Basic Ethical Terms Of Confucianism

Confucianism has been a leading Chinese philosophical and ethical tradition for a long time. Not just Confucius himself but also Mencius and Xunzi contributed to its development over the centuries. In this paper the principal ethical notions of Confucianism–junzi, dao, ren and li – are characterized in their rich essence and unique context. Though ostensibly having much in common, those concepts can be paralleled to the Western ones only with difficulty and to a limited extent.