Confucianism - Freedom and Democracy 2.0 Is Confucianism a religion? VIII. But Isn’t Confucianism …

Confucianism - Freedom and Democracy 2.0

Is Confucianism a religion?

      VIII.   But Isn’t Confucianism …     Tolerance and benevolence are not just for Christians

There are seven articles preceding this summary. After all those prior articles, a reader might still have questions. More detailed analysis is in the prior sections. This article should function as a quick response to questions.

Sections to follow -

… anti-democratic?     

… anti-freedom?  anti-liberal?      

            Teleology – can freedom have a goal?

            No goal, but a practice

… What about individualism? Isn’t China all about collectivism?

… Moral autonomy, free will, and liberalism

… only for the ancient village and the parochial?   

… just about harmony and oppression?    

… Just egoistic?  Only concerned with how to toady up to superiors in government?    

… Or, the alternative, just altruistic? Concerned with honoring family by ignoring self and others?   

… Selfish?

… just advice to rulers, without moral requirements to care for the stranger?  What hospitals does Confucianism build?     

care for the stranger

… a way to justify any sort of behavior at all by rulers or bad guys?    

… ancient, feudal, authoritarian tripe?    

            The king…

            The scholars …

            The common people …

            Economic development … no.  or yes

... just a way to help CCP remain in power?   

… just another version of care ethics, or feminist ethics? Or situation ethics or complete relativism? Or just … humanism?     

… just an atheistic version of Buddhism and Daoism?  

… hypocritical?    

… too long to read and too Asian to understand?   

… a ridiculous thing to propose to Americans?    

… anti-democratic?

Americans sometimes see democracy – defined by voting -  as the only way to make complicated decisions. But on a moment’s reflection, we don’t always believe that. Democratic voting is a terrible idea if it is feasible to unify – think of boat captains and sports teams and businesses. We don’t want any of those run as democracies. We don’t really value the wisdom of crowds in political or complex decision-making.

Democracy is compatible with many different arrangements of social life.  Liberalism, strong individualism and communitarianism are all compatible with a version of democracy, and our own definitions do change over time. Clearly the neighbor-helping-neighbor democratic impulses of a Thomas Jefferson are distinct from the competitive individuality of current American culture.

More fundamentally, we can think of democracy as both a form of political institution and as a way of life or culture. Both are deeply embedded in American culture and are not going to change in any substantial way. 

Confucianism will not change “democracy” in any negative way. It should make democracy work better. We don’t want just “democracy.” We want informed and smart choices. Confucianism also wants us to consider what is wisest, not just what is most popular.

Confucianism has had its detractors among those studying democracy. Wang Canglong provided a short list in a Confucianism and Citizenship paper –

Confucianism has long been considered as a form of authoritarianism rather than liberalism (Park and Shin 2006), elitism rather than egalitarianism (Bell 2008; Dallmayr et al. 2009; Kim 2009a) collectivism rather than individualism (Fukuyama 1995), obligations-orientation rather than rights-orientation (Huntington 1991), and particularism rather than universalism (J. Chan 2004; Q. Liu 2004b & 2007).

Terms for citizen or civility or civil society do not appear in early Confucian texts. (Nor did they appear in the Bible). The contention is that Confucianism is therefore not amenable to liberal democracy.

This view is successfully challenged by a host of Confucian scholars – among them Sor-hoon Tan in Democracy in Confucianism and David Elstein Democracy in Contemporary Confucian Philosophy and the extraordinary analysis by Joseph Chan in Confucian Perfectionism.  The 1958 Manifesto to the World on Behalf of Chinese Culture by four prominent Confucian scholars proposed western democracy as compatible with Confucianism and necessary for full development of the Chinese society, and suggested Confucianism as an antidote to the ills of western modernity. A good analysis of the Confucian prospects for democracy is by Albert H. Y. Chen in his 2007 journal article Is Confucianism Compatible with Liberal Constitutional Democracy?

Mencius suggested that people have a right to choose their leaders and overthrow a leader who has become despotic. Mencius 5A5 (Wang Zhang 1.5) reminds us heaven sees as the people see, heaven hears as the people hear, which tells us that the experience of the people is important in selection of a ruler.  Our understanding 2300 years later is that what the people say may be expressed through voting.

More to the point, Mencius comes close to describing a democratic process in Mencius 4A.9 (Li Lou I.9) -

Jie and Zhou's losing the throne, arose from their losing the people, and to lose the people means to lose their hearts. There is a way to get the kingdom: get the people, and the kingdom is got. There is a way to get the people: get their hearts, and the people are got. There is a way to get their hearts: it is simply to collect for them what they like, and not to lay on them what they dislike. The people turn to a benevolent rule as water flows downwards ….

Mencius also describes the overthrow of a ruler who has become a tyrant, saying the ruler who has forgotten the need to put the people’s well-being first has lost the right to call himself a ruler, and may be replaced.

Some have argued that Confucianism cannot exist with constitutionalism – that a written code of law that constrains rulers will not suit Confucian precepts of obedience to authority. This view is soundly defeated by references in Mencius and Xunzi and many scholars, including Sungmoon Kim, who has written extensively on Confucian democracy.

Sungmoon Kim. Confucian Constitutionalism: Mencius and Xunzi on Virtual, Ritual, and Royal Transmission. The Review of Politics 73(3), 2001.

The Shu Jing, the book of history, has a negative disposition toward despots, and in the Li Ji, the Book of Rites, Confucius caustically describes ‘oppressive government,’ a typical indicator of despotism, as ‘more terrible than tigers’ (Li Ji - Tan Gong II.193).

Tu Weiming has explored the feasibility of Confucianism and democracy in writing and lectures. This particular lecture - Confucianism and Liberal Education for a Global Era - at the Berkley Center at Georgetown notes that Confucian principles are probably better achieved in democracy than in any other system of governance. He reminds us in Mencius Jin Xin II.60 - the people are most important element in a nation; the country second; the king is the least important. One should consider this a sort of proto-democratic idea. Xunzi reminded us that the people must come first- The sovereign is like the boat and the people are like the water; the water carries the boat, but it can also sink the boat.

Confucianism requires engagement in community – there are no Confucian monks on a mountaintop. Brought into the modern era, this is a requirement for engagement in civil society. Confucianism supports a “thick” notion of citizenship, in which citizens actively engage in community, rights and responsibilities are well-balanced, and citizens and community are interdependent. A “thick” citizenship requires far more than occasional voting. It demands attention to civic morals and virtues, active participation in political affairs, and contribution to the welfare of the community.

No one claims China under CCP is democratic as we normally define democracy, and only CCP strategists sees the government mirroring Confucian precepts. New Confucians (Mou Zongsan and more recently, Stephen Angle) argue that a democratic politics is necessary to respect the individual’s moral nature and autonomy. Government must be restrained from trying to impose a moral view on the public, and at the same time, the people must share in the responsibility of government. Democracy turns out to be necessary to realize the moral ideals of Confucianism (Angle 2012, Contemporary Confucian Political Philosophy and David Elstein 2022, Confucian free expression and the threat of disinformation) even if earlier Confucians had not realized this.

Perhaps the best evidence that Confucianism is decidedly not anti-democratic is that South Korea, Japan and Taiwan, all considered “Confucian” nations, have become flourishing democracies. These are modern plural states with capitalistic economies. Confucianism seems to survive in these complex plural places.

… anti freedom?  anti liberal? 

Freedom and liberalism are keywords in American political philosophy. Can this ancient Chinese philosophy support American ideals? This question quickly requires discussion of what liberalism is – are there common liberal values? What use to claim a right to decide morality for ourselves if we then don’t agree on what morality entails?  How can society function?

This is a virtue ethic question, one that I discussed in previous posts. Aristotle, Jesus, and Alasdair MacIntyre argue for a teleology to direct determination of what is moral. Here, I am going to sidestep these critical questions in favor of a generalized sense of current American liberalism, which tends to assume not only moral equality of persons, but now an individual sovereign uniqueness. The sovereignty (nee Kant – only obey a morality I give myself) means that we will be hard pressed to find a common goal. Each of us can and should find our own path in life – hard to quarrel with that in a modern world. But we should think carefully about what that means – do we really think all values are equally valid? Can we say nothing communally about the good?

Some claim Confucianism is incompatible with human rights. Certainly dynasties and CCP have used Confucianism as a way to justify obedience to rulers, and Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore used his term “Asian Values” to argue against western concepts of values in Asia. But new Confucianists like Tu Weiming, Joseph Chan, Stephen Angle and many others see at least some human rights implicit in Confucian concepts of self-cultivation and in the five relationships. Randall Nadeau in Confucianism and the Problem of Human Rights -

Embedded in the Confucian classics, as well as historically in specific Confucian institutions, is a profound idea of individual possibility, creativity, and achievement, in some ways more dynamic and integrative than Western values, which see individuals and communities in conflict and opposition.

Rights do not depend upon western individualism. The distinction of interest between rights defined in Asia and the west, or Confucianism and the west, lies mostly in the distinction identified by Isaiah Berlin fifty years ago – that of freedom from and freedom to. Western rights are best defined as freedom from – from the government and freedom from community. Confucian rights are best thought of as freedom to. Randall Nadeau again, writing about Confucian rights - human rights are best defined not as “freedom from” the restraints of community life, but “freedom for” participation in the totality of human relationships. Thus, human rights are associated with human duties. Individuals are placed in a relationship of integration with others on the basis of the rights and responsibilities of persons within their communities.

In other words, Confucian rights give us the freedom for participation in the totality of human relationships. The embeddedness in community gives rise to opportunities not as easily available in western rights talk. Confucian rights - containing a sense of mutuality, harmony and benevolence - more clearly imply obligations to one another. The self is neither sovereign nor isolated from community. The self is always in community – just as in Christianity. But classical Confucianism does not in any way diminish the importance of the self in the cultivation of moral ideals – in fact, the self is central, and is the starting point for any possibility of human moral improvement. This is stated simply but profoundly in the Great Learning (Da Xue 2)

In prior sections I pointed out that Confucianism is compatible with democracy. It can support an idea of rulers chosen by the people and an idea of human moral equality, all people equally deserving of care. But Confucianism does not necessarily support an idea of equal role for all in rule or selection of rulers – no necessary American “one man one vote” rule. It is recognized that humans have different abilities and if we are to get to datong, the theoretical great unity of all people, we must acknowledge that some people will be better at ruling and even selecting rulers than others. Confucianism has no problem with voting schemes of differential weights for voters of different ability, or with administrative rule by an elite bureaucracy.  Aristotle had the same idea – those who are best suited to rule should be the rulers.

There is no one model for systems of voting and governance, particularly in a pluralist culture. There are many ways to define democracy, even in democratic countries and in the US - parliamentary democracy? primaries? card-carrying party members? ranked choice voting? a null or "no" vote choice?

Confucianism is adaptable, as is Christianity. Bryan W. Van Norden further explicates the view of Confucius in The Dao of Kongzi in Asian Philosophy (November, 2002) -

Other philosophers think that the best way to approach the world is through recognising its infinite variety and complexity, which resists simple formulations. I think Kongzi is one of this latter group of philosophers. Kongzi is not interested in giving us a neat, tightly organised worldview, because he does not think that reality is neat and tightly organised. Instead, Kongzi thinks that we must develop a number of virtues: humaneness, righteousness, wisdom, courage, loyalty, faithfulness and filial piety. To the extent that we have these character traits, we will have a subtle, situational appreciation that goes beyond any simple verbal rule, formula, or practice. This situational appreciation will allow us to respond appropriately to the complex and ever-changing world in which we live. There are actually a number of passages in the Analects that suggest Kongzi’s own situational adaptability….

This anticipates the view of Isaiah Berlin, who reminded us that values in a plural society may be incommensurable. Sometimes there is no choice that maximizes all virtues, and we really don’t have a way for resolving choices that involve competing virtues.  Pluralism and democracy, in other words, demand tolerance but not unlimited tolerance.

As to fear of rule by an elite – well, we already have it, according to conservatives who point out the prevalence of the “Deep State,” the administration of government and regulation of society by highly educated and professional bureaucrats. It is unavoidable in a complex society. We can have a discussion about the excessive use of staff by elected officials, but there is no doubt that the US government has an extraordinary professional staff to supplement and guide our sometimes mercurial and ignorant elected leaders. And frankly, how would a complex modern society function without well-trained administrators? We don’t want little league coaches in major league baseball.

Teleology – can freedom have a goal?

Flexibility and tolerance are appealing to American liberals. Conservatives might say too appealing, that relativism in all things is dangerous and perhaps unholy. Without some transcendental grounding, where do we find meaning in life?  In our consumption obsessed, celebrity worshiping personal anarchism, we might stop and ask whether there is anything else, or is that all there is?  Is American freedom just license? Can we just do anything we want?

Confucianism, like Christianity, is not relativism. For Confucians, it is not the case that all views are equally valid. There is a telos to which all should aspire – that of being the most intensely human, and humane, person. It is the role of government to help people achieve that goal.  That is what Joseph Chan refers to as Confucian perfectionism – that it is government role to provide some moral leadership. 

Catholic philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre explored the themes of individuality and common telos in the well-known After Virtue - A Study in Moral Theory. MacIntyre claims that all of western morality is doomed to fail because it fails to identify a teleology for man, an end state or goal toward which all can aspire. In the Enlightenment societies lost their moral authority and the individual became the fundamental interpreter of moral questions.

That is, our dependence on either Kantian universal morality or Benthamite utility calculus does not leave room for either local morality or agreement on a path to an end state.  MacIntyre claims that without such agreement, our morality is only “emotivism,” an expression of what we individually desire at the moment. 

In contrast, all the great virtue ethics have an end state in mind – flourishing, being with God, becoming ren and one with the trinity including heaven and earth. All three of those virtue ethics developed in societies far less complex than ours. We now live in a different world, a plural world of international trade and travel, with religious and moral ideas coming from everywhere.  A monism of morality is far less feasible now.

MacIntyre says all morality is local, even if we should not descend to the pits of morality as individual sovereignty. And eventually MacIntyre determines that, the need for a teleology is just not workable in a modern context. He develops an alternative, the idea of a practice, which as a calling or trade or vocation has its own internal demands for value oriented life and work – attention to detail, attention to others, thoughtfulness and care. In any case, on the ground, in daily life, many of us tend to be emotivists regardless of what set of beliefs we claim.  The two great monisms now are the Catholic Church and CCP.  Members of neither of which do a very good job of sticking to the teleology when personal or family benefit is at stake. 

No goal, but a practice

MacIntyre’s view is that American liberal ideology – particularly its progressive versions - has no teleology at all, and this does create serious problems for their project.  On the one hand, liberals proclaim equality of persons, which tends to devolve to equality of moral views. This is MacIntyre’s complete relativism, resulting in emotivism. Morality, he argues, becomes what I think is right at the moment.

The lack of a teleology affects the individual as well as the society. Liberalism deliberately lowers the horizon of politics: A liberal state will not tell you how to live your life, or what a good life entails; how you pursue happiness is up to you. This produces a vacuum at the core of liberal societies, one that often gets filled by consumerism or pop culture or other random activities that do not necessarily lead to human flourishing. In past decades, let us say prior to the 1980s, we argued mostly over the "how" of public policy rather than the "what." One can see our current political divide as greater emphasis on the what rather than just the how. This is the critique offered by Patrick Deneen in Why Liberalism Failed. Deneen argues that liberalism offers “thin gruel” for anyone with deeper moral commitments. At the same time, the relativism in current liberalism makes government action difficult. Action can be paralyzed by competing views of the world without any moral compass by which to resolve claims.  

On one view, MacIntyre is quite right about failure of the liberal Enlightenment project – if the liberal project means that every point of view could be brought into discussion, and some rational conclusion drawn that would be minimally acceptable to all. We see this has clearly failed in our own political discourse now.

More than that, we don’t want a value monism in a plural society. That is dangerous, whether promulgated by the government or church or political party. Once outside the realm of a defined project or organization – a sports team or single task or theatrical production – the idea of a single director with a singular vision should frighten any of us. That, in fact, is the real danger coming from China now – not economic competition or theft of ideas, but the creeping authoritarianism spearheaded by seduction by money and market access.  Morality comes only from CCP, is what I have been told by leaders at a provincial Party school – the training ground for current and future leaders.

We believe in pluralism – that is, there are different conceptions of the good and it is pointless and dangerous to attempt to unify beliefs in a modern and cosmopolitan society. We want disagreement and contention. What we seek is a modified liberalism – perhaps a return to a more classic liberalism - that takes nothing from individual liberty, but asks that a person pause and consider – reflect – on the obligations owed to others.  That is, not only does my right to swing my arm stop at my neighbor’s nose, but I should not be putting my neighbor in the position of having to duck. This is precisely where Confucianism steps in to provide some sense of the virtues.  This program applies to liberals as well as conservatives.

What about individualism? Isn’t China all about collectivism?

Western and Chinese societies both promote the powers and values of individualism. The difference lies in how that individualism is used. The American idea stresses autonomy and separation from others. The Chinese and Confucian idea stresses the individual power that comes from being within a web of connections. In the crudest terms, the American notion is that of Berlin’s negative freedom – the right to be left alone. The Chinese notion is that of Berlin’s positive freedom – the ability to accomplish more by having relationships.

Many Confucian scholars point out that personal morality is undefined unless an individual can decide for himself what is a right course of action. That is, personal morality requires independence of thought and action. That is at the heart of individualism and Confucianism. An excellent discussion by Erica Brindley is at the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Individualism in Classical Chinese Thought.  Chinese philosopher Li Zehou does refer to Confucianism as the “psychocultural construct” of the Chinese people. One could say the same for Christianity in the west.

As to collectivism, CCP does use it as a cudgel to encourage obeisance to CCP. That is not the Confucian way.

Moral autonomy, free will, and liberalism 

As noted above, we can preserve democracy without a teleology. We do need better understanding of what public and private choices are good and which are not. We do need better ability to reflect on our choices, remember that tolerance is at the heart of civility and civil society, civil society is absolutely necessary to our democracy, and we exhibit hubris – if not blasphemy – if we assume we know what is in the hearts of other men. In colloquial terms, we should remember what happens to you and me when we assume too much.

We need to consider the tolerance promoted by John Gray in Two Faces of Liberalism – human rights become not a search for a universal morality but convenient articles of peace, whereby individuals and communities with conflicting values may consent to coexist. Liberalism must give up the search for a rational consensus on the best way to live. This strikes me as echoing the Augustinian concept of what I call Augustinian uncertainty - that none of us can be certain about the full range of costs and benefits of any particular public policy, even those designed to protect – the Muslim scarf ban in France as a prime example.  Is the scarf a religious symbol like a cross on a necklace, or a cultural tradition, or a means of subjugating women? In this sense, human rights cannot be self-evident universal truths.

Purists will recoil at my characterization – that Aristotle, early Christianity, new Confucianism, the views of John Dewey and Michael Sandel and Alasdair MacIntyre would agree on need for a new moral philosophy for our era. Aristotle, early Christianity and Confucianism were thinking of small village societies. They would be hard pressed to support a teleological view in modern societies. This needs a synthesis that can accommodate pluralism and a multitude of virtues without a teleology.

The synthesis of moral autonomy, civil liberties, and Confucianism is explored by Joseph Chan in his extraordinary 2014 book  Confucian Perfectionism (discussed in earlier posts). For moral autonomy we need the first two of Joseph Chan’s descriptive elements of individual moral autonomy – morality as freely chosen and with reflective consideration.  (Also see the Chan article cited below).

Pointedly, Confucianism rejects the notion of a Kantian sovereign individual. As in Christianity, Confucianism tells us we are born in community and live in community. Individuals are autonomous, but they bear obligations regardless of the circumstances of their birth. They have free will, but with education and training and grace, an individual grows to understand limits on free will and then wills to make benevolent and loving choices.

According to Chan, personal morality that is freely chosen and based on personal reflection are sufficient for Confucianism to support civil liberties, up to a point. Confucian personal morality  would restrain the use of coercion and protect individuals from interference in their lives, but Chan sees Confucianism parting company with liberal democracy in a couple of ways – the liberal assumption that it is on the right side of history (an exclusion of moral concerns involving tradition, authority, and sanctity – see my discussion of work by Jonathan Haidt); its support of rights beyond civil and economic, to encompass tribal rights; and its inability to consider the good as prior to the right. (Per Chan, Confucianism is unable to support two other elements of Kantian morality autonomy – morality as self-legislation and morality as “the radical free expression of the individual’s will.” These require that morality consist only in use of universal reason, rather than emotion, context, history or culture, and that the individual choose to only obey a law the individual gives oneself. These are basically Kantian conditions).  Chan cites Meir Dan-Cohen –

Our moral experience does not consist in scanning a more or less arbitrarily delimited range of acceptable moral options and then picking out the most attractive member in the set. When we are in the grip of moral truth we are moved by its intrinsic value rather than by its comparative advantage over other acceptable alternatives. Moral choice consists in . . . my embracing a particular maxim and a course of action that falls under it. So long as I willfully embrace the correct maxim I behave both freely and rationally.

Meir Dan-Cohen. Conceptions of Choice and Conceptions of Autonomy. Ethics 102 (1992). Available at https://www.jstor.org/stable/2381603

This means that for the committed Confucian, one does not choose freely to do the right thing, one is determined to will what is demanded by morality. Morality shapes the universe of choices we face. Careful reflection on moral choices points us in the direction we want to take because it is the right direction to take. Again, at the risk of offending Christian readers, this willing to do the right thing strikes me as the same choice a Christian would make when guided by grace. Once one is guided by faith, it becomes easier to make the right choice. And crudely, citing Yoda, “there is no try.  Only do.”

The virtue ethic moral precepts – the golden rule, silver rule, blessed are the meek, turn the other cheek – argue against morality determined by the Kantian conditions. One has an obligation to an ideal, rather than a choice among alternatives. One might even call it “self interest, rightly understood” – although that might be a stretch.

Joseph Chan. Moral Autonomy, Civil Liberties, and Confucianism.  Philosophy East and West, 52:3 (2002).  Available at https://hub.hku.hk/bitstream/10722/45296/1/70236.pdf?accept=1

Per John Dewey, liberalism in its purer form is community related. Rights in liberalism require responsibilities to others, and not just as an afterthought. Since every human being needs to cultivate ren humaneness, each member of the community has a duty to help others cultivate it. Rights-supporting Confucianism reminds us all that we are socially embedded, just as Aristotle and Jesus told us.

Joseph Chan argues that a benevolent and other-focused society like Confucianism (and  Christianity) can be more innovative and dynamic than a rights oriented society in which individuals and communities are pitted against one another. Chan sees the proper role for rights as a backup when more community oriented means of conflict resolution fail.  And it is incumbent upon society and government to at least point in the direction of the good. The sort of free choice illustrated in the short video here is not supported as a right in Confucianism. Have a look.

I discussed Joseph Chan’s full argument in prior sections. His conclusion in the Philosophy East and West article cited above suggests how liberalism and freedom are to be considered in Confucianism -

If the arguments thus far are right, we have reached the following conclusion: Confucian moral autonomy fits neither with an oppressive moral community nor with a liberal open society, but with what may be called a morally conservative environment in which liberties and their restriction are balanced in such a way as best to promote the moral good.

Sounds dangerously conservative. But open and classically liberal. One can hear deTocqueville and his promotion of “self-interest, rightly understood.”

… only for the ancient village and the parochial?

Both Christianity and Confucianism arose when societies were far less complicated. Modernism forces both to address new realities – more strangers, new cultures, new economics, different values. Christianity and Confucianism must both face complex and plural societies if they are to remain relevant. Socially and religiously we need an updated terms of use.

Some evangelical Protestants are contemplating a revaluation of Augustine in our complicated conflicted plural age. Augustine addressed the confused and changing world at the end of the Roman empire. Perhaps there are lessons there.

Political philosopher Paul Weithman makes the case for the revaluation in a 1991 article in Faith and Philosophy Toward an Augustinian Liberalism. In Augustine, once thought of as grim and austere, the discoverer of original sin, many now see a proponent of liberalism of a more classic type. The argument is based on an Augustinian analysis that sin is the result of pride and a failure to recognize that the source of all good things is not in our hard work, money or creativity.

Augustine recognizes diverse religious, philosophical, and moral conceptions of the good life and that there is not and cannot be one Way for all of society – or at least, we cannot presume to see into another’s heart. Crudely, Buddhists, Daoists and atheists don’t murder or harm each other or anyone else in greater number than Christians do. We necessarily live in the city of man, should not aspire on earth to create the City of God, and to assume that we have the Truth and all others are false is to presume against God. I refer to this tolerance and benefit of the doubt as Augustinian uncertainty.

One finds a similar tolerance in Confucianism. The Analects and Mencius cultivate virtues but allow for the appreciation of complex individual contexts. Confucius never sought a single Way, or systematic generalizations about morality.  Support for diversity as a condition of harmony is found in the Analects and in the Confucian classic Spring and Autumn Annals.

Analects 13.23 (Zi Lu 23) - The Master said, "The superior man is affable, but not adulatory; the mean man is adulatory, but not affable."

In other words, the noble man creates harmony, not sameness. Ordinary men, on the other hand, seek sameness and cannot create harmony. In Chun qiu fan lu (Spring and Autumn Annals) - (Chinese Text Project, https://ctext.org/chun-qiu-fan-lu (In Chinese)) -

If the ruler approves something, everyone approves it. And if he is against something, everyone is against it. This is like adding water to water. Who would like to eat (such a watery soup)? This is like all instruments (in an orchestra) playing the same musical tune. Who would like to listen to such music?

Eminent Confucian scholar Tu Weiming posits a world with multiple modernities, rather than just the western modernity we breathe in every day. He describes an east Asian modernity that encompasses “network capitalism, soft authoritarianism, group spirit, consensual politics and a coherent social vision.” It has six salient features: (1) strong government that works as an active "regulative and distributive agency" rather than merely being a "necessary evil" for supervising order; (2) "organic solidarity" "by the cultivation of virtue through the practice of rites" rather than social integration by law; (3) the family as the "basic unit of society," acting as a transmitter of "core values" and a "richly textured natural environment for learning the proper way of being human"; (4) an understanding of "civil society" as "dynamic interplay between family and state" rather than an "autonomous arena" beyond both; (5) education as the "civil religion" of society, aiming at character building; and (6) self-cultivation as the "common root" of all of the mentioned features.

Some American liberals will grab their hearts at this list. A lot of American conservatives would understand immediately. We are socially constructed beings, from birth to death, and universal reason just won’t take us far enough into humaneness, reciprocity, turn the other cheek or love for one another.

Tu Weiming. Implications of the Rise of 'Confucian’ East Asia. Daedalus 129/1: (2000) 195-218.  Available at http://tuweiming.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/2000-Daedalus-Implications-of-the-Rise-of-Confucian-East-Asia-Tu-Weiming.pdf

Tu has no interest in dismissing Enlightenment values such as instrumental rationality, freedom, procedural justice, privacy, and consciousness of rights.  But to the point of my entire thesis,  these values should be mediated and supplemented by "Asian values" such as "sympathy, distributive justice, duty consciousness, ritual, public-spiritedness, and group orientation.”  Come to think of it, sounds a bit like Aristotle or Michael Sandel or civic republicanism.

And echoing the moral foundations theory of Jonathan Haidt, Tu sees our morality as more than rationality, more than individual freedom to choose. Morality, he says, encompasses more than the mind. We need the Confucian concept of the heart-mind (xin) -

Aspects of human existence defined by tradition like ethnicity, mother tongue, family bounds, home and belief have become central points of any demanding analysis of modernization processes.... Primordial ties, race, language, gender, home and religion which have determined human existence for centuries continue to be powerful in public life. One cannot simply be relegated into the background as residuals of culture which are nothing more than symbols of emotional addiction to the past.

Tu, Weiming. (1989). Centrality and commonality: An essay on Confucian religiousness.

The ancient and parochial do require consideration by liberals. Time for an upgrade in moral thinking.  

… just about harmony and oppression?

No. That is the way Confucianism was viewed by some in the west and by Chinese May 4^th dissidents after World War I. Chen Duxiu, one of the founders of the Chinese Communist Party, derided Confucianism for its stranglehold on the Chinese mind. In that reading, harmony means giving in to others above your level and acceptance of fate. This is the origin of the idea that Chinese do not have an inner life, only obligations to others. That is most certainly not Confucian, which requires that a person be involved in the world, express himself, and actively seek the Dao. In the Zhongyong (doctrine of the mean) harmony is characterized as the blending of flavors in a succulent dish.  How is that not like our own characterization of America as a melting pot?

In the Doctrine of the Mean (one of the four Confucian books) harmony is said to have three guidelines—Self-watchfulness, Leniency and Sincerity. (In his 2020 article Soup, Harmony and Disagreement Confucian scholar David Wong describes elements of harmony as integration of difference, shared understandings, and accommodation).

Self-watchfulness requires self-cultivation and self-discipline. Leniency requires tolerance and understanding. Sincerity requires ability to give due consideration to all others, and to heaven and earth as well. From the Doctrine of the Mean, Zhong Yong 26 -

Sincerity is that whereby self-completion is effected, and its way is that by which man must direct himself. Sincerity is the end and beginning of things; without sincerity there would be nothing. On this account, the superior man regards the attainment of sincerity as the most excellent thing. The possessor of sincerity does not merely accomplish the self-completion of himself. With this quality he completes other men and things also. The completing himself shows his perfect virtue. The completing other men and things shows his knowledge. But these are virtues belonging to the nature, and this is the way by which a union is effected of the external and internal. Therefore, whenever he - the entirely sincere man-employs them - that is, these virtues, their action will be right. Hence to entire sincerity there belongs ceaselessness. Not ceasing, it continues long. Continuing long, it evidences itself. Evidencing itself, it reaches far. Reaching far, it becomes large and substantial. Large and substantial, it becomes high and brilliant. Large and substantial - this is how it contains all things.

Harmony, in fact, is quite similar to the Golden Mean of Aristotle. It can be understood as the basis for the Christian Golden Rule. Without harmony, fairness and justice are not possible - possibly undefined - and it doesn't necessarily work in the opposite manner - justice first, harmony second. Chinese philosopher Li Zehou maintained that sometimes harmony is more important than justice. Western justice, based solely on reason, can only be derivative of a harmony that considers both reason and emotion. He argues harmony “involves transforming people through virtue (education), and justice involves only “governing by law.”  Both are needed, he says, but like Joseph Chan, Li sees Confucian principles of harmony and benevolence as higher than and ideally prior to justice according to law.

Harmony often means seeking out differences and all sides coming to a greater understanding. This is precisely what we teach students in negotiation courses -  finding a way to enlarge the pie of solutions, or coming to a different understanding of the problem. That is the way to a stable peace, perhaps the Peace of Babylon described by Augustine. Not agreement on all issues, or submission to the other side, but tolerance and insight.

... Just egoistic?  Only concerned with how to toady up to superiors in government?

Some consider a virtue ethic egoistic because it requires self-love as a first priority – the obligation of self-cultivation and learning for oneself as examples. Self-love was also the Aristotelian view, as Yong Huang points out in Some Fundamental Issues in Confucian Ethics. Huang points out that self-love is compatible with altruism because one self-cultivates in order to be benevolent. This is a form of enlightened sense of self-interest. Tu Weiming -

… the strength of the profound person is a form of inner strength, which results from intellectual integrity and moral rectitude rather than from a conscious attempt to gain social approval. But despite the internality of the profound person’s quest for self-realization, its ability to produce a persuasive effect upon others is very great.

Tu Weiming. Centrality and commonality: An essay on Confucian religiousness. 1989.

There is no question but that Confucius’ advice is directed mostly at rulers and officials. But the advice also concerns at taking care of the people.  To wit, all from the Analects -

13.16 (Zi Lu) - The governor of She asked about government.  The Master said, "Ensure that those who are near are pleased and those who are far away are attracted."

20.1 Yao Yue - … throughout the kingdom the hearts of the people turned towards him. What he attached chief importance to were the food of the people, the duties of mourning, and sacrifices. By his generosity, he won all. By his sincerity, he made the people repose trust in him. By his earnest activity, his achievements were great. By his justice, all were delighted.

16.1 (Ji Shi) - Therefore, if remoter people are not submissive, all the influences of civil culture and virtue are to be cultivated to attract them to be so; and when they have been so attracted, they must be made contented and tranquil.

Mencius is clearer about the demands upon rulers. Liang Hui Wang I.5 –

If Your Majesty will indeed dispense a benevolent government to the people, being sparing in the use of punishments and fines, and making the taxes and levies light, so causing that the fields shall be ploughed deep, and the weeding of them be carefully attended to, and that the strong-bodied, during their days of leisure, shall cultivate their filial piety, fraternal respectfulness, sincerity, and truthfulness, serving thereby, at home, their fathers and elder brothers, and, abroad, their elders and superiors, you will then have a people who can be employed, with sticks which they have prepared, to oppose the strong mail and sharp weapons of the troops of Qin and Chu. … In such a case, who will oppose your Majesty? In accordance with this is the saying, "The benevolent has no enemy."

Confucianism is not simply rules for rulers and advisors; nor is it obligations for family members toward each other.  It is a virtue ethic, taking in the capacities and world view of everyone in the society.  

Lest one think Confucianism is too elitist, let us consider James Madison. In Federalist No. 57 Madison wrote -

The aim of every political institution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most precautions for keeping them virtuous while they continue to hold their public trust.  The elective mode of obtaining rulers is the characteristic policy of republican government.

In other words, it is not sufficient for the people to simply select any ignoramus to rule, and then vote him out two or four years later.  The public trust, as Plato and Aristotle told us, is the highest calling in society, and the wisest and most virtuous should be encouraged to hold office. (In the US system, wisdom and virtue are found not in legislators, presidents, or agency heads, but in executive department staff, where education and expertise are highly valued).

…. Or, is it the alternative, just altruistic?  Concerned with honoring family by ignoring self?

No.  As with the Bible, with reference to a couple of quotes, one can make any claim one wishes.  The Confucian world view is that a person self-cultivates, not solely for personal advantage, but to develop virtue.  Virtue is demonstrated by concern for others.  We should remember the importance of self-cultivation in Confucianism.  Self-cultivation is done to educate oneself; but as Confucius told us, by enlarging ourselves, we enlarge others. Analects 6.30 (Yong Ye 30) -

Now the man of perfect virtue, wishing to be established himself, seeks also to establish others; wishing to be enlarged himself, he seeks also to enlarge others.

There are other references. One is Huang Yong in Confucian Ethics: Altruistic? Egoistic? Both? Neither Huang says Confucianism can be both egoistic and altruistic - the highest goal one aims to reach is to become a virtuous person oneself, but at the same time a virtuous person is necessarily concerned with the well-being, both external and internal, of others.

Huang Yong. Confucian Ethics: Altruistic? Egoistic? Both? Neither. Frontiers of Chinese Philosophy. 13:2, 2018.  Available at https://www.academia.edu/37292634/_2018f_Confucian_Ethics_Altruistic_Egoistic_Both_Neither?email_work_card=view-paper )

Many writers have made comparisons.  Wm. T. de Bary is the most eloquent and thoughtful, particularly in his Tanner lecture The Trouble with Confucianism.  (Tanner Lectures on Human Values, University of California at Berkeley, May 4 and 5, 1988).  The book by the same name is available here. 

…. Selfish?

The argument is that focusing on self-development (to become ren) is a selfish path.  A few Confucian scholars have suggested this, but now most Confucian scholars in China and the west disagree with that perspective.

Self-development is not only for the sake of oneself.  It is a contribution to the whole community. Yong Huang discusses the Confucian virtue ethic here. He sees Confucianism as standing between liberalism and its atomistic self and those Confucian analysts who see no self in Confucianism but a tangled nest of obligations and relations.  The Confucian is a whole self in community relations.

Mencius points out that “without the feeling of commiseration, one is not a human; without the feeling of shame and dislike, one is not a human; without feeling of modesty and complaisance, one is not a human; and without the feeling of right and wrong, one is not a human.” Since for Mencius these four feelings are the sprouts of the four respective cardinal virtues, what Mencius says is essentially that without virtues, one is not a human. In Mencius 6A.11 (Gaozi I.11) Mencius regards the immoral person as one who has lost his or her heart/mind and does not care to look for it. 

Humanity, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom constitute humans as humans (human nature) and are also the character traits one ought to have (virtues) in order to be non-defective human beings.

A feature of some virtue ethics like Christianity and Confucianism  is the concern not only with what a moral agent does but also the manner one does it. That is, a virtuous person does virtuous things naturally, effortlessly, gracefully, and joyfully.  This reminds one of the “faith and works” requirement in some versions of Christianity – that works alone are insufficient, but with faith, works will be done naturally and gracefully, if not always effortlessly.

Yong Huang. Why Confucian Ethics is a Virtue Ethics, Virtue Ethics is not a Bad Thing, and Neville Should Endorse It.  Journal of Chinese Philosophy, 47:3-4 (2020). Available at https://www.academia.edu/36982075/Why_Confucian_Ethics_Is_A_Virtue_Ethics_Virtue_Ethics_Is_Not_A_Bad_Thing_And_Neville_Should_Endorse_It

… just advice to rulers, without moral requirements to care for the stranger?  What hospitals does Confucianism build? 

There are no Confucian health care facilities or orphanages (well, there are some in Taiwan, but none I know of on the mainland). But before one finds this a fundamental flaw, one should consider differences in culture and history.

Jesus told followers to heal the sick, and early Christians provided such services as faithful followers and as means of gaining converts. The good Samaritan was a model.

Throughout history, health care has been provided within families and tribes and clans. In the early centuries of Christianity, the Church made significant efforts to break up clan and tribe affiliations. This served to break up alternate sources of power and tended to focus gifts and bequests on the church, rather than on extended family structures.  But this also tended to foster development of cities and generalized trust across boundaries, rather than trust that remained within the clan or tribe. Economists Avner Greif and Guido Tabellini make the point in The Clan and the City: Sustaining Cooperation in China and Europe. They point out that the Muslim Maghrebi traders in north Africa were able to trade at long distance by relying on family networks of trust. The Christian Genoese traders relied on cities to provide a system of trust via laws, regulation, police and courts. The relationship network made Chinese trading possible along the silk roads, as well. Both systems can work, depending upon the context and wide cultural support.

In pre-modern Europe, the locus of cooperation were self-governed cities - urban corporations - whose members were drawn from many kinship groups.  Cities invested in legal infrastructure, taxed their members and provided them with public goods and social safety nets such as defense, judicial services, education, and poor relief. Despite major economic and social changes, the European city persisted as locus of cooperation to the modern period.

In contrast, clans were the locus of cooperation in pre-modern China since the Sung dynasty (960-1279). A clan is a patrilineal group of related individuals with a common surname traced back to a common ancestor. Clan-based organizations provided public goods and social safety nets - e.g. poor-relief, education, rituals in an ancestors hall, religious services, and protection from non-members, bandits and over-taxation. They also provided daily economic services such as guarding the crops, buying in bulk, maintaining communal burial grounds, and lending money to members in need.

Within major trading places such as Shanghai, business organizations were organized by home province or city, rather than simply by type of trade. (A modern model is in some Chinese development zones. I am familiar with a zone in Liaoning Province that is named for a city two hundred miles away in Zhejiang Province, from which they hope to attract businesses.)  Greif and Tabellini are talking about trust in business affairs, but one can see the application to health care as well. A relationship or collectivist society takes care of its own. A less tightly bonded society needs nonfamily institutions to provide services. When extended family institutions of trust are not available, some form of generalized trust must develop for society to function.  Church provision of education and health care services in the west was a way of providing particularized trust – trust within the family of the Church - in an increasingly generalized trust environment.  The mission of Church hospitals and schools and social welfare did extend beyond the Church family, but one cannot posit that as the primary mission in cities even if it did attract converts.

After the collapse of the western Roman empire, the church was the only stable social institution in a society without extended families. By the middle ages, the church and the government were so intertwined, and the population so completely Christian, that governments did not need to provide health care at all.  Monasteries and convents were hospitals. To the extent that Christianity was universal, there was no “other’ to consider.  If society was not one big happy family, in religious terms all were part of the single body.  Jews were pointedly not part of the family, and they developed their own social infrastructure.

There is a good description of church involvement in health care here -

The influential Benedictine rule holds that "the care of the sick is to be placed above and before every other duty, as if indeed Christ were being directly served by waiting on them". During the Middle Ages, monasteries and convents were the key medical centres of Europe and the Church developed an early version of a welfare state. Cathedral schools evolved into a well integrated network of medieval universities and Catholic scientists (many of them clergymen) made a number of important discoveries which aided the development of modern science and medicine.

The Catholic Church is now the largest non-government provider of health care in the world – an estimate is that it provides about 26% of world health facilities. Services are not limited to Catholics. Providing health care can still be seen as part of the mission and part of expanding the faith internationally. Other examples include Compassion International, a child advocacy ministry, is a Christian humanitarian and child sponsorship organization dedicated to helping children living in poverty around the world; Food for the Poor, one of the largest international relief organizations in the world, an ecumenical Christian nonprofit that provides food, medicine and shelter to the poor in Latin America and the Caribbean; and The United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) provides humanitarian relief and disaster response to people around the world. There are scores of Christian-based nonprofits that provide services to neighborhoods in Chicago and elsewhere.

Particularized trust and family-centered care remained the standard in Asia. Within a village or township, the local wealthiest landowner or village official or clan often subsidized facilities for medical care and social services, even including education. The extended family, clan or lineage group remained the locus for care, however.   

This is true today as well. A very minor example – when our son was born, we had a private room in the best maternity hospital in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang Province and a quite modern and cosmopolitan city. But there was no actual care provided by nursing staff. Family members were expected to provide all food for the pregnant mom, change all sheets and towels, wipe up all spills, dispose of all garbage, and – the biggest surprise – actually wheel the delivery bed to the delivery room, navigating floors and hallways of the hospital while asking for directions. Like, “do you know the way to the delivery room?” This is after using my particular guanxi to get a private room for my wife. Usually, pregnant women are stored four or five to a single room.

We can think of this as a libertarian solution to health care. And we can remember that there are few Daoist or Buddhist hospitals, either, and our contention is that Confucianism is not a tradition separate from its Daoist and Buddhist origins. There are “Buddhist hospitals” in Taiwan and Hong Kong. There are Daoist or Buddhist holy men, but unlike the Abrahamic religions there is no heaven to which one seeks membership and instead a focus on moral behavior in the here and now.  There is no concept of piling up rewards for redemption later.  Daoism and Buddhism are not proselytizing religions, and have no need for social service outreach.  Islam seeks converts, but the confluence of religion and governing in Islam means that there are no Islamic hospitals either.

care for the stranger

There is an ethic of care in Confucianism, including care for the stranger, but that principle is not written as strongly as it is in Christianity. Providing care for the stranger might be seen as intruding on the prerogatives of other clans or families. In a final modest nod to particularized trust versus generalized trust, one notes that people maintain their own health records in China.  At the hospital, each patient has their own clear plastic folder containing records of vaccinations, treatments, doctor visits and medicines.  Doctors look at the contents of this folder to ascertain treatment. There is no system-wide record. No HIPAA problems in China.

In any case, until recent times only extremely limited social services were provided by municipal, provincial and central governments and religion in China. Generalized trust was not part of Chinese culture; nor was generalized care. None of the Asian religions actively seek to expand membership (as did early Christianity) and much health care remains within definable social groups even if it is taken over by government. People from one city or province cannot simply choose to go to another where health care might be better.

It is a mistake to see the lack of religious universal health care facilities in Asia as a failure of religion. It is above all a cultural artifact.

Confucianism is sometimes said to promote “love with distinctions” – that is, most care-full attention first to family, then clan and neighbors, then the world, with some decreasing level of care along the way.  This interpretation mistakes the learning process for a norm.  A person learns love and care first within the family, gradually extending to others. It is easier to honor and love those who attend to us, give us food and warmth and care.  Once out of the family, love becomes tougher until it becomes almost irrelevant. You know the saying – its easier to love humanity than to love your neighbor. That is why “love your neighbor” is such a powerful command.  If the Confucian concept of “love with distinctions” is a useful interpretation, then it simply recognizes the human trait that loving all humanity equally, as proposed by Mozi , is not a workable concept.

In any case, there is sufficient textural evidence for extending care to the stranger.  In Mencius 1A.6 (Gong Sun Chou I.6)  Mencius tells us that human compassion should be extended from one’s family members and neighbors to “all within the Four Seas” –

“Treat your elders as elders, and extend it to the elders of others; treat your young ones as young ones, and extend it to the young ones of others, … if one extends one’s kindness, it will be sufficient to care for all within the Four Seas

Mencius 7A.21 (Jin Xin I.21) tells us that the virtues are extended to all men -  What belongs by his nature to the superior man are benevolence, righteousness, propriety, and knowledge. One should exercise these virtues within and outside the family. 

 In 2A.6 (Gong Sun Chou I.6) is the well-known “child falling into the well” story.  Mencius tells us that it is a natural human reaction to save the child, regardless of relationship.  He then tells us

From this case we may perceive that the feeling of commiseration is essential to man, that the feeling of shame and dislike is essential to man, that the feeling of modesty and complaisance is essential to man, and that the feeling of approving and disapproving is essential to man. The feeling of commiseration is the principle of benevolence. The feeling of shame and dislike is the principle of righteousness. The feeling of modesty and complaisance is the principle of propriety. The feeling of approving and disapproving is the principle of knowledge. Men have these four principles just as they have their four limbs…. Let them have their complete development, and they will suffice to love and protect all within the four seas.

All texts from the Chinese Text Project.

… a way to justify any sort of behavior at all by rulers or bad guys?

No. Confucianism is relativist in some respects, in that it does not define arbitrary rules for solutions to moral crises.  I discuss this in section What is a Virtue Ethic. But Confucianism is quite clear on the demand for rulers to behave benevolently and to take care of the people first.  This is much more clearly stated in Confucianism than in Christianity.  Joseph Chan makes the point in the Journal of Chinese Philosophy in  Democracy and Meritocracy: Toward a Confucian Perspective that the ruler does not necessarily possess moral authority. Not only is rule established for the benefit of the people, but  moral authority rests with the junzi who correctly grasp the Way and have the moral virtue to behave in accord with the Way. (This is, of course, not the interpretation of Confucian values promoted now by CCP).

All too often, Confucianism was considered antiquated because the five Confucian relationships - ruler-minister, husband-wife, father-son, older son-younger son, friend-friend - were thought to imply unidirectional responsibility. Hierarchy was paramount. The hierarchy was held responsible for stunted social and economic growth in China, and then later for the development explosion beginning in the 1980s.  But hierarchy can’t be responsible for everything. Expectations in Confucianism have always been for mutual care and respect in the relationships. This has more emphasis now in a modern society.

There still are families that emphasize the dominance of the father in making what we consider personal choices for children – where to go to school, whether to go out of China, even who to marry. I know of one case in which a father disowned a daughter because she chose to marry a foreigner. But this is now rare.  I know many instances of family discussions of such choices, and parents express their wishes, but the final choice is left to the child.  That way harmony and happiness lie in a modern society.

Love one another is a Confucian demand as well.

In the Analects Yan Yuan 22  - Yan Yuan 22 - Fan Chi asked about benevolence. The Master said, "It is to love all men."

In Mencius Liang Hui Wang I, 7 - The king said, 'What virtue must there be in order to attain to royal sway?  Mencius answered, 'The love and protection of the people; with this there is no power which can prevent a ruler from attaining to it.'

And Mencius again in Li Lou II, 56 – Mencius said, 'That whereby the superior man is distinguished from other men is what he preserves in his heart - namely, benevolence and propriety. The benevolent man loves others.

James Fredericks, Professor of Theology at Loyola Marymount comments –

Confucianism is not “in essence” collectivistic, patriarchal, and authoritarian. Neither is it “in essence” incompatible with democratic governance. It is a living tradition that responds to changing historical circumstances with both continuity and innovation.  It has this in common with Catholic social teachings…. The dialogue with Catholic social teachings is a way of resisting those who would make of the Confucian tradition either a historical artifact no longer to be taken seriously or a tool of political manipulation.  

James Fredericks.  Confucianism, Catholic Social Teaching, and Human Rights. The Japan Mission Journal, 68:4 Winter, 2014.  Available at https://works.bepress.com/james_fredericks/24/

Neither Christianity nor Confucianism deal easily with actions of a bad person or a bad ruler. We have “turn the other cheek” and the peace of Babylon from Christianity, and return injustice with ritual or education or law in Confucianism. In particular, a community-oriented virtue ethic is of little help when rules are arbitrary or confiscatory, or rulers are mercurial or evil. Alasdair MacIntyre draws the distinction between community values and political citizenship. Confucian values are of little recourse when faced with government oppression. This is an argument for constitutionalism and civil rights, and an argument for democracy in conjunction with Confucianism or religion.

Alasdair MacIntyre. Questions for Confucians. In Kwong-loi Shun and David B. Wong, eds., Confucian Ethics: A Comparative Study of Self, Autonomy, and Community, Cambridge University Press, 2004.

… ancient, feudal, authoritarian tripe?

It is certainly ancient. Confucius never claimed to have new ideas or new concepts. He said he was only recommending the ways of the Duke of Zhou in the Zhou dynasty, hundreds of years before Confucius was born. Plenty of observers in China and the west have seen difficulties with the Confucian ideal of universal self-cultivation, leading to harmony and universal benevolence – it is too restrictive, too dry or ethereal, only aimed at rulers. In its own way, Confucianism is like Christianity - just too hard for most people to use as weltanschauung. Wm. Theodore de Bary wrote extensively about The Trouble with Confucianism and then in the book by the same title. 

The trouble with Confucianism was there from the start... a perennial challenge and a dilemma that would torment it through history – there in the founding myths of the tradition as the ideal of humane governance ….

The king …

It was always hoped the ruler would be a sage-king, a junzi.  With the king as a model, officials would model that behavior in their own realms. No checks and balances, no constitution or organizational structure were needed. The mythical image was of Emperor Shun, whose personal De moral power, was so great that he simply needed to sit on the throne facing south, and ministers and officials would do the right thing.

This was a tough standard for real world Confucian scholar-officials. When a man studied for decades to become educated, wise, loyal and generous, with uncompromising adherence to moral principles, there was no certain organizational structure to provide a career path. No priestly role, no guaranteed government service or teaching career, no Confucius Institute, no power base. The focus of Confucian study was always on the past and the proper moral path. Innovation was not valued at all. The only reference for moral behavior was the ancient mythical sages and previous scholars. There was no book to use as a guide. Without a power base or a moral standard of reference, Confucians tended to reinforce the authority of the current rulers rather than represent the people. The path of the junzi has been referred to as “this-worldly transcendentalism.”  The hierarchical relations of the family were transposed to every level of government and organization. 

Wm. Theodore De Bary. The Trouble with Confucianism. The Tanner Lectures on Human Values Delivered at the University of California at Berkeley, May 4 and 5, 1988.  Available at https://tannerlectures.utah.edu/_documents/a-to-z/d/debary89.pdf

The scholars …

Confucian scholars were part of dynastic governance from the Han, but the scholars never achieved harmonious interaction between the ruler and ruled. De Bary noted that it proved impossible for Confucians to simultaneously achieve all three of the goals they set for themselves – universal education of the populace, government service for themselves and a high level of classical scholarship. Heaven on earth (datong) through the rule of sage kings guided by noble scholars was beyond the realm of the possible.  Confucians never created an organizational structure capable of fostering training and sustaining their vision.  They could not create political organizations of civil society between the ruler and the family in the same way that universities and monasteries did in Christian Europe. Confucian scholars were nearly always in the government, of the government, Confucius himself the notable exception. At the same time, they were often considered too scrupulous, too pedantic, too enthused with the ancient traditions to offer salient advice in the here and now. They were often the alternative voice, occasionally heard.

The common people …

Confucians set too high a standard for commoners as well. Per Mencius, everyone is born “good” with the ability to become fully human – benevolent, wise, fair. Parents, family and the local society provide education and moral training in self-mastery and self-cultivation. As with the ideal situation of the ruler, it is always assumed that there is a unified and peaceful realm, no disasters or evildoers that significantly disrupt social life. As to self-cultivation requiring years of intense study and reflection – well, we might remember Colonel Slade in his stirring speech at the end of Scent of a Woman.  The Colonel knew the right way – we might say, Way – he knew it, but it was always too damn hard.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd10x8LiuBc

Wm. T. DeBary quotes Robert Bellah on religion - Every religion tries to remake the world in its own image, but is always to some extent remade in the image of the world. So too for Confucianism. Without a bible, without priests or an organization, it was – and still is - relatively easy for Confucianism to adopt and adapt – although many Confucian scholars are careful not to jump too easily into a western communitarianism or democratic practices.

Robert Bellah, Tokugawa Religion: The Values of Pre-Industrial Japan (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1957), pp. 196–97.

Professor of Religion Randall Nadeau addresses the charge of Confucianism as authoritarianism in Confucianism and the Problem of Human Rights.  He reminds us that China’s greatest modern Confucian intellectuals, including  Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao, Hu Shi, Mou Zongsan and Tu Weiming deny that Confucianism is authoritarian at its core.  Rather, Nadeau says,

All of these intellectuals but rather see Confucianism as a profound resource for the attainment of individual freedom in the context of the positive construction of a wider community identity. Historically, this prophetic voice has rarely been empowered by state recognition, and thus the Confucian tradition shares with the prophets of Biblical religions a role as social critic speaking from the cultural core, though often at the political margins. It is false to associate Confucianism with the interests of the state ….

Randall Nadeau.  Confucianism and the Problem of Human Rights. Intercultural Communication Studies XI: 2 2002. Available at https://web.uri.edu/iaics/files/07-Randall-Nadeau.pdf

Victoria Tin-bor Hui notes that China was most often ruled in a Legalist manner with strict rules for all and punishments for offenders. She describes imperial rule as most often “Legalism with a Confucian façade.” No one has claimed actual dynastic or CCP Chinese rule as Confucian.

Victoria Hui. How China was Ruled. The American Interest 3:4, 2008. Available at https://www.the-american-interest.com/2008/03/01/how-china-was-ruled/ 

It is probably fair to mention that Legalism as developed by Han Fei at the end of the Warring State period is closer to a system of rule of law than anything else developed in China since. Rulers and scholars were to be subject to law and regulations. The concept was that informing people about rules and providing strict punishments would encourage legal and moral behavior.  Legalism dealt in a practical way with a flaw in Confucianism and also in Christianity -  that of dealing with abuses of power and immoral behavior between people. Confucian scholar Joseph Chan recommends a Confucian set of values but with rule of law as a firm backup when benevolence and humanity fail as arbiters of conflict.

Economic development … no.  or yes

Sociologist Max Weber wrote extensively on Asia, including China. His summary assessment was that China lacked the Protestant spirit, pointing to Confucianism for China’s backwardness. He concluded that Asian cultural and philosophical or religious traditions were ill-suited to modernization. In his Religion of China Weber notes - 

Confucianism, we have seen, was (in intent) a rational ethic which reduced tension with the world to an absolute minimum. Completely absent in Confucian ethic was any tension between nature and deity, between ethical demand and human shortcoming, consciousness of sin and need for salvation, conduct on earth and compensation in the beyond, religious duty and sociopolitical reality. Hence, there was no leverage for influencing conduct through inner forces freed of tradition and convention…. whereas Puritanism objectified everything and transformed it into rational enterprise, dissolved everything into the pure business relation and substituted rational law and agreement for tradition. In China, the pervasive factors were “tradition, local custom, and the concrete personal favor of the official.”

One has to conclude that Weber was correct on lack of need for salvation, rewards in an afterlife, and lack of tension between “religious duty and reality.”

One has to conclude that Weber was inadequate on leverage for influencing personal conduct. Those same Protestant values existed in China, and when they were given more opportunities, the Chinese cultural values worked to social and economic benefit. Confucianism has been a boon to the development of the Asian Tigers and China – working hard, family oriented, sacrifice for the greater good.

The decay and disappearance of the Qing dynasty was the spur to re-evaluation of Confucianism as a political and moral philosophy. The events of the “hundred years of humiliation” were likely to topple any regime – decades of violent peasant uprisings, the opium-treaty ports-European invasion decades, loss to Japan in the Sino-Japanese War of 1895, Japanese occupation of Manchuria, failure to secure lost territory in the post-WW I bargaining. Confucian rites and hidebound focus on the past was a good target for blame. Weber determined that traditional Chinese culture was inimical to modernization.

After 1980, that thesis was reversed. With its attention to family, work ethic, study ethic, and lack of boundary between the individual and the government, Confucianism became the model for third world modernization and industrialization.

Is the Confucian ethic the same as the Protestant ethic? No, but there are certainly similarities. Hard work, attention to detail, deferral of rewards seems to work everywhere a people want to succeed in modernization. Every other Confucian society – Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Viet Nam – has seen explosive growth once freed from social shackles. Confucianism is the key, many now say, to economic growth.

Some see Confucianism allied with CCP, and think Confucianism does not tolerate individualism. Confucianism certainly promotes a sense of the obligations we have to one another (as do Aristotle and Jesus) and CCP has tried to incorporate Confucianism into its authoritarian model. But we should keep in mind Confucius’ advice in Analects 15.28 (Wei Ling Gong) about independence of individual decision-making. 

The Master said, "When the multitude hate a man, it is necessary to examine into the case. When the multitude like a man, it is necessary to examine into the case."

Pretty clear case for thinking for oneself.

... just a way to help CCP remain in power?

CCP would like to make it so.

There are versions of Confucianism just as there are versions of capitalism, democracy, Islam or Christianity. Currently, there is division between a folk or traditional or people’s Confucianism and the statist version now promoted by CCP.  With the “century of humiliation,” defeat in the 1895 Sino-Japanese War, collapse of the dynastic system, internal rebellions of the 19^th century, then being ignored in the settlements after World War I, Chinese found a scapegoat in  Confucianism. Intellectuals sought to modernize China in every way. Then CCP denounced Confucianism for decades as an ancient feudal relic and a yoke on the necks of Chinese people. It was part of the Four Olds that were to be destroyed during the Cultural Revolution.

Now, with CCP trying to peddle soft power around the world, the government has given Confucianism a new lease on life. It is, as Geremie Barme at Australian National University says, a Confucianism of convenience.  The Confucius Institutes are a prime example of how China is seeking to use this “ancient feudal relic” to promote all things Chinese.  Within China, political Confucianism is meant to foster respect for rulers and common people’s acceptance of both fate and the path chosen by government in all disciplines. As Jana Rosker notes, political Confucianism is no longer in contact with social reality. No one can explain how Legalist CCP expresses “serving the people” or “collectivism” or “protecting workers’ rights,” much less a Confucian notion of benevolence. Confucianism as understood in Taiwan is closer to the Mencian view, more egalitarian and democratic.

Does CCP use Confucianism? Yes, to the dismay of many Confucian scholars. Early Confucianism  – let us say, pre-Song dynasty – saw morality inherent in the rule of the ruler. This is certainly the CCP position – in discussions on this topic, I have been told this by leaders at a provincial CCP “party school.”  Morality is what the leader says it is. But most particularly, the CCP concept of rights being bestowed by the state is clearly anti-Confucian. The roots of morality exist in all humans, and rights derive from our humanity, not our political organization.

Werner Meissner, professor at Hong Kong Baptist University -

For the Chinese Communist Party, the revival of Confucianism in the 1990s served a dual purpose. Confucianism implies order, obedience to one’s superior, devotion to the state, and the protection of the family. It puts the interests of the group above the interests of the individual, and thus helps to promote social harmony and stability. Its authoritarian aspects can be used to build a “socialist spiritual civilisation” and to promote social harmony. At the same time, Confucianism can help to provide people with some sort of national identity and to defend Chinese culture against the so-called threat of Westernisation. A “National Confucianism” can serve as a bulwark against the ideological impact of the West following rapid modernisation.

Werner Meissner. China's Search for Cultural and National Identity from the Nineteenth Century to the Present. Perspectives Chinoises (China Perspectives) November-December, 2006. Available at https://journals.openedition.org/chinaperspectives/3103

Traditional or folk Confucianism promotes concern for the other, including those outside the family or network. This is a civil society component missing from the CCP version of Confucianism, which brooks no mediator between the individual and his family and the state.  Civil society operates as a check on exercise of government power, and CCP cannot tolerate that.

We note that in the fields of physics or engineering, there is no need for checks and balances as we normally understand them. There can be differences in interpretation, but the differences do not rise to the level of moral values. In a sense, differences are about the right rather than the good - how to do rather than what to do.  In human endeavors and public policy we always need an alternative source of interpretation for moral or civil reasons. In governance, we erect checks and balances and branches and levels of government.  In law, we institute adversarial systems. In politics, we promote competing parties. In society, we use rites and civility to promote community in a pluralist population and avoid tribalism. The statist concept of Confucianism does little to promote any of those competing roles. This is the sense in which the CCP version of Confucianism is more akin to engineering than it is to a virtue ethic. Missing is a civil society element that can serve to protect the individual or the group. Folk Confucianism does not succeed well at promoting civil society; nor does it do well at “loving one another” outside the family, extended family or network, at least not as well as “love thy neighbor and “do unto others.” It does not inhibit, but doesn’t promote, either.

Confucianism, like any virtue ethic, bases morality in part on the example of sages and wise leaders. This is the view of Aristotle and early Christianity and now, in Alasdair MacIntyre and Michael Sandel. There are no major Confucian scholars who support the CCP version, other than Jiang Qing and Canadian Daniel Bell. For Confucius, the ideal relationship between ruler and ruled must have willing acceptance by the people.  Mencius tells us that the concerns of the people are top priority in rule, care of the land and state next, and the ruler last (Mencius 7B.60 (Jin Xin II.60)). Despite public rhetoric, that is not the CCP way of dealing with the people.

Yong Huang distinguishes Confucian ethics from Confucian political philosophy in his Introduction to Contemporary Confucian Political Philosophy.  He reminds us that a virtue ethic requires some teleology, some perfectionism in the form of a (government sanctioned) form of the Good.  This is not a liberal position.  Liberalism generally requires that the government remain neutral toward concepts of the good, and political conflict is about means, not ends.

As a moral philosophy Confucianism may develop its conception of the good life comprehensively and rigorously. However, as a political or public philosophy for modern times, this conception should not be derived from a comprehensive doctrine of the good.  CCP quite clearly has a singular view of the good – to remain in power.  All other goals are secondary, including serving the people, growing GDP, and dominating foreign relations.  As Randall Nadeau says in Confucianism and the Problem of Human Rights, the communist idea that rights are bestowed by the state is fundamentally anti-Confucian. 

… just another version of care ethics, or feminist ethics?  Or situation ethics, or complete relativism? … or just … humanism?

At one point, Confucianism was considered anti-feminist, or a way to keep women subjugated. But the five relationships, including that between husband and wife, are understood as mutual obligations rather than language of domination. As Henry Rosemont and Roger Ames argue, there were no abusive or oppressive attitudes and behaviors that were ever championed in the Confucian texts; on the contrary, they were all uniformly condemned in unequivocal terms. If it matters, it is common in China today for the woman in the family to control the finances.

Care ethics has developed from Carol Gilligan’s 1982 book In a Different Voice and from Nel Noddings in her 1984 book Caring: A Feminist Approach to Ethics and Moral Education.  For both, a care ethic is focused on direct care for the other and is independent of any rule based moral judgment.

Ann A. Pang-White. Reconstructing Modern Ethics: Confucian Care Ethics. Journal of Chinese Philosophy, 2009.  Available at https://www.academia.edu/36360710/Reconstructing_Modern_Ethics_Confucian_Care_Ethics?auto=download&email_work_card=download-paper

There are strong similarities with Confucian precepts. Both see human relations as basic to being human – it is impossible to be fully human living apart from others. Care ethics puts responsibility for care on the carer, a positive demand to provide. Ranjoo Herr compared the two-

A second similarity between Confucianism and Care Ethics is the intimate connection they make between emotion and morality. According to both perspectives, empathy, compassion, sensitivity, and caring are prerequisites for morality, and a truly moral person is not someone who controls her emotions with rationality but someone who develops such positive emotions to the fullest.

Care ethics seems to work best in intimate relations such as the mother-child relation.  Confucianism does not require such a strong relation. 

Ranjoo Seodu Herr.  Is Confucianism Compatible with Care Ethics? A Critique. Philosophy East & West Volume 53, Number 4 October 2003.  Available at https://www.academia.edu/286584/Is_Confucianism_Compatible_With_Care_Ethics_A_Critique?email_work_card=view-paper

Situation ethics is akin to early Christianity in its promotion of the great commandment – to love one another. Loving action is the definition of moral action in situation ethics. But this form of a virtue ethic seems not to worry about the wishes of the other – does the other wish to be helped, and how is that to be achieved? In other words, there is less notion of community in situation ethics than in early Christianity or in Confucianism.

Situation ethics and relativism seem to suggest that context is all that matters in decision-making, and this is neither Christian or Confucian. While moral choice is always individual, one should look to exemplars for guidance, and there can be poor decisions made. Moreover, love as the single criterion of morality fails to understand how moral values can and do conflict and how our responses in different contexts can be different. My feeling is that love as the sine qua non of situation ethics is too simple a standard. It has rhetorical but not pragmatic appeal.

The charge of relativism has been brought against all the Asian religions and communitarianism. The Christian position is that there is a single standard of morality provided by God, although the standard is by no means always clear. It is our task to sort that out as best we can on earth. The Confucian and communitarian position realizes the truth of Isaiah Berlin’s view – that our values do sometimes conflict and there cannot be a single standard that is true for all situations. The best we can do is to seek harmony – some balance among our own values. That is in fact what Christians must do in any case. Li Chenyang calls this “moral relativity without relativism.” It is not the case that “anything goes” – the charge often leveled by conservatives or evangelicals against communitarians and liberals alike – but values do conflict and it is our human and humane job to seek a proper balance. Moreover, a society with a single standard for morality for all situations is a society that will soon enough prove to be intolerant and inhumane and eventually unstable.

Li Chenyang –

The difference between these value systems lies in their respective configurations of these values. Take again the example of Confucianism and Christianity. It is not that Christians do not value respect for parents. They certainly do. But they also believe that revering God is far more important than respecting and caring for parents. It is not that Confucians do not value the authority of Heaven. They do. It is just that they feel, more than Christians do, that parents are deserving of respect. It is not that Christians do not value harmony and flexibility. They do. It is rather that they believe, more than Confucians do, that one should be principled. It is not that Confucians do not value being principled. They do. It is rather that Confucians value flexibility and harmony more than Christians do.

Li Chenyang. The Confucian Idea of Harmony. Philosophy East and West 56:4 (October, 2006)   Available at https://www.academia.edu/3268819/The_Confucian_ideal_of_harmony?auto=download&email_work_card=download-paper

Harmony or Way-seeking as a Confucian concept and truth seeking as a Christian concept can be in conflict.  Taken generally, the Christian view can be too principled and the Confucian view too flexible.  Neither can be always correct; my view is that balance between the two is more than a good idea, it is necessary to save Christianity and western morality from itself.  Seeking harmony is a way to preserve value pluralism since it can sometimes, per Li Zehou, seek harmony first and some form of absolutely defined justice second.

Harmony is not simply giving in to the other. It is not preserving peace at any cost. It seeks a higher plane of agreement for both sides of a conflict. It is, in fact, the highly recommended way to conduct negotiations at any level of conflict, from personal to international.  The term in negotiation is “principled negotiation” – it stands firm on convictions but seeks agreement where it can be found, which often means seeking to “enlarge the pie” of benefits being contested or reframe the conflict in ways that provide benefits to both sides.  Fisher and Ury wrote the book on principled negotiation - Getting to Yes - Negotiating Agreement without Giving In.  What Fisher and Ury describe is the attempt to get to harmony.

It is perhaps notable that in the west, we need books on the “principled negotiation” approach to resolving conflict that tries to get to some sense of win-win, a possibility for harmony. Confucian scholars David Hall and Roger Ames have noted that harmony describes the difference between western “truth seekers” and Chinese “way-seekers” on the other. Truth seekers look for something absolute and eternally true; the Chinese way is to be sought through experience.

David Hall and Roger Ames. Thinking from the Han (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998), p. 180.

A Confucian ethic, like any virtue ethic, has no fixed rules for moral behavior.  A strong argument can be made that our global world has become too corporatized, too big, to deal properly with humane treatment.  Some large corporations now have almost no way for a physical person to contact them with questions or problems (facebook, twitter).  And rather than this expressing the universal morality of Kant, we find ourselves frustrated at the lack of caring, at the lack of attention to local values. 

There are many points of agreement between Confucianism and humanism – rejection of the idea of a personal God that intercedes in the world, rejection of the need for salvation and an eternal life, promotion of learning and science as drivers of both self-cultivation and humane behavior.  Tu Weiming refers to Confucianism as a spiritual humanism.

As Tu Weiming has pointed out for years, there is a spiritual dimension to Confucianism that goes beyond what some humanists would find acceptable. Humanism is committed to rationality, in its Kantian universalist sense, and that is too narrow a position for Confucians. At  times, humanism seems to come across as thumbing its collective nose at religious believers, and Confucians would not do that. Humanists are active non-believers; Confucians retain a belief in the Dao, and would agree with John Dewey that we could use the word God for all the forces of good in the world that allow humans to live well. Call it God; call it the Dao. 

… just an atheistic version of Buddhism and Daoism?

Many volumes have been written on this topic. Suffice it to say, no. Certainly Confucianism evolved from the folk religion and Daoist culture prevalent in pre-dynastic China, and it changed in response to Buddhist ideas when introduced in the late Han dynasty. Confucianism benefits from the lack of inspired texts in Daoism and Buddhism – there is no bible, so revision and reinterpretation of ideas with changes in culture are relatively easy. 

Buddhism and Daoism do not accept the concept of a single creator god but they are not atheistic. Neither promotes active engagement with the world.

Confucianism says little about heaven or creation, but there is no necessary incompatibility with the idea of a creator, and engagement in the world is necessary for one to become fully human.

For Confucians, there is no humanity in the single human living a solitary life. There are no Confucian monks. Daoism and Buddhism want to eliminate suffering; Confucians say suffering and evil exist, cannot be avoided, and afford an opportunity to learn.

The flexibility of Asian religions and Confucianism means that one can incorporate elements of all three in one’s life. Chenyang Li cites Zhao Shen, the emperor Xiao Zong of the South Song dynasty (1163-1189 CE) who proposed that one should use "Buddhism for the mind,  Taoism  for  the  body, and  Confucianism  for organizing  society." This is sometimes quoted as one should be Buddhist in the morning, Confucian at work, and a Taoist at night.

Chenyang Li. How Can One Be A Taoist-Buddhist Confucian? - A Chinese Illustration of Multiple Religious Participation. International Review of Chinese Religion & Philosophy. Vol. 1, MARCH 1996,pp 29-66. Available at http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/Fulltext/Intlview/intlvi02.htm

As to atheism, Confucianism has never been deemed atheistic by followers or scholars.  Belief in tian, which we interpret as heaven or god, has been debated – is tian a sort of impersonal force of nature or does tian have some characteristics of a western god?  While there is no creation story in Confucianism, tian is considered by most Confucians now to be an immanently transcendent mediator of the Tao. God is in the world at all times. This is the view espoused by Tu Weiming.  Tu emphasizes strongly the spiritual dimension of Confucianism, that man’s connection to earth and heaven forms a trinity with man as the link.  Tu is quite clear that without the spiritual dimension to create a “global citizen” then what one follows cannot be Confucianism.  Tu developed this idea in a series of three lectures on Imagining Confucian Democracy at Stanford in 2013.  The second of the three Confucius as an Intellectual Resource for Civil Society is here.

Its not surprising that there should be similarities among all the wisdom traditions, particularly with regard to those virtues we can call natural law. Or the simplest injunction, to do good and avoid evil –

From Psalm 37:27-29 - Avoid evil, do good, and live forever. The Lord loves justice, and he will not abandon his godly ones.

And 1 Peter 3:8-18 - Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing. For “Whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit; let him turn away from evil and do good; let him seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.” ...

And Aquinas in Summa Theologica I-II, question 94 article 2  - Good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided. (Catholic schoolkids learn to “do good and avoid evil.”)

And Buddhism - Dhammapada 14:183 To avoid all evil, to cultivate good, and to cleanse one's mind — this is the teaching of the Buddhas.

And Confucianism, in the child-falling-into-a-well story, in Mencius Gong Sun Chou I.6 -

When I say that all men have a mind which cannot bear to see the sufferings of others, my meaning may be illustrated thus: even now-a-days, if men suddenly see a child about to fall into a well, they will without exception experience a feeling of alarm and distress. They will feel so, not as a ground on which they may gain the favor of the child's parents, nor as a ground on which they may seek the praise of their neighbors and friends, nor from a dislike to the reputation of having been unmoved by such a thing. From this case we may perceive that the feeling of commiseration is essential to man, that the feeling of shame and dislike is essential to man, that the feeling of modesty and complaisance is essential to man, and that the feeling of approving and disapproving is essential to man. The feeling of commiseration is the principle of benevolence. The feeling of shame and dislike is the principle of righteousness. The feeling of modesty and complaisance is the principle of propriety. The feeling of approving and disapproving is the principle of knowledge. Men have these four principles just as they have their four limbs…. Since all men have these four principles in themselves, let them know to give them all their development and completion, and the issue will be like that of fire which has begun to burn, or that of a spring which has begun to find vent. Let them have their complete development, and they will suffice to love and protect all within the four seas. Let them be denied that development, and they will not suffice for a man to serve his parents with.

As to the argument that there can be no morality without God – even apologist William Lane Craig agrees that there are good people who are not Christian. His manner of arguing that we cannot be good without God is a bit of casuistry. He says we don’t have to know God to be good, but goodness as humans define it does come from God. Well, ok. Nowhere else to go with that. 

As to existence of an objective morality only coming from God – God-based morality doesn’t seem to have done better over the centuries at preventing hate, bigotry, and human evil, and in fact our definitions of moral behavior do change over time.  The morality of slavery, abortion, and women as chattel are the well-known examples.  We seem to do about as well with belief in the wisdom of societal ancestors and exemplars and natural law as we do with adherence to belief in a future reward or punishment.

Every culture has a version of the Golden Rule, and “What would your mother think?” is decent basic advice for non-believers as well. Our plural societies need a morality that evolves, and once we agree on that, we are at some form of virtue ethics, such as early Christianity. Or Confucianism.

Confucianism is compatible with all religions, is willing to borrow ideas from all, and should not be identified as peculiarly Asian or Chinese.  It should be read as an extended understanding of human affairs.  It is the most adaptable wisdom tradition. 

… hypocritical?

Some critics cite Confucius on the matter of a son finding out that his father has stolen a sheep –

Zi Lu 18 – The Duke of She informed Confucius, saying, "Among us here there are those who may be styled upright in their conduct. If their father have stolen a sheep, they will bear witness to the fact." Confucius said, "Among us, in our part of the country, those who are upright are different from this. The father conceals the misconduct of the son, and the son conceals the misconduct of the father. Uprightness is to be found in this."

How is uprightness to be preserved in such a situation?  Is family more important than theft?  The answer lies in the fuller treatment in Matthew 18:15-17  -

If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

The Confucian son has an opportunity to gently remonstrate with his father and encourage him to do the right thing. If that fails, then as Confucius says in Xian Wen 34 - Someone said, "What do you say concerning the principle that injury should be recompensed with kindness?" The Master said, "With what then will you recompense kindness? Recompense injury with justice, and recompense kindness with kindness."  One can and should use justice as needed, but it is not always the first choice. This indicates a path of uprightness – attempt to preserve honor for his father, but at the same time, be aware of a greater obligation to the community. 

… too long to read and too Asian to understand?

Really, no. A short list of modern Confucian pros (and a couple of cons) paraphrasing from the blogger at beyond silk roads -

Pros of a modern Confucianism:

• Confucianism says that if you treat others with respect, you’ll get treated with respect and even if you don’t, that has nothing to do with you. It doesn’t matter how you get treated by others - that’s selfish - you should still treat other people as you would like to be treated and if they don’t, it’s on them and not you.
• It embraced the idea that kings could lose power if they behaved incorrectly.
• Filial piety says that you should respect your parents and your elders because they’re not only raising you, but they have valuable wisdom and experience and you can learn from them and appreciate the world around you.
• It encourages both education and spiritual growth.
• It embraces the idea of a meritocracy - you get what you get because of how good you are and not necessarily because of status at birth.
• It tries to work in the roles of society which have always existed and build upon them.
• It encourages politeness, respect and kindness for yourself and others, preaching humaneness towards others even if they’re your enemies. With that concept, one can look past petty grudges and be better off for it.
• Rectification of names - Call something what it is and treat others how they are to be treated based on their titles.
• Teaches people to respect themselves. Be worthy of being a child of someone and respecting them, be worthy of the titles you were given, the responsibilities you get and always give your best effort when you set out to accomplish things.
• It presents a utopian ideal where everyone does what is expected of them and so there is harmony. Confucianism promises a harmonious society if these conditions are met.

There can be negatives to a Confucian social order -

• Meritocracy may not encourage the best in people. In fact, it fosters jealousy just as much as an aristocracy (this is Michael Sandel’s argument – merit is fine, benefits based on meritocracy are not). Consider if a king is crowned but his brother wants to be king so he kills him and becomes king. You have Hamlet. Or the Lion King.

Confucianism has neither religion nor government as a moral force to stand behind it. It exists only in hearts and minds. Sometimes that is sufficient; sometimes, not. As a corrective to behavior, it relies on a sense of shame, not a given morality or a law. Shame doesn’t always work as a corrective or a restraint.

The root of justice lies in the sense of shame. What one is ashamed of are the reprehensible words and deeds that violate the just and beautiful way of human living and corrupt the nobility and dignity of the self.

Huaiyu Wang, The Way Of Heart: Mencius’ Understanding Of Justice. Philosophy East and West, 59:3, 2009, p. 340. Available at https://www.academia.edu/12410216/The_Way_of_Heart_Mencius_Understanding_of_Justice?auto=download&email_work_card=download-paper)

Confucianism can be too idealistic, assuming that if one is good and does this, then that will happen. The world doesn’t always work that way. And if you do as you should, that doesn’t guarantee that others will do what they’re supposed to do.  

… a ridiculous thing to propose to Americans?

It seems that western nations are in serious internal conflict everywhere. There are many causes, but too much adherence to rule based and utility based modes of decision-making must be a part. Our financial capitalism has fondness for rules without context, or paying attention to locale, tradition, or loyalty.

Might be useful to consider that virtue ethics has been around since Aristotle and was the model for Christian ethics for nearly two thousand years. Judaism and Confucianism are virtue ethics also.

Rights-based and rule based-ethics only evolved in the last three hundred years. Industrial and then financial capitalism have only been dominant for a bit more than a hundred years. But as Michael Sandel tells us, we are moving from having a market economy to having a market society. His contention, and that of many others, is that there are things that money should not be able to buy. Our technocratic modernity blinds us to values and understandings that we don’t quantify. Therein lies a problem many have written about in the last fifty years. James Scott in  Seeing Like a State is just one example. Scott notes that technocracy refuses to see local conditions, local knowledge in creating solutions to problems, and thereby loses valuable information. Organizational modernization tends to lose metis, the Greek term for wisdom and practical knowledge.

Perhaps some recalibration is needed. Progressive need not mean rule bound and quantifiable. My contention is that a pendulum swing in necessary in modes of decision-making and government and social organization.

We seem on the cusp of a change to human societies.  We will either become subservient to a corporate world, where large business and government work together for control of the populations and economies, or some return to local order, local control, in which local variation will have equal play with international corporatism. I am willing to suggest that we need a virtue ethic, a care ethic, a Confucian ethic to return us to humane treatment of one another. Rights are important, and can be used when virtue principles fail. But humane treatment, rather than universal treatment, needs be the way forward.

Confucianism promotes the same ideals one finds in Christianity – love for all, benevolence, learning, tolerance, even environmental justice and second order human rights. It does so without reference to heaven or salvation or religious requirements. It is the secular morality that more and more Americans need to consider if they are to be unchurched, because human rights are too narrow a standard by which to live a moral life. Human rights say nothing about natural law or virtues. Confucianism is necessary for our society that has become segregated, individualistic, divided, and hateful. We are polarized and stuck geographically. There can be no political solution, no Civil War-like division of states into blue and red. All we can hope for is a religious revival that can speak across biases and intolerances. America has had religious revivals of sorts about every 40 or 50 years in the past, and we are due. No mainstream religion, no evangelicalism, will be able to lead what we need now. Confucianism is the secular religion we need.

Next:  http://chinareflections.com/index.php/81-sections-from-book-comments-encouraged/494-confucianism-freedom-and-democracy-2-0-is-confucianism-a-religion-so-what-to-do-now