The Useless Tree

Making Confucianism Relevant to Americans

In my ongoing work to understand what Confucianism can mean in modern American contexts, I am returning to a paper I wrote for an academic conference a couple of years ago.  My thinking on the topic has expanded since then, but I want to build off of this earlier work to produce a new, somewhat more abstract analysis of how systems of ideas move from one historical-cultural context to another (I am tentatively calling this process "philosophical transposition").  In any event, I have never attempted to publish the earlier paper, nor even have I posted it before here.  I do that now, below, in the hopes that others will read it and provide me with some useful feedback.   Please do send all comments and criticisms.  Thanks !

Download Confucianism in Modern American Life

(Above is a Word file; I'll also put a pdf here below for convenience sake):

Download Confucianism in Modern American Life

 

Is Confucian Reciprocity a "Silver Rule"?

A friend of mine (thanks Karl!) sent me a link to a story in the Irish Times, way back on January 31: Unthinkable: Which ‘golden rule’ of ethics is best, the Christian or Confucian?  It is an interview with Yinya Liu, who lectures in philosophy at NUI Maynooth.  The central question concerns the difference between the "golden rule," most notably its Christian expression (i.e. do unto others as you would have them do unto you) and the so-called "silver rule," most famously in its Confucian form (i.e do not do to others what you would not want done to yourself).  

Before we get to the central issue here - whether ethical reciprocity stated in a positive way is substantially different than ethical reciprocity stated in a negative way - let me first dispense with the "gold" v. "silver" silliness. On the face of it, branding the Confucian perspective as "silver" is a devaluation.  I suspect it is the work of trans-lingual Jesuits, who came early to an understanding of Confucianism and worked hard to situate it in terms of Christianity.  We really need to let go of such hierarchical categories if we are to think clearly about the subtleties of ethical reciprocity.

Regarding those apparent differences, let me suggest two points.  First, at the end of the day, it seems to me that whether ethical reciprocity is expressed in a positive or a negative manner, we are still talking about the same thing: when thinking about the rightness or wrongness of a particular action or non-action, we should consider how we might evaluate the situation from the point of view of the other.   Liu suggests some differences in negative and positive formulations:

“In either case, it is about human desires and human wants. The positive way – the golden rule – will emphasise what kind of person we are. But the problem is each individual is different. For example, if I am a greedy person I want more from the others. So this is the problem with the golden rule, or the positive way.

“The negative formulation commands us not to do onto others what we ourselves do not desire. There is not the same subjective imposition of preferences so we can find more common ground in the negative rather than the positive.”

I don't think this makes much of a difference. In the example of the greedy person, it would still be the case that he or she would not want another to treat him or her greedily, especially to the extent of some kind of personal harm.  A masochist poses a greater challenge here, but this is obviously not in keeping with the spirit of the "golden rule."  It is an exception that proves the rule's general applicability.  Most of us, most of the time, are not masochists.  And, in any event, the problem of the masochist is not settled by a negative expression of ethical reciprocity.  

There are other problems with the "golden" rule, which are not settled by its "silver" expression.  Perhaps most notably: how do we know how another person wants to be treated?  Following our own preferences could violate the cultural and social norms of the other.  But, again, this need not be fatal for ethical reciprocity.  Obviously, making good moral choices, esepcially in inter-cultural contexts, can be a complex undertaking.  What ethical recipricity provides is a cautionary standard: would we be willing to accept the treatment, or indifference, we are ready to mete out to another?  Not a bad thing to keep in mind.  It may not be the only thing to keep in mind, but it can oftern be of good practical use.

There is a second point to make here: Confucianism is not simply a matter of negative ethical reciprocity.  There are a couple of well known expression of that notion in The Analects. 15.24 comes immediately to mind:

Zi Gong asked, saying, "Is there one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one's life?" The Master said, "Is not RECIPROCITY such a word? What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others."

子貢問曰：「有一言而可以終身行之者乎？」子曰：「其恕乎！己所不欲，勿施於人。」

As does 5.12:

Zi Gong said, "What I do not wish men to do to me, I also wish not to do to men." The Master said, "Ci, you have not attained to that."

子貢曰：「我不欲人之加諸我也，吾亦欲無加諸人。」子曰：「賜也，非爾所及也。」

Pretty clear statements of negative ethical reciprocity.  But that is hardly the whole story of Confucian ethics.  When you read the whole of The Analects, you find many expressions of positive reciprocity.  Here is one of my favorites, passage 6.30:

Zi Gong said, "Suppose the case of a man extensively conferring benefits on the people, and able to assist all, what would you say of him? Might he be called perfectly virtuous?" The Master said, "Why speak only of virtue in connection with him? Must he not have the qualities of a sage? Even Yao and Shun were still solicitous about this. Now the man of perfect virtue, wishing to be established himself, seeks also to establish others; wishing to be enlarged himself, he seeks also to enlarge others. To be able to judge of others by what is nigh in ourselves - this may be called the art of virtue."

子貢曰：「如有博施於民而能濟眾，何如？可謂仁乎？」子曰：「何事於仁，必也聖乎！堯舜其猶病諸！夫仁者，己欲立而立人，己欲達而達人。能近取譬，可謂仁之方也已。」

Those last couple of lines are as good an expression of the "golden rule" as you wil lfind: "...the man of perfect virtue, wishing to be established himself, seeks also to establish others; wishing to be enlarged himself, he seeks also to enlarge others...."  Or, more elegantly: 己欲立而立人.

So let's just stop with this "silver rule" silliness.

Return to the Trolley Problem: The Daoists Are Right!

A review in yesterday's NYT Sunday Book Review brings the infamous "trolley problem" to wider public attention. Having blogged on this issue before, primarily from a Daoist perspective (see here and here), I will not describe the full analytic apparatus of the trolley problem, but will simply point out the the NYT review makes some points that bolster the Daoist view.

Most importantly, the review briefly cites empirical studies that attempt to discover how people actually behave when confronted with the trolley problem, as opposed to rationalist assertions of how people should behave:

The results of such studies have been fascinating, showing, for example, that women are less likely than men to sacrifice the Fat Man, or even to flip the lever in Spur. Other investigations reveal that people are more likely to approve the killing of the Fat Man if they have just seen a comedy clip as opposed to “a tedious documentary about a Spanish village.” The contingent nature of our ethical responses in general emerges from other research. We are more generous toward a stranger if we have just found a dime; a judge’s decision to grant parole depends on how long it has been since he or she had lunch. Are these the “deep-rooted moral instincts” on which we are willing to found decisions that may affect tens or hundreds of thousands of fellow humans?

The key here is: "... the contingent nature of our ethical responses in general..."  It seems that people just do not behave in the manner that rationalists presume.  We cannot wholly abstract ourselves from our immediate social and cultural contexts to arrive at some ideal Archimedean point that allows for near-perfect objectivity.  In a sense, then, the whole exercise is something of a canard, a set-up that stacks the deck in favor of consequentialst thinking.

It could be argued that bringing behavioral data into the discussion is unfair, mixing, as it does, empirical and normative reasoning.  But, in fact, that is just the point for critics of the kind of overly rationalist thinking that consequentialists love. Such critics, Daoists included, reject the analytic separation of the empirical and the normative, and argue we must ground our normative thinking in an understanding of how we actually behave. 

That is where the Daoists - and the Confucians - do better than consequentialists. Both perspectives recognize the inescapably context-dependent nature of human knowledge and action.  In the case of Daoists, that context is very, very specific, limited to the interaction of an individual de 德 - ("character," "integrity," "potency," "potential") as it unfolds in the vastness of dao 道.  We cannot judge the dynamic experience  of one de-dao relationship with the dynamic experience of another de-dao relationship. So, we cannot confidently generalize how one might be more right than another.  As I suggested in an earlier post:

But Daoism does not express a clear principle that can be followed in most cases.  It would offer no imperative to act, but it would also offer no imperative not to act.  If action occurred spontaneously and immediately, a Daoist would not ask for reasons. There might be many causes of such action.

This does not mean that all actions, or non-actions, have the same moral valence for a Daoist.  There is a Daoist ethic that is averse to killing or harming others ( discuss this on pp. 89-90 of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Dao).  But there would be no false assumption of a kind of moral precision that consequentialists put forth.  The "answer" to the Trolley problem is not simply a numeric comparison of death rates.

And it that the Daoists are right (and I say that with full understanding that the declaration of their rightness is, in itself, paradoxical from a Daoist perspective...)

Confucianism from the bottom-up

After my most pleasant China trip, I am coming to a conclusion: Confucianism works best in the world, especially in the modern world, when it operates as a form of practical ethics, providing ideas that can inform how individuals navigate challenging decisions in their personal lives.  Such an approach can be distinguished from another, which employs Confucianism as a framework for law and the legitimation of state power.  I will call the former "bottom-up" Confucianism, and the latter "top-down" Confucianism.  Or we might even invoke an economics analogy (though I have not thought through all of the connotations of it): micro-Confucianism v. macro-Confucianism. 

Let me stipulate at the outset, when I use the term "practical ethics" to describe bottom-up, micro-Confucianism, I do not mean to imply any connection to Peter Singer's famous book of that title. Those who know my writing, know that I have argued directly against Singer's utilitarianism. But I like the term "pratical ethics," especially as it signifies something that lies between "applied ethics" and "philosophy," as is suggested here.  I do not want to simply cede the term to Singer.

That said, I have only recently, with the completion of my book, come to the realization that Confucianism works best as a bottom-up practical ethics.  Indeed, I mentioned this during my podcast conversation with the Sinica people, and Kaiser Kuo pushed back, making the point that The Analects and Mencius have a top-down, macro-political aspect. And that is true. But it is also true that these books are focused on how individuals can and should live good lives.  Moreover, when we consider the conceptual balance between the mirco and macro aspects of pre-Qin Confucianism, the micro has a more significant weight.

Simply put, it is only when people are conscientiously working to do the right things in their personal lives (enact 义 according to 礼 to progress toward 仁) that it becomes possible for macro-political justice and harmony to be realized.  Think of these passages from The Analects:

Someone questioned Confucius, saying, Why aren't you in government?

The Master said, The Book of Documents says: Filial, only be filial, a friend to elder and younger brothers - this contributes to government. To do this is in fact to take part in government.  Why must I be "in government"?  (Watson)

 或謂孔子曰：「子奚不為政？」子曰：「《書》云：『孝乎惟孝、友于兄弟，施於有政。』是亦為政，奚其為為政？」2.21

 Duke Jing of Qi questioned Confucius about government. Confucius replied, Let the ruler be a ruler, the subject,a subject; the father, a father; the son, a son.

The duke said, Splendid! For if indeed the ruler is not a ruler, the subject not a subject, the father not a father, the son not a son, then although there is grain, will I be able to eat it? (Watson)

齊景公問政於孔子。孔子對曰：「君君，臣臣，父父，子子。」公曰：「善哉！信如君不君，臣不臣，父不父，子不子，雖有粟，吾得而食諸？」12.11

 2.21 suggests that "government" is rooted in, and emerges out of, filiality.  To be a good ruler, one must first be good at fulfilling one's familial and social duties. It is in the cultivation of our closest loving relationships that we devlop the kind of ethical discernment that allows us to become good leaders.  Government, in this sense, relies upon a bottom-up process of creating moral goodness in our personal lives.  

Similarly, 12.11 suggests that it is only when individuals are fulfilling their duties at all levels of society, from both the top-down and bottom-up, will good government be realized.  But it should be noted that Confucian expectations for how a ruler should be a ruler are oriented to the broader micro-social processes of practical ethics.  Rulers cannot force people to do the right thing, they should not attempt to impose right action from the top down; but, rather, rulers should exemplify right action in all that they do.  If a ruler fails to do the right thing in his or her own personal life, then he or she is no longer fit to be a ruler, because they have set a bad example for the myriad people in society who are trying conscientiously to do the right thing in their personal lives.  In other words, the top-down, macro-political aspect of Confucianism is measured by how well it facilitates bottom-up micro-Confucianism. The latter is the defining standard of the former.

There is a danger when Confucianism is invoked as a basis for law and legitimation of state power, as Jiang Qing wants to do. Law and bureaucracy, by definition, seek out universality and impersonalism. That is, law and bureaucracy are concerned with the consistent and routine application of principles across all specific cases.  When those practices are rigidly institutionalized, the space for particularlistic judgment is narrowed.  And Confucian ethics requires a relatively free social and political space that permits the exercise of moral agency to determine what, precisely, is the right thing to do in particular circumstances.

Think of Shun, the most filial sage-king of legend.  Long story short: he decided, when confronted with a particular moral dilemma, that the most filial thing to do was disobey his father. Now, coming to that sort of conclusion (which is heralded by Mencius as morally astute) required a certain agency and a certain legal and political freedom to exercise that agency.  He would have not been able to follow through on this decision as he did if law or state power limited his freedom of thought and action.

The problem is exacerbated under conditions of the modern state, where surveillance and repressive powers are so extensive.  If political and legal power are highly centralized, without sufficient checks to keep them from impinging upon the personal freedom necessary for moral agency, then Confucianism cannot be fully realized in society.  People will be too hemmed in by state power and will not be able to make the kinds of nuanced judgments and actions that Shun exemplifies.

Confucianism operates best, then, in conditions of relative political and social freedom.  Concomitantly, if Confucianism is used to authorize concentrations of political and legal power, it runs the risk of limiting personal freedom and undermining the moral agency required for the realization of 仁 in the world.  Obviously, the freedom required for the moral success of micro-Confucianism is not unlmited; it is not a matter of everyone just doing what they want.  It is, however, a matter of everyone doing what they determine, after careful consideration, they must do if they are to do the right thing.

Ultimately, Confucianism from the top-down should not be allowed to get in the way of Confucianism from the bottom-up.

(photo, "The Marginal Poet Mucao" by Wei Yi, at Moganshan Lu)

Ancient Chinese Philosophy in the New York Times

As you have probably noticed, I regularly complain that ancient Chinese thought rarely breaks through into contemporary American consciousness. So, I was pleasantly surprised this morning when I sat down with my second cup of coffee and took up my hard copy (is newsprint "hard copy"?) of the Sunday New York Times (one of the few rituals I practice in my life) to find right there on the first page, this sentence:

The research topics are formidable and include the cardinal virtue of ren in Confucius’s “The Analects,”...

(Nice to see the link to Robert Eno's translation there in the electronic version).  The story is about a new means of applying to college being undertaken by Bard College: prospective students can write essays instead of taking the SATs and the like.  A great idea!  Made even greater by the inclusion of a question on The Analects.  The folks over at Warp, Weft, and Way have also noted, with approval, this modest advance of Chinese philosophy into wider publish circulation. 

It is not very common for Chinese thought to make it into the pages of the New York Times, and even rarer for such a citation on the front page in a general news story.  So, imagine my surprise when I turned my attention to the Sports section and, lo and behold, a second mention of Chinese philosophy turns up.  This time it was Daoism:

Mariano Rivera understood what Steve Jobs, Lao Tzu and Bruce Lee understood: that simplicity is an art and a strength, a source of joy and beauty and power.

I admit this second reference is not very much to go on. There is no further explication of how Rivera might embody certain Daoist ideas, but only a vague sort of parallel drawn between Lao Tzu and Zen.  Something about minimalism, I guess. More could be said, of course, and has (right here at this blog).  But, hey, you've got to take what you can get, and even a vague reference is better than nothing.

The Bard College story also includes a sidebar that provides the full question on The Analects:

In “The Analects,” Confucius identifies the cardinal virtue of ren (variously translated as goodness, humanity, benevolence) with many different attitudes and behaviors. Yet Confucius also says, “There is one thread that runs through my doctrines.” Commentators differ about what that one thread is. What, in your opinion, could that one thread be? How does that one thread tie together the wide range of moral values that Confucius celebrates in “The Analects”? Support your answer by interpreting specific passages from the text.

That's a good question, and not an easy one for a person who does not have some familiarity with the text.  Do they teach The Analects in high schools now?  Without some sustained study of the book, it would be hard to locate the relevant passages.  So, here let me help.

Here's passage 4.15, with Hinton's translation:

子曰：「參乎！吾道一以貫之。」曾子曰：「唯。」子出。門人問曰：「何謂也？」曾子曰：「夫子之道，忠恕而已矣。」

The Master said: "Zeng! There's a single thread stringing my Way together."

"There is indeed," replied Master Zeng.

When the Master left, some disciples asked: "What did he mean?"

"Be loyal ot the principles of your heart, and treat others with that same loyalty," answered Master Zeng. "That is the Master's Way.  There is nothing more."

The idea of a "single thread" is repeated in  passage 15.3:, noted here with Hinton's translation:

子曰：「賜也，女以予為多學而識之者與？」對曰：「然，非與？」曰：「非也，予一以貫之。」

The Master said: "Kung, do you think of me as someone who studies widely and remembers what he learns?"

"Yes," replied Adept Kung. "Aren't you?"

"No. I've just found a single thread stringing it all together."

We might take the repetition as a sign of significance: the authors are suggesting that there is a key concept.  But it is in the first passage where that concept is stated most directly: a combination of zhong and shu: 忠 恕, "loyalty" and "reciprocity."    Hinton translates the pair together here as "treat others with that same loyalty." But that second character - 恕: shu - might be the key, suggesting as it does a certain moral reciprocity, a "golden rule" of sorts.  And that is something to keep in mind when contemplating ren: 仁, which we might translate as "humanity" or "humaneness" or "benevolence".  Ren is, as the question suggests, a very big part of The Analects.  There are many passages that speak to it.  My favorite is 6.30:

子貢曰：「如有博施於民而能濟眾，何如？可謂仁乎？」子曰：「何事於仁，必也聖乎！堯舜其猶病諸！夫仁者，己欲立而立人，己欲達而達人。能近取譬，可謂仁之方也已。

Here is Hinton's version:

 Adept Kung said: "How would you describe a person who sows all the people with blessings and assists everyone in the land? Could such a person be called Humane?"

"What does this have to do with Humanity [ren] " replied the Master. "If you must have a name, call this person a sage.  for even the enlightened Emperors Yao and Shun would seem lacking by comparison. As for Humanity: if you want to make a stand, help others make a stand, and if you want to reach your goal, help others reach their goal. Consider yourself and treat others accordingly: this is the method of Humanity.

So now we can all play at home, without having to apply to Bard: write an essay using the passages cited above to reflect upon the philosophy of The Analects.

And to think, all of this is inspired by a front-page mention in the Sunday NYT.  More please....

Confucianism is not catching on in the United States

As my semester winds down, and grading final papers and exams presses in on me, I find my attention turning (don't worry, I'll get back to the grading shortly) to more pleasant summer pursuits. For me, this year, those include attending a conference in Beijing, or, to be more precise: "The International Conference on Comparing China and the West: Bringing the Disciplines Together," to be held at Peking University (they still use the old school Wade-Giles transliteration) in July.  I'm not quite sure who all will be there or what the line-up of papers and presentations will be (the conference web site has not yet posted a program), but it should be interesting.

What attracts me about this conference is the opportunity to write and present something on certain issues that have emerged in the wake of my most recent book (which is grinding along toward publication, likely in October).  That volume works through a number of cases of how concepts drawn from pre-Qin Confucianism and Daoism might be applied to contemporary social and ethical issues in America. Now that it is done and nearly out, I have begun to think more broadly about how such intercultural conceptual transpositions work.  What can Confucianism be in the contemporary US?  It cannot be what it was in pre-Qin China, and it cannot be exactly what it is in contemporary China, but can it be something still recognizable as "Confucianism" in America now?  I have, up until this point, simply assumed that the answer to this question was "yes, there can be a contemporary American Confucianism."  But what does that entail?

I have been willing to assume the possibility of an American Confucianism because, as I hope my book illustrates, I can see how ideas drawn from early Confucian texts can be systematically applied to ethical debates here and now. They are not wholly alien to contemporary American concerns.  With a little bit of interpretive work, they yield reasonable and understandable contributions.  In a more general sense, as I read and re-read and re-re-read these texts, I am constantly noticing how ideas from them speak to me in an immediate sense. These books do have meaning in our own time; we can find meaning in them; we can make meaning from them.

And, of course, there has been a great deal of intellectual work done in recent decades that clarify how Chinese and American thinking can intersect and synthesize.  I'm now reading Gish Jen's new book, Tiger Writing, and I am beginning to believe in the virtual inevitability of the hybridity of the independent and interdependent selves.  We are all now, always, both (I will elaborate that idea later in another post...)

While all of this seems plain to me, however, what I also notice is the absence of explicit reference to Confucianism outside of a rather small circle of comparative philosophers and historians and writers. In a time when it is more possible than ever to bring Confucianism into American thinking, it just does not seem to be happening.  Or, it is happening only excrutiatingly slowly.  Confucianism, as my title today suggests, does not seem to be catching on in the US.

I have some ideas for why this is so, and what might have to be done to change things, but I am still working them over (i.e. haven't written the conference paper yet!).  Today, I just want to point out a rather blatant example of what I mean when I say Confucianism is not catching on.

Last week, The New Yorker ran a piece, "The Baby in the Well," by psychologist Paul Bloom.  It is a relfection on the notion of empathy, working through certain conventional understandings of its importance to ethical life and laying out, contrarily, the case against it.  It is a typically smart New Yorker piece, with the cheekiness to question something that we would assume everyone is for: empathy.

For me, the totally baffling thing about the article is its failure to cite an obvious reference for this subject matter: Mencius.  To those familiar with that great Confucian thinker (like my friends over at Warp, Weft and Way), the title of Bloom's piece seemed to be invoking one of the most famous images in Mencius:

Here is why I say that all human beings have a mind that commiserates with others.  Now, if anyone were suddenly to see a child about to fall into a well, his mind would be filled with alarm, distress, pity, and compassion. That he would react accordingly is not because he would hope to use the opportunity to ingratiate himself with the child's parents, nor because he would seek commendation from neighbors and friends, nor because he would hate the adverse reputation [that would come from not reacting accordingly].  Bloom, 2A6

"Reacting accordingly," for Mencius, is moving to prevent harm to the child, which is impelled by a deep human capacity for commiseration and empathy.

This is a perfect trope for Bloom's purposes, but, alas, it is nowhere mentioned.  The "baby in the well" of the title refers to a couple of cases in American history of children actually falling into wells and attracting national attention, which Bloom ultimately believes is misplaced.  But if he wants to make a case against these sorts of emphatic reactions, wouldn't it be great to invoke the most famous "bady in the well" reference in all of Chinese experience?

But, no.  When "baby in the well" is brought to mind in American discourse, very few people, relatively speaking, make what for some of us is the blaring obvious connection to Mencius.  And that is because Confucianism, more generally, has not caught on in the US.

Perhaps I could blame, in some way, Bloom for this failure. If he is seriously thinking about empathy, and employing the "baby in the well" image, he should, as a highly accomplished academic psychologist, know that the apt Mencius reference is there for the taking.  But that would be unfair.  His training and professional experience largely ignore ancient Chinese sources, which are simply out of sight and out of mind.  In another, longer piece, "The Moral Life of Babies," from the New York Times Sunday Magazine, he makes one reference to Confucius, as a source of the "golden rule," but, again, no consideration of the Mencian assertion that we are born with an innate capacity to do good.  Similarly, one of the books he mentions in the "Baby in the Well" article, The Emphatic Civilization by Jeremy Rifkin, makes only glancing reference to Confucius, again in relation to the global presence of "golden rule" ethics.

Thus, a vast tradition, which strikes me as so clearly relevant to contemporary questions, is largely an afterthought for many intellectuals working on issues central to that tradition.

The problem, it seems to me, is not simply a matter of the ancientness of ancient Chinese thought.  Ancient Greek and Roman and Christian and Jewish thought are regularly invoked in American intellectual life.  We are raised on those sources and we, many of us, believe that those traditions continue to be immediately relevant to our contemporary lives.  In these cases, old can be good.

But ancient Chinese thought is an eon and an ocean away.  It just seems so remote, at the outset, that many Americans may just not want to try to look there for meaning. 

There are also political obstacles to the wider diffusion of Chinese thought in the US. The public embrace of Confucianism by the current PRC government, connects in the minds of some, the ancient philosophy with contemporary political practices that are seen as odious.  Why would you want to embrace ancient Chinese thought if it is a pillar of current Chinese authoritarianism.   To be clear: I do not believe that Confucianism necessarily produces authoritarianism; indeed, if may function best, as a moral theory, in a democratic political context.  But I think the perception is there for some, maybe many, Americans: Confucianism has been historically, and continues to be today, an ideological tool used to bolster centralized state power.

Thus, part of the solution is to make clear that Confucianism can be consonant with liberalism, which I take to be fundamental to American cultural, as well as political, understanding.  And I believe such accommodation is possible.

But it is more than politics.  For those of us who see the ways in which ancient Chinese thought can speak to modern American life, our work is cut out for us: we just have to make the case, day in and day out, in the widest possible array of illustrations, that Confucianism and Daoism and other philosophical perspectives do indeed have something to say today us today.  Maybe in this case familiarity will breed appreciation.

Further to the Daoist Trolley (non)Problem

Wow. Lots of hits for my post on a Daoist response to the Trolley Problem.  It was put up on the Reddit Philosophy page and that brought a deluge of readers, many, I imagine, first-time visitors to this blog.  Hundreds of comments were generated over there, too many to process here.  But it all brought some further thoughts to my mind and I want to record them here.

It seems that many of the Reddit commenters either did not read the post carefully or did not read the whole thing through. Lots of people jumped on me for intepreting wuwei as "doing nothing".  I certainly realize that wuwei does not mean that we must always literally do nothing.  Indeed, few seemed to notice that I had a second translation there, one that I had hoped suggested the active aspect of wuwei: "nothing's own doing."  This is David Hinton's term, and I have always apprecitated it.

So, yes, I agree, wuwei is not an absolute restriction on action.  Later in the post I make this explicit:

[Daoism] would offer no imperative to act, but it would also offer no imperative not to act.  If action occurred spontaneously and immediately, a Daoist would not ask for reasons.  There might be many casues of such action.

But I think the rather stark "doing nothing" serves a certain purpose. Often, in whatever circumstances we might face, we can feel an urge to "do something," to take some action to change what is unfolding before us.  The default assumption is that we can intervene to make things "better".  This is what Daoism resists.  By positing a notion of wuwei, it pushes back against our feel-good assumptions about the likely efficacy of our actions in the world.  How often have we heard of unintended consequences overwhelming what, at first, appeared to be a happy ending?  Time is an especially harsh adversary in this regard.  What might appear effective at one moment can emerge, a year or two or ten later, as folly.  We must do something to get rid of Saddam Hussein! We must act! And act the US did, with baleful results.

The Trolley Problem is, of course, highly abstract. We have no sense of context, no sense of particulars, no sense of history.  As such, it if fairly meaningless: we live and act in particular contexts, and those contexts certainly shape our reactions.  I, personally, have never been in a situation anything like the Trolley Problem. I have no idea, really, how I might actually behave in a moment like that. The whole thing is set up, in my estimation, to privilege consequentialist thinking. If "all else were equal" and the stark choice of one death versus five deaths were before us, what would we do?  Well, "all else" is never equal.  Life is always more complex.

Daoism, and Confucianism for that matter, are much more contextually sensitive than consequentialism.  Ethical calculations from either of these perspectives (yes, I realize Daoism is not a fully formed ethical theory, nor is it meant to be...) would seek to understand the surrounding circumstances more fully, before action is taken, because right action must be attuned to context.  In the peculiar conditions of the Trolley Problem hesitation might produce inaction. But, without further knowledge of the particulars, we cannot judge the ultimate goodness or badness of such inaction.  One of the five saved does not have to turn out to be a mass murder but just, perhaps, a negligent driver who inadvertently kills a child ten years in the future.  How would the mother of that child judge the earlier hero of the Trolley Problem?   How can we know what good or bad will come, years from now, from our actions today? 

The bottom line is this: to simply assert that killing one to save five is necessarily correct, is to live in a world of abstractions that has no real relevance for how life is actually lived. 

Some commenters have suggested that Daoism is just not suited for a construct like the Trolley Problem.  I understand this contention, and I partially agree with it.  I agree that the Daodejing and Zhuangzi fundamentally resist the very idea of a consistent and universally applicable set of principles that might be used for resolving moral dilemmas.  To the contrary, they embrace dilemmas as a basic feature of the fullness and complexity of Way.  But for all of that I still believe that these books can be used to inform how we live our lives now.  They are very much about being in the world and, as such, can give us some insights - though never hard and fast rules - for how to act or not act as Way unfolds around us.  However imperfect, I think there can be Daoist responses to the ethical problems we face now.

And I very well understand how many people, perhaps especially Americans, will be dissatisfied with Daoist nonaction or minimalist action.  For those who are searching for clear answers to vexing problems, dissatisfaction will be their first reaction to a philosophical perspective that rejects the very possiblity of clear answers.  In chapter seven Zhuangzi writes: "You mean you're only now realizing that there are no answers?"

To a Daoist, the Trolley Problem is not a Problem at all

A reader sent in an interesting email, asking how Daoism might respond to the "Trolley Problem."  A great question!  Let's think it through.

For those not familiar with it, the "Trolley Problem" (I will link here to the obituary of Phillipa Foot, the philosopher who coined the term) runs something like this: a trolley has lost its brakes and is hurtling down the track; straight ahead of it, five people are stuck on the track; on a siding, one person is stuck on the track; either way the persons on the track will be killed; should the driver of the trolley actively turn onto the siding and kill one person, or allow the trolley to continue forward and kill five people?

This is a classical example of consequentialism, which tells us that our ethical judgments should be determined by the consequences of our actions.  On those grounds, the driver should intervene and turn the trolley to kill only one person.  Deontological ethical theories have much more difficulty with this scenario.

But what would a Daoist do? 

Those familiar with Daoism will immediately say "nothing," given the prominence of wu-wei - 无为 - "doing nothing" or "nothing's own doing" to Daoist thought.  And that is generally the first Daoist answer.

The Daodejing gives us some reason for nonintervention in the face of horrible events, even when some sort of action might have an ameliorative effect.  We might think that our action is reducing  pain and suffering in the world, in preserving five lives when one is lost, but is that really the case? Are we really reducing the sum total of pain and suffering in the world (a consequentialist calculus)?  A Daoist would reply that we cannot know, and thus should not act.

To act on the consequentialist logic is to assume that certain factors will not change in the future.  We cannot know whether one of the five persons saved might go on to be a mass murderer and produce much more pain and suffering in the world than we realized.  And how can we know the possible future accomplishments of the one person we caused to die?  Perhaps he was destined to be a great doctor, able to save many lives.  The apparent "moral clarity" of consequentialism is a fiction because we cannot know the consequences of our actions beyond the most immediate moment.

The beginning of Daodejing 29 gets at this sentiment:

Longing to take hold of all beneath heaven and improve it...

I've seen such dreams invariably fail.  All beneath haven is a sacred vessel, something beyond improvement. Try to improve it and you ruin it.  Try to hold it and you lose it.

As does this excerpt from DDJ 23:

Wild winds never last all morning and fierce rains never last all day.  Who conjures such things if not heaven and earth, and if heaven and earth can't make things last, why should we humans try?

Both passages suggest something beyond human comprehension: the world moves in mysterious ways; we cannot know, or improve upon those movements, and to try is to court something worse.

And just to be clear that bad things, like capricious deaths as a result of a runaway trolley, are inevitably apart of "all under heaven" we have this from DDJ 62:

Way is the mystery of these ten thousand things.

It's a good person's treasure and an evil person's refuge.  Its beautiful words are bought and sold and its noble deeds are gifts enriching people.

It never abandons even the evil among us.

That last line is a bit chilling.  In the Chinese text,"bad persons" - 人之不善 - is the subject.  People who are bad; people who do bad things: they are invariably a part of the fullness and complexity of Way. So, even if the trolley's breaks were fine and the driver was drunk and negligently ran over and killed six people, he would not be beyond the realm of human experience in Way.  We might punish him for this specific action (there is a general aversion to killing in Daoism) but we should not expect that we will, thereby, somehow solve the problem of evil in the world.  Bad things, like five people dying in a trolley accident that a morally ambivalent driver chose not to avoid, are inevitable and inescapable.

But Daoism does not express a clear principle that can be followed in most cases.  It would offer no imperative to act, but it would also offer no imperative not to act.  If action occurred spontaneously and immediately, a Daoist would not ask for reasons.  There might be many casues of such action.

For example, when Zhuangzi's wife dies, his immediate reaction is to grieve like anyone else; he feels the loss (as Graham has it).  After some time, he comes to realize that her passing is utterly natural, and conventional expressions of grief are simply misunderstandings Way.   But in that initial emotional response, we might imagine an impulsive, natural action that reflects who he is in that moment.  Were she to be standing on the track in front of him, and he were driving the trolley, perhaps he would throw the switch and kill five strangers.  He might just do it, unthinkingly, because something within his impelled him to.  Or maybe he wouldn't because, somehow, the prospect of five dead innocents might paralyze him.  In either case, he simply reacted, spontaneously, to what was before him in Way; and, in either case, that is justifiable in terms of Daoism.

Ultimately, the inconclusiveness of Daoism would be dissatisfying to rationalist consequentialists.  But it is not at all clear that consequentialism yields a superior moral outcome, because, as Daoism tells us, we cannot adequately know the full and true consequences of our actions.

The Chinese Political System is not a Meritocracy

Daniel A. Bell has a piece today in the CSM, arguing that the PRC political system is, basically, a meritocracy that holds lessons that might correct the flaws of US democracy.  Bell is a philosopher and he tends to operate in normative terms (i.e. what a meritocracy ought to be; what a democracy ought to be; how the ideal of meritocracy might improve democracy).  I do not want to engage with the normative questions because there is a rather glaring empirical problem: the current Chinese political system is not a meritocracy by the definition Bell puts forth.  And I think we could push a bit further to say that, in fact, the imperial Chinese system was not a meritocracy either, if we consider a somewhat broader definition of that term.

Bell gives us his definition of meritocracy right up front:

Political meritocracy is the idea that a political system is designed with the aim of selecting political leaders with above-average ability to make morally informed political judgments. That is, political meritocracy has two key components: 1) The political leaders have above-average ability and virtue; and 2) the selection mechanism is designed to choose such leaders.

He goes on to report that various methods of rigorous recruitment into the Chinese Communist Party have moved the Chinese political system toward this ideal.  But there is much evidence that leads to the opposite conclusion: that the very nature and structure of the CCP vitiates the possibility of realizing meritocracy.

I should point out here that various writers and scholars have delved deep into the study of CCP, and their work demonstrates that personal gain and loyalty to the existing power structure are the animating features of the contemporary CCP.  It is not about "morally-informed political choices;" it is about gaining power and advantage.  Richard  McGregor's book, The Party, and Minxin Pei's work on the "trapped transitions" are good starting points for understanding how the PRC polticial system actually operates.

To return to Bell, notice that his definition of meritocracy focuses on "morally-informed political choices," which is to be expected, given his normative focus.  We might also define merit more in terms of technical competence (i.e. promoting people who have the technological and scientific skills necessary to answer complex modern questions).  For now, we will just focus on Bell's normative definition; but we will have reason to return to the other definition later, when considering some broader, historical aspects of the issue.

Contrary to Bell's normative aspirations, the CCP is currently not an organization that recruits and promotes and rewards people for making the best "morally-informed political choices."  We can see this at both the top and the bottom of the political heirarchy.

The case of Bo Xilai, whom some will want to mimimize as exceptional, is quite instructive.  Bo rose to the top fo the political system, the Politburo, and was aiming for the very, very top, the Standing Committee.  He got there by building a personal empire of connections and payments and coercion.  He was quite willing to distort the law to his own purposes of personal power:

Bo’s enormous power as the top Communist official in Dalian manifested in other more sinister incidents. After Dalian-based journalist Jiang Weiping wrote three anonymous articles in a Hong Kong publication that criticised Bo for his role in a corruption scandal, he was sentenced to eight years in prison on charges of subversion and stealing state secrets. He served nearly six years before he was freed and fled to Canada.

Persecuting journalists who are trying to tell the truth about corruption is not a  "morally-informed political choice."  

And things got worse, much worse, when Bo took power in Chongqing and initiated an anti-crime campaignto burnish his political image:

"The anti-mafia campaign in Chongqing wasn't based on the rule of law," says lawyer Li Zhuang, who represented an alleged gang member. "It was an anti-mafia campaign for political purposes. It overrode the law, it ignored basic legal procedure and it even violated basic human morality."

When Li first met client Gong Gangmo, Gong told him Chongqing police had tortured him sporadically over a period of eight days and nights.

"They hung him from the ceiling, so he could touch a table with his toes, but he couldn't put his heels down," Li recalls being told. "He was hanging for a long time, so he soiled himself. An interrogator took him down, and ordered him to clean up the mess with his hands, and wipe the floor with his shorts. Then they hung him up again naked."

It should be noted that Bo's trangressions were illegal and immoral by the standards publicly espoused by the CCP in it's efforts to develop the "rule of law" in China:

“Even by Chinese Communist Party standards, this is unacceptable,” said Cheng Li, an analyst of the Chinese leadership at the Brookings Institution. “This is red terror.” 

If Bo's police chief had not desperately run to the US Consulate in Chengdu to get out from under the scandal, Bo might still be in power, moving toward the highest office.  The internal workings of the Party had been impotent in the face of his actions.  It was only when the story broke internationally, and the eyes of the world were able to see the truth of Chongqing, that the Party removed Bo.

Bo is unusual only in the scale of his abuse of power.  He got away with a lot because he had a lot of power.  But at lower levels of the vast Party machine, the interests of power regularly contravene morality.  Again, when I say "morality" here I do not need "Western" standards, but standards articulated by the Party itself.  This is what we see in the Chen Guangcheng case.

It was local Shandong party authorities who held Chen without charge, beat him and punished his family.  They did so to isolate and silence him so they could preserve their local power and, they thought, their reputations.  Obviously, these were not "morally-informed political choices."

We could go on to adduce other cases.  Suffice it to say, if the PRC political system were truly a meritocracy it would not have to routinely lie and distort in its efforts to maximize its power, as it did in the 2003 SARs outbreak, and the 2005 Songhua River spill, the 2008 Siquan earthquake school collapse scandal, or what now appears to be dissembling and evasion in reporting the truth about the Beijing flood. None of these are indicative of "morally-informed political choices."

Now, it must be said that there are, no doubt, many well meaning and ethically upstanding people working in the PRC's vast bureaucracy.  But the system, with its powerful material incentives for corruption and self-interest, does not live up to Bell's ideal of meritocracy.  It makes me think of Gandhi's response when asked about western civilization: "it could be a good idea."

Finally, if we think in more technocratic terms, a meritocracy that centers on promoting people with the best technical and scientific credentials, we might also find the current Chinese political system lacking.  We could debate that.  But thinking in these terms leads us to a conclusion about imperial China: when confronted with the challenges of Western technology in the 19th century it proved to be incapable of systemic adaptation and, thus, was lacking a certain technical meritocracy.  Mandarins and gentry were too wed to the old order, they benefited materially and politically too much, to concern themselves with change.  There were, of course, some Chinese leaders - Kang Youwei, Liang Qiqiao, countless entrepreneurs and activists - who tried to change.  But they were thwarted by a system that did not promote people with the technical expertise required to understand and manage the transformations that the times required.  Political and personal interest reigned supreme.... Come to think of it, that sounds rather like 2012 as well....

Bottom line: US democracy is flawed. There may well be some aspects of China's experience that could be useful in thinking about how to improve US politics and society.  But CCP meritocray is not one of them because it does not actually exist.

(illustration from Pigs Incorprated)

Why We Need Chinese Philosophy

I want to recognize, and expand upon, Justin H. Smith's piece in the NYT, "Philosophy's Western Bias."  He makes a case for why academic philosophy departments should incorporate more "non-Western" schools of thought in their curriculum.  I am all for it.  But I must say, right up front, that I am not an academic philosopher, but a political scientist who has drifted into ancient Chinese thought.  And it is from that perspective that I have a somewhat different take on this issue than Smith.

He points out that concerns for diversity, in and of themselves, are not a sound basis for the inclusion of "non-Western" thought into our on-going discussions of "philosophy" (Lots of scare quotes, I know.  But Smith is questioning the definitions of all of these terms...).  He is direct in his critique:

The goal of reflecting the diversity of our own society by expanding the curriculum to include non-European traditions has so far been a tremendous failure. And it has failed for at least two reasons. One is that non-Western philosophy is typically represented in philosophy curricula in a merely token way. Western philosophy is always the unmarked category, the standard in relation to which non-Western philosophy provides a useful contrast. Non-Western philosophy is not approached on its own terms, and thus philosophy remains, implicitly and by default, Western. Second, non-Western philosophy, when it does appear in curricula, is treated in a methodologically and philosophically unsound way: it is crudely supposed to be wholly indigenous to the cultures that produce it and to be fundamentally different than Western philosophy in areas like its valuation of reason or its dependence on myth and religion. In this way, non-Western philosophy remains fundamentally “other.”

He then goes on to provide a starting point for a more effective argument for the relevance of non-Western philosophy:

An alternative approach to the history of philosophy — one that takes the aim of opening up the discipline seriously — would treat both Western and non-Western philosophy as the regional inflections of a global phenomenon.... Now it is of course very difficult to define “philosophy,” but if we think of it broadly as systematic reflection on the nature of reality and on humanity’s place in that reality, then it is clear that Europe can make no special claim to be the home of philosophy.

Yes.  And let me add my own, rather simplistic, point here: Chinese philosophy is valuable to us here and now because it concerns itself, deeply and directly, with large questions of  "the nature of reality and... humanity's place in that reality."

I tend to focus on politics, and in that realm it is clear that Chinese philosophy has much to contribute to any discussion of issues such as: Who should rule?  How should they rule?  How should we understand political legitimacy?  What role does violence play in politics?  etc. This is not really a matter of "Western" v. "non-Western" to me. They are large questions that have been contemplated is many diverse places and times, and the broad history of that extensive conservation remains relevant, in all its facets, to us today.  

We seem to assume automatically that the ancient Greeks - so far removed in time and culture from the contemporary US - are relevant to today's political world.  Well, ancient Chinese thinkers are similarly pertinent.  Some might reject that assertion, and argue that the Greeks invented democracy, and that our politics is rooted in that democratic tradition; thus, since the ancient Chinese lacked a notion of democracy, they are not as germane to contemporary American political debates.  

Politics, however, is about more than democracy v. authoritarianism.  It is true that in their own times ancient Chinese thinkers did not think in terms of "rule of the people."  However, their focus on humane public policy and ethical standard of leadership are certainly relevant in a contemporary democratic context.  And they are equally relevant in a contemporary authoritarian context - as I have argued regularly here, the leaders of the CCP have much to fear in a strong and consistent application of Mencian political principles...

Here's an example. When thinking about sound government, and political strategies that might produce sound government,  Analects 12.7 offers this (Ames/Rosemont translation):

Zigong asked about governing effectively.  The master said to him, "Make sure there is sufficient food to eat, sufficient arms for defense, and that the common people have confidence in their leaders."

"If you have to give up one of these three things," he said, "which should be given up first?"

"Give up the arms," he replied.

"If you had to give up one of the remaining two," he said," which should be given up first?"

"Give up food," he replied. "Death has been with us from ancient times, but if the common people do not have confidence in their leaders, community will not endure."

子貢問政。子曰：「足食。足兵。民信之矣。」子貢曰：「必不得已而去，於斯三者何先？」曰：「去兵。」子貢曰：「必不得已而去，於斯二者何先？」曰：「去食。自古皆有死，民無信不立。」

There's a lot in there. Effective government requires something like a Weberian state, insofar as that suggests a coercive apparatus (兵). It also requires that the state provide a certain basic sustenance to the people within its territory: a kind of performance legitimacy.  But, ultimately, legitimacy is not simply a matter of providing material sustenance.  The "confidence of the people" (民信) is more than bread alone.  It is a matter of consistent sincerity on the part of political leaders in attending to the well-being of society at large.  A government that rewards the rich at the expense of the poor, or concerns itself more with the maintenance of a particular ruling group while ignoring growing social inequalities, will lose the confidence of the people.  Leaders in both China and the US could learn from that now.

I don't want to ignore Daoism here.  It, too, is certainly of relevance to contemporary political and philosophical debates.  Its political significance lies largely in its critique of power and greed and, yes, injustice.  While the Daodejing and Zhuangzi do not put forth much in the way of positive political principles (i.e. ideas that might be used to build an effective government), its perspective from outside of power is certainly valuable in terms of political analysis.

Personally, I find Daoism's insights into broader questions of ontology and epistemology to be more alluring than its politics.  Zhuangzi, in particular, seems to prefigure 20th century debates about knowledge and language and reality.  While not a postmodern (Zhuangzi would resist the notion that language constitutes reality; rather he would contend that language is inadequate in capturing the fullness and complexity and dynamism of reality), his thinking is certainly relevant to conservations about Derrida and Saussure.

We could go on, but will leave it there.  Or, better, let's leave it with Zhuangzi (Hinton translation):

The spoken isn't just bits of wind.  In the spoken, something is spoken.  But what it is never stays fixed and constant.  So is something spoken, or has nothing ever been spoken?  People think we're different from baby birds cheeping, but are we saying any more than they are?

夫言非吹也。言者有言，其所言者特未定也。果有言邪？其未嘗有言邪？其以為異於鷇音，亦有辯乎，其無辯乎?