Junzi

Junzi (Chinese: 君子) literally means son of a lord, originally a class designation in pre-Confucian China[1]. Confucius radically reinterpreted the term as a moral category: not the high-born by birth but the cultivated by virtue[2]. Classical English translations include gentleman, exemplary person, profound person, and moral exemplar.

junzi is a moral and educational ideal rather than a social class label alone.

The junzi is the central moral type in Confucian thought. The junzi is one who has cultivated ren (humaneness), li (ritual propriety), yi (righteousness), zhi (wisdom), xin (trustworthiness), and the other Confucian virtues. The opposite is the xiaoren (small person), who acts from narrow self-interest and lacks moral development.

The Analects contains many passages contrasting the junzi and the xiaoren. The junzi seeks rightness while the xiaoren seeks gain; the junzi is broad-minded while the xiaoren is narrow; the junzi is at peace with himself while the xiaoren is restless. The contrast structures much of Confucian moral teaching.

Becoming a junzi requires sustained cultivation: study of classical learning, practice of ritual propriety, reflection on conduct, and emulation of the ancient sages. The Confucian curriculum (the six classical arts: rites, music, archery, charioteering, calligraphy, and mathematics, later expanded) was understood as the formation of the junzi. The Confucian examinations of imperial China selected officials largely on the assumption that classical learning produced the moral and intellectual qualities of the junzi.

The junzi is not a perfect saint. Confucius described himself as still learning and as falling short of complete junzi-hood. The ideal is asymptotic: one moves toward it through ongoing cultivation. The classical phrase the way is broad and our life is short captures the orientation.

The junzi ideal has shaped East Asian moral and political culture for over two millennia. Modern reinterpretations continue, sometimes secularizing the concept or extending it across gender boundaries that the classical formulation implicitly assumed.

Confucian scholarship has produced extensive analysis of the junzi ideal. Tu Weiming's writings on Confucian self-cultivation[3], Roger Ames's translation work, and many others have explored the concept. The relationship between classical junzi and modern democratic citizenship is an active topic of comparative ethics and political philosophy.

• The Analectsby Confucius (translated by D.C. Lau)
  primary source
• Centrality and Commonalityby Tu Weiming
  book