Abstract
What is Confucian ritual propriety, 禮 (li)? Why is it so important that throughout history Confucian thinkers regard it as one of the five cardinal moral/virtuous principles toward self-cultivation? Is ritual propriety still relevant to present-day people’s lives across the so-called Confucian-heritage cultures? Surprisingly, little psychological research on ritual propriety exists despite increasing scholarship on it from humanities and other social sciences. An important part of East Asian lives is amiss if their ritual way of life is not understood. To take an initial step, I start with the central meaning, importance, and practice of Confucian ritual propriety. Next, I draw on the two senses of li: (1) A set of standards for behavior (passed down traditionally), translated as rites and (2) personal learning and tendency to practice li, translated as ritual propriety, as a personal virtue. However, the former provides the cultural background, but the latter is my focus for this chapter. Ritual propriety involves cognition, emotion, motivation, and behavior among other processes; therefore, it is surely a psychological domain. I present a conceptual delineation of what Confucian ritual propriety is, what functions it serves in East Asian lives, how it is usually practiced, and what the underlying principles are. I conclude the chapter by discussing the need to conduct general psychological research on ritual propriety.
To appear in M. A. Peters (Eds), Moral Education and the ethics of self-cultivation. New York: Springer.
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Acknowledgments
I am grateful to David Wong for suggesting a paper by Jonathan Haidt and for possible empirical research on how ritual propriety in daily life may help children develop their stronger moral character.
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Li, J. (2021). A Life Worth Pursuing: Confucian Ritual Propriety (禮) in Self-cultivation. In: Peters, M.A., Besley, T., Zhang, H. (eds) Moral Education and the Ethics of Self-Cultivation. East-West Dialogues in Educational Philosophy and Theory. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-8027-3_7
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