Analects of Confucius

Confucius continues on with his commentary on various colleagues and students in order to further elucidate the essence of “manhood.” For Confucius, what is constitutive of the virtuous individual is that they do not focus on the personality or reputation of an individual but on the actions of that person and whether or not they lead to the correct outcome: “[T]hree of us walking along, perforce one to teach me, if he gets it right, I follow, if he errs, I do different” (44). Moreover, Confucius adds that the proper man, or one with “manhood,” is the individual who acts as a conduit for the virtues of a society built on filiality: “I have not managed to see a sage man. If I could manage to see a proper man (one in whom the ancestral voices function) that would do” (45). That is to say, the moral character that every individual should strive to cultivate is one in which everyone relates to others in a way that acknowledges that no one person is better than anyone else and that the only marker of superiority or excellence is proper behavior: “If he was with a man who sang true, he would make him repeat and sing in harmony with him” (46).