The Modern Significance of Confucius’ Laments in Virtue Ethics Practice
Atsushi Asai, Hua Xu, Miki Fukuyama, Motoki Ohnishi
Volume 9 Issue 1
First Published: August 23, 2026
Abstract
This essay rereads the Analects by focusing on Confucius’ laments, understood as emotionally charged expressions of normative tension between moral ideals and actual human conduct, social conditions, or fate. We examine twenty-one passages in which Confucius expresses disappointment, grief, self-criticism, powerlessness, or despair. These passages reveal difficulties in virtue-based moral practice: the decline of virtue, the lack of inward sincerity, the gap between understanding and practicing virtue, the limits of self-reflection and moral education, the loneliness of those who uphold moral ideals, and the absurdity of fate. Rather than treating these laments as merely biographical or rhetorical elements, we argue that they illuminate both the promise and the limits of virtue ethics. The Analects cannot simply be equated with contemporary virtue ethics, but Confucius’ laments remain relevant to ethics education because they show that virtue cannot be taught merely as knowledge or external conduct. The concerns about moral issues and virtue ethics found in Confucius’ society are yet to be resolved in the present society. Contemporary virtue education must therefore attend to inner motivation, the limits of educational effects, the social conditions that hinder virtue, and the possibility that a virtuous life may not lead to recognition, success, or happiness.
Key words
Confucius, Analects, Virtue Ethics, Laments, Virtue education
