Similarities Between 'Ren And Virtue'

Comparative analysis of two notions “Ren” and “Virtue” Virtue, humaneness, nobility and notions that are close by meaning to them are notions that are most frequently discussed by philosophers of all time. Confucius and Plato are not exceptions for this pattern, they both discussed statecraft, what kind of person is the best ruler and notions of ‘virtue’ in Plato’s works and ‘ren’ in Confucius’. This paper will argue that, although these two notions have both similarities and differences, implementation of their combination to the statecraft leads to successful strategy. Nursultan Nazarbayev has been a ruler of Kazakhstan for almost 25 years, according to Confucius ruler is the first one who needs to be ‘ren’, Plato also states that a ‘philosopher

These two concepts have many similarities, however, there are also some differences between them. The most principal similarity is that both of these notions are concerned with morality and ethics, as Confucius and Plato are philosophers that are famous for their thoughts on what is moral. For both philosophers these concepts are central in their works, which confirms importance of these notoins, Confucius in ‘Analects’ discusses four main sprouts of human: ren (humaneness-the mind’s feeling of pity and compassion), yi (rightness-mind’s feeling of shame and aversion), li (propriety-mind’s feeling of modesty and compliance) and zhi (wisdom-mind’s sense of right and wrong) (2A.6) Plato’s ‘Republic’ is answering the question ‘What is justice?’ where justice is one of the virtues that are discussed by Plato. Both Plato and Confucius do not just define ‘ren’ and ‘virtue’, but also discuss how to achieve them and how virtuous person should behave. Master You [You Ruo] said, "Among those who are filial toward their parents and fraternal toward their brothers, those who are inclined to offend against their superiors are few indeed. Among those who are disinclined to offend against their superiors, there have never been any who are yet inclined to create disorder. The noble person concerns himself with the root’ (Analects 1:2). Plato argues that virtuous person should be noble, and transfer his/her knowledge

First one comes from Imperial China and the second one from Ancient Greece. In his promotion of ‘ren’ Confucius ‘promotes love, filial piety, and emphasizes restraining oneself to return to ritual. His ideological system tends to focus on family, clan and societal norms’ (Gao 2015). Plato, however, advocates the concept of ‘virtue’ is more public in the context of social relationships and statecraft. And the principal difference between ‘ren’ and ‘virtue’ is that, while in ‘Analects’ ‘ren’ as well as ‘li’, ‘yi’ and ‘zhi’ are innate: ‘Human beings have these four beginnings just as they have four limbs’ (2A.6), thus, ‘ren’ is present in each person, it just needs to be self-cultivated in order to achieve an ultimate goal of full humanity. Plato argues that virtue comes with knowledge, actually it is itself a certain kind of knowledge that is not achievable by everyone and only some people are able to possess this knowledge, thus become