Abstract:
The pattern of “benevolence” of Confucianist ethics was derived from common human character, emotion and sociableness, varying into benevolence in household, government and behaviour as a system of norms for public morals. An analysis of its cultural character, Conficianist “benevolence” was closely associated with China-characteristic tyrant society from propriety and music society through clan society to patriarchal society. In terms of its spiritual meaning, this benevolence applied only to a hierarchal arrangement of society. Just as those factors involved in benevolence in Confucianist ethics are not exactly equivalent to the “goodness” in modern civic awareness, so the pattern of Conficianistic “benevolence” doesn't agree with modern civic sense.
