Early Confucian Virtue Ethics: The Virtues of Junzi

Abstract

Confucius’ Analects (Lunyu 論語) provides an ample vocabulary for virtues or excellences of ethical character. Throughout the text, we find frequent occurrence of certain terms such as ren 仁 (benevolence, humaneness), li 禮 (rules of proper conduct, ritual, rites), and yi 義 (rightness, righteousness. fittingness), indicating Confucius’ ongoing concern with the cultivation of fundamental virtues. His remark that there is one thread (yiguan 一貫) that runs through his teachings may be cited as a partial support for ascribing a holistic perspective to his thought. However, we do not find a systematic scheme for conduct in the Analects. Also, throughout the history of Chinese thought and contemporary Chinese and Western writings on Confucianism, we find a great variance of interpretation of fundamental concepts such as ren (Chan 1955, 1975).