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| goodness, good; in the Analects, Goodness refers to the highest of Confucian virtues. Ren in the Analects refers to a moral, rather than physical or martial ideal. In post-Analects texts, it has the more specific sense of empathy or kindness between human beings – especially for a ruler toward his subjects – and in such contexts is therefore usually translated as “benevolence.” |
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| ritual, ritual propriety; a set of traditional religious and moral practices, which in the Confucian context were believed to have been revealed to the Zhou kings by Heaven. The scope of ritual is quite broad, encompassing not only sacrificial offerings to the spirits, but also aspects of one’s daily lives that we might be tempted to label as “etiquette,” such as the manner in which one dresses, takes one’s meal, approaches one’s ministers, etc. |
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| gentleman; meaning literally “son of a lord,” junzi referred in Western Zhou times to a member of the warrior aristocracy. In Confucius’ hands, it comes to refer to anyone capable of becoming a kind of moral aristocrat: an exemplar of ritually-correct behavior, ethical courage, and noble sentiment – in short, a possessor of Goodness |
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| legalism, legalist; more accurately referred to as the “School of Statecraft,” this is a retrospective term for a group of thinkers who emphasized the importance of impartial, amoral techniques for state management, including a strong emphasis on punishment and reward |
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| dutifulness; dutifulness is the virtue of fulfilling one’s role-specific obligations, and is often linked to political duties (especially of a subordinate toward his superior) and to ritual obligations. Indeed zhong involves opposing a ruler who is acting improperly. |
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| this term, which later comes to mean “Confucian,” appears only once in the Analects, and referred in Confucius’ time to a class of specialists concerned with transmitting and preserving the traditional rituals and texts of the Zhou dynasty. Confucius was probably a ru, although he sought to distance himself from ru who pursued cultural training solely in order to obtain official positions, social prestige, and salary |
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| Fate, mandate; ming refers to the whole range of circumstances that are both external to the Confucian practice itself and beyond the control of human beings. Even when used in the sense of “fate,” ming continues to preserve its connection to Heaven, and the metaphor of “mandating” or “commanding”: fate is what is mandated by Heaven, the normative standard of the universe. It is therefore not only pointless, but also morally wrong, to struggle against it |
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| virtue; “Virtue” works as a rendering for this term because it refers to moral worthiness as well as the particular “power” residing in a person or thing. Virtue in the early Shang context referred to a kind of attractive, charismatic power residing in a ruler who had won the endorsement of the ancestral spirits. This power could be perceived by others, serving as a visible mark of the spirits’ favor, and its attractive qualities allowed the ruler to both acquire and retain supporters |
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