 In this way, personal qualities of modesty, filial piety or respect for the elders were seen as proof of fitness to serve in an official capacity. Qualification to rule was demonstrated by proper behavior in the social roles defined by the “five relationships” (wulun 五倫), a formulation seen in the writings of Mencius that became a key feature of the interpretation of works associated with Confucius in the Han dynasty. The Western Han emperors were members of the Liu clan, and works like the Guliang Commentary (Guliang zhuan 穀梁傳) to the Spring and Autumn Annals emphasized normative family behavior grounded in the five relationships, which were (here, adapted to include mothers and sisters): ruler and subject, parent and child, husband and wife, siblings, and friends. Writing with particular reference to the Classic of Filial Piety, Henry Rosemont and Roger Ames argue that prescribed social roles are a defining characteristic of the “Confucian tradition”, and that such roles were normative guides to appropriate conduct. They contrast this with the “virtue ethics” approach they say requires rational calculation to determine moral conduct, while filial piety is simply a matter of meeting one’s family obligations. Just as the five virtues were placed at the center of later theories of moral development, once social roles became systematized in this way, selected situational teachings of Confucius consistent with them could become the basis of more abstract, systematic moral theories. Yet this could not have happened without the adaptation of the abstract classical political theory of “Heaven’s mandate”, a doctrine that originally supported the ruling clan, to argue that Heaven’s influence was expressed through particular concrete expressions of individual virtue. As a result of this adaptation in writings associated with Confucius, the ruler’s conduct of imperial rituals, performance of filial piety, or other demonstrations of personal virtue provided proof of moral fitness that legitimated his political authority. As with the rituals and the virtues, filial piety and the mandate of Heaven were transformed as they were integrated with the classics through the voices of Confucius and the rulers and disciples of his era.