ABSTRACT
Great Learning appears as a chapter in a collection called Ritual Records, which contains texts of diverse date. The Way of great learning lies in making brilliant ones brilliant virtue, in being intimate with the people, and in coming to rest in supreme goodness. Great Learning not only affirms that the ultimate end of the Confucian moral project, namely good government in all quarters of the world, can be achieved in this manner, but also implies that it cannot be achieved by any other process. To Confucian minds, filial piety went together with the step-by-step approach to moral self-cultivation that we have seen in the Great Learning. The beginning of filial piety is serving ones parents; the middle is serving ones ruler; the end is establishing oneself. The Canon of Filial Piety affirms that filial piety is to be regarded as the cornerstone of moral training and virtuous government.
