儒家仁爱思想可分成仁爱之心、自爱、爱亲人、泛爱众、仁者与天地万物一体五个层次,以爱有差等原则由内向外、由近及远层层扩展。仁爱是一种人道思想,仁是人之为人的本质特征。比较儒家仁爱与道家的慈爱、墨家的兼爱、佛教的慈悲、基督教的博爱、伊斯兰教的行善惩恶,可以看出世界不同文化都强调"爱",但对"爱"却有不同的阐释,形成了各自的特色。儒家仁爱思想可以成为普世价值观,在当今世界越来越显现出它的独特智慧。

Benevolent love of Confucianism can be classified into five levels: benevolent mind,self-love,loving kinsfolk,universally loving others and integration of benevolence and everything in the universe,expanding from the inner to the outer,from the near to the far in compliance with the principle of hierarchy of love. Benevolent love is a humanist concept and benevolence is the essential nature of human beings' conduct. Comparing with the benevolent love of Confucianism,kindness of Taoism,universal love of Mohism,charity of Buddhism,indiscriminative love of Christian and the doctrine of doing good and punishing the wicked of Islam,it can be seen that all the different cultures stress "love",but different culture has different interpretation of " love",which respectively forms its own characteristics. Benevolent love of Confucianism can develops into universal values and it will more and more clearly show its unique wisdom in the present world.