Confucianism and Global Warming

An article last week in the Christian Science Monitor caught my eye: "How Confucianism could curb global warming."  Two main points are put forward.  First, we have this:

But Pan Yue, China's vice minister for environmental protection, is calling for China to capitalize on traditional Chinese religions in promoting ecological sustainability.

He says, "One of the core principles of traditional Chinese culture is that of harmony between humans and nature. Different philosophies all emphasize the political wisdom of a balanced environment. Whether it is the Confucian idea of humans and nature becoming one, the Taoist view of the Tao reflecting nature, or the Buddhist belief that all living things are equal, Chinese philosophy has helped our culture to survive for thousands of years. It can be a powerful weapon in preventing an environmental crisis and building a harmonious society."

I like Pan Yue.  I think he truly works hard, against difficult odds, to do the right thing by China's, and the world's, environment.  But the simple assertion that some elements of tradition now play a key role in addressing the contemporary environmental crisis is a bit shallow.   Powerful political and economic interests are in play, interests that care little and pay no heed to tradition.  More on that later.

A second point is also asserted in the CSM piece:

The $64,000 question facing economists and politicians across the world is how to make decisions that take into account the big picture beyond the "purely financial perspective."

This is a hard question for Western economic and political theorists to answer, because their theories are based on the Enlightenment view of the self as an autonomous, rational individual.

But how are we to make decisions that take into account the interests of those who have not yet been born?

Being respectful to the interests of past and future generations is key to the Confucian view of the self and groups. To the question, "Who am I?" the Confucian answers, "I am the child of my parents and the parent of my children."

Confucianism begins from the proposition that human beings are defined by kinship networks that span the centuries. From this perspective the interests of the individual are bound up with the interests of the kinship group as it extends forward and backward across the generations.

This will be a key factor in the way China handles present and future environmental issues.

Let me counter with two points.  First, it is not clear that Western liberalism, whatever we think of it, cannot respond to environmental problems.  One economic approach is to determine the real cost of certain kinds of activities - that is, take those effects (pollution, warming, etc.) that are understood as "externalities" and build them into the real price of energy.  The cap and trade approach is another possibility.  And democratic institutions should not be assumed to be incapable of responding to environmental problems.  Even though much more needs to be done in the US, there has been a marked improvement in air and water pollution in the past forty years (remember the river that caught fire?!).

I do not want to take up a detailed defense of liberalism here.  Indeed, I readily accept that it has certain failings.  But I would just push back against an overly simple critique that fails to recognize those ways in which liberalism, in either its political or economic guise, can respond to environmental problems.

The issue I want to focus on here, however, is whether Confucianism really does account for the "interests of those not yet born."  I think it is limited in this regard.

Of course, there is a certain environmental sensitivity in Confucianism.  Confucius himself does makes statements regarding the conservation of resources.  But he also demonstrates an anthropocentrism that might limit his environmental credentials.  Let's turn, however, toward the more specific question about the interests of those not yet born.

I believe that, if there were a conflict between the living and the not yet born, Confucianism would tell us to protect the living first.  To be more concrete, if a person needed to participate in a business or activity that was harmful to the environment in a manner that would be manifest in future generations, but that business or activity was necessary to provide for the extent members of that person's family, Confucianism would tell that person to do what is necessary to care for the living members of the family. Analects 11.12 gets at this problem in regards to the living versus the dead:

When Adept Lu asked about serving ghosts and spirits, the Master said: “You haven’t learned to serve the living, so how could you serve ghosts?”

“Might I ask about death?”

“You don’t understand life,” the Master replied, “so how could you understand death?”

The key here is the notion of “serving the living,” which implies daily commitment to cultivating social relationships, starting first with family and moving then to friends and acquaintances and even strangers.  “Life,” is the process of serving the living.  Our duties toward those now living around us are more important than worries about death.  Although we have obligations to remember the dead, to venerate the ancestors, we do so because they have already lived and provided for us the social interactions that nurtured our Humanity.   This is different from the not yet living, who have not begun humanizing themselves by adding to the humanization of others around them.

In short, in Confucianism our duties toward the living trump our potential duties to the not yet born.

This is the problem with overly simplistic invocations of "Confucian tradition."  Often, when we dig a little deeper, we find that the tradition may say things that we do not expect, or do not really want to hear.  Indeed, I would go so far (as I have here on various occasions) to say that China is not, and never has been, a "Confucian society."  At least insofar as the ethical standards found in The Analects and Mencius are concerned.   Those texts might best be understood as prescriptions for how the world ought to be, not descriptions for how it is or how it was.  

Confucianism sets high standards that are hard to meet.  It does include a kind of conservation ethic but it does not privlege the interests of the not yet born over the now living.  And it has always been confounded by political and economic powers-that-be.  It is not, in sum, an panacea for our contemporary environmental problems. 

Comments

[gmoke]

Taoism is probably much more useful than Confucianism in solving ecological puzzles. Ecological design has to be Taoist at its core as it tries to copy natural flows and systems in order to maximize human use while minimizing and ameliorating ecosystem harm. John Todd's work with "living machines," a series of artificial ecosystems to treat sewage, septage, and hazardous wastes, is one clear example. He has even done work in China cleaning up urban canals.

There's also Bill McDonough's (who grew up in Hong Kong) ecological design principles:
• Waste = food
• Use only current solar income
• Respect diversity
• Love all the children

And don't forget Gary Snyder, here represented by "Four Changes" (1969) , an essay on the changes necessary to live within our ecological niche:

Don't waste. (A monk and an old master were once walking in the mountains. They noticed a little hut upstream. The monk said, "A wise hermit must live here" - the master said, "That's no wise hermit, you see that lettuce leaf floating down the stream, he's a Waster." Just then an old man came running down the hill with his beard flying and caught the floating lettuce leaf.) Carry your own jug to the winery and have it filled from the barrel....