The Useless Tree

China - Didn't It Already Shake The World?

    The Peking Duck offers a review of a new book, China Shakes the World, by James Kynge.  Sounds like a great read - I haven't seen it yet but will order it.  China Law Blog also recommends it. 

     What struck me, some months ago, when I first saw a reference to this book, was its title, which was used by Jack Belden for his 1949 book, China Shakes the World.  Belden  riffed off the same Napoleonic quote for the title:  "Let China sleep; for when she wakes, she will shake the world."  But the way in which China then shook the world was rather different from its shaking today.

     Belden was one of those present-at-the-creation journalists, like Edgar Snow and Theodore White and Annalee Jacoby, who witnessed the civil war and early years of the People's Republic.  Their books pushed against the anti-Communism of the McCarthy era and lent a certain legitimacy to socialism in China.  The "Chinese model" then was defined by a communalist, Maoist project that contrasted sharply with the capitalism of The US and Western Europe.  China was supposedly shaking the world with a bold, new vision of human possibility.

     Fast forward sixty years and things look rather different.  Socialism is widely seen as a failure, producing in China the world-historical disasters of the Great Leap and Cultural Revolution.  Almost no one in China now, save a few decrepit apparatchiks, cares about Marxist ideology.  In the rush away from socialism a new traditionalism has been adopted: the revival of Confucianism and Taoism definitively mark the end of the "shake" that socialist China transmitted to the world, as reported by Belden.

     But I wonder what the world will look like sixty years hence.  Perhaps the lesson we should draw from the demise of socialism in China is that the future, the not so distant future, may be very different from what we are experiencing in the present.  If any of us stood up in 1950 and made the prediction that China would be a capitalist power in 2000, we would have been laughed off the stage.  I absolutely agree with the premise of Kynge's book: China is now a capitalist power, or a power that has found ways to benefit enormously from a capitalist world-economy.  But will that still be the case in 2050?  Maybe.  But, by then, China may be shaking the world anew, in ways we can hardly conceive of now.

Against Perfectionism

     Add this to The Useless Tree summer reading list: Michael Sandel, The Case Against Perfectionism: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering (Harvard, 2007).  It was reviewed today in the NYT by William Saletan.  I have only read the review - though I have encountered Sandel's arguments before - but I want to jot down some ideas by way of response.

     Both Confucianism and Taoism would be skeptical of the desire to perfect the human biological form - that is, after all, what bioengineering is about - if it were done for selfish purposes.  The two philosophies would diverge on the point of genetic manipulation for some social goal - to provide a family with a child, say.  In that case, Confucianism would be more sympathetic to medical interventions, while Taoism would still resist, viewing all such efforts as violative of Way (this last point has been challenged by readers here in the past on the grounds that Taoists might accept subtle interventions, but I am not so sure of the subtly of bioengineering...)

     In any event, Saletan writes:

But genetic engineering is too big for ethics. It changes human nature, and with it, our notions of good and bad. It even changes our notions of perfection...

    And later says:

    In a world without givens, a world controlled by bioengineering, we would dictate our nature as well as our practices and norms. We would gain unprecedented power to redefine the good.

      I think this is wrong, because it relies too heavily on a biological definition of human nature.  Ancient Chinese philosophy - both Taoism and Confucianism, though in somewhat different ways and to different extents - view human nature as a complex interactive process of inherent individual characteristics (the Te) and the cosmic context within which each individual performs and communes with others (the Tao).  Biology is only part of this story, to the extent that it plays a role in shaping inherent individual characteristics.  But it is limited.

     Mencius tells us that "duty is internal."   Our impulse to love those closest to us, and thus carry through on our social duties, is something like an appetite.  When we are hungry we eat; when we see an infant crawling toward an open well, we want to stop it.  Do most forms of bioengineering affect that impulse?  No.  Building up our muscles or selecting out disabilities does not change our inherent need to do the right thing - or, at least, that is what a modern Confucian would say.  Might bioengineering someday affect our internal appetite for duty?  Perhaps.  And if it does, then we may face the possibility of "changing our nature."  But we're not there yet, and may never get to quite that point.

    Human nature must be enacted socially, for Confucians.  We all might start with the same internal capacities for moral action, but we have to follow through, and we have to learn precisely how to act properly in specific social contexts.   Social change - and political and economic change - therefore, are likely to have more influence on "human nature" than bioengineering.  When social and political circumstances change, the possibilities for enacting our inherent morality change.  And if we are unable to perform our duties we are not living out our nature.  That is the bigger problem for Confucians, it seems to me.

       Saletan, thus, latches on to a powerful, if implicit, liberalism in his thinking.  He uncritically accepts a kind of methodological individualism, wherein "human nature" and ethics and only be understood from the point of view of individual preferences.  This is an impoverished view of human nature, one that misses the fundamental sociality of humanity.

     Surprisingly, it seems Sandel might be making the same mistake (I have to read the book to see if Saletan's take on this is correct).  Although he was closely identified with communitarian thinking some years ago, Sandel seems not to be making a strong communitarian argument in this book.     Saletan suggests that Sandel's main objection to bioengineering is that is will rob us of the understanding of "giftedness," that sense of awe at the random distribution of human capacities across a population:

To defend the old ways against the new, Sandel needs something deeper: a common foundation for the various norms in sports, arts and parenting. He thinks he has found it in the idea of giftedness. To some degree, being a good parent, athlete or performer is about accepting and cherishing the raw material you’ve been given to work with. Strengthen your body, but respect it. Challenge your child, but love her. Celebrate nature. Don’t try to control everything.

Why should we accept our lot as a gift? Because the loss of such reverence would change our moral landscape. “If genetic engineering enabled us to override the results of the genetic lottery,” Sandel worries, we might lose “our capacity to see ourselves as sharing a common fate.” Moreover, “if bioengineering made the myth of the ‘self-made man’ come true, it would be difficult to view our talents as gifts for which we are indebted rather than achievements for which we are responsible.”

 A sense of giftedness might be good because it would engender in us a certain humility and would encourage us to understand ourselves within a broader social context.  There is a communitarian idea here.  But a stronger emphasis on human sociality is possible.  It is not so much about gifts as it is about the necessity of social interaction in realizing our humanity.  We can be gifted and selfish; we cannot be morally good and selfish - at least not from a Confucian standpoint.

      To return to bioengineering: it would be permissible if it were pursued for non-selfish purposes.  It should not be all about "me."  Rather, if it is about making a better "we," creating and reproducing and developing the social networks through which we build our humanity, then a Confucian would accept it.   Or maybe that is what Sandel is really saying...

     Again, Taoists would likely question the whole enterprise.  Why are we seeking "perfection" in the first place?  We might be able to change our physical form, but we cannot, ultimately, overcome fate and destiny and Way. 

Are We Born Moral?

     In the most recent New York Review of Books, John Gray asks this question in connection with two books: Marc Hauser's  Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong, and Frans de Waal's Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved.  It's all about the rejection of Hobbesian assumptions about bad human nature, and all that implies for politics.  Gray argues that these books bring a new, more scientifically inflected, perspective to the debate and demonstrate an innate moral capacity of humankind.  So, the answer is, "yes," we are born moral, if these new books are to be taken at their word.

     I am, of course, more interested in the old books.  Gray points out that the new science comes closer to an Aristotelean notion of human morality, sans the antiquated Greek teleological biology.  He has a broad and learned grasp of Western philosophy and contemporary social science.  What he does not do, however, is cite one of the most obvious and eloquent ancient source for the point he is trying to make: Mencius.

     Mencius is very clear and straightforward about the innate moral capacities of humankind:

Mencius said: "Everyone has a heart that cannot bear to see others suffer...

"Suddenly seeing a baby about to fall into a well, anyone would be heart-stricken with pity: heart-stricken not because they wanted to curry favor with the baby's parents, not because they wanted the praise of neighbors and friends, and not because they hated the baby's cries....

"And from this we can see that without a heart of compassion we aren't human, without a heart of conscience we aren't human, without a heart of courtesy we aren't human, and without a heart of right or wrong we aren't human." (55-56).

      Notice the "everyone" and "anyone" there.      

      Mencius is not a Pollyanna; he knows that some people will do evil, but that is simply the result of environmental influences (bad education) or bad choices.  In other words, we have to learn to be bad:

Human nature is inherently good, just like water flows inherently downhill.  There's no such thing as a person who isn't good, just as there's no water that doesn't flow downhill.

Think about water: if you slap it, you can make it jump over your head; and if you push and shove, you can make it stay on a mountain.  But what does this have to do with the nature of water?  It's only responding to the forces around it.  It's like that for people too: you can make them evil, but that says nothing about human nature.  (197-198)

     It would seem, then, that the new science is not bringing us back to the Greeks (and their mistaken biology) but to Mencius (who has no such teleology about him).  Wouldn't it be great if this point were more commonly made in these kinds of discussions?

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.

Confucian Social Science

    Now here is a book I am going to go out and buy right away, based on the review by Malcolm Gladwell review in this week's New Yorker: Charles Tilly, Why? Princeton University Press, 2006.

    I should preface this by saying that I have long enjoyed Tilly's work, stretching back to The Formation of National States in Western Europe, through to his marvelous article, "War Making and State Making as Organized Crime," and his audacious macro-historical-sociological-political analyses like that in Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990-1992.   Even though I am a Chinese politics guy, I have a soft spot for Tilly books.

    That being said, I was happy to read Gladwell's review.  Not only did it suggest that Tilly was challenging the straight-laced, positivist, rationalist mainstream of American social science by suggesting that techinical explanations of social phenomenon are not necessarily superior to other sorts of reasoning or story-telling, but, in doing so he is inadvertently (at least I think this is inadvertent) opening a door for someone like me to argue that a Confucian-inflected world view might yield important insights into how people create and understand explanations.  And that's what I will briefly do below the jump.

It's Chuang Tzu - Even Though They Don't Mention Him

     James Reston, Jr. has a new book out, Fragile Innocence, which is reviewed in today's Washington Post.  I am working from the review here, but it rings very familiar to me: the story of a father discovering and learning to live with the many facets of a child's disability.  I have been vaguely aware of Reston's books, though I have not read any of them. His prominent name (prominent, at least to long-time NYT readers) often catches my eye.  Now, I have a new sort of respect for him.

     It is remarkable to be reminded how many people's lives are bound up with disability.  Those of us who are often feel isolated and alone, as if no one else could possibly understand what we are going through.  But I could see myself in Reston's story, just as I could see it in Michael Berube's story, and Beth Kephardt's, and Martha Beck's, and so many others.  Disability is more common than we realize.

    The last paragraph of the review was notable for me:

Reston's book teaches something about the value, even the redemption, to be found in the lives of the severely disabled and what they bring into the lives of those who care for them. Fragile Innocence is also a page-turning read. Most of all though, it's the story of a father's discovery -- the discovery that love trumps terror, that love finds expression despite seemingly impossible circumstances. It is, in the end, the story of a father's love for his daughter.

     This is the main theme of just about all of my writing about Aidan, going back to my 1998 op-ed piece in Reston's father's newspaper.  It is great to see it resonate in other stories at other times.  But, I can't help but point out that this theme is central to Chuang Tzu.  It is the story of the useless tree!  And it is captured in a passage that I find myself returning to again and again:

...So the real is originally there in things, and the sufficient is originally there in things.  There is nothing that is not real, and nothing that is not sufficient.
     Hence, the blade of grass and the pillar, the leper and the ravishing beauty, the noble, the sniveling, the disingenuous, the strange - in Tao they all move as one and the same.  In difference is the whole; in wholeness is the broken.  Once they are neither whole nor broken, all things move freely as one and the same again. (23)

The Pursuit of Happiness

    In an article in this week's New Yorker, "Pursuing Happiness," John Lanchester reviews some new books on that contented emotion.  It is a sweeping piece, engaging recent research in psychology and brain scanning technology, and running across a span of history from cavemen to the Greeks to the Enlightenment to our modern condition.  Lots of interesting stuff.  But no mention whatsoever of anything Chinese.

     This is so common as to be unnoticeable: American publications often make big generalizations about "human" characteristics, while never referring to a very big chunk of humanity and culture in Asia.  I know.  I shouldn't expect the Chinese classics to be familiar, but, oy, there are many ways that they could add to Lanchester's piece.   Let me give you a few examples.