| Abstract |
Loyalty and honesty in the pre-Chin Confucian documents were not domestic ethic moralities, but the behavioral principles for the interaction of human relationships in society. Earlier, they were the behavioral principles of government officials and gentlemen, the original virtues of self-cultivation. They developed from self-cultivation to the administration of people, from inner cultivation to outer practice, and were broadened to include the kingly virtues for administering political matters, or the official virtues for the administration of government. The Xunzi, fundamentally exalting the position of the king, considers “loyalty” as the very requirement of the subjects to show obedience. Naturally though “loyalty” also means the insistence on necessary admonition to distinguish right from wrong, it simultaneously requires the establishment of harmony between the king and his subjects. As a result, the “loyalty” as the kingly virtue established since Confucius was gradually growing out of date, and “loyalty” was eventually defined as the guiding principle of the subjects. All the divergent meanings of “loyalty” and “honesty” are clearly discernible in such Confucian books as Lunyu (Confucian Analects), Xiaojing (Book of Filial Piety), Mencius, and Liji (Records of Rites), and quite a few Confucian documents excavated at Kuodian.
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