Confucian Character Of Gentlemen And Its Modern Value

Personality is the inherent essence of human being that distinguishes them from other creatures, consistsing of dignity, value and quality. What ethics focuses on is moral personality or moral character, and what moral character focuses on is virtues. According to different virtues, moral characters can be divided into noble and humble ones, and the former is just the ideal character which can set ideal aims for people's life and shape people, raise people at the same time.In China, philosophers have paid a lot of attention to ideal character since long ago. Confucius, the founder of Confucianism, is the representative of that kind of philosophers . Confucius proposed the character of gentleman as the ideal character of his system.In his opinion, character of gentleman insists benevolence and rite, combines he two very well and leads to the spirit of Mean at last. It must emphasize that both benevolence and rite have abundant meanings. Confucius also pointed out the way how to be a character of gentleman. One should be eager for benevolence firstly, then learn, self-control and reflect. Practicing is also a important step of the proceeding to become a character of gentleman. Character of gentleman is the core of Confucius thought, and runs through the whole system. Character of gentleman is one of the creams of Chinese traditional culture, which was practiced by superior persons from generation to generation as boundless spiritual source.However, because of the distortion of unreasonable centralized fedual system , the interruption of May 4th Movement of 1919 and the Cultural Revolution, and the shock from popular utilitarianism, Confucius'theory of character of gentleman is declining nowadays. As a precious traditional thoery, after all, it is as important as citizen's character in the structure of modern people's personality, and it fulfills the spiritual world of modern people which can stop people from utilizing and vanity. This theory combining moral reason, moral emotion and moral will well also sets the example of the effective methods about morality education. This article is mainly through expounding inherent benevolence and external rite of character of gentleman of Confucius. Summarizing the methods of becoming a character of gentleman, it furher analyzes the reasons why the theory of character of gentleman declines and the value this theory can offer to morden society. The article putforward viewpoint of critically inherit to character of gentleman, and expect this fascinated morality theory will be emerged and get re-development in the modern times.