Confucius Vs Aristotle Analysis

Aristo lived in 4th century BC in today’s Greece, developed ideas on several subjects from logic and metaphysics to empirical biology. Confucius, on the other hand, had lived in today’s China in 6th century BC, and was a political thinker and educator whose work mostly focused on the ideal social order and ethics. These two distinct philosophers both left extensive ideas on how political and social order should be. This paper will compare and contrast these two influential thinkers in terms of their ideas on individual ethics and social order. The thinkers’ works on various subjects will not be included to this analysis due to the length limitations and the need to focus on the themes that are studies by both of them. In this respect, the

He talks about universal and particular justice. Universal justice is about the lawfulness and the common good. Particular justice, on the other hand, is about equality between individuals. Aristo analyzes different forms of state depending on the distributive justice. He argues that both oligarchies and democracies have a wrong distribution structure. Oligarch believe that wealthy deserve more of the resources, whereas democracy argues for equality of distribution no matter what the person’ merits are. He is against both; neither wealth nor equality is the priority in city-states. Instead, Aristotle states “the good life is the end of the city-state,”, and the good life entails noble actions. (as cited in Miller, 2012). Therefore, Aristo’s understanding of justice is essentially aristocratic and gives political rights to those who contribute to society. It is important to note that in Aristo’s ideal state, only the citizens (people who are not slaves, who own property) who are virtuous can contribute to the society. In Aristo’s ideal state every citizen is virtuous and people with high moral virtue live in complete happiness. Citizens work for the state and possess property. (Miller,

They both emphasize the importance of “virtue” as the main quality of a ruler. According to Aristotle the virtue of the rulers is more important that the approval of the citizens. He states that “all should joyfully obey such a ruler, according to what seems to be the order of nature” (as cited in Ebenstein and Ebenstein, 2000, p. 79). Confucius’ ruler should act with love and concern for the others and people follows him for his quality not because of laws or the fear of punishment. People who do not act virtuously feel shame for