Definition of Ethics-Orientedness

Chinese people's lack of group-centered life results in their reliance on families and clans. Apart from this, little else apart from what has been said above by Fung Yu-lan and Lu Zuofu needs to be added. The lack of group-centered life and the reliance on family life are two sides of the same coin, which has been made crystal clear by the illustrations of the differences between China and the West.

Every human being, either as a husband or as a wife, or as a father or as a son, has a family. But how can we claim families are important to the Chinese people in particular? Surely, families do not belong exclusively to the Chinese people. But their lack of group-centered life and the tenuous relationship between the group and the individual naturally combine to underscore family relationships. Moreover, they are obliged to give priority to family relationships and keep family members closely interrelated. It is not that Westerners do not have families, but that they set too much store by group-centered life at the expense of family relationships. If one aspect becomes lax, the other aspect will be consolidated. If one aspect is highlighted, the other aspect will be subsumed. Thus these two aspects are two sides of the same coin. In a group in which relations are strained, the group directly controls and interferes with individuals. When individuals gain self-awareness, they fight for their freedom and for their status in the group. The group and the individual are interdependent, just like the left and the right. Only when there is a left can there be a right, and vice versa. In the West, since group-centered life is highlighted, individual's personality derives from this contrast. In China, however, as there is a lack of group-centered life, there is nowhere for individuality to be displayed. In the West, then, the two entities are simply the group and the individual, with the family being regarded as something insubstantial. The Chinese people, on the other hand, put the family relationship front and center by dissolving the two extremes (to which they do not seem to relate) – that is, the individual and the group respectively, by organizing the society according to ethical relations.