Abstract
Citizenship is not a part of classical Confucian political thought. The philosophers of the classical period conceived of a division between rulers and ruled. The rulers acted, the ruled were acted upon. They felt that most people did not have the knowledge necessary to participate in government effectively and instead hoped for sagely rulers and wise ministers who would care for the people’s interests. However, most modern Confucian political thinkers are democratic to at least some degree, which calls for re-thinking the absence of the role of citizen in Confucian thought. In this chapter, I argue that this absence needs to be rectified, and even democratic Confucian thinkers cannot accept liberal accounts of citizenship which either separate civic and private virtue, or conceive of civic virtues as structural rather than substantive. Based on the thought of twentieth century New Confucians, I develop an account of citizenship and civic virtue centered around the virtues that are considered part of human nature. In the process, I consider challenges regarding value pluralism and excessive government involvement in individual morality.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Notes
- 1.
Confucianism was largely suppressed in mainland China from the 1949 revolution until the 1980s. Confucian philosophers who remained in China were prohibited from publishing works on Confucian thought and pressured to support Marxism publicly. Confucian thought continued to develop outside China.
- 2.
- 3.
In my view, Kymlicka focuses on language as a criterion for shared identity too exclusively: most Canadians and Americans share a native language but there is no move to merge politically.
- 4.
Mou was talking about political equality specifically, arguing that equality of basic human nature is worthy of a certain kind of respect. Certain kinds of social hierarchy (based on age or moral achievement, for example) require an extra level of respect, but this is personal respect, not something to be recognized with distinct political status.
- 5.
What he was wanted to argue is that some kind of public role and opportunity for social recognition is important, but that historically in China the fact that the only opportunity for that was serving in government led to Confucians compromising their values in order to have that opportunity. Politics should be one option, but not the only one. See Elstein 2014, 75–75 for additional discussion of this point in Xu’s thought.
- 6.
For a challenge to this claim, see Pogge 1992, n. 39.
- 7.
See El Amine 2015, 9–15 for a slightly different take on this question.
- 8.
For example, the Song dynasty Neo-Confucian Cheng Hao said, “Righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and faithfulness all are manifestations of benevolence” (H. Cheng 2014, 140).
- 9.
Exactly how extension works is left vague and it may well be that Confucians were historically too optimistic that familial virtue would transfer to other situations readily.
- 10.
For purposes of this essay, I will use “breadth” to mean the set of potential objects of benevolence and “scope” to refer to how comprehensive an agent’s benevolence is with regard to one particular class of objects.
- 11.
This is reflected in occasional comments about how friends should hold each other to a higher moral standard (Analects 12.23, 12.24). Mou Zongsan as well notes that friends can be more demanding of each other than is appropriate for a government to be toward its citizens.
- 12.
I have in mind something analogous to public reason as Rawls uses the term, but given the Confucian emphasis on ritual and developing affects rather than strict rationality, “reason” may not be the most appropriate term. For one example of this (which I do not entirely endorse), see Kim 2014, chap. 5.
- 13.
Which is not to say there are hard and fast rules for making these decisions. In my view, the best interpretation is that it is a matter of what Mengzi called “weighing” (quan 權); that is, deciding based on the particulars of the situation.
- 14.
Additional discussion of the relation between right and profit is in (Elstein and Tian 2017).
- 15.
I develop this point further in work in progress.
References
Allen, D. S. (2006). Talking to strangers: Anxieties of citizenship since Brown v. Board of education. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Ames, R. (2011). Confucian role ethics: A vocabulary, Ch’ien Mu Lecture Series. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Analects. (2003). Trans. by E. Slingerland. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Angle, S. C. (2009). Sagehood: The contemporary significance of neo-confucian philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bai, T. (2009). New mission of an old state: Classical Confucian political philosophy in a contemporary and comparative relevance context 旧邦新命:古今中西参照下的古典儒家政治哲学. Beijing: Peking University Press.
Bai, T. (2013). A Confucian version of hybrid regime: How does it work, and why is it superior? In D. A. Bell & C. Li (Eds.), The East Asian challenge for democracy: Political meritocracy in comparative perspective (pp. 55–87). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Chan, J. (2013). Confucian perfectionism: A political philosophy for modern times. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Chang, W. (1998). Confucian theory of norms and human rights. In W. T. de Bary & W.-m. Tu (Eds.), Confucianism and human rights (pp. 117–141). New York: Columbia University Press.
Cheng, C.-y. (1998). Transforming Confucian virtues into human rights: A study of human agency and potency in Confucian ethics. In W. T. de Bary & W.-m. Tu (Eds.), Confucianism and human rights (pp. 142–153). New York: Columbia University Press.
Cheng, H. (2014). On understanding benevolence. In J. Tiwald, & B. W. Van Norden (Eds.), P. J. Ivanhoe (Trans.), Readings in later Chinese philosophy: Han to the 20th century (pp. 140–141). Indianapolis: Hackett.
Collins, S. D. (2006). Aristotle and the rediscovery of citizenship. New York: Cambridge University Press.
El Amine, L. (2015). Classical Confucian political thought: A new interpretation. Oxford: Princeton University Press.
Elstein, D. (2014). Democracy in contemporary Confucian philosophy (Routledge studies in contemporary philosophy). New York: Routledge.
Elstein, D., & Tian, Q. (2017). Confucian business ethics: Possibilities and challenges. In B. Kaldis & F. Eugene Heath (Eds.), Wealth, commerce, and philosophy: Foundational thinkers and business ethics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Galston, W. A. (1991). Liberal purposes: Goods, virtues, and diversity in the liberal state (Cambridge studies in philosophy and public policy). Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press.
Gan, C. (2012). Back to Wangdao: Confucianism and the world order 重回王道—儒家與世界秩序. Shanghai: East China Normal University Press.
Hall, D., & Ames, R. (1999). The democracy of the dead. Chicago: Open Court.
Held, D. (1999). The transformation of political community: Rethinking democracy in the context of globalization. In I. Shapiro & C. Hacker-Cordón (Eds.), Democracy’s edges (pp. 84–111). London/New York: Cambridge University Press.
Jiang, Q. (2012). In D. Bell & R. Fan (Eds.), A Confucian constitutional order. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Kim, S. (2014). Confucian democracy in East Asia: Theory and practice. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Kramer, R. M. (1999). Trust and distrust in organizations: Emerging perspectives, enduring questions. Annual Review of Psychology, 50(1), 569–598.
Kymlicka, W. (1999). Citizenship in an era of globalization: Commentary on held. In I. Shapiro & C. Hacker-Cordón (Eds.), Democracy’s edges (pp. 112–126). London/New York: Cambridge University Press.
Lee, M. -h. (2005). Political thought from a Confucian perspective 儒家視野下的政治思想. Taibei: Taiwan University Press.
Lee, M. -h. (2013). The self-transformation of contemporary Confucianism 當代儒學的自我轉化 (Rev. ed.). Taibei: Academia Sinica Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy.
“Li Yun.” (2013). Chinese text project. http://ctext.org/liji/zhong-yong. Accessed 23 July.
Liu, S. (1993). The contemporary explanation of ‘pattern is one, Its manifestations are many’ 「理一分殊」的現代解釋.” In The tension between ideals and reality 理想與現實的糾結 (pp. 157–88). Taibei: Student Books.
Mengzi. (2008). Trans. by B. W. Van Norden. Mengzi. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Metzger, T. (2005). A cloud across the Pacific: Essays on the clash between Chinese and western political theories today. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press.
Mou, Z. (1988). Philosophy of history 歷史哲學 (Rev. ed.). Taibei: Student Books.
Mou, Z. (1991). The principle of authority and governance 政道與治道 (Rev. edn.). Taibei: Student Books.
Mou, Z. (2014). The principles of authority and governance. In J. Tiwald, & B. W. Van Norden (Eds.), D. Elstein (Trans.), Readings in later Chinese philosophy: Han to the 20th century. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Murthy, V. (2000). The democratic potential of Confucian minben thought. Asian Philosophy, 10(1), 33–47.
Pogge, T. W. (1992). Cosmopolitanism and sovereignty. Ethics, 103(1), 48–75.
Rappaport, R. A. (1999). Ritual and religion in the making of humanity, Cambridge studies in social and cultural anthropology 110. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rosemont, H. (1998). Human rights: A bill of worries. In W. T. de Bary & W.-m. Tu (Eds.), Confucianism and human rights (pp. 54–66). New York: Columbia University Press.
Rosemont, H. (2004). Whose democracy? which rights? A Confucian critique of modern western liberalism. In K.-l. Shun & D. B. Wong (Eds.), Confucian ethics: A comparative study of self, autonomy, and community (pp. 49–71). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schneewind, J. B. (1990). The misfortunes of virtue. Ethics, 101(1), 42–63. doi:10.1086/293259.
Sosis, R., & Bressler, E. R. (2003). Cooperation and commune longevity: A test of the costly signaling theory of religion. Cross-Cultural Research, 37(2), 211–239.
Tan, S.-h. (2003). Confucian democracy: A Deweyan reconstruction. Albany: SUNY Press.
Thunder, D. (2014). Citizenship and the pursuit of the worthy life. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Wang, Y. (2014). Questions on the great learning. In J. Tiwald, & B. W. Van Norden (Eds.), P. J. Ivanhoe (Trans.), Readings in later chinese philosophy: Han to the 20th century (pp. 238–250). Indianapolis: Hackett.
Xu, F. (1985). Between academia and politics 學術與政治之間. Taibei: Student Books.
Xu, F. (1988a). In X. Xiao (Ed.), Confucian political thought and democracy, freedom and human rights 儒家政治思想與民主自由人權 (Rev. ed.). Taibei: Student Books.
Xu, F. (1988b). The culture of the heart-mind 心的文化.” In Collected essays on Chinese thought 中國思想史論集. Taibei: Student Books.
Xu, F. (1990). A history of Chinese theories of human nature: The pre-Qin period 中國人性論史: 先秦篇. Taibei: Commercial Press.
Zhao, T. (2009). A political world philosophy in terms of all-under-heaven (Tian-Xia). Diogenes, 56(1), 5–18.
Zhao, T. (2012). All-under-heaven and methodological relationism: An old story and new world peace. In F. Dallmayr & T. Zhao (Eds.), Contemporary Chinese political thought: Debates and perspectives (pp. 46–66). Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Elstein, D. (2017). Confucian Citizenship of Shared Virtue. In: Thunder, D. (eds) The Ethics of Citizenship in the 21st Century. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50415-5_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50415-5_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-50414-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-50415-5
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)