Imagining Confucius: Paradigmatic character and virtue ethics

• Main Author: TAN, Sor-hoon
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2005
• Subjects: Arts and Humanities
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/2540; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/3797/viewcontent/j1540_6253200500201x__1_.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

In the Analects, discussions of how someone should act or had actedare accompanied by some assessment of that person’s character, someconclusion as to his having or lacking what are traditionally understoodas Confucian virtues—ren (benevolence or humanity), yi (appropriatenessor rightness, or even righteousness), li (rites, rituals, or ritualpropriety), zhi (wisdom), xin (trustworthiness), and yong (courage).1Scholars have different views as to how and to what extent Confucianvirtues are comparable with virtues in Western ethics like Aristotle’s.2The Analects is as preoccupied with the exemplary person (junzi) andhis virtues as the Nicomachean Ethics is concerned with elucidating thevirtues via portraits of the virtuous man. Alasdair MacIntyre considersthe concept of virtue secondary to that of a role-figure or paradigmaticindividual in virtue ethics.3 In Confucianism, virtues are tied togetherin the ideals of the sage (shengren) and the exemplary person (junzi).While there are no doubt significant differences between Confucianethics and various Western virtue ethics, there is a prima facieresemblance among them in their concern with character and thequestion,“What kind of person should one become?”