Humaneness: A Sense Of Love And Moralness

What is humaneness (ren)? Humaneness is a sense of love and affection between two human beings. According to Confucius’ teachings in Analects, humaneness is “love others” (12.22). It is different from Plato’s concept of love, which is the desire of what we do not possess. Instead, it is the awareness of caring and concern towards people around us (those who have specific relationship with us).

Since we stand in different relationships to different people, this basic concern can take in various aspects : filial piety (towards our parents), brotherly respect (towards our brothers), loyalty and forgiveness (towards our friends), etc. Confucius suggest that a concrete form of extension of love towards myself to the others : “Now the man of perfect virtue, wishing to be established himself, seeks also to establish others; wishing to be establish

Undoubtedly, representatives of people had to be elected at the very beginning. The most important criteria when choosing a representative was that he/she had to be morally good to gain trust from the people because they wanted the delegate they had chosen could make the country better and speak up for their rights. This is why the moral standing of the government used to be the most important element to rule or administer a country, which echoed the view of Confucius : “But without the trust of the common people, you get nowhere.”(12.7) After a country is born, agriculture plays a vital role to provide food for the whole country, which will then lead to economic growth of the country. With the increasing pace of economic advancement, a country will start to be more focusing on defense and military power. As a result, the government of a country will by hook or by crook, strive to gain more power in order to compete with other developed countries. This phenomenon will probably bring about tons of social problems, such as government corruption and