 The parallels to ancient Greek virtue ethics, medieval virtue ethics, and also to contemporary virtue ethics in the West are striking, and help to account for the renewal of Western interest in Confucianism. For example, Jiyuan Yu (2007) argues that the concept of eudaimonia (happiness, living well, flourishing) in Aristotle and the concept of dao (the way for human beings to live) in Confucius are parallel starting points in their ethics, and that the next step in both their ethics is to discuss virtue (arete for Aristotle and de for Confucius). In general, Chinese and Western virtue ethics converge in focusing on certain virtues as crucial for ethical development of the person. There are particularly interesting discussions of courage and the possible role of fear in Mencius and Aristotle (see Van Norden, 1997, 2007; Jiang, 2008). Particularist modes of reasoning in Confucianism parallel the Aristotelian notion of a phronesis or practical wisdom that depends significantly on knowledge of particulars acquired through experience. A good example is his doctrine of the mean, which holds that virtuous action and feeling consists of avoiding the extremes of deficit and excess. The doctrine does not imply that we ought always to act moderately and with moderate feeling. Aristotle says that the mean is “relative to us,” giving the illustrative analogy that too little food for Milo is too much for the beginner in athletic exercises (Nichomachean Ethics, 2.6). Depending on the situation, the appropriate action and feeling may be extreme on a common sense understanding but appropriate given the agent and the circumstances. Part of the contemporary revival of virtue ethics is premised partly on a reaction against the ambition of modern ethical theory to guide primarily through general principles of action rather than through the specification of ideal character traits. Virtue ethics also tend to embody the theme that the ethical life of right (and in the case of Chinese and contemporary Western virtue ethics) caring relationship to others is necessary for human flourishing. In the Mencius this theme emerges in identification of the distinctively human potentials with the incipient tendencies to develop the moral virtues (Mencius 2A6, 6A1, 6A3, 6A7). Aristotle held that reason makes us distinctively human and that our reason and social nature compel recognition of the desirability of the ethical life for human beings (see Nivison, 1996 for comparisons of Aristotle and Mencius; and Yearley, 1990 for comparisons of Aquinas and Mencius). Xunzi is equally emphatic about the necessity of right and caring relationship to others for human flourishing, even though he denies (at least when he is criticizing Mencius) that human nature contains tendencies to engage in such relationships (see Ivanhoe, 1991, on the way ethical norms help human beings to flourish; and Nivison, 1996a, 1996b, Van Norden, 1992, 2007, Wong, 1996b, and Kline, 2000, on the difference between Mencius and Xunzi’s theories of human nature; see Goldin, 1999, for a book-length treatment of Xunzi’s philosophy; and Wong 2015a).