Noble by Character, Not by Birth

The junzi is the person Confucianism holds up as the model of a life well lived. The word had meant a man of noble birth, literally a "son of a lord", and Confucius quietly revolutionized it, turning a label of pedigree into a measure of character. For him the junzi, the exemplary or noble person, is noble because of what he has made of himself, not because of who his father was. Such a person embodies the Confucian virtues: ren, humaneness or fellow-feeling; yi, a sense of what is right; li, the propriety that shapes conduct and ritual. He acts from principle rather than for gain, which is his standing contrast with the xiaoren, the "small person" who is moved by profit.

Inwardly upright, he is calm and free of anxiety, and he cultivates himself not for its own sake but so that order may radiate outward to his family, his state and the world. The quiet radicalism of the idea is that it detaches nobility from blood: the path of the junzi is, in principle, open to anyone willing to walk it through learning and self-cultivation.