The history of Chinese civilization spans thousands of years and encompasses countless ideas, beliefs, and societal and political doctrines. Confucianism is often characterized as a system of social and ethical philosophy. In fact, Confucianism built on an ancient religious foundation to establish the institutions, social values, and transcendent ideals of traditional Chinese society.
All creatures, things, and activities have a final end, goal, or purpose, and each thing aims at some good. The goodness of anything: including human beings, resides in its proper function. The proper function of human beings, and its moral excellence, resides in the active life of the rational element. Therefore, the good for human beings is an activity of the soul in conformity with excellence or virtue. .
Virtue can be defined as moral excellence and righteousness. It is only possible to be truly virtuous when you do what ought to be done in any situation and under any condition.
For this very reason, only those who have been brought up with the proper moral conduct can truly be taught what is right and wrong. That is to say that only those who have had the proper habits embedded in them since birth have the proper knowledge. Therefore, virtue is a characteristic of a person that renders good, the thing itself of which it is the excellence and causes it to perform its function well. In other words, a person with a good character has virtue. The aim of all human action is for good, and any virtuous act is good. A virtuous act must be based on rationality and only acted on after careful deliberation by the individual. Therefore, a virtuous individual must be knowledgeable about what is good, must only make choices after careful deliberation, and must be a good judge of proper action. These virtuous characteristics come from experience, training, and an environment conducive to learning, a love of rationality, and good habits developed from constant practice.
