Confucian Plagarism

    From China Law Blog, I learn how the Confucius Institute Online is taking whole articles without attribution from another web site, China Expat.   In the comments at China Law Blog the possibility has been raised that such plagiarism is inherent to Confucianism itself:

Then, there is a moral argument of Confucian and IPR. If Confucius was alive today, will he stand on the side of Lawrence Lessig (Creative Common) and Richard Stallman (Free Software) or on the side of RIAA and MPAA on the debate of the current state of IPR?

Confucius broke the caste ranking for the access to education; thus knowledge. He's pretty clear on the entitlement of education for anyone who wants it. I'd say if he's alive toady, he's likely to be more on the "Information wants to be freed" side.

The morality based on Confucian may be inclined toward spreading the knowledge then protecting the IPR. IPR may be immoral looking through the eyes of a Confucian philosopher.

 I do not buy this argument completely.  But before I offer a critique let me bring in another common observation: Chinese education, in its emphasis on rote memorization of the best "right" answer to any given question, encourages and reproduces plagiarism.  This is true.  I experienced it myself when I taught at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center almost twenty years ago.  When I assigned the first paper topic, half of the class handed in plagiarized work.  Since my job then was to demonstrate and follow American intellectual values, I graded them harshly.  And for the balance of the academic year they slowly learned how to make original arguments, a most satisfying educational outcome.

     But should we blame the reality of plagiarism in Chinese higher education and the lack of protection for intellectual property in the Chinese economy on Confucius?  No, we should not.

      First, when Confucius spoke of "education" he was not referring to the instrumentalist and technical education common to all modern societies: learning  empirical facts and theories that help us interpret the physical and social world.  When he mentioned "education" he meant moral education, the cultivation of the behaviors and habits of mind that will allow a person to recognize and conscientiously carry out their social duties.  This has very little to do - perhaps nothing at all to do - with math and science and geography and the rest of what takes up most of a school curriculum in China, and the US for that matter.  Confucius would likely resist limitations on moral knowledge and education, but that is hardly the stuff of proprietary knowledge protected by IPR.

      Second, Confucius himself did not believe there was only one "right" answer to any given question.  His ethics have a relativistic quality to them.  He understood Ritual as involving creativity and originality.  For example:

The Master said: "According to ritual, the ceremonial cap should be made of hemp; nowadays it is made of silk, which is more convenient; I follow the general usage. According to ritual, one should bow at the bottom of the steps; nowadays people bow on the top of the steps, which is rude.  Even though it goes against the general usage, I bow at the bottom of the steps." (9.3 - Leys translation)

      He did not simply enact, in the manner of rote memorization, the prescriptions of ancient ritual.  Sometimes he followed the old ways, sometimes he followed the new ways, depending upon his independent judgment of the situation.  This requires a certain interpretive ability and artistic sensibility, to orchestrate just the right action to convey just the right meaning in a particular context.

     Does IPR get in the way of our moral creativity?  Perhaps it could.  But, just as Confucius provides attributions for certain ideas - some are from the old school, some are the "general usage" - we, too, should cite the sources of our moral inspiration.  We should not just take ideas and texts that are not ours and use them without attribution.  Citation at least, please!

      Again, there might be some class of intellectual property that Confucius would resist alienating.  If someone tried to limit the free circulation of The Analects, for example, he would certainly disapprove!  But profit-making businesses stealing from one another, or teenagers downloading rap music from the internet - these he would not concern himself with.  If property rights made some sort of sense in those cases, fine.  They are, from a Confucian point of view, unworthy pursuits anyway.

     On the other hand, the "fair use" doctrine probably provides enough room for the circulation of moral ideas Confucius had in mind.  As long as it is for educational use, and no one is making a profit from it, intellectual property can be copied and exchanged freely.    So, he might well support Creative Commons and Free Software, but not if they were used in ways that motivated by profit or created profligacy.

Comments

[The Western Confucian]

This is an issue I deal with all the time here in Korea with my university students. They just don't see the issue often.

[The Cloudwalking Owl]

I can remember as a teaching assistant having to deal with the plagarism thing and having the professor ask me what I thought about the students---again mostly Chinese---who were blatantly copying texts. He was ruthless about it and pursued academic sanctions to the maximum, which including expelling students which probably created huge suffering for the foreign students. (I suspect that this would never be done nowadays.)

The culture clash extends to other elements of society. A few years ago there was a very bitter battle for our local city council with a "pro-development" mayor and council taking over from one that was considered too "Green". The first thing the mayor did was give a speech at the New Year's Levee which was heavily plagarized and was exposed as such almost instantly. It was interesting to see how the people who work with ideas (scientists, artists, software developers, teachers, etc---who make up a big part of the population in our town) were absolutely appalled by this behaviour whereas the people who do other things simply shrugged their shoulders and wondered what the fuss was all about.