Daoism and Confucianism present contrasting, though not incompatible, understandings of human flourishing or well-being. Whereas Daoism seeks harmony between the individual (or human) way and the natural order and tends to dismiss human society as artificial and constrained, Confucianism emphasizes the achievement of a kind of moral excellence (ren, or “humaneness”) that is cultivated and manifested by conscientious behaviour within social institutions such as the family, the school, the community, and the state.
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