For Confucius, one’s private loyalties to household, pals, co-workers and superiors are extra essential than the principles of some summary moral concept. This has been known as the “particularism” of Confucian ethics. Based on Confucius, we can not choose an motion in isolation, however we’ve to think about the actual circumstances surrounding it and the relationships between the agent and the opposite stakeholders.
Within the West, we’ve at all times been advised that it’s good to obey the identical legal guidelines that everybody else obeys, that our obligation is to deal with everybody the identical, that we must be loyal solely to the state, the federal government, the legal guidelines, the impersonal ethics of our societies. Confucius, the nice Chinese language thinker, disagrees.
For Confucius, one’s private loyalties to household, pals, co-workers and superiors are extra essential than the principles of some summary moral concept. This has been known as the “particularism” of Confucian ethics. Based on Confucius, we can not choose an motion in isolation, however we’ve to think about the actual circumstances surrounding it and the relationships between the agent and the opposite stakeholders.
In case your father stole one thing — what would you do?
Would you cowl up for him, assist him conceal from the police? Or would you are feeling that it’s your obligation to report him, to make him confess his crime and to make him take the accountability for the results of his actions?
Confucius on the upright particular person
Most of us would in all probability consider the second because the morally “proper” behaviour. Even when, in the long run, we did assist our father cowl up the crime, we’d really feel dangerous about it, as if we’d executed one thing unsuitable. However not everybody would agree. Confucius, the traditional Chinese language trainer of ethics, legislation and life (551–479 BC), as soon as had this dialog:
The Governor of She in dialog with Confucius mentioned, “In our village, there may be somebody known as [Upright] Individual. When his father stole a sheep, he reported him to the authorities.” Confucius replied: “Those that are [upright] in my village conduct themselves in a different way. A father covers for his son, and a son covers for his father. Uprightness consists of this.” (Analects 13.18)
Photograph by Yu Kato on Unsplash
That’s shocking! Why wouldn’t it be morally proper for the son to cowl up the daddy’s crime? Based on Confucius, this motion wouldn’t solely be tolerable. It might, as a substitute, be a purpose to name the son an upright particular person, a virtuous man, and the son must be happy with himself for having behaved on this method. Why would this be?
Are all of us egoists?
There appear to be two components at play right here. One is our Western, deeply rooted conviction that we’re all particular person actors, little items, every performing solely in a single’s personal curiosity. On this world view, society is essentially unstable. If everyone seems to be simply pursuing their very own curiosity, then the state should implement its legal guidelines, as a result of these are the one option to hold society collectively. That has at all times been the essential concept of Western economics, starting with Hobbes and his “State of Nature,” which primarily describes simply this setup. The people surrender their freedom, says Hobbes (and, primarily, Locke and Rousseau would agree), in order that they’ll dwell in security inside an organised human society.
The foundations of society, not less than for Hobbes, trump particular person freedom each time.
Even language betrays itself: “particular person” comes from in-divisible, a factor that can’t be divided additional. Every thing else can. Households could be divided, pals could be divided. The one actual unit of human behaviour is the person, the one, remoted particular person.
Photograph by Dan Ma on Unsplash
A rustic of households?
That is totally different on this planet in accordance with Confucius. Right here the person just isn’t the only particular person, however the household unit. It’s the household that acts, the household that decides, the household that shares each the advantages and the hurt of the collective selections its members take. Collective punishment, the place the relations are punished for the actions of a person, appears unusual to us. However in a Confucian world, there was nothing strange or immoral about it.
If the state wasn’t there, the idealised Chinese language society wouldn’t collapse right into a bunch of warring people; it could neatly rearrange itself into ever-widening circles of household relations and friendships.
After which, Confucius’ stance appears to be primarily based on a distrust of state energy. Ought to we give all our energy to the federal government? he appears to ask. Maybe not. Maybe we must always defend our personal little circle of affect, our family and its grounds, from any exterior interference. Maybe we must always belief that we know best what’s right for ourselves and for these we share our lives with.
We dwell in a world the place the authority of governments is falling aside, usually being nothing extra now than a distant reminiscence, the fairy story of a legendary time through which residents trusted their representatives to do what was good for all. Right now we see, in East and West, governments which can be united solely of their incapacity to encourage belief, to be taken critically, and to raise themselves out of dishonesty, manipulation of the reality, and corruption. On the similar time, governments and firms alike declare the appropriate to strip residents of their privateness, to remove their future by promoting out the atmosphere for revenue, to trample on folks’s human rights for their very own monetary acquire.
Photograph by Leon Bublitz on Unsplash
In a world like that, maybe Confucius’ concept isn’t so unusual any extra. Confronted with a father who’s compelled to steal a sheep to feed his household; with a baby that’s compelled to struggle for its freedom in opposition to teargas and tanks; with residents who’ve to face up in opposition to multinational cartels to avoid wasting the pure atmosphere from complete destruction, it sounds believable to query our belief in governments and in society’s organised ethics as soon as once more.
We’d wish to rethink the place our loyalties and our priorities ought to lie.
We’d then come to the conclusion that it might, in spite of everything, be morally proper to belief our personal instincts, to remain loyal to these we all know, to guard and to help those that are near us and whom we love.
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