The State Has Its Basis in the Family: The Chinese Family Ethics

In Confucian ethics, the cultivation of one’s moral character is not only a matter of individual cultivation, but also a starting point for the extrapolation of individual morality to family morality, community etiquette, and political ideals. When Confucians extended the theory of “self-cultivation” from the individual outward to the spatial place of practice, the first place they thought of was the “family”. Due to the limitation of life resources, the “family” in the Spring and Autumn period was much larger than the present “nuclear family” of a couple and two children, and often several generations lived together, similar to the large families of brothers and their families living together in rural areas or medium-sized companies in cities. Therefore, family ethics is an inevitable extension of self-cultivation ethics and an important aspect of Chinese ethics. In this chapter, we first try to show the basic norms of traditional Chinese family ethics, then point out the challenges and impacts of these ethical norms in modern times, and finally analyze the future development of modern Chinese family ethics in light of the new problems it faces.