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62 C. Li

foremost love and respect one’s own parents (cf. Zhu Xi’s “Loving others without
loving one’s parents contradicts virtue.” In “Explanation of the Western Inscrip-
tion”). Further, as “with Qian and Kun, all are born the same,” one should thus be
“lovingly disposed to people in general, and kind to all creatures and things,” and
treat “all people as one’s brothers and sisters, and all creatures and things as one’s
companions,” rather than confine love to one’s parents and family only. This is a
manifestation of moral cultivation and virtue. Zhu Xi’s incisive comment points to
the important link between the Heaven-Earth cosmic order and the universality of
Confucian ethics. The Heaven-Earth order, derived from pre-historic Chinese
myth/faith, was “deemed true” in Confucian thinking. Therefore, all of the pro-
posed notions such as “all people being one’s brothers and sisters, all creatures
and things one’s equals”; “all under Heaven being one family and the nation one
person” are firmly rooted in Confucian rationality and philosophical construct;
anything but a mere leap of faith.
The Confucian principle of filial piety as the source and starting point of
benevolence is of great relevance to family ethics in contemporary society. The
Confucian tenets of “being lovingly disposed to people in general, and kind to all
creatures and things,” and treating “all people as one’s brothers and sisters, and all
creatures and things one’s companions” are moral imperatives of true universal
virtues. They are also highly relevant to the building of a community with a shared
future for mankind, ecological and environmental protection. Likewise, the clas-
sical Heaven-Earth cosmic faith, or the notion of Heaven and Earth being father
and mother of humanity and all things, should continue to be valued in today’s
society. Religion, philosophy and science in Western cultures have become
mutually complementary in the modern era. Whether or not the cosmic belief in the
classical Heaven-Earth relationship can complement, as well as bolster philoso-
phy and science in modern-day Chinese culture, is a question worthy of
consideration.

References

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