Preliminary Study Of The Pre-Qin Confucian School’s "Loyalty" Thinking

Loyalty is a very important component of Confucius’ ideological system.It is treated as "the foundation of a country"."a way through which ultimate fairness can be achieved" and the supreme code of conduct for an individual to settle down and get on with his or her pursuit.Centered around three classical writings 《Confucius Analects》、《Mencius》、《Hsun Tzu》 this thesis studies the content and roots of "loyalty" and the explanations, arguments put forward by representative figures like Confucius Mencius and Hsun Tzu by using methods like comparing,analyzing,putting it under the context of time.The study of loyalty is conducted along three major routes namely loyalty to oneself,loyalty to others and loyalty to the king.By studying the both the domestic and foreign,ancient and contemporary analysis of loyalty thinking this thesis tries to illustrate the rationale of loyalty and give a more original picture of Confucius’ loyalty thinking.At the same time,the study of ’loyalty’ holds great theoretical value for addressing problems such as Chinese people’s vague beliefs, lacking principle about personal values,the inheritance of traditional Chinese cultures and identifying with the core values of socialism.