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The teaching of Confucius consist of five basic relationships in life: Ruler to subject; Parent to child; Husband to wife; Elder brother to younger brother; Friend to friend; In the above relationships, Confucius teaches that righteous, considerate, kind, benevolent, and gentle treatment should be applied by the former to the latter.
Confucianism, despite supporting the importance of obeying national authority, places this obedience under absolute moral principles that curbed the willful exercise of power, rather than being unconditional. Submission to authority was only taken within the context of the moral obligations that rulers had toward their subjects, in particular ren.
[citation needed] Confucius believed that if a ruler is to lead correctly, by action, that orders would be unnecessary in that others will follow the proper actions of their ruler. In discussing the relationship between a king and his subject (or a father and his son), he underlined the need to give due respect to superiors.
This is illustrated through the five main relationships Confucius interpreted to be the core of society: ruler-subject, father-son, husband-wife, elder brother-younger brother, and friend-friend. In these bonds, the latter must pay respect to and serve the former, while the former is bound to care for the latter. [6] [7]
Confucius (551–479 BC) looked back to the earlier days of the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties for an ideal sociopolitical order. He believed that the only effective system of government necessitated prescribed relationships for each individual: "Let the ruler be a ruler and the subject a subject".
In Confucianism, the Sangang Wuchang (Chinese: 三綱五常; pinyin: Sāngāng Wǔcháng), sometimes translated as the Three Fundamental Bonds and Five Constant Virtues or the Three Guiding Principles and Five Constant Regulations, [1] or more simply "bonds and virtues" (gāngcháng 綱常), are the three most important human relationships and the five most important virtues.
Mencius, the leading Confucian scholar of the time, regarded the Spring and Autumn Annals as being equally important as the semi-legendary chronicles of earlier periods. During the Western Han dynasty, which adopted Confucianism as its official ideology, these texts became part of the state-sponsored curriculum. It was during this period that ...
To's view of the relationship between society and its ruler magnified the Confucian concept of the subject's obligation of loyalty to the monarch (trung quân) by reinforcing it with the Catholic notion of monarchical rule by divine right. He had a modernist vision of historical change, emphasizing the dynamic factor of humanity's perpetually ...