This just in from a Reuters profile of Chen Guangcheng:
From Chinese history, Chen said he admired 5th-century BC philosopher Mo Tzu, and Taoism founder Lao Tzu, the works of which had also been read aloud to him.
I must say it's great to see a reference to Mozi (Mo Tzu), an odd man out in the cannons of Chinese thought. He, and his followers, were extraodinarily influential in pre-Qin times, but they fall out of the picture for centuries until being "rediscovered" in the Qing.
And it makes perfect sense that Chen, a man seeking consistent application of the law to all Chinese equally, would be inspired by Mozi. Perhaps the most famous concept associated with Mozi is jianai - 兼爱. For a long time the most common translation, coming from Burton Watson, had been "universal love." This always struck me as a bit too hippy-ish. Ivanhoe and Van Norden render it: "impartial caring," which strikes me as better. While Fraser goes with "inclusive care," also good.
What is common to all of these translations is a divergence from Confucianism, which, generally, tells us that our obligations to our family and closest relations are of greater importance than our obligations to others outside of those more immediate social networks. That is not to say that Confucianism does not recognize obligations to strangers; it does. Rather, it formulates an ethical hierarchy of sorts, positing the fulfillment of family duties as more important than fulfillment of duties outside the family.
Mozi rejects such ethical particularism. Here is a sample:
Our teacher Mozi says, “If people regarded other people’s sates in the same way that they regard their own, who then would incite their own state to attack that of another? For one would do for others as one would do for oneself. If people regarded other people’s cities in the same way that they regard their own, who then would incite their own city to attack that of another? For one would do for others as one would do for oneself. If people regarded other people’s families in the same way that they regard their own, who then would incite their own family to attack that of another? For one would do for others as one would do for oneself. And so if states and cities do not attack one another and families do not wreak havoc upon and steal from one another, would this be a harm to the world or a benefit? Of course one must say it is a benefit to the world.” (Ivanhoe and Van Norden translation, 68-69)
Classical golden rule thinking: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Of course, Confucius also articulated the golden rule, though in the negative: don't do to others what you would not want done to yourself. The general sense, positive or negative, is the same. The key difference, however, is that Confucius qualifies the universality of ethical reciprocity by his focus on family-first morality.
Mozi is is more universal, more inclusive. He rejects the idea that family obligations should always trump ourmore general obligation to maintain equal concern and treatment for all, an idea that comes close to modern, liberal notions of equality.
But Mozi is not a liberal. Far from it. He advocated for a centralized, monocratic administrative system run by a strong leader who rigorously enforced political unity. Ultimately, Mozi's politics is about the suppression of politics in the name of authoritarian stability. I suspect these are not quite the aspects of Mozi's thinking that Chen value. But who knows? Chen has not experienced the dynamic, chaotic give-and-take of democratic politics. His stay in the US will certainly be instructive in this regard.
So, I guessing Chen like Mozi for his inclusive/impartial care doctrine.
As to Daoism, it is easy to see how Chen would be drawn to Zhuangzi and the Daodejing. Both texts value individuals at the margins of society: the weak, the poor, the disabled. They also put forth powerful critiques of the powerful and the rich. As here in Daodejing 75:
The people are starving, and it's only because you leaders feast on taxes that they're starving.
The people are impossible to rule, and it's only because you leaders are masters of extenuation that they're impossible to rule.
The people take death lightly, and it's only because you leaders crave lavish pleasures that they take death lightly,
they who act without concern for life: it's a wisdom far beyond treasuring life.
Sounds very much like something Chen would say himself...
Very interesting indeed, Mr Crane. It strikes me as interesting, as well, because Mozi was also known for his rejection of all violence except that undertaken under the most stringent construction of self-defence.
In Confucius' and Mencius' partial defence, though, vis-a-vis Mozi, their idea of 'family-first' morality was not so much a normative claim as an empirical one: people learn how to be good from their families, so naturally they will learn to care for them first and strongest. Mencius observed that even xiaoren will take care of their families; what follows from this is that the junzi will take what s/he learned in the family and extend it outward to all people: treating all elderly as one's own parents, and treating all young as one's own children.
The valid comparison would be between utilitarian ethics versus the ethics of care: a utilitarian parent would sacrifice his own child if it meant saving five others, where a parent following the ethics of care would save her own child first. So I tend to think Confucianism isn't necessarily more hierarchical in this sense, but rather tries to put forward a metaethical critique, rather than an ethical one, of Mozi's 'impartial care'.
Regarding Mozi's liberalism, though, I think you may be selling him slightly short. The tension between liberalism and the authoritarianism you describe is far less tense than first appears: if one is solely concerned with protecting negative, individual-level rights, it does not necessarily follow that a small or unintrusive government is the proper means to bring it about. The example per excellence of a classical-liberal theorist advocating an all-powerful, centralised state is Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan - though other examples abound. Fichte, student of Kant, advocated basically a universal police and surveillance state, ostensibly in order to protect absolute freedom of movement and decision.
I think you're right, though, that this probably isn't what a human-rights lawyer like Chen Guangcheng has in mind...
Posted by: Matthew F Cooper | May 21, 2012 at 05:04 PM
It is encouraging to me that there is discussion about inclusivity and the equal concern and treatment of all, not just famaily. In a modern world where we struggle to gain a bigger share for ourselves and our families are we missing the point and have we forgotten that collaboration is better than competition? I have written a children's book to re-teach a philosophy that is common to Indigenous cultures regarding energy transference back to the Earth en masse. This particualar philosophy takes a mass practice in order for it to be effective and it used to be in mass practice because as far as I know, the Indigenous used to be the majority of human inhabitants that walked the Earth, if not the only. This philosophy definitely takes a collaborative effort. All hail the same treatment of all peoples on Earth. As long as that treatment is for the good of all and comes from a place of love and respect.
Posted by: Miss Dinkles | May 21, 2012 at 08:57 PM
It's a shame that the current culture of authorship doesn't allow us to keep tacking new chapters onto the Zhuangzi. I think a parable or two about a blind lawyer telling the truth about what he sees happening in his hometown could fit right into there.
Posted by: Carl | May 22, 2012 at 12:18 AM
thanks for the comments,
Carl,
Yes, a quite appropriate addition...
Matthew,
Your contrast of utilitarian ethics v. an ethics of care is well taken. And I would agree that "hierarchy" may not be the best term to get at Confucian particularism. Some folks now talk about "role ethics:"
http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/p-7566-9780824835767.aspx
I think the examples of Hobbes and Fichte demonstrate the problem well. They, generally speaking, start off with some liberal assumptions but ultimately veer off into rather unliberal territory, at least by contemporary standards.
Posted by: Sam | May 22, 2012 at 09:33 AM
Why is the translation "universal love" too "hippy-ish"? "impartial caring" and "inclusive care" seem kind of dead to me.
Universal love is a value shared by most religious traditions (e.g. caritas or agape love in Christianity). It doesn't seem like Mozi is too far off from that.
as an aside, it might be better to think of universal love vs. family-first as two paradoxical truths rather than two irreconcilable values.
Posted by: Will Yale | May 22, 2012 at 10:46 AM