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The Confucianists believe that men are endowed by Heaven (Tian, equivalent in meaning to Nature) with a set of innate virtues.In one occasion, Confucius makes a remark about himself that “Heaven produced virtue in me”.
Mencius further develops this assumption of human nature into an ontological doctrine.Everyone is endowed from Heaven, he says, with four beginnings (Si Duan) of “heart-mind” (Xin); they are the seats for four cardinal virtues: humanity (Ren), righteousness (Yi), propriety (Li), and wisdom (Zhi).
While the heart-mind for shame and distaste (for one’s own bad behavior) is the seat of feeling for justice, the heart-mind for compassion is the origin of humanity.Humanity and justice are the inborn moral qualities which defines the essential character of a human being and without which a man would be reduced to a mere animal. With adequate education, learning and self-cultivation, these innate capacities will be actualized in a person, making him a mature gentleman.It is to be noted that, since very early in Confucianism, gentleman became a respectful title for anyone who acquired high moral status.As Liang Qichao points out, “Junzi is not a word denoting one’s social status; it is a word that denotes one’s moral status.In other words, Junzi represents a person who has perfected his Ren Ge”.
To Confucius, one becomes a gentleman when he has succeeded in cultivating balanced virtues based on the central Principle of the Mean.Confucius makes it unambiguous that a gentleman is one who consciously follows the Principle of Mean, by which he unites himself with Heaven.The ability to act according to the Mean becomes the definitive criterion for distinguishing a gentleman from a mean-spirited “littleman” (xiao ren), a “small person” with low moral status.
Thus, “a gentleman act according to the Mean; a littleman act contrary to the Mean.Because a gentleman maintains the Mean, he always act to a perfect degree”.
As a result, in a gentleman, we find several primary virtues in a harmonious proportion: “Benevolent, he is free from worries; wise, he is free from perplexities; courageous, he is free from fear”.
The best example is Confucius himself, who is praised for being “gentle but serious, awe-inspiring but not harsh, respectful but calm”.
Now, one may contend that the Principle of the Mean is too general to guide concrete human conduct, and the specific virtues are either too vague (e.g. what is the meaning of humanity, Ren?) or, once they received a fixed interpretation, quickly become dogmatic and anachronistic (e.g. to be Ren is to respect one’s parents and, thus, when either of them dies, to mourn for three years). Further, even the Confucianists might not agree among themselves as to which virtues (e.g. Ren or Li?) should be placed at the highest hierarchy and govern others, or how they should be interpreted.While these contentions do carry some force, they by no means undermine the basic Confucian idea that man is endowed with a set of unique potentials that characterize him as man; and such traditional virtues as humanity, justice, wisdom, courage, and propriety of conduct, still receive wide approbation today, even though their interpretations may be disputed and modified over time.In other words, while the descriptive content of what constitutes human dignity may vary, there is nevertheless the Confucian consensus that a meaningful content is there.We should reject the dogmatic tendency in Confucianism and admit, with MacIntyre,
that our conception of man is not static, but a dialectic progress, which changes with time, circumstances, and the improvement of human understanding.Yet this does not preclude society from accepting, at any given time, a prevailing view about human nature upon which its moral judgment is based.
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