• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.217-237
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• 2013

It seems that it is hard to find the idea of social welfare from Confucianism if we consider it as feudalism. However, there is plentiful source of philosophical anthropology and social philosophy in Confucianism. It is the matter of how we understand Confucianism. This paper tries to look over the misunderstandings of Confucianism, and find out its essence from the view of philosophical anthropology and social philosophy. We could elicit the philosophy of social welfare from the series of work. Confucianism contains the idea of communalism on a view of human being. It means that he is born to be communal, not individual. Therefore it regards individualism as a vice. This let us conjecture the fact that Confucianism has different philosophy of welfare from the western culture which is based on the individualism. It will make us reflect upon the problems caused by individualism nowadays. Confucianism concentrates on the spiritual welfare no less than material welfare. If we state the word "welfare" differently into "happiness", Confucianism regards that the real happiness comes from the spirit, not matter. The spirit aims to realize moral value such as love, righteousness, and courtesy. Therefore Confucianism's philosophy of welfare ideally aimed the society that morally harmonized among people. The ideal of family-minded society was what it tried to realize.