The Tao as a social moral way

                From the ideogram of the Tao by Don Lehman Jr., he refers to the Tao as the beginning of a journey. This journey leads to a destination that is guided by the moral path. The moral path guides who decide to follow it. The moral path leads a person to a way of life that coincides with goodness, order and balance.

                The Tao is the moral path in which a person lives by. In the analects 4:5, the first part says, ‘wealth and honor are what man desires. But if they have been obtained in the violation of moral principles, they must not be kept.’ The main thought of Confucian ethics teaches or centers on being a good person. Innate to a man is to be wanting but man must not center his life in these wants. Man must not be dominated by these wants and desires that it undermines virtue and morals.

The Tao is the path that cannot be derailed. The Tao is the Way that does not have an alternative. There is only a principle that man should be moral and virtuous. In analects 1:2, the essence of being moral is seen. In a family setting, a filial son and a respectful brother knows how to respect others that are superior. The superior is man who surpasses the insecurities of life and has ascended in to a man that genuinely lives in moral principle as said in analects 2:4. In return, a parent must act accordingly towards his son. As Derk Bodde says it in his book, ‘the man who loves others is one able to perform his duties in society.’ And thus filial piety and brotherly respect determines the man with morals and virtue in society in practice of jen (human-heartedness)

Above all else, Confucius is the best example of a person who practiced all these teachings. In analects 4:15 it says ‘the way of our master is none other than conscientiousness (chung) and altruism (shu).

As aforementioned, Confucian ethics centers on being a good person. ‘How is to be good?’ a familiar question from the Greek philosopher Aristotle. Confucius speaks of filial piety and brotherly respect as a foundation. It tells us that upon extending the virtues that we earn within the family, we tend to be as virtuous among the society. The Confucian philosophy then speaks of humanism that begins within us and at the same time we contribute it to the society. Confucian Ethics speaks of goodness in this form which also equates to conscientiousness and altruism in practice of jen.