A nice little piece in tomorrow's Seoul Times (because today is tomorrow in Korea!), by Taru Taylor, considers the modern utility of Confucianism (hat tip: Western Confucian):
Confucianism is much misunderstood. The United Nations, for example, classifies it as a religion. Big mistake. Confucianism is a philosophy, not a religion. What's the difference? Religion believes in god as the final answer.
Philosophy comprehends life as a question. Confucianism is a disciplined ethical inquiry — a moral philosophy.
That sounds right to me. But then he goes off on a riff comparing Confucianism to Alice in Wonderland, which really doesn't work. He rebounds, however, with this reference:
Confucius speaks to his role as guide, not leader, in Book 18 Chapter 8 of "The Analects." Po-i, Shu-chi, Yu-chung, I-yi, Chu-chang, Hui of Liu-hsia, and Shao-lien, great leaders of his own past, he characterizes with sincere respect. He then characterizes himself: "I am different from all these. I have no course for which I am predetermined, and no course against which I am predetermined."
That sense of an open-ended, processual approach to ethics naturally raises a comparison with Western Utilitarians, which Taylor makes and dispatches: Confucius is not a utilitarian in that sense. But it leaves us with a reminder of the pragmatic quality of Confucian thought. The "right thing" is not strictly predetermined. It must be discerned from particular contexts. There are resonances here with John Dewey (scroll down to "ethical and social theory") :
Moral and social problems, for Dewey, are concerned with the guidance of human action to the achievement of socially defined ends that are productive of a satisfying life for individuals within the social context. Regarding the nature of what constitutes a satisfying life, Dewey was intentionally vague, out of his conviction that specific ends or goods can be defined only in particular socio-historical contexts.
This is getting me out of my league, but I know Roger Ames is working on the Dewey/Confucian comparison. And, for the record, here is Ames's translation of the last line of Analects 18.8:
But I am different from all these people in that I do not have presuppositions as to what may and may not be done.
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