Abstract

Different from the commonly used moralistic perspective, this article articulates and evaluates major ideas about human desire within the Confucian tradition through a gongfu perspective, and shows that, although there are historical reasons for blaming Confucianism for suppressing human desires and suffocating humanity, what classic Confucianism advocates is ultimately about how to cultivate humanity, transform human desires, and live artistically, and not imposing a rigid normative moral system externally to constrain human life, making it unsatisfying.