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Confucianism has cast such a large shadow over Chinese history that Chinese society cannot be understood without knowledge of Confucius’s life and ideas. His theories of human nature, proper conduct, and interpersonal relations dominated much of Chinese history from the Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE) on. Since then, Confucius has been so inextricably linked with Chinese civilization that the term “Confucian China” seems commonplace. Students, recognizing the significance of Confucianism, often ask whether it is a philosophy or a religion. They implicitly assume that Confucianism was so vital to the legitimacy and functioning of Chinese society that it needed to be more than a philosophy. However, Confucianism’s emphasis on this life differentiates it from most religions.

Confucius (551–479 BCE) or Kong Fuzi (Master Kong) or Kong Qiu lived and died believing that he had failed in his objectives. Born in the state of Lu (in the modern province of Shandong), he was descended from a noble family that had suffered setbacks as a result of the turbulence in the Warring States period. Confucius was determined to influence the politics of his times and believed that an appeal to rulers provided the optimal opportunity to do so. He attempted to persuade the nobles in various states to adopt his teachings in order to restore stability in China, which for most of these rulers meant unification and centralization of the country. Although he succeeded in gathering around him a group of students and disciples, he failed in his efforts to secure an official position in the states through which he traveled. Nor did the rulers subscribe to or implement his philosophy. His disciples also traveled throughout China to spread his teachings but they too were often rebuffed. Facing such disappointments and encountering such resistance, Confucius returned to Lu in his sixties and died there in 479 BCE. Despite the tenacity of his students and disciples, he came to the end of his life without having had much of an impact on Chinese society.

Because Confucius directed his efforts at gaining support from rulers, his philosophy tended to be conservative, focusing on a return to a golden age of the past. In general, he did not call for dramatic social change because he did not wish to be perceived as challenging or undermining the authority of his potential patrons. An image as a disrupter of the social system would not serve his interests. Yet his teachings would actually subvert the power of the hereditary aristocracy and would enable a less entrenched, mobile class, if not a meritocracy, to supplant it as the ruling authority. To a limited extent, his philosophy generated social change.

Confucius sought social stability. Believing that social order resulted from proper moral conduct, he identified five basic relationships in society: ruler–ruled, father–son, elder brother–younger brother, friend–friend, and husband–wife. Women played an explicit role in only one of these relationships – an indication of their lesser position in Confucian society. In any event, Confucius believed that if the ethical principles he espoused characterized these five relationships, a good society would emerge. There is no doubt that Confucius’s principal objective was the establishment of a harmonious and ethical society. Although he referred to spirits, sacrifices, and Heaven, he simply mentioned them in passing and devoted barely any attention to metaphysical and cosmological speculation. He probably accepted the major beliefs embodied in the ancient Shang and Zhou religions (though certainly not the practice of human sacrifice), but these views scarcely intruded on his teachings because they dealt with the realm beyond mankind’s control. Thus, other than a concern for harmony in the cosmos, Confucius did not generally address theological questions. One exception was his rejection of the concepts of destiny and fate. Instead he affirmed his belief that a man’s abilities, efforts, and ethical code determined his own fate and his own potential to become a junzi or gentleman – for Confucius, the person most suited to govern and the embodiment of the highest ideals. According to Confucius, a man succeeded because of his self-cultivation, merit, and virtue, not because of heredity or fate. Yet this view appeared to clash with his repeated attempts to appeal to the ruling classes and his emphasis on acceptance of a social hierarchy.

It is difficult to reconcile these contradictory elements in Confucius’s thought because of the nature of the sources available to us. The Analects (Lunyu), which is attributed to Confucius and contains the most lucid explanation of his teachings, was compiled at least a century after his death. The schools founded by his disciples probably organized the work and prepared it for wider distribution. The quotes attributed to Confucius cannot be authenticated. Some may have been emendations from his disciples. Because Confucius perceived or at least portrayed himself as a transmitter of the ancients’ teachings, other quotes may have been the words of earlier thinkers whose views he was reiterating. Even more complicated, the Lunyu consists of anecdotes and sayings rather than a straightforward, logical exposition of Confucius’s teachings. It is not a systematic, coherent rendering of his philosophy; instead it contains his most esteemed and remembered sayings. This kind of presentation accounts for the vagueness enveloping some elements of his philosophy.

Nonetheless, the most significant features of Confucianism readily emerge from the text. The clearest characteristic of the school is its practicality. In its view, the adoption and implementation of a moral code would inevitably lead to a harmonious family and from there to a well-ordered society. A good government presumed and was based upon stable families, which in turn centered upon the adoption of specific values. Filial piety (xiao) was essential for the ideal Confucian family, and such submissiveness was similarly vital for the state. The Xiaojing (Classic of Filial Piety), a text written about a hundred years after Confucius’s death and frequently found in many households in later years, illustrated the principles of filial piety toward the family, the ruler, and officials. As numerous students of Confucianism have noted, the Confucians perceived the state as an extension of the family. The individual aspiring to become a junzi and the body politic, however, both required other virtues to achieve stability and harmony. Ren was, for Confucius, a supreme virtue, but curiously the term remains vague and ill defined. “Goodness” and “humaneness” provide the closest approximations, but those definitions too are nebulous. Examination of the specific uses of ren in the Analects reveals characteristics such as generosity and loyalty to others, attention to rituals, and actions that bespeak the highest morality. Humane treatment of and humane behavior toward others offer concise descriptions of the qualities associated with goodness.

The other virtues flowed from goodness. Wisdom or knowledge (zhi), another trait vital of the “good man,” entailed more than knowledge and academic pursuits. It was linked to morality, for wisdom meant knowledge of proper conduct and acting in accordance with its dictates. Again, Confucius repeatedly stressed the practical value of these virtues. Xin or faithfulness or truth also had practical ramifications. For Confucians, it signified carrying out commitments to others. Like all the other virtues, its greatest significance lay in its application in relations with others. Confucius emphasized the importance of a network of stable relationships. Yong, or courage or loyalty, still another trait valued by Confucius, entailed acting pursuant to the dictates of right conduct. Yi, or righteousness and li, or ritual correspondence, were also critical virtues. They did not refer to manners but to proper moral principles. Morals rather than etiquette were Confucius’s main concern. Yet, along with moral conduct, li presupposed proper performance of ceremonies. It prescribed specific rites for burial and mourning of the dead, including formulas for eulogies and designated diet and clothing for mourners. It also entailed continuation of music and dance ceremonies of the ancients. Confucians valued music for its promotion of morality. Musical performances during court rituals and among the population in general contributed to harmony and higher moral standards. Confucians asserted that music helped to transmit and inculcate the most significant personal and social values. The Yili (or Record of Rituals) confirmed the importance of music and the other arts in fostering a good society. Poetry, calligraphy, and the casting of bronze ritual vessels, among other arts, were also invested with these same objectives. The ruler himself had a special responsibility to perform rituals associated with the agricultural cycle. Li, however, could not simply be formalistic; it had to be carried out with singleness of purpose and good faith. Perfunctory performance of the rituals would be ineffective.

Confucius perceived that the separation of content and name, as exemplified in such formalism, resulted in social disarray. Because his teachings were designed to avert such instability, he placed great faith in zheng ming or “to rectify the names.” Lack of congruence between reality and form signified an inability to fulfill the Confucian moral code and to establish an orderly social system. Thus, the first step in achieving a stable network of relationships was a proper correlation between name and reality. Zheng ming also implied that each individual could more easily identify and understand the expectations of his own position and tasks in these relationships and would more readily accept his status in the social hierarchy.

However, Confucius did not advocate a stagnant society in which the individual had no opportunities for advancement. The value he placed on education, merit, and moral worth would clash with systems that lacked or prevented social mobility. He conceived of himself as a teacher and obviously valued education as a means of promoting a high standard of morality. Thus, he suggested that study of the classic texts and ritual works and participation in music and dance would improve the individual’s character and could lead to the development of a junzi. To Confucius, this nonspecialized education would enable the junzi to assume positions of leadership. From his perspective, the junzi did not need any specialized training to govern a region, devise a budget, or plan and build irrigation projects. His ideal officials and rulers were rational and moral gentlemen who had a sense of social responsibility and who derived from any social background, not necessarily from the entrenched aristocracy. In Confucius’s view, morality could not be separated from education, particularly in the chaotic times in which he lived. He wanted gentlemen to receive the moral training that would enable them to serve as a striking contrast to the often duplicitous and amoral officials of the Warring States period. He looked to a golden age of the past in which such men dominated society.

Thus, Confucius’s teachings offered a flexible, rational, and moral alternative to the chaos prevailing in China. They were conservative in confirming a defined, hierarchical social structure. Yet they were liberal in challenging the hereditary aristocracy, in supporting a system that encouraged the recruitment of talented and moral men of any social background into high officialdom, and in legitimizing social mobility. They had the additional advantage of making educated and socially responsible men available to rulers who required counsel and assistance in administration. Although the leaders of the Zhou era did not recognize the value of Confucianism, the Han dynasty, which ruled China within several decades after their fall, would promote Confucianism, and later dynasties would adopt it as a state cult.

Mencius followed in Confucius’s footsteps but supplemented his predecessor’s teachings. Born around 372 BCE, he was active about a century and a half after the death of the revered philosopher. Like Confucius, he became a teacher and traveled widely to disseminate Confucian values and ideas. Until his death in 289 BCE, he continued to expand upon Confucius’s philosophy. Also like Confucius, he encountered frustrations in his efforts to secure support from the rulers of the various states for his own version of Confucian philosophy.

Mencius was doubtless more optimistic than Confucius about the individual. He started with the premise that mankind was basically good. Yet he diverged sharply from those who advocated a concept of universal goodness. He suggested instead that the extent of a person’s goodness toward others depended on the closeness and social status of the other. Behavior and attitude toward others was based, in part, on one’s position in the social hierarchy. Righteousness (yi) mandated specific treatment of others, and the individual had defined obligations toward those of higher or lower social status. Like Confucius, Mencius accepted a hierarchical social structure.

However, on closer examination it turns out that Mencius also demanded proper conduct and benevolence from rulers. In one of his conversations, he admonished a king for focusing on profit rather than on humaneness and righteousness. He said that, if the king would emphasize a humane administration, the rest of the population, modeling its behavior on his, would act humanely toward one another. A humane administration would, in turn, guarantee the people’s livelihood, ensuring that ordinary folk would not suffer deprivation or want. Proper land distribution was vital because most Chinese eked out their livelihoods from their farms. Mencius’s humane government would mandate a more equitable arrangement, which was the well-field system that had reputedly been the foundation of a golden age in the past. Under this scheme, each so-called well field would be divided into nine equal sections, with eight households working eight plots while one was a community-farmed public field. This utopian, egalitarian system never truly operated in Mencius’s own time or in some great earlier era in Chinese civilization. Nonetheless, Mencius proposed it as the ideal way to avert instability in the countryside. He did not, however, advocate absolute equality because he believed that society required rulers. Equality also would not prevail within the family because sons needed to obey their fathers and younger brothers their elder brothers, in accordance with the principle of filial piety. Rulers had a responsibility toward the ruled. Mencius reiterated the Mandate of Heaven theory that had dominated political thinking for centuries. Heaven entrusted power to the ruler who, in turn, upheld his mandate by benefiting the people.

Xun Zi (?312–230 BCE), the third of the most prominent Confucian thinkers, diverged somewhat from his predecessors. However, the oft-depicted idea of Mencius and Xun Zi as representing antithetical poles of the Confucian school of thought is too simplistic. Both emphasized the value of government and civilization; both emphasized morality above profitability; both had an abiding faith in the educability and perfectability of mankind; and, unlike the Daoists, both regarded mankind as the center of the universe. Yet, having endured a longer period of chaos, strife, and brutality during the Warring States period, Xun Zi disputed Mencius’s overly rosy assessment of mankind.

Indeed, in his principal work, known as the Xun Zi, Xun Zi baldly stated that “Man’s nature is evil” and that “goodness is the result of conscious activity.” Corrupt governments, unprincipled rulers, and use of magic and prayers attested, in his view, to the chaos generated in an unregulated and disorderly society. Study of the classical texts and practice of the Confucian rituals, which served to curb mankind’s evil yearnings, offered the basic prescription for a peaceful land. Xun Zi had faith in education, stating that once a man was shown the proper path he would follow it. Sages who had studied the classics and become morally purified through proper conduct of rituals would lead the people to pursue the same course. Although humans were intrinsically evil, they could be trained to strive for the good. According to Xun Zi, sages should exhort the people to perform music, dance, funeral, and wedding ceremonies properly and not to be distracted by criticisms of these elaborate and expensive rituals. He attributed vital functions to li; it helped people to cope with, regulate, and express emotions of happiness, loss, and failure and to develop proper respect for others in the social hierarchy. However, he rejected belief in prayers for rain and in the intrusion by ghosts and demons into human affairs, treating belief in such figures as superstitions, not rituals.

Unlike the earlier Confucian thinkers, Xun Zi presented his arguments in a logical narrative rather than in anecdotes. Relying on a rational exposition of his views and shunning the elliptical and illustrative stories used by his predecessors, he summarized the main tenets of Confucianism in a direct and forceful style. His work consisted of straightforward exposition instead of the imaginary dialogues concocted by earlier philosophers. He also differed from his Confucian predecessors in offering a trenchant critique of the thinking of non-Confucian philosophers instead of merely satirizing or lampooning them. He disparaged Daoism, for example, for its seeming otherworldliness and its lack of concern for human affairs.

Like Confucius, Xun Zi supported a carefully graded social hierarchy, with every individual recognizing his or her position. Social order necessitated class distinctions, and equality would be disastrous. Similarly, he insisted on proper naming of things and concepts on the grounds that they defined distinctions between groups in society – distinctions that facilitated governance and social order.

Despite Xun Zi’s faith in education, he still believed in the need for coercion. Mankind, on occasion, had to be forced to pursue the right path. Unlike Mencius, Xun Zi was hardheaded and not totally confident in mankind’s self control and drive toward the good. Lacking some of Mencius’s idealism, he proposed a harsher means of curbing mankind’s evil impulses. The rulers to whom both sought to appeal found Xun Zi’s ideas more realistic, and it is thus no accident that he was the only one of these three major Confucians to become a government official. He served in the states of Qi and then the Chu for about three decades.

However, Xun Zi’s realism and pragmatism eventually undermined his standing with Confucians. Late in life he traveled to the state of Qin, where he attracted two disciples – Han Fei Zi, later a principal spokesperson for Legalism, and Li Si, a state minister – who ultimately castigated Confucianism. Yet he himself condemned the authoritarianism of Qin.

In addition to the writings of Confucius, Mencius, and Xun Zi, a number of other texts were associated with Confucianism and were incorporated into the Confucian canon. Two of the most significant derived from a specific work, the Book of Rites (Liji). Written by members of the Confucian school possibly as late as 200 BCE, it nonetheless reflects some of Confucius’s views. Like the Analects, the “Great Learning” (Daxue) section seems often to be directed to rulers, though its teachings apply to the rest of the population as well. It links ruling well with good relations within the family, which, in turn, entailed abiding by the proper moral code. The individual needed to cultivate himself if he were to succeed as the ruler of a good government. In effect, proper conduct by the individual and the ruler would inevitably result in a proper government. If the individual and the family embodied humaneness, the country as a whole would be properly regulated.

The “Mean” (Zhongyong), the other passage, was addressed to rulers as well as to ordinary subjects. As its title implies, this section proposed moderation, the Aristotelian mean, as the proper mode of behavior and governance. If the ruler genuinely adopted the moral code that emphasized goodness, he would attract the men he required to establish a stable and benevolent government. Li (rituals) mandated a set of reciprocal obligations between the ruler and those he ruled. As a person with a superior status, he still needed to treat those with inferior status according to the proper ritual principles. In essence, his actions ought to reflect his station in life, a view that surely confirmed the existing social hierarchy.