Good Confucianism book (pdf) - Department of Physics

34 Teachings I: The Foundation of a Good PersonConfucius sarcastically responded, “ Twice would be enough. ” 37 Too muchwisdom can be misused. Expressing too much sympathy, without goodjudgment, can lead to us being taken advantage of. All the virtues can betaken to extremes, and when they are they become not virtues, but faults.These virtues should be understood as dependent on one another andworking together. We have seen how filial piety leads to dutifulness orloyalty, a love of learning leads to wisdom, honesty and sincerity mirroreach other. Not only do we need all these virtues, but they work together.In introducing these virtues, I have arbitrarily separated them so we canlook at each one in turn, but Confucian texts rarely talk about one virtuewithout another and never in the kind of shopping list that we have here.Moral virtues of any kind are not something we develop instantly.Thinkers in classical China all talk about “ cultivation. ” Just as one plants aseed in the ground, waters, and weeds, in order to cultivate a plant, so toomoral behavior is built up over time. By studying the ancients and seeinggood and evil behavior, one can see more clearly how one ought to behave.HumanityWhat we have seen of moral virtues so far sounds a bit like the Scout law:be thrifty, clean, and helpful. Confucius tells us to be filial, honest, sincere,dutiful, wise, courageous, sympathetic, and so on, but there seems nothingexceptional in this: many traditions say much the same. But for Confuciusall of these virtues are just the building blocks to bring us to a moral attitude.This is ren . The word ren was originally used to mean something like“ handsome, ” “ manly, ” or a “ man ’ s man, ” and had nothing to do withmorality. 38 Confucius reshaped the word to mean a moral, rather thanmacho, strength. The development of virtues and learning was meant tolead to this overarching attitude.I have so far tried to avoid using Chinese terms, because they can bedifficult for introductions: they can be found in the Glossary. A preciseEnglish translation of ren , however, is not easy. Ren has been translated as“ benevolence, ” “ humanity, ” “ co - humanity, ” “ love, ” “ altruism, ” “ goodness,” “ the Good, ” “ authoritative person, ” and “ self. ” 39 The choice of oneof these English words as a translation will often depend on the interpretationthe translator makes. I will use “ humanity ” as the translation for renbecause it is the most common one and comes closest to expressing whatwe mean here.Humanity is a moral attitude. Humanity is the umbrella that includes allthe virtues – being honest, sincere, wise, courageous, practicing filial piety,and sympathy toward others. All of these moral building blocks bring usto the attitude of humanity. “ Working your shopping list, ” as one of my