories
of moral development, once social roles became systematized in this
way, selected situational teachings of Confucius consistent with them
could become the basis of more abstract, systematic moral theories.
Yet this could not have happened without the adaptation of the
abstract classical political theory of "Heaven's
mandate", a doctrine that originally supported the ruling clan,
to argue that Heaven's influence was expressed through
particular concrete expressions of individual virtue. As a result of
this adaptation in writings associated with Confucius, the
ruler's conduct of imperial rituals, performance of filial
piety, or other demonstrations of personal virtue provided proof of
moral fitness that legitimated his political authority. As with the
rituals and the virtues, filial piety and the mandate of Heaven were
transformed as they were integrated with the classics through the
voices of Confucius and the rulers and disciples of his era.



Earlier, the usage of "Confucius" as a metonym for
Chinese traditional culture was introduced as a feature of the modern period. Yet the
complexity of the philosophical views associated with
Confucius--encompassing ethical ideals developed out of a
sophisticated view of the effects of ritual and music on the
performer's psychology, robust descriptions of the attitudes of traditional exemplars across diverse life contexts, and the abstraction of normative behaviors in the family and state--is due in part to the
fact that this metonymic usage was to some degree already the case in
the Han period. By that time, the teachings of Confucius had gone
through several centuries of gestation, and dialogues and quotations
fashioned at different points over that time circulated and mixed. Put
slightly differently, Confucius read the traditional culture of the
halcyon Zhou period in a particular way, but this reading was
continuously reflected and refracted through different lenses during
the Pre-Imperial period, prior to the results being fixed in diverse early
Imperial period sources like the *Analects*, the
*Records of Ritual*, and the *Records of the Historian.*
What remains is the work of the hand of Confucius, but also of his
"school", and even sometimes of his opponents during the
centuries that his philosophy underwent elaboration and drift. This process of accretion and elaboration is
not uncommon for pre-modern writings, and the resulting breadth and depth explains, at
least in part, why the voice of Confucius retained primacy in
pre-modern Chinese philosophical conversations as well as in many modern
debates about the role of traditional East Asian culture.