The way of loyalty and forgiveness is the essence of Confucius’ wisdom in self-cultivation. The way of forgiveness refers to the following:

1. Answer

The way of loyalty and forgiveness is “desire to benefit oneself” "To benefit others, you should benefit others if you want to benefit yourself" and "Don't do to others what you don't want others to do to you", requiring individuals to regulate their own behavior based on themselves. Negative freedom is the minimum limit of freedom that an individual needs to retain when confronting the general will, that is, the minimum power that is not subject to interference by the general will.

Positive freedom is the right of individuals to perform various actions driven by their own will in order to realize themselves. The former is political and the latter is ethical. Berlin means that people should pursue negative freedom rather than positive freedom, and the pursuit of positive freedom will affect the negative freedom of others.

2. Extended information

Confucius’s doctrine of loyalty and forgiveness is both ethical and political. He hopes to use such a norm to restrain politics and individuals at the same time. In other words, he It is hoped that positive freedom will be regulated at both the political and personal levels. As a political ideal, this is not right or wrong, but the reality is that this ideal is impossible.

It is precisely because of this that he ignored negative freedom and never considered how to prevent politics from infringing on the basic rights of individuals, which became a blank in the history of Chinese thought.

In fact, if we want to briefly talk about the difference between Berlin and Confucius, Berlin recognized the diversity of human values ????and the irreconcilability between various values, thus asking us to respect people, while Confucius Discipline people with a unitary ethical value.

3. Confucius

Confucius (551 BC - April 11, 479 BC), whose surname is Kong, whose given name is Qiu, and whose courtesy name is Zhongni, was born in the state of Lu during the Spring and Autumn Period. A native of Yi (now Qufu City, Shandong Province), his ancestral home is Liyi (now Xiayi County, Henan Province) of the Song Dynasty. His father is Liang He, his mother is Yan. Ancient Chinese thinker, politician, educator, and founder of Confucianism.

Confucius once led some of his disciples to travel around the world for fourteen years and revised the Six Classics (Poetry, Book, Rites, Music, Book of Changes, and Spring and Autumn Annals). After his death, his disciples and subsequent disciples recorded the words, deeds, quotes and thoughts of Confucius and his disciples, and compiled them into The Analects of Confucius. The book is regarded as a Confucian classic.