ABSTRACT
One of the most important contributions made by modern New Confucians, including Mou Zongsan, to describing the moralistic character of Confucianism, consists in claiming a close connection between the origin of Confucianism and the concern-consciousness of the Zhou people, thus relating this consciousness to a kind of moral conscience. After establishing concern-consciousness as the main point in his interpretation of moralism, Xu Fuguan claimed that a fundamental concept in the Zhou people’s spiritual world, that is, the concept of jing, derived from the concern-consciousness. From Xu Fuguan’s perspective, the feature of concern-consciousness highlights the moral obligation of the people involved. Looking for an “illustrious moral origin” for Confucian thought, the moralistic Confucians not only explained the concern-consciousness as the seed of moral conscience, but also explained the respect for virtue, or the Zhou concept as a moral breakthrough.
