Benevolence, Righteousness, Loyalty, and Integrity: Political Ethics in Ancient China

The shaping of the ethical order in ancient China, whether in the family, in the community, or in the political sphere, needed to begin with the cultivation of individual morality, rooted in self-cultivation. During the Axial Age (800 BCE–200 BCE), Confucius was the first to creatively transform and reinterpret the traditional political ethics, using self-cultivation as the basis for shaping the ethical and political order. In the historical context of the old and the new at that time, a cultural renewal and transformation advocated and practiced by educated people laid the theoretical foundation for the later Chinese political ritual and moral governance, which is still of great value and significance to our understanding of ancient Chinese political ethics today.