Abstract
Through the lens of post-comparative transcultural studies, this chapter addresses certain concepts common to both types of humanistic ethics, i.e., Western and Chinese. In this sense, the ideas of the categorical imperative, free will, and the problems of good and evil are analyzed contrastively. The author emphasizes the Confucian quest for the sustainable preservation of humanity and then proceeds to a careful analysis and interpretation of the elementary foundations of Confucian role ethics and the ethical system of so-called Confucian relationism. On this basis, the chapter grapples with the question of virtue ethics and deontology and explains why Confucian (or traditional Chinese) ethics cannot be fully classified into either category, even though it contains certain elements of both.
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Notes
- 1.
In this context, Lee developed and built on Mou Zongsan’s view of the importance of basing democracy on a system of moral principles (Elstein, 2015, 98).
- 2.
This term has often been translated with the phrases “emotional substance” and “emotion as substance,” respectively. In my view, however, such translations do not cover all connotations of the term qing 情and can thus be misleading for readers who are not familiar with Chinese philosophy. Therefore, I prefer to use the phrase sensually-situationally substance. Even though the cognitive concepts of pragmatic reason (shiyong lixing 使用理性) and the sensory-rational structures qingli jiegou 情理結構) are also crucial for understanding Li’s evolutionary-anthropological philosophy, they cannot be treated in detail due to space constraints within the scope of the present book. For a more detailed discussion of these fundamental concepts, see Rošker (2021a).
- 3.
It is therefore not surprising that Li’s philosophical system of anthropo-historical ontology has prompted many Chinese theorists to critically reflect on original versions of Marxist epistemology and their theory of perception.
- 4.
Confucianism has been clearly defined by agnosticism (see Rošker, 2019b, 160). In the Confucian Analects, we encounter numerous chapters in which the existence of deities is critically questioned, even if nowhere explicitly denied. It is clearly stated that Confucius nowhere speaks of “supernatural powers and irrational deities” (子不语怪力乱神) (Lunyu, n.d., Shu’er: 490). Equally widely known is the quotation that “we are not even capable of serving people, let alone spirits” (未能事人, 焉能事鬼) (p.t., Xian Jin: 569), and the one which says that “we do not even understand life, so how can we know anything about death” (未知生, 焉知死) (p.t.). Therefore, it is most reasonable to keep a respectful distance from ghosts” (敬鬼神而遠之, 可謂知矣) (ibid., Yong Ye: 459).
- 5.
The condensation or solidification of the mind is an important idea in Li Zehou’s theory, and especially in his ethical thought. Unfortunately, it cannot be dealt with in detail in the context of this book. All we can say about it here is that it is part of the process of the aforementioned sedimentation of human experience and represents one of the key forms of human mental structure that is transmitted from one generation to the next. Even if the concrete content of these forms varies according to specific societies, time periods, cultures, or classes, the substance of human ethics is developed and accumulated precisely through these kinds of formal principles (Li, 2015, 20).
- 6.
Kai Marchal and Christian H. Wenzel (2016, 374) point out that superficial views of this phenomenon (which, as we will see later, only appear at first glance, i.e., only if we look at Chinese philosophy through the lens of Western categories and concepts) have led many Western sinologists to take the view that the people of traditional China are not at all interested in the problem of human freedom and free will (see, e.g., Jullien, 2004 and Hansen, 1992).
- 7.
七十而從心所欲, 不踰矩.
- 8.
The line between dynamic ideas and relatively fixed mental forms is also often blurred. Some ideas that prevail in certain societies over long periods of time, such as the Confucian concepts of loyalty (zhong 忠) or trust (xin 信), can also be sedimented in the form of mental formations that can transcend specific societies and different historical situations (Li, 2018, 11).
- 9.
Li’s translation seems all the more inappropriate given the modern connotations of the German word Willkür, which refer to modes of (autocratic) individual or political behavior, i.e., the latter to personal interests and desires without regard for other people.
- 10.
These four sprouts (si duan 四端) are the four innate germs of goodness with which every human being comes into the world, and they are based on the four kinds of emotions that establish a person as a human being (see Mengzi et al., Gongsun Chou I: 6). These sprouts, however, can become stunted if they are not nurtured through cultivation and education.
- 11.
These are the areas of immanence and transcendence as developed in Western philosophy.
- 12.
For sinologists and scholars of Chinese philosophy: for a detailed explanation of why this thesis does not contradict Xunzi’s assumptions, see Rošker (2021a).
- 13.
In this respect, Li is highly critical of Neo-Confucian and Modern New Confucian efforts to establish a theory of immanent transcendence (see Rošker, 2019a, 130ff).
- 14.
In Confucian discourses of humanness, free will is to be nurtured. Therefore, this fourth element, which includes free will, is defined as the ideal individual personality (geti renge, see Li, 1980, 77). The three other elements that are part of humanity are the basis of blood kinship (xueyuan jichu 血緣基礎), psychic principles (xinli yuanze 心理原则), and humanism (rendaozhuyi 人道主义, cf. p.t., 82).
- 15.
The presentation of Confucian relational ethics in much of the remainder of this chapter is taken from a slightly reworked Chap. 2.7 of my book Crisis as Danger and Hope: The Ethics of Pandemics, the Rise of Autocracies, and the Dream of Autonomy in Transcultural Perspective (see Rošker, 2021b).
- 16.
In the Confucian Analects, we often come across statements that unequivocally uphold the principle of such diversity, e.g., cultured people advocate mutual harmony and are against unification, while uneducated savages know only unity and have no idea of interpersonal harmony (君子和而不同, 小人同而不和, Lunyu, n.d. Zi Lu, 23).
- 17.
父子有亲, 君臣有义, 夫妇有别, 长幼有序, 朋友有信.
- 18.
In this context, too, we can observe one of the most fundamental differences between Confucianism and Christianity, which defines the fundamental ideologies of Euro-American thought and culture, because before the Christian God all people share the same love. For an excellent comparative analysis of these differences and their ethical implications, see Huang (2002, 204–229).
- 19.
Even if such a term is a bit too general, I prefer to call this kind of ethical system “relational ethics,” because the word “role” in the sense of a behavioral model—at least in the Western world—implies that one is “playing” a character, whereas this kind of relational network structure is about the ways of behaving and relating that one “lives” and which are therefore inevitably intimately linked to one’s identity as an individual or as a person.
- 20.
Of course, this traditional Chinese concept of social harmony should not be confused with the misused notion of harmony manifested in the ideologies of the contemporary leadership of the People’s Republic of China. For a more detailed description of this issue, see Rošker (2019b).
- 21.
It is worth pointing out here that the three types of ethics considered as the basic categorizations of the discipline, i.e., virtue ethics, deontological ethics, and utilitarian ethics, are all categories that have been established in the context of Western philosophy. Since the transfer of concepts and categories from one historical-cultural area to another is a problematic process that involves different culturally contingent frames of reference, we must bear in mind that none of these three categorizations is entirely adequate for defining or describing the fundamental nature of Confucian ethics, which at the same time certainly falls within the domain of deontological ethics (cf. Lee, 2018, 94).
- 22.
In this context, the concepts of “outside” and “inside” refer to the positions of persons who are “outside” and “inside,” respectively, the particular social group to which the subject who is related to these fellow human beings belongs.
- 23.
天下之本在国, 国之本在家, 家之本在身.
- 24.
Discursive ethics is a theory whose central criterion is discourse (see Habermas, 1981). This means that the correctness or reasonableness of the ethical assumptions (prescriptive claims) within it is tested by means of discourse, which is formed on the basis of rational arguments. Discursive ethics contains a cognitivist meta-ethics, because the community of all who participate in the discourse can (ideally) determine what is right. Discursive ethics differs from individualistic ethics in that its results are derived from a process of intersubjective interactions. It is therefore also suited to solving problems that go beyond the realm of the individual, such as those arising in politics or the global economy.
- 25.
For an excellent, in-depth, and well-founded analysis of these differences, see Hans-Georg and D’Ambrosio (2017).
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Rošker, J.S. (2023). Humanist Ethics. In: Humanism in Trans-civilizational Perspectives. Emerging Globalities and Civilizational Perspectives. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37518-7_5
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