Tao te Ching: 18

When the great Tao is declined,
The doctrines of humanity (jen) and righteousness (yi) arose,
When knowledge and wisdom appeared,
There emerged great hypocrisy.
When the six family relationships are not in harmony,
There will be the advocacy of filial piety and deep love to children.
When a country is in disorder,
There will be praise of loyal ministers.

Chapter 18 attacks Confucianism directly. It isn't a contradiction of a point here and there to differentiate itself, but it is a direct subversion of Confucianism. I'll go into Confucianism briefly so you can see how this is so, but I'll have to explore it more fully at another time.

There are six things that form the basis of Confucius' philosophy. They are jen, li, yi, hsiao, chih, chun-tzu, and te.

We know that jen means human heartedness, humane, good natured, benevolent and so forth. Confucius says all other virtues extend from it. The Tao does not regard anything with jen but instead remains impartial, thus it is a rebuke because Lao Tzu says that it is only when one gives up the Tao that this must come into being.

The same is true for yi, which is a since of righteousness. It is the moral disposition to be good. It is an instinctive drive to do the right thing, according to Confucianism. "The Right Thing" changes from culture to culture, so accepting yi is actually accepting the impersonal ego of a society, or appropriating the virtues of the culture.

Chih was added by Mencius because he believed that basic human nature was good, and it means moral wisdom. Where yi is instinctive and reactionary and applies an impulse, chih is drawn from the knowledge of good and evil. There is a difference, but that is another long post for when I get to Confucianism, but that is the knowledge and wisdom that Lao Tzu is mentioning here.

So without the Tao, Lao Tzu says that we must try to be humane to others and have a sense of righteousness. Now that we know good from evil and struggle to stay in the good, we have the ability to stray from that path and fall into the wrong despite our yi.

Hsiao means filial piety or reverence. Confucius found that honoring your parents and ancestors were key to his philosophy. They were to be honored and respected because they gave up much for you and you should in turn do much to make your family name well known and respected. This extends not just from physical needs but also spiritual and emotional richness as well. When the parents die, you take up their dreams and continue them for three years. Lao Tzu says that when the six types of family relationships are not in harmony, it becomes a virtue to have them in harmony. The six types of relationships is also a Confucian construct and they are as follows, in pairs: parent to child, elder sibling to younger sibling, and husband to wife.

Finally, Lao Tzu says that when the country is in disorder, we make a virtue out of the ruling power te. These are patterns of prestige and power that are used to rule over a country.

Chun-tzu is the ultimate man, the ideal man. The Taoists might call him the sage except that he doesn't fit the same virtues. To the Confucians, chun-tzu had 5 virtues that all stemmed from the unlimited flow of jen within  him: kindness, rectitude, decorum, wisdom, and sincerity. He was without fear and beyond personal ambition, living at the disposal of others. He doesn't sound too different from the sage, but he was partial all the same and he embraced jen and not wu-wei.

Chapter 18 rebukes Confucianism in every way. If one does not act in accordance with the great Tao, if one is partial and strives and plans, then one must invent an entire system of behavior just to bring things into an operable state. Ruling without wu-wei, having a country without hsü, requires that new virtues be created to accomplish many of the same tasks. Ultimately, rejection of the Tao requires much more work to achieve something that allows a state to operate on a similar level as the Tao. This, of course, violates wu-wei.