On Humanity And Virtue: Comparison Between Confucius And Aristotle In Ethics

Mencius carried on his original and systematic explanation to primitive Confucianism with his unique theory of human nature, which had influence on ethical concepts and lifestyles of the later generations since Tang and Song Dynasty. Aristotle is the most typical representative of the Ancient Greek Civilization, father of western ethics. The author of this paper, by taking the two philosophers as examples, conduct a comparative study of ethics thoughts between east and west at the beginning of the civilization when the discipline was established in the hope of finding the commonness of human spirits in their pursuit of moral concepts and values under different history and culture background. Comparison employed in this article begins from two aspects. One is fundamental morality which is part of humanity concerning issues of human nature, and the other is virtue which mainly answers questions such as what is the good and the evil? what is virtue? how can virtue be formed ? Mencius thought the differences between human beings and beasts lie in the moral mind, which separates the moral people from the immoral ones. He defined human beings from a perspective of human transcendence and integration of human beings with nature. Aristotle thought man ' s rationality and sociality were their essential characteristics, which is the natural result of the purposeful evolution as well as the moral practice in the context of the society and a purposeful behavior under the direction of rationality. Mencius, through assumptions of rational facts and choice by intuition, came to the conclusion human nature is good by birth, a conclusion that precedes experiences, a "transzendental". Through numerous facts and observations and then rational analysis and listing of experience , Aristotle concluded that human nature has no predisposition for good or evil. Good and evil are the result of human choice, and good should be the ultimate goal for man. Mencius thought evil exists because of lack of innate conscience while virtue is formed in the course of seeking to ease fear and emotional tension. Mencius preached and taught numerous methods for cultivating inherent quality, such as fostering the spirit of nobility, accumulating righteousness , having a constant aspiration for progress and exploring into your inner world to discover inner wisdom and power. Aristotle believed that virtue is a rational middle way and evil is the deviation from the golden mean. Therefore, we must act on the basis of reasons. Subjectively speaking, our actions reflect our voluntary and wise choices ,but objectively speaking, they reflect our obedience to socialist legal norms.