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Notes
The worries Martin canvasses are frequently also raised in more philosophical work as reasons to doubt the moral significance of etiquette. See, e.g., Sarah Buss, “Appearing Respectful: The Moral Significance of Manners”, Ethics 109.4 (1999): 795–826; Nancy Sherman, “The Look and Feel of Virtue”, in Christopher Gill, ed., Virtue, Norms, and Objectivity: Issues in Ancient and Modern Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); and Karen Stohr, On Manners (New York: Routledge, 2011), especially Chapter 1.
Sherman, p. 64.
Buss, p. 800.
Buss, p. 800.
To be clear, I do not here provide an exhaustive account of Xunzi’s extensive arguments regarding li. For a helpful overview of these arguments and their place in Xunzi’s wider views, see, e.g., Paul Goldin, Rituals of the Way: The Philosophy of Xunzi (LaSalle, IL: Open Court, 1999).
John Knoblock, trans., Xunzi: A Translation and Study of the Complete Works, Vol. III (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994), p. 23.1a.
Like many early Chinese texts, the Zhuangzi is a compilation of writings of mixed origin, but I here leave aside debates regarding its authorship. Whatever their origins, the passages I address capture a strain of etiquette skepticism that was indubitably in play in early China and I thus reference Zhuangzi himself as the narrative persona with whom these views were historically associated.
A. C. Graham, trans., Chuang Tzu: The Inner Chapters (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1981), p. 89.
E.g., elsewhere Zhuangzi describes four sagely friends who greet physical decay and mortal illness by lightly marveling at how the body changes and cheerfully speculating about whether the transformation of death will render one of them “a rat’s liver” or “a fly’s leg” (Graham, pp. 87–88).
In addition to the passage I discuss here, another has Zhuangzi using a skull as a pillow and, in a dream, conversing with the skull about which of them is better off. See Graham, pp. 124–125.
Graham, p. 125.
This is implicit in Zhuangzi’s discussion with his followers regarding his own corpse. His followers’ concern with burying Zhuangzi is not simply to remove his corpse from view but ostensibly to protect and preserve it.
The position of the Zhuangzi regarding whether a sage will feel any grief is more ambiguous than I can here discuss. For an extensive examination of this issue, see Amy Olberding, “Sorrow and the Sage: Grief in the Zhuangzi”, Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 6.4 (2007): 339–359.
Knoblock, p. 19.5a.
Knoblock, p. 19.5a.
For a more detailed study of Xunzi’s arguments regarding mourning and, in particular, the conflicting emotive aspects of grief, see Mark Berkson, “Xunzi’s Reinterpretation of Ritual: A Hermeneutic Defense of the Confucian Way,” in T. C. Kline III and Justin Tiwald, eds., Ritual and Religion in the Xunzi (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2014).
See Amy Olberding, “Slowing Death Down: Mourning in the Analects,” in David Jones, ed., Confucius Now: Contemporary Encounters with the Analects (LaSalle, IL: Open Court Press, 2008).
Knoblock, p. 19.5a.
David Nivison argues that failing to adequately incorporate the naturalness of grief represents a lacuna in Zhuangzi’s treatment of death, one that unnecessarily divides the more natural conduct Zhuangzi endorses from ritual mourning. See David Nivison, “Hsun Tzu and Chuang Tzu”, in Henry Rosemont, Jr., ed., Chinese Texts and Philosophical Contexts (LaSalle, IL: Open Court Press, 1991).
Martin, p. 14.
Knoblock, p. 23.2a.
Knoblock, p. 23.2a.
Knoblock, p. 23.1b.
Knoblock, p. 23.1b.
Knoblock, p. 19.5b.
Knoblock, p. 19.6.
See, e.g., Xunzi’s discussion of clothing, food, and shelter as they reflect and sustain emotions and dispositions in Knoblock, p. 19.5b.
To be clear, the content of symbolic communication of this sort is of course culturally inflected, with what, for example, a gesture means refracted through longstanding but contingent social norms.
Eric L. Hutton, “Character, Situationism, and Early Confucian Thought,” Philosophical Studies 127 (2006): 37–58; Edward Slingerland, “The Situationist Critique and Early Confucian Virtue Ethics,” Ethics 121.2 (2011): 390–419.
Hutton, p. 47.
Hutton, p. 47. I here use Hutton’s more evocative translation of 靡 mo.
Hutton, p. 47.
Elaine Hatfield, John T. Cacioppo, and Richard L. Rapson, Emotional Contagion (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 5. For studies that explore in greater detail felicitous connections between early Confucian ritual and contemporary empirical psychology, see, e.g., David B. Wong, “Cultivating the Self in Concert with Others,” in Amy Olberding, ed., Dao Companion to the Analects (New York: Springer, 2014) and “If We are not by Ourselves, if We are not Strangers,” in Ronnie Littlejohn and Marthe Chandler, eds., Polishing the Chinese Mirror: Essays in Honor of Henry Rosemont, Jr. (New York: Global Scholarly Publications, 2008).
To be clear, I do not suggest that the practice of line-forming is universal but simply use it to conveniently illuminate the explanatory differences I highlight. Both accounts of etiquette I address can accommodate variations in practices and evaluate particular conventions for their effectiveness in fulfilling moral desiderata the account limns. A respect-based account will reference how a particular practice functions within its parochial cultural idiom to communicate respect and ground critical evaluation of practices based on whether they do indeed succeed in sustaining the moral equality and dignity of persons. A Xunzian account can accommodate variation much the way aesthetic appreciation of disparate art works does, referencing stable broad values (in this case, e.g., social harmony and cooperation) while allowing that the expression of these values and indeed the “tastes” they reflect are culturally contingent. That is, despite Xunzi’s emphasis on the natural aspects of aversion, his account can grant that what in human conduct we read as such will be culturally inflected.
Stohr, p. 12.
Though not my focus here, insofar as the line cutter succeeds in getting what he wishes he also, of course, tempts others to emulate his conduct, influencing them to see aggression as a viable course for getting one’s needs met more quickly and efficiently.
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to Emily McRae and Garret Olberding for comments that importantly improved the essay, and to the hosts and participants at the Nature and Value in Chinese and Western Philosophies Conference (Rutgers University, 2013) at which this work was first presented and received valuable feedback.
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Olberding, A. From Corpses to Courtesy: Xunzi’s Defense of Etiquette. J Value Inquiry 49, 145–159 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-014-9466-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-014-9466-5