Confucianism - Freedom and democracy 2.0

Is Confucianism a Religion?

V. Another sidebar – Augustine, Garry Wills, MacIntyre, rights and the Church today   There is rather a lot to cover in this sidebar – government and religion, rights, failure of rights, an Augustinian view of living faithfully in difficult times. I suppose this is all done neither wisely nor too well. There are many learned volumes about any one of the topics here. Suffice it to say these are notes to myself.

Confucianism - Freedom and democracy 2.0

Is Confucianism a religion?

IV. A sidebar – Margaret Anscombe, Jonathan Haidt, and Sam Harris toward the psychology of morality

Kant and Bentham, Rawls and Mill sought to abstract morality from religious ideology. They proposed belief in universal reason and the greatest good for the greatest number. But now particularly in a diverse, plural world, we find universal reason … lacking and “the greatest good” sometimes not good enough. As Alasdair MacIntyre told us, a morality that is everywhere is the morality of no place. Morality is necessarily local, everywhere.

A virtue ethic – like early Christianity or Confucianism – avoids the universalist constraint. We can have a commandment to love one another, and we can have natural law and beatitudes, but we look to exemplars – those we can emulate – for instruction on what is moral in a particular situation. How do we learn to be the best human we can be?

Confucianism - Freedom and democracy 2.0

 Is Confucianism a religion?

 III.   Getting unstuck 2 -  the Goal   How can we talk with one another? The language of talking

Liberals understandably throw up their hands when confronted with wild-eyed conspiracy theorists of the right or flat-earthers or Q fans. But there remain the views of some principled conservatives, some thoughtful Christians with whom liberals must contend. Liberals have to find a way to talk the talk with conservatives, else they lose moral ground at the outset. I am hoping to provide some background for liberals to use so that discussion does not descend quite so quickly to yelling or silence. The organization Braver Angels is a good example, as Jonathan Rauch suggests in The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth. They sponsor workshops, debates, and music in an effort to depolarize “reds and blues.”

Confucianism - Freedom and democracy 2.0

Is Confucianism a religion?

II. What is Confucianism? Another weird Asian thing?

Briefly - Confucianism is the ethical perspective that has been at the base of Chinese culture for more than two thousand years, hundreds of years longer than Christianity has dominated the west.

Confucianism - Freedom and democracy 2.0

Is Confucianism a religion?

I. Getting unstuck 1 - How can we talk with one another? Our small d democratic failure

It may seem ironic that humanists or the non-religious need a foundation for belief, but that is what I see as needed in America now. Liberals in any case need a way to talk with each other about morality and values. Secular liberals who are afraid of biblical references need a way to talk with some conservative Christians. This is a series of posts about giving secular liberals some Confucian ideas to use in exchanges with each other and with conservative Christians. Confucianism and early Christianity are virtue ethics. They share many beliefs about the means to good and moral behavior in the here and now. Confucianism can help liberals find meaning for themselves and help in communicating on big ideas.

The spirituality in Confucianism gives it a foundational leg up on other humanist traditions, including communitarianism, civic republicanism, humanism, and even the social gospel.

Confucianism - Freedom and democracy 2.0

Is Confucianism a religion?

An introduction to this series of posts  Is Confucianism a religion?  Yes. No. Maybe. Who cares?

The elevator pitch for this series of posts is that America has deep cultural problems emerging from the left and the right. Communication is poor or non-existent, but democracy needs communication to function. Otherwise we descend into tribes – as we are seeing already.

Some American secular liberals are willing to talk with some conservatives, but are afraid of running afoul of some biblical language with which they are unfamiliar. Terms like virtue, tolerance, benevolence and love are absent from liberal discourse. In any case, many secular liberals themselves can claim no particular moral foundation for their positions. Once beyond rights, which can be ephemeral, what is the rationale for moral behavior?

We need new ways to talk with each other without fear and loathing and with tolerance and benevolence.