This article is to argue that virtue is experienced and understood in Confucian ethics as power to act and as performance of a moral action, and that virtue (de 德) as such has to be onto-cosmologically explicated, not just teleologically explained. In other words, it is intended to construct an integrative theory of virtues based on both dao (the Way 道) and de. To do so, we will examine the two features of de, as the power that is derived from self-reflection and self-restraining, and as the motivated action for attaining its practical end in a community. Only by a self-integrated moral consciousness can one’s experience, action and ideal remain in consistency and coherence, which leads us to the Aristotelian notion of virtue as excellence (aretê) and enables us to see how virtue as aretê could be introduced as a second feature of de, namely as the power for effective action in the whole system of virtues, apart from the first feature of de as self-restraining power. We will conclude that reason and virtue are practically united and remain inseparable, and that taking into account the onto-cosmological foundation of virtues, reason and virtue are inevitably the moving and advancing forces for the formation and transformation of human morality just as they are motivating and prompting incentives for individual moral action.

本文旨在论证德在儒家伦理中被体验和理解为行为​​的力量和道德行为的表现，而德（德 德) 因此必须在本体论上进行解释，而不仅仅是在目的论上进行解释。换言之，它意在构建一种以“道” （道）为基础的综合美德理论。 道) 和德。为此，我们将考察de的两个特征，即源自自我反思和自我约束的力量，以及作为在社区中实现其实际目标的动机行为。只有通过自我整合的道德意识，一个人的经验、行动和理想才能保持一致性和连贯性，这将我们引向亚里士多德的美德概念（aretê），并使我们看到作为aretê的美德如何作为第二个引入德的特征，即作为整个美德体系中有效行动的力量，除了德的第一个特征作为自我约束的力量。我们将得出结论，理性与美德在实践中是统一的、不可分割的，考虑到美德的本体宇宙学基础，理性和美德必然是人类道德形成和转变的推动力和推进力，正如它们所推动的那样。并激发个人道德行为的动机。