Confucius in Traditional Western Culture,

Confucius

In traditional Western culture, especially in its Puritan and Kantian form, duty was usually contrasted with pleasure-- the highest moral ideal was to be able to do one's duty despite deriving no sense of pleasure from this. For Confucians, the highest ideal was to so integrate moral goodness into one's personality that one would find pleasure in being good."

People in the Western world often judge an action not on its actual merit or on its results, but rather, on how much suffering the person was willing to undergo. This is true somewhat in other cultures, such as Confucian societies, but as the author shows, Western notions of duty, pleasure, and goodness conflict with Confucian notions of duty, pleasure, and goodness in that "the Confucian ideal is the thorough integration of goodness into one's personality, so that one would spontaneously want to do what is right, without a sense of having to force oneself to do it by will power.

In many non-Confucian, especially Christian cultures, people feel obliged to do good deeds. For example, people need to be motivated by guilt in order to help someone in need, or motivated by the law. According to Confucianism, on the other hand, the desire to help others in need can and should arise naturally. The desire to help others therefore becomes a pleasurable activity, not a chore.