Facing Death: The Death Care Role of Classical Confucian Ethics for Living

As demographic shifts toward aging populations intensify globally, death-related care emerges as a critical frontier in contemporary healthcare systems. This paper examines the potential for combining classical Confucian ethics for living with modern death care practices, thereby establishing a paradigm of palliative care based on Confucian ethics. Through synthesizing classical Confucian ethics for living with palliative care, this paper establishes four foundational pillars: First, applying Confucian life philosophy to alleviate anxiety surrounding death. Second, transforming Confucian death rituals into a structured palliative care plan. Third, establishing Confucian humaneness as the ethical core of palliative caregivers. Fourth, eliminating the obstacles posed by traditional filial piety to palliative care at the theoretical and practical levels. The findings affirm both the practical viability and cultural imperative of embedding classical Confucian ethics for living into death care systems, offering novel contributions to cross-cultural dialogs on Confucian ethics and palliative care.