The Useless Tree

Virtue Ethics and Confucius

     A great book review by Jim Holt of Deirdre McCloskey's, The Bourgeois Virtues.  I laughed out loud when I read the last line: "Somewhere within this loose, baggy monster there has to be a slim, cogently argued treatise struggling to get out."  To fully appreciate the humor, you'll have to read the whole thing.

    One of the things that McCloskey is doing is arguing for "virtue ethics," which Holt summarizes as follows:

In the last few decades, however, an alternative to utilitarian and Kantian ethics has emerged, one that harks back to the ancient philosophers. It centers neither on acts nor on their consequences, but on character. According to “virtue ethics,” morality cannot be captured in a universal code; the right thing to do in a particular situation is what a virtuous person would do. And how do we identify a virtuous person? Aristotle defined virtue as a quality of character that makes for a life well lived. Then he characterized the good life as a life lived in accordance with virtue. Circular? Today’s virtue ethicists obviously don’t think so, but they have nevertheless struggled to come up with an account of human nature that would give some definite content to the idea of virtue.

   My first thought here was, yes, this is precisely what a Confucian ethics is about: character - even if Holt, like so many American writers and thinkers, gives no thought to the possibility of a link to the Chinese ancients (and that just confirms me in my work here: we really do need to bring ancient Chinese thought into these sorts of conversations). 

     Confucius, however, goes a step further than Aristotle, and helps escape the potential circularity of virtue ethics. He provides a starting point for understanding how to live a good life.  There is not a single, universal moral code, but there is a "root of humanity," and that is the cultivation of our closest loving relationships.  We must first assure that our duties to our families and friends are fulfilled, before we assume ethical responsibilities for others.  This is not to say that we do not have any duties toward strangers; rather, it is a reminder that our first duties are to those closest to us.  We must have our houses in order, so to speak, before we can turn ourselves wholly to the problems of others.  And that may help answer a question Holt raises:

In taking the question “What sort of person ought I to be?” as fundamental, virtue ethics entails a richer moral psychology than its rivals. Yet it is not very useful in resolving ethical dilemmas. Should I betray my friend or my country? Utilitarianism at least yields an answer (friend). Virtue ethics tells me to do what a virtuous person would do in the circumstances — scant guidance for anyone who lacks the virtuous person’s built-in ethical know-how. And the egoistic emphasis on cultivating one’s virtue can easily lead to a preening moral vanity, not to say self-infatuation. How much more likable the Kantian ideal of doing the irksome thing simply because it’s your duty, damn it.

   When given the choice of friend or country, the presumptive Confucian response would be "friend," which might be overridden but only at a certain threshold of good reasons.  Is Confucianism thus just a version of Kantian duty?  Not quite.  While duty is obviously central to Confucianism, it does not have as strong a universalizing impulse as Kant.  Confucius's moral imperative is more local and intimate and concrete than Kant's.  And, I think, Confucius is more open to situational considerations that might warrant apparent contradiction of universal principles - that is why it is closer to virtue ethics: a morally educated person will be able to find the right solution to particular ethical dilemmas.

    Confucianism is, then, a more focused virtue ethics.  When confronted with moral questions, it tells us to start with a consideration of how our responses will first effect our closest loving relationships.  If those are secure, then we can seek solutions that extend our responsibilities outward to others.  That is how "character" is built.

War Doesn't Work

    We cannot say that war has never worked - I'm sure we can all think of some instances where war has produced something better than what existed before.  So, maybe I should say that using "Third Generation" war tactics, such has been used by the US in the invasion of Iraq and by Israel in the invasion of Lebanon, against an adversary that is skillful in the ways of "Fourth Generation" warfare will not work.   Today's sad news out of Qana, Lebanon, that scores of civilians, many children, were killed by an Israeli air strike, demonstrates the political limits of using heavy conventional weaponry, however high tech it may be, against an unconventional enemy.

     Even though Israel says that it does not intend to target civilians (or UN blue helmets), when it drops bombs on civilian buildings it is committing not only a moral wrong, but also a political error.  It is morally wrong because, even if Hezbollah is using civilians as shields, which is wrong, that does not justify the killing of those civilian shields by Israeli forces (I heard on the news this morning that UN observers reported that there were no Hezbollah fighters near the civilian building that was bombed).  Two wrongs do not make a right.  And that is where the political error comes in. 

    Now we have horrible photos of dead children, dead from Israeli bombs.  Israel will say they did not intend to kill civilians and that Hezbollah was using the building as a missile launch site.  But, politically, none of that matters.  The level of death here will overwhelm all other considerations.  And that is precisely what Hezbollah wants!  All that has been achieved is the further isolation, politically, of Israel and, by extension, the US.  Hezbollah is fighting a long-term political war.  Israel's narrow focus on immediate military objectives is serving Hezbollah interests.

     Let me be clear  here: I do not support Hezbollah.  They have committed war crimes by indiscriminately killing non-combatants.  All I am trying to point out is that Israel's response is not working: while it may weaken Hezbollah militarily in the short term, it is strengthening Hezbollah in the long term.   The brutality and inhumanity of the Israeli assault are backfiring, which reminds me of this passage from the Tao Te Ching:

Beijing Weekend: The Stem Cell Research Debate

    This week's Beijing Weekend column ran under the title, "The Chinese alternative to the stem cell research debate."   It was published exactly as I wrote it - and that now requires on minor revision.  When I wrote it the US Congress had not yet passed, and President Bush had not yet vetoed, the stem cell research legislation.  The reference to both should now be stated in the past tense.  The full text is below the jump.

Wayward Cliches

      I have come to learn how difficult it is to convince people that ancient Chinese philosophy really might have something interesting to say to the modern world.  When I say the words "Chinese philosophy," eyes glaze over and heads drop.  It all seems so remote and ethereal.  But I struggle on anyway, with my trusty blog...

    So, I was a bit depressed to see (somewhat belatedly) this post by Daniel Gross over at Slate on the overuse of Chinese proverbs by US corporate executives.  The instances he cites seem to me to reduce the world of Chinese thought to a series of bromides.  Gross rightly points out that the saying - "May you live in interesting times" - is not Chinese, as I pointed out last year.  But he makes a glaring error himself.  The line - "Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime" - is not from Lao Tzu.  It is not in the Tao Te Ching, the book supposedly authored by Lao Tzu.  Also, the historical identity of Lao Tzu is very much in doubt; I tend to agree with AC Graham that there was probably no such person.  So, at the very least, if the line is attributed to Lao Tzu in some source other than the Tao Te Ching, it should be cited to that specific source as a sort of hearsay.  It's not Lao Tzu.

Japan Isn't a "Confucian Society," Either

     What country is this quote referring to:

In a culture that stresses the need to pull one's own weight, a profound stigma surrounds welfare. Many needy elderly are too ashamed even to apply for it. Advocacy groups for the aged estimate that the number of seniors in need is at least five times more than the half-million now receiving special government assistance.

   Pull  your own weight; stigma of welfare; shame of government assistance: sounds like an idealized image of the "rugged individualism" of the US (which, of course, does not capture the realities of US society either.)  But no, the passage is from a story in today's Washington Post,"The Face of Poverty Ages in Rapidly Graying Japan."  It seems rather familiar: social attitudes, among both the young and the old, toward caring for the elderly are changing, leaving more and more old folks with no one to care for them and with an embarrassed resistance against asking for help.   Moreover, the government, in an effort to reduce deficit spending and create a more competitive business sector, is cutting back on welfare for the aged:

As the world's most rapidly graying nation struggles to cope with the exploding costs of its aging population, it is cutting back its famed safety net of universal health care, generous pensions and welfare benefits for seniors of all social classes. But those already living on the margins are being hit the hardest.

Over the past decade, the number of indigent seniors nationwide skyrocketed by 183 percent to about half a million people, Welfare Ministry statistics show. Most of them are victims of the protracted recession that Japan endured in the '90s, and many have been abandoned by children bucking the Japanese tradition of living with one's elderly parents.

The creation of a new underclass of the down, out and old in Japan -- a country that long prided itself on being a "one-class society" -- is giving public housing complexes the feel of poor retirement communities. Almost one in every two people on welfare in Japan is now 65 or older, the government here reports. By comparison, roughly one in 10 welfare recipients in the United States are senior citizens, according to U.S. government statistics.

    If there were any analytic utility to the notion "Confucian society," it would most likely be found in how a society, and its government, manages the issue of care for the elderly, a primary Confucian duty.  Not too long age - and I suspect still right now - books with the title Confucius Lives Next Door, seemed to capture something about Japanese society.    And there still might be some truth to the contention that Japan embodies certain values of collectivism that can be traced back to its historical experience with Confucianism.  But modernization and globalization are taking their toll.  If the plight of the elderly in Japan is as this article describes, than that society is rapidly losing its Confucian qualities.

    I do not mean this as a knock against Japan - it is not clear to me that any place now can be rightly termed a "Confucian society."  Rather, it demonstrates, perhaps, what Confucianism cannot be: it cannot be a set of social practices that fundamentally contradict the cultural individualization of globalized modernity.  Confucianism might serve as a guide for how individuals can make good decisions and find meaning in a modern society, but it cannot rise to the level of defining a whole society in itself.   It can operate on an individual level, not a societal level.

     Or am I wrong about all of this?

More Sun Tzu on the Mideast War

    My friend and neighbor, Abu Aardvark, has a great post today on the failures of US strategy for the current fighting in Lebanon.  By not pressing for a ceasefire immediately, the US has isolated itself as the sole supporter (in the sense that our inaction permits Israel to continue to press the fight) of the Israeli offensive.  It is rapidly becoming apparent that, if the fighting does not end soon, the US will face new obstacles in gaining cooperation of many states, both regional Arab states and others, on other issues of importance.  It is letting its global strategy - on the war on terrorism, on the long-term response to changing balances of power in East Asia, etc. - be dictated by the short term tactical needs of the Israeli military.  Not a very smart stance for a global power.

    Which brings me back to Sun Tzu.  The emerging political-diplomatic disaster suggests that the Israeli offensive is reaching its limits.  At some point, and I suspect this is going to happen fairly soon, US policymakers will come to realize that the war-fighting is contrary to American global interests and they will press Israel to stop bombing civilian (and UN!) targets and pull back within some sort of buffer zone in southern Lebanon. 

     If Israel persists, it will be prolonging the war in politically untenable ways, and that is where Sun Tzu comes in:

Thus, while we have heard of blundering swiftness in war, we have not yet seen a clever operation that was prolonged.

For there has never been a protracted war from which a country has benefited. (chapter 2.6,7)

    Perhaps we could argue about whether there has been a protracted war that has been successful - Mao Zedong certainly thought there was - but the key point here is that time matters in war-fighting.  And the political context of a war will determine if time is working against you or for you.  In the case of Israel, and by extension the US, even though the fighting has only lasted for two weeks or so, it may be crossing into the realm of "protracted."  Whatever advantages Israel may have had in a lightening strike are gone, the benefits of swift maneuvers have dissipated and the costs of protracted war now mount. 

   If they are reading their Sun Tzu, Israeli commanders may want to think about accepting that ceasefire offer, cutting their losses, and looking to their broader strategic goals.

     It may be going too far to say, but if Israel and the US do not recognize the perils of protracted fighting, they may be making a fundamental strategic mistake, a la Sun Tzu:

Thus, those unable to understand the dangers inherent in employing troops are equally unable to understand the advantageous ways of doing so.  (chapter 2.8)

UPDATE: it seems that the conservative blogosphere is also coming to the conclusion that a ceasefire should come sooner rather than later, as this Andrew Sullivan post demonstrates.

Better Late than Never?

    Breaking News!

Female descendants included in Confucius family tree for the first time

"In China, where men have traditionally been regarded as superior to women, and in a family in which tradition is strictly observed, it is of great significance that female descendants of Confucius will now be included in the family tree," said Liu Shifan, Vice President of the International Confucius Association.

Kong Dehong, Dean of the Confucius Genealogy Office at the Association of Compilation Work for Confucius' Genealogy, said that female descendants would not be added to past compilations of Confucius' family tree, where the spouses of male descendants were marked behind their husbands' names in smaller characters.

The current project to trace Confucius' genealogy began in 1996 and is the fifth of its kind. But this time, female descendants will be included, and their names will be written in the same size as their male counterparts. The names of the female descendants' husbands will be printed next to them and marked in smaller characters. If the children of female descendants carry the surname Kong, they will also be included in the genealogy.

    Reminds me of the excitement surrounding the announcement, in 1992, that Pope John Paul II expressed regret for how the church had dealt with Galileo.  Only 360 years late!

     But seriously, what the Kong family does with its genealogy really has no bearing on what Confucianism might be in the modern world. 

    I do not mean any disrespect for the Kong family, which I am happy to assume are perfectly nice people.  My point is that the practices of the family of a thinker like Confucius are tangential to the broader social and political functions of a thinkers ideas.  Do we consider the behavior the descendants of Siddhartha Gautama when we contemplate the enlightenment of Buddha?  Of course not.   What matters is how the ideas of the thinker are taken and used in various social and political contexts.

     For centuries, Confucian ideas were used to bolster a staunchly patriarchal socio-political system.  This started to change in the late 19th century, as Chinese thinkers started to try, in earnest, to adapt Confucian texts to the processes of modernization.   But it did not change fast enough or extensively enough, and Confucian thought has continued to bear the mark of gender bias.  It does not have to suffer under this burden, but we must get to the heart of the matter: women are as capable of Humanity, indeed they may generally be more capable, as men.  Women working toward Humanity should be afforded the same respect as men.  This was not an idea common to Confucius's own time; it is a necessary recognition of modern realities.

     So, two cheers to the Kong family for getting right with modern society.  Too bad it couldn't have happened a hundred years ago...

Modern Love: The Punctuation of Duty

     Today, Jamie Callan recounts her courtship with the man who would become her second husband.  It started out as a college teacher/student (albeit older, returning to school after a divorce, student) relationship.  I must admit being a bit nervous as I started to read, having witnessed various teacher/student liaisons over the years, some of which have gone terribly wrong.  In any event, my qualms were eased by the obvious maturity of Callan and her paramour, now husband.

      She is a teacher of writing and makes a question about the use of the semicolon into a symbol of her connection with her student:

THAT night I read in “Woe Is I” by Patricia T. O’Conner that the semicolon is like a blinking yellow light between two connected but independent sentences. You read through the first sentence, but before going to the next, the semicolon warns you to slow down and look both ways.

I told this to my student, and he seemed pleased. Not just pleased with the information but with the fact that I had looked it up just for him. I suspect he also must have been pleased about the meaning itself, about proceeding with caution, because that’s how he and I proceeded in whatever it was we were or weren’t doing.

    She returns to this image at the end of the piece, when they allow their friendship to transform into something closer:

By then I knew the rules of grammar all too well, or at least I knew the rule about the semicolon. My student and I had minded the semicolon and proceeded from the first sentence of our relationship to the second with greater caution than surely any semicolon in history had ever required. But my daughter had left for Los Angeles to spend time with her father. A year earlier my mother had died. There wasn’t a single semicolon or any other punctuation to delay us, so my student and I proceeded quickly.

And now we are married.

     The things that made the "semicolon" - the caution to proceed toward a more permanent commitment - necessary were the prior obligations Callan had in her life: to her mother, who was dying of cancer; to her daughter, who needed her time and attention.   She and her student (who turns out to be older than she) could not combine their lives until she had taken care of her other family duties. 

    How admirable.  Too often we hear stories of people abandoning their current responsibilities to chase some vision of independence and love.  Here is someone who maintained a sense of proportion in her life: she did the right things first and then was still able to make what she wanted out of her affection for this student. 

     This is a comforting story for me right now.  My wife and I are both deeply embedded in family duties: she watches over her mother and father, who live in our town and are in increasing need of daily help; and I keep an eye on my aunt and sister, who also live in our town and require assistance.  Together, we both care for our daughter, who is twelve going on whatever.  There is little time outside of these demands, and work, for us to feel like we are  addressing our own needs and desires.  For us, it seems to be all semicolon and no second sentence.

    Callan's story helps because, in a Confucian sort of way, it reminds me that we are, indeed, defined by how we attend to our social responsibilities.  Taking care of our family members is not something that takes us away from what we can or should be: it is what we are.  Without the daily work of family relationships (even when we do this work imperfectly), without that semicolon, there would be no next line of our lives.  The sentence breaks apart when the semicolon is removed.

Beijing Weekend: How Much is Enough?

    This past Friday, my second Beijing Weekend column ran in China Daily.  The web page publication is here.  I am also going to copy the text below the jump of this post, for anyone who is interested.  I did not post last weeks column because it was largely an introduction to my interest in finding contemporary meaning of ancient Chinese texts, something that readers of this site are already well aware of. 

Pearl Buck

   Bro. Bartelby, a regular and thoughtful commenter here sent an email asking my thoughts about the revival of Pearl Buck, author of The Good Earth.  He sent along a link to a piece in the Wilson Quarterly by Sheila Melvin, which I had already seen, thanks to Frog in a Well.  Since he asked, I will oblige him.

   I read The Good Earth aloud to my daughter about two years ago.  She was then about ten and I had to orally edit out some of the sex scenes, as mild as the were.   She has also seen the movie.  So, today, as an experiment of sorts, I asked her what she thought of it and she said: "Mean people get what is coming to them."  She remembered how bad  Wang was to O-lan and that, in the end, his own sons conspired to sell the land he had always held so dear.  She also found it odd that the movie had no Chinese actors in it (chip off the old block!).

     My own sense of the book is that it is a good tale, with a nice narrative ebb and flow.  As to the Big Questions that surround the text, I do not see it as serving a significant Orientalist function. Yes, it shaped popular Western views of China for a couple of decades, but it was always in tension with other voices, some much less flattering regarding "Chinese characteristics."  Indeed, the characters do not exoticize "the Chinese;" rather, Wang's self-interested motivations and O-lan's virtues make them familiar, not distant and inscrutable, to Western readers.  But that's just me, and I'm not a very sophisticated literary analyst.

     One thing I am more comfortable saying, though, is how useful the text is in complicating an overly simplistic view of "Confucian society."  On the one hand, Wang's patriarchal power fits in quite nicely with the notion of Confucianism as a means of reproducing male power, which it was.  But, on the other hand, his greed and cut-throat business acumen, show how Chinese society always violated Confucian principles, which denigrated commercial instincts.  Buck, by drawing out these two sides of the China she experienced, reminds us that Confucianism does not capture all Chinese realities.