The Ethical Meaning Of The Awe Of The Confucius’ Thought

Awe is a peculiar feeling of reverence and caution, which stimulated by something of sanctity, lofty, transcendence and so on, when a subject in the face of them, and the resulting in the spirit of introspection and self-discipline. Awe is an eternal topic, as it symbolizes the wisdom and poetic habitation of human beings. In Chinese traditional culture, Awe is interpreted in the perspective of "heaven-man relationship", where it derives both moral and rational characteristics. Therefore, the feeling of awe in ancient China is essentially the "awe of heaven" as indicated in a famous Chinese scripture 《Shangshu·Yaodian》"How great is the heaven, which indicates time to mankind by having the sun, moon and stars orbiting in it". That is to say, awe is not only a feeling towards heaven but also based on humane care-time indication. Confucius lived in the Western Zhou Dynasty, an era of awakening of Chinese civilization, as " a master ", his thoughts of Awe clearly embodies the humanistic qualities.Confucius lived in the later stage of the Spring and Autumn Period, during this period, the whole social life was approaching a turbulent times. As for such a mess society, traditional values and beliefs seem feeble.However Confucius has a deep anxiety and concern about it:How to make people to refind the authority and power they once rely on, so that it can rebuild an ethical order of the harmonious society as well as settle down and get on with life? The Awe of Confucius’ distinctive thoughts is the result of this thinking.The Awe of the Confucius’ thought has its formation of the specific cultural origin and realistic foundation, it raised as such points as "Gentlemen need to keep their awe towards three objects","keep off gods and ghosts with awe" and "the progressing young deserve awe from the old" by Confucius. It is thus evident that the awe in Confucian system is closely related to moral self-cultivation, which actually starts from the feeling of awe followed by a process before eventually reaching the destination-Tao. The three phases, in terms of heaven-man relationship, can be respectively marked as "heaven and man apart","man follows rule of heaven" and "heaven and man in one".In the current period of social transformation, our country has witnessed many moral issues, for which, the absence of awe is undoubtedly an important reason. In order to solve such moral issues, it may be a breakthrough point to restore and reshape the traditional Confucian awe in modern society. Such work involves the improvement of the three relations of man-to-nature, man-to-others and man-to-itself, which, if successful, will bring the society back into harmonious ethical order.