Series on the History of Chinese Philosophy, Pt. 10
Family Reverence in Confucian Societies
How “OK, Boomer!” Might Just Be the Rally Cry of an Unhealthy Society
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Welcome to Part 10 of the series.
Up until now, we’ve been treating the ideas of Confucius as a kind of “virtue ethics” — a term modern ethicists use to distinguish character-based theories from their action-based rivals. Simply put, virtue ethicists don’t worry about whether or not “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”… or if “the end justifies the means.” Instead, they tend to think moral goodness has to be measured across a LIFETIME, not within a single deed. Given how much Confucius talked about the moral character of the junzi (“gentleman/noble son”) we can see why comparativists might be attracted to interpreting the Confucian view along these lines.
But, in this entry we’ll be looking at those ideas from a slightly different angle — one that emphasizes the ROLES people play in their moral lives, rather than the characters they possess.
Recent developments in comparative scholarship have suggested this way of understanding Confucian moral philosophy may be more culturally appropriate than the older virtue-ethics-framework — especially when considering how philosophical texts like the Classic of Filial Piety (Xiàojīng 孝經) and the Book of Mencius (Mèngzǐ 孟子) situated virtue WITHIN such roles.
We’ll unpack some of those details along the way, so let’s get started!
Families and Healthy Societies
There are many ways the health of a society can be measured. And, while it may not be the first thing that comes to mind, the quality of relationships between different generations is one important indicator of societal health. In fact, the United Nations considers both life expectancy and elder-care when it calculates its Human Development Index (HDI) rankings.
There’s likewise a raft of psychological research indicating the benefits of such cross-generational ties… for EVERYONE INVOLVED. Family ties across multiple generations help reduce loneliness and isolation for seniors, offer alloparenting options for working parents, and promote cognitive development in children.
The traditional Confucian family was an extended, multi-generational unit — with each generation fulfilling its own obligations and duties attached to nurturing the others. The elderly/grandparents were expected to offer guidance and wisdom, parents were expected to provide for the family, abide by the elderly, and offer role-modeling and discipline for their children. Children were expected to prepare for adulthood — dedicating themselves to education and civic duty.
Yet, in some nations, the combination of a youth-oriented consumerism, a “tyranny of the new,” and an association of aging with obsolescence has led to a uniquely MODERN form of ageism — the consequences of which can be far-reaching, especially during a deadly pandemic.
Interestingly enough, it turns out there’s a strong correlation between countries who embrace Confucian family reverence and those with lower COVID-19 infection rates. Researchers are still trying to isolate the variables that might explain this connection, but suffice it to say, these are not places where one is likely to hear the phrase “OK, Boomer!” with any frequency.
Of course, that’s not to say that societies prizing Confucian filial piety (xiào 孝) don’t face their own problems… but it should offer some food for thought when it comes to values, commitments, and priorities in a healthy society.
The Classic of Filial Piety
The Xiàojīng (孝經), or “Classic of Filial Piety,” is a book that dates back to the late Warring States period and early Han Dynasty — although the extant version was compiled during the Song (12–13th c. CE). The traditional account of its origin attributes it to a conversation between Confucius and his disciple Zengzi. But, it most likely developed over several generations through the work of Confucius’ successors.
The text became important in elementary moral education and was often read aloud by children at the funerals of their parents… which demonstrates its deep connection to the ritual propriety (lĭ 禮) concept explored in Part 8 and Part 9 of this series. In those installments we discussed how important lĭ was both to Confucian and neo-Confucian moral philosophy and you might recall how we characterized ritual ceremony as the outward manifestation of benevolence, or rén (仁), within one’s heart.
Similarly, it could be said that xiào is like an internal wellspring of rén. The relationship of xiào to rén is like the relationship of a root to a tree — securing the appropriate relationships of respect within the home is prior to securing respect within a community and without the former, the latter would wither. But, despite its English translation as “filial piety,” xiào is not just what sons and daughters owe their parents. It also includes the idea that parents will reciprocate what is due to their children, NOT strictly in terms of material obligations like food, shelter, and medical care… but in respect and ethical nurturing, as well.
The main focus of the text’s 18 sections is on the relationship between a father and a son, but that serves as a measuring stick and leaping off point for considering various other familial and social roles.
The opening chapter begins:
Confucius was at leisure in his home, and Master Zeng was attending him.
The Master said, “Do you understand how the former kings were able to use the model of their consummate excellence (de) and their vital way (dao) to bring the empire into accord (shun), and how the people on this account were able to attain harmony (he) and to live with each other as good neighbors so that those above and below alike did not resent each other?”
Master Zeng rose from his mat to respond, and said, “I am not clever enough to understand such things.”
“It is family reverence (xiao),” said the Master, “that is the root of excellence, and whence education (jiao) itself is born. Sit down again and I will explain it to you.”
Confucian Role Ethics
Renewed interest in Confucian moral philosophy was initiated by Roger Ames’ and Henry Rosemont’s 2008 translation of the Xiàojīng, which interprets Confucius through the lens of role ethics. Put simply, role ethics situates virtue in the context of one’s roles within larger social frameworks. Compared to more familiar accounts of virtue, such as Aristotle’s, role ethics tends to focus less on the virtues within a particular individual and suggests they arise instead in the relationships between people.
According to Ames and Rosemont, Confucian role ethics enables a person to become human by
cultivating those thick, intrinsic relations that constitute one’s initial conditions and that locate the trajectory of one’s life force within family, community, and the cosmos.” (p. 107)
An emphasis is therefore placed on:
- flesh and blood role-bearers, not abstract rights-holders.
- intimate family feelings (not social-contracts) as the entry point for developing moral competence.
There are a number of advantages gained with the role-ethics interpretation of Confucian thought. For one, it appears to place care, not justice, at the value-center of human behavior. This helps shift moral reckoning away from individual rights and reciprocity toward collective responsibilities and harmony.
Thinking in this way might also allow for greater fluidity and growth over the course of a lifetime, since most of the roles one occupies will evolve and complexify as one matures.
Finally, it could remind us that the filaments of our moral obligations extend outward in a multitude of directions.
But, like any good philosophical gongfu, the role-ethics theory has its pitfalls, as well. Consider the dutiful employee who, in order to help the profit margins of her company, might commit moral offenses she would never entertain in her personal code of conduct (cf. Keith Leavitt).
Research shows that many people change their moral decisions about selling a potentially fatal drug once they’re asked to imagine themself as a member of the drug company’s board of directors.
This is a common problem in our modern world. All too often we encounter those performing heartless acts that claim to be “just doing their job.”
Rectifying Social Roles in the Xiaojing and the Book of Mencius
Fortunately, there’s already a countermove in Confucian philosophy one might deploy against this sort of criticism. It’s known as zhèngmíng [正名], or “the rectification of names.”
We’ve already seen this basic idea in Part 6 when Confucius said in his Analects: “Let the ruler truly rule, ministers truly minister, fathers truly father, and sons truly be sons.” [12:11] Confucius was pointing out that it’s not enough to be a leader or a father IN NAME ONLY… one has to actually PUT IN THE WORK to exhibit the virtues of such a role!
In other words, good fathers need to be fatherly if they are to receive their due treatment from their sons and leaders must exhibit good leadership if they are to receive their due respect from the people. Such an idea places familial roles at the magnetic center of one’s moral compass.
That might go a long way toward safeguarding against the kind of moral corruption that results from someone “just doing their job” or “just following orders.”
We see this illustrated in Book 13 of the Analects:
The Lord of She spoke to Confucius saying, “In my precincts there is an upright man. When his father stole a sheep, this man gave evidence against him.”
“In my precinct the upright are different,” Confucius replied. “Fathers cover up for their sons and sons for their fathers. Uprightness lies therein.” — [13.18]
We also can see the potential consequences of this idea for social justice and equality, when Confucius reminds his students always to help those in need and admonishes those who grow wealthy while others suffer.
So what are the sorts of social roles Confucius had in mind?
The Xiàojīng discusses five — emperor 天子, feudal vassals 諸侯, high ranking officials 卿大夫, scholars 士, and the common people 庶人 — and the text outlines how family reverence manifests itself in the performance of each role:
With love and respect being fully expressed in this service to parents, such conduct will educate and transform the common people, serving as exemplary in all corners of the world. Such, then, is the family reverence of the emperor…
With nobility and wealth secure in their persons, they are able to protect the altars to their lands and crops and bring harmony to their people. Such, then, is the family reverence of the feudal vassals…
With dress, speech, and conduct being as they should be, they are able to safeguard their ancestral temples. Such, then, is the family reverence of the ministers and high ranking officials…
With loyalty and compliance being firmly in place in service to those above, they are able to maintain their tenure in office and to continue their ancestral sacrifices. Such, then, is the family reverence of the scholars…
By making the most of the seasonal cycle (dao) and discriminating among the earth’s resources to best advantage, and by being circumspect in their conduct and frugal in what they use, they take proper care of their parents. Such, then, is the family reverence of the common people. [Rosemont & Ames, p.106–8]
In addition to these five roles, are the classic wŭlún [五倫], or five relationships, first outlined by Mencius — the second most famous Confucian philosopher, who lived a few generations after Confucius died.
Here’s how he introduced the wŭlún:
the relations of humanity: how, between father and son, there should be affection; between sovereign and minister, righteousness; between husband and wife, attention to their separate functions; between older and younger, a proper order; and between friends, fidelity. [Mencius 3A:4]
It’s not clear whether or not early Confucian scholars considered these wŭlún relationships as prior to the roles just outlined in the Xiàojīng, but since there’s some overlap, we could probably just place them on equal footing. One thing to note, however, is how these relationships exhibit five PAIRS of social roles, with certain rights and duties unique to each side of the relationship. In this way, one could argue that it’s the RELATIONSHIP ITSELF, and NOT the individual role-bearers, that should be considered occasions of Confucian virtue.
Rounding Out the Social Roles & Family Reverence
The list of roles & relationships outlined so far is by no means exhaustive. There were MANY other important roles in classical Chinese society just as there are in our own. But, these traditional roles were so influential that often other roles/relationships would be recast in terms of these familial bonds.
Teachers: Because of the primacy of the father-son relationship, students in classical China often treated their teachers as surrogate fathers, with all the respect afforded that paternal role. In fact, the term shīfù, in Chinese, has the dual meaning of master and father because of the homophony between 傅, which means “tutor” and 父, which means “father” — as both are pronounced fù.
Friends: Although Mencius names friendship as one of the five core relationships, little is said in early Confucianism about the various KINDS of friendships one might hold. But, since Confucius stated in the Analects that one should keep friendships only with those who might improve one’s life, friends often swore blood-oaths to one another in order to redefine their relationship in terms of a brotherly, older-younger hierarchy.
Wives & daughters: As we saw in Part 9, the patriarchy that pervades Confucianism actually developed AFTER the writing of the Xiàojīng and the Book of Mencius, during the Han dynasty under the influence of Dong Zhongshu — who had political reasons for recasting the five relationships in such a way that subordinated women. If you’re interested in more of that story, be sure to follow the links placed in that installment.
Miscellaneous: A discussion of filial piety wouldn’t be complete without at least mentioning a collection of folk-tales from the Yaun dynasty (1279–1368CE) known as the Twenty-four Exemplars of Filiality. Although the tales in that collection tend toward the hyperbolic (e.g. a son tastes his father’s stool in order to check for illness, a woman suckles her elderly mother-in-law to keep her alive, and a daughter wrestles a tiger to save her father) its influence on East Asian cultures cannot be dismissed out of hand.
It’s important to note, however, that even the strictest Confucian scholars did not accept these folk tales wholesale. In fact, they viewed many as NEGATIVE examples of filiality. After all, we wouldn’t read the brothers Grimm to understand Kant, Hans Christian Andersen for insight into Kierkegaard, or turn to Aesop to get a handle on Plato… so we probably shouldn’t look to the Twenty-four Exemplars for any real help in grasping Confucian moral philosophy. either.
But, to ignore such folktales COMPLETELY would likewise do a disservice to the history of ideas… and wouldn’t be NEARLY as much fun!
In Part 11 we’ll turn our attention to the dispute about human nature between Mencius and another famous Confucian philosopher by the name of Xunzi.
See you there!
