In the story “Hawai’i Reader in Rraditional Chinese Culture,” the central idea in the chapters 7, 8, and 9 dwells mainly on morality. These chapters use three theories suggested by the same number of Chinese philosophers. These theories center on the Chinese traditional moral culture of good. Furthermore, the philosophers include Confucius, Mencius, and Mo Zi. Their theories explain practicably how people should behave and understand the traditional Chinese culture.
Mencius’s theory opine that human beings are bestowed with four virtues, which include wisdom, humanity, righteousness, and ritual (Mair, Steinhardt and Goldin 56). Mencius thoughts hold onto strong values because these four virtues act as a guide, which allows humans to determine what is wrong or right. Furthermore, these are not natural instincts so not everybody possesses them. In this context, there exist people in this world who are naturally evil.
On the other hand, Mo Zi’s doctrine on “Universal Love” can be considered as an illusion because sometimes, human desires prevent them from doing the ultimate good; however, they consider what they stand to benefit from acting in a certain way (Mair, Steinhardt and Goldin 52). It is the reason that few people do not harm others and they would love their neighbors as they love themselves.
Confucius is the original contributor to the Chinese philosophy of morality and his theory is the analogy of the life that people are living today. For instance, the traditional Chinese rituals have acted as a blueprint for promoting social harmony, which is the reason that there is a respect among individuals in the community (Mair, Steinhardt and Goldin 45). Furthermore, it shows a coherent relation of the teachings in the article with real life scenarios.
From the above discussion, one thing that is evident from the reading is the excellent flow of language that the authors use to address the traditional Chinese culture regarding the theories of the three philosophers. For instance, the language used throughout is simple and easy to understand as the authors used real life examples to explain different concepts of morality as addressed by the philosophers. In summary, it is easy to conform to and understand the traditional Chinese culture because of the thoughts expressed by the great philosophers: Confucius, Mencius, and Mozi, which is perfectly and thoroughly mentioned in the readings.
Work Cited
Mair, Victor., Steinhardt, Nancy and Goldin, Paul. Hawai’i reader in traditional Chinese culture. University of Hawai’i Press, 2005.