With respect to human relations, the Pre-Qin philosophers proposed mainly the views of “The benevolent loves people”, peace and harmony are valuable”, the “five human relations” and the “ten aspects of righteousness”. “Benevolence” as is meant in “The benevolent loves people”, was he highest ethical code set by Confucius , the core of which was to “love people”, I.e., to respect and care people . In a broader sense “benevolence” covered respect, generosity, trustworthiness, kindness, intelligence, wisdom, courage, loyalty, consideration and filialness. The basic approaches to benevolence were “loyalty and consideration”, Confucius said , “In order to establish oneself, establish other ; in order to develop oneself, develop others ,” ( from “Confucian Analects : Yong” ) and “Don’t do onto others what you don’t want others to do onto you .” (From “Confucian Analects: Duke Ling of Wei”) Master Mo further proposed “extensive love”, i.e., “to love other people as you love yourself”.
He advocated “love extensively” and “benefit extensively”, and that the combination of the two was too truly “love people’: “Peace” as in “peace is most valuable” was meant originally “correspondence” and extended to mean “peace and harmony” particularly peace and harmony among different persons and things. “Virtuous people are at peace but not factions. Mean people are factions but not peaceful”. (From “Confucian Analects: Zi Lu”) Peace was considered the standard for dealing with human relations. “In the practice of rites, peace is most valuable”. (From “Confucian Analects: Learning) Peace was regarded the goal and value of all social institutions. Mencius emphasized the peace and harmony of the people. He said, “Opportunities of times are not as important as geographical advantages. Geographical advantages are not as important as peace and harmony of people”. (From the “Book of Meneius: Gongsun Chou”) He stressed that “peace and harmony of people” was the primary factor of success. This view of peace and harmony treats positively the differences, divergencies and contradictions in nature and human society. It asserted that individuals should play respectively a positive role for achieving the overall peace, harmony and development. This concept has long been the central value of the Chinese nation.
According to Mencius, the five human relations refer to the five basic relations of the humans, viz, the relations between “father and son, monarch and officials, husband and wife, elder brother and younger brother, and friends”. The ten parties of the five human relations should follow the ten basic moral standards or the ten righteousness. According to the “Book at Rites; Application of Rites”, the ten righteousness meant that “Father should be loving and son filial; the elder brother should be good and the younger respectful; the husband should be righteous and wife obedient; the senior should be kind and the junior humble; the monarch should be benevolent and the officials loyal, which stressed the mutual rights and obligations of the ten parties”. But in the later time since the Han Dynasty, absolute submissiveness from one party to the other was stressed.
