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Aristotle and Confucius are great philosophers of their time and their famous virtue ethics theories have set the foundation to ethics and shaped the way people and the society behave in the today’s modern life. While Aristotle’s ideas were developed from his existence and immersion of the ancient Greek culture, Confucius’s theory is derived from his engagement and exposition in China during the Zhou dynasty. Nevertheless, both of their theories focus on what accounts for virtue or good ethical behaviors.
Initially, both Aristotle and Confucius focus on the doctrine of mean, which emphasizes on maintaining the balance of virtues, avoiding excess and deficiency in order to achieve golden mean and lead a virtuous life. Aristotle indicated that there is a mean – the balance between excess and deficiency. For instance, there is cowardice being the deficiency and rashness being the excess. The mean of these is courage; neither too much nor too little, and is considered “golden” when utilized.
Moreover, both Aristotle and Confucius virtue ethics argue that virtues are achieved through the practice of habits. In Aristotle theory for instance, intellectual virtues tell us it is the right thing to be honest, and moral virtues make us want to learn and practice honesty; and if we practice honesty every day, honest will eventually become a virtue of ours. On the other hand, Confucius told us to follow and practice ritualistic acts habitually and we will able to become virtuous.
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Two Ethical Systems
Despite the similarities, the two ethical systems have significant differences due to the vastly different cultural and historical settings of the countries where they were originated from – Greek and China. One of the most notable differences between them is the locus of ethics. For Aristotle, virtue ethics sees individuals as fundamental agents of morality, and each individual act in the world from particular worldview.
Each individual is believed to fulfill their goal honorably, accepting fate with self-confidence and dignity. On the other hand, Confucius’s locus was on the family. The “Book of Li” suggests there are five great relationships that support the Chinese society, being parent – child, husband – wife, elder – junior sibling, master – apprentice, and ruler – subject, with three of which are family relationships, indicates that family is the foundation unit of the society.
Furthermore, while Aristotle’s ultimate goal is eudaimonia – or happiness, which can be achieved through human flourishing, Confucius eventually wants to achieve “li” – societal harmony in the world. Each individual in Aristotle’s ideology must put his or her own effort to lead a virtuous life in order to attain “happiness” while in order to create a harmony within the society, each individual of Confucius’s ideology needs to obey to a set of regulations and he believed that the individual’s virtues are established after following the rules. The Greek philosopher believes that everyone should be better for themselves, while the Chinese thinks that individual should be better for the community.
Conclusion
In the end, even though the two philosophies share different perspectives about virtues and humanity, both of them highlight that it is essential for human to do good deeds and to have good virtues, as well as aim for a moral society. And even though their ideologies vary, both Aristotle and Confucius have made a significant influence in philosophy and ethics then and now.
