The Research On Ethical Implications Of "brave" In Confucianism

Since the Pre-Qin Dynasty, Confucianism not only based on"people"but also combined with social ideals. On the way of pursuing moral perfection, Confucianism has created a complete and meticulous personality theory, hoping to improve the personality to achieve social harmony and stability. It considered the unit of Benevolence, Wisdom and Courage as the most ideal personality."Courage"plays a decisive role. In Confucian opinion,"Courage"is a benevolent heart with the righteousness of the moral character. If there is no"Courage", we can not for the righteousness of benevolence; we can not achieve a state of the desired personality. Why the Chinese nation have not declined after suffering so much and have been developing in the world five thousand years as an independent nation is that the Confucian"Courage"exists as a source of flowing water. In various historical periods, the representatives of Confucianism on the connotation"Courage"had many writings, such as Confucius, Mencius, Xunzi, Zhu Xi and so on. Although they have different emphases as well as the classification of their structures of connotation and ethical levels , their overall value orientation is the same such as the upholding of justice, the persevering of moral supremacy and so on, which not only means power, but also contains the will and virtue theory. It is precisely because the writings in different periods of Confucianism on the"Courage"were so rich that its system of connotation is relatively complicated and its content has its own merits and demerits which lacks systematic summary and conclusion. Therefore, this paper is to study it. The paper classified the implication of"Courage"from the primitive communes, via the Xia, Shang and Western Zhou Dynasty to the Spring and Autumn period into four aspects which is a energetic courage, a tolerant courage, a knowledgeable courage and a courage of Virtue analyzing and comparing with the"Courage"in Buddhism, Taoism and the ancient Greek. It thinks that the Confucian"Courage"has the characteristics of penetrating into the human relations, concerning everything, trying its best, combining with challenging, paying attention to the inherence and submitting to the clan ancestry. At last, with the developing of contemporary society, the vital moral appears to play down, the implementation of a lack of moral courage, as well as the expansion of his selfish desires'corruption and so on, we take a deeply thought about the Confucian's"Courage"of contemporary ethical value in order to provide some guidance which is beyond the ethics for people's real life.