Ren
Governance is consistently tied to law and policy, with the assumption that regulation and legal control are the only way to practice governance. This view of governance relies on institutional sanction, which is oftentimes crafted as an instrument of power by people in positions of power. As a result, governance is less about human relations and more about oversight and control over movement, resources, actions, and other related attributes.
However, Confucian thought offers an insightful idea through Ren. In Confucian thought, governance is not merely the management of resources and enforcement of rules. Rather, it is an ethical relationship between those who govern and those who are governed, where the governor's humaneness is the foundation of legitimacy. A governor that does not practice Ren has no genuine claim to authority, regardless of formal power. Ren offers the framework for humaneness.
Before proceeding, we want to name the fact that Ren is the central virtue of Confucian ethics and has been interpreted and debated across Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese philosophical traditions for over 2,000 years now. We are drawing from a rich and contested tradition as outsiders and recognize that any single interpretation will be partial at best. Thus, what follows in this essay is an attempt to surface what Ren might offer to the world of AI governance, while also making it a point to acknowledge that the tradition it comes from deserves far deeper engagement than we can provide here. We invite correction and expansive reflection.
Understanding Ren
Ren (仁) is the foundational virtue in Confucian ethics that is most commonly translated as benevolence, humaneness, or loving-kindness. However, its implications are more relational than sentimental in that Ren is not as much a feeling one has toward others, as it is a quality of relationship that is cultivated through practice, attention, and the ongoing work of seeing others clearly for who they are and practicing an ethic of care in responding to them.
Confucius considered Ren inseparable from li, which refers to ritual propriety, or the forms and practices through which relationships are maintained with care. Ren asks us to practice care rather than will oneself to be benevolent. This calls for practicing gestures, forms, and habits of attention that come together to constitute a genuinely humane way of being with others. From this point of view, ethics are not a mere set of rules that are applied to particular situations, but a capacity that is developed, built, and nurtured through sustained practice. This also means, then, that neglect can cause the practice of ethics to be lost.
What Ren unsettles in AI governance
Current approaches to AI governance, much like it is in the case of any other form of governance, tend to be framed in terms of rules, principles, and compliance mechanisms. Together, these mechanisms dictate what systems must not do, what disclosures must be made, what audits must be passed, and what the consequences of non-compliance entail. However, Ren interrogates the very sufficiency of this framing. It reminds us that rules can be followed without care, that disclosures can be made without honesty, and that audits can be passed without integrity. Ren tells us that rules cannot produce the quality of attention and genuine regard for others that makes governance actually protective rather than merely procedural.
Thus, Ren is an invitation to see that rules alone are not enough. True governance requires the cultivation of genuine humaneness in the people and institutions that build, design, deploy, and use AI systems. Every AI company impacts communities through the systems they create. Practicing Ren toward them is about not stopping with compliance but moving beyond checking the legal tick-box to actually see the communities they affect, to attend to them, and to respond to their needs with care.
Ren also reminds us that the legitimacy of the full gamut of AI governance institutions, such as regulatory bodies, standards organisations, multistakeholder forums, and international authorities, rests on their genuine orientation toward the wellbeing of those they govern, rather than on their formal authority. Governance that protects the most powerful while performing concern for the least powerful is a failure of Ren, and thus a failure of legitimate authority.
Ren invites a deep exploration on whether an approach to AI governance is truly built on the genuine humaneness that sees and responds to those most affected, or on the performative demonstration of such concern. It tells us that more aligned practices, habits, and institutional forms need to exist for genuine humaneness to be cultivated rather than merely claimed.
References
Ames, R. T., & Rosemont Jr, H. (2010). The analects of Confucius: A philosophical translation. Ballantine books.
Lau, D. C. (1996). Confucius: the analects.
Tu, W. M., & Tu, W. (1998). Humanity and self-cultivation: Essays in Confucian thought. Cheng & Tsui.
Wang, B. P. (2026). Confucian Ren Ethics Revisited.
Wang, H. (2012). Ren and Gantong: Openness of heart and the root of Confucianism. Philosophy East and West, 62(4), 463-504.
Zhang, Q. (2016). Humanity or benevolence? The interpretation of Confucian Ren and its modern implications. In Human dignity in classical Chinese philosophy: Confucianism, Mohism, and Daoism (pp. 45-99). New York: Palgrave Macmillan US.
