Moral Philosophy in Early Confucianism

This paper attempts to describe and investigate features of moral philosophy in early Confucianism, with special focus on the Analects. It argues that that the Analects is not a work on religious philosophy; and despite several references to Tian (heaven), they do not constitute the main justification for moral acts and behavior. Confucius adopts the moral approach by prescribing a set of moral virtues for the scholarly gentlemen junzi) which includes ren (benevolence), yi (sense of righteousness), xiao (filial piety), etc. More importantly, an act that is in accordance with the virtues (like ren) must be done for its own sake and be devoid of any self-interest, which implies that it must be an end and not a means (to an end). Confucius goes even beyond this requirement – if the situation demands that a person chooses between life and performance of his moral duty, then a true scholarly gentlemen will always choose the latter.