Abstract
This chapter will argue that Confucian rituals are necessary for virtue cultivation, acquisition and manifestation, and this function of the rituals cannot be replaced by the Confucian moral principles. In modern Chinese society, the Confucian rituals have been attacked by the official ideology as “feudalist” backward activities to be entirely abandoned. Contemporary Neo-Confucian scholars, in attempting to defend the Confucian civilization, put their emphasis on general Confucian moral principles in separation from the function of the Confucian rituals. In doing so they have abstracted these principles from the real Confucian moral convictions embedded in the ritual practices and detracted from the substance of the Confucian culture and morality. In modern Western liberal culture, self-determined activities have been emphasized to seek the self-chosen conception of the good life. Moral education becomes difficult, if not impossible, to deploy in such society because the true nature of any human morality cannot be properly cultivated and realized without appreciating rituals, a series of familial and societal practices traditionally established and commonly performed by human individuals.
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Notes
- 1.
Although this essay focuses on the ethical, rather than religious, functions of the Confucian rituals, it is necessary to note that some crucial Confucian rituals (such as sacrifices to Heaven and ancestors) are obviously religious. Moreover, the Confucian rituals as a coherent whole system representing the Confucian way of life exert an essential role of connecting the human life to the divine and therefore elevating and even sanctifying the human life.
- 2.
John Searle’s distinction between constitutive rules and regulative rules is helpful for us to understand ritual practices. A constitutive rule is in the form that “x counts as y” or “x counts as y in context c,” while a regulative rule is simply in the form that “do x” or “if y, do x” (Searle, 1969, pp. 34–35). In performing rituals people may not be aware of all the important rules they are following. Nevertheless, rituals are impossible without constitutive social rules.
- 3.
For more detailed analyses and arguments for the views expressed in this section, see Fan (2010, chapter 11).
- 4.
In this case MacIntyre’s account of virtue seems also suffering from a dilemma that Gary Watson has described of virtue ethics: in explaining virtue in terms of something else one renders virtue only secondarily important in one’s account, although virtue should have been primarily important in virtue ethics (Watson, 1997).
- 5.
MacIntyre seems to hold a positive answer to this question in his “Postscript to the Second Edition” of the After Virtue by emphasizing the robust difference between the internal and external goods that one may accomplish in performing a practice: the good that a grandmaster of chess who cares only about external goods contingently attached to chess playing can achieve will not be “that kind of excellence which is specific to chess and the kind of enjoyment that supervenes upon such excellence” (p. 274). However, for real human beings, isn’t it more reasonable to hold that the grandmasters of chess, or any other practice under discussion, care about both the external and internal goods? In this case, MacIntyre cannot convincingly deny that a great chess player who is vicious can still achieve some of the internal goods of chess.
- 6.
Think of, for example, the Russian “chessboard murderer” arrested in 2007 – he had planned to kill 64 people and put a coin on every square of a 64-place chessboard for each murder. He preferred to select victims he knew, and stating that he collected the souls of his victims after falling in love with killing. He was finally convicted of 48 murders in six years. Experts at Russia’s main psychiatric clinic have found him sane. In a sense he has achieved a great deal of the “internal goods” of the “practice” of murder. See a series of reports online, e.g., http://www.news24.com/Content/World/News/1073/84d5ef9cd77a4374ac876804c7e345da//Killer_wanted_victims_souls (accessed in July 2009).
- 7.
“If names are not correct, what is said will not be in accord [with what is to be done]; if what is said is not in accord [with what is to be done], what is to be done cannot be implemented; if what is to be done cannot be implemented, rites and music will not flourish; if rites and music do not flourish, punishments will not be appropriate; when punishments are not appropriate, the people will not know where to put hand and foot” (Analects 13.3).
- 8.
“There are few who, being filial (xiao) and fraternal (di), are fond of offending against their superiors. There have been none, who, not liking to offend against their superiors, have been fond of starting a rebellion” (Analects 1.2).
- 9.
Of course, the Confucian rituals are not only about human relationships. There are also many Confucian rituals concerning the relationship between humans and Heaven or between humans and spirits. But this essay focuses only on the Confucian rituals regarding human relationships in order to address the virtue learning and acquiring problem.
- 10.
I am not sure what MacIntyre would say about the necessity of the distinction between the ritual practices and the general practices that I have drawn in this section based on the Confucian perspective. But he does state, in another essay, that “about the relationship between respect for ceremonial forms and the practice of the virtues in general, we Aristotelians do have a great deal to learn from Confucians” (2004, p. 158).
- 11.
In this respect the Confucian understanding of virtue is in line with classical Western views such as Aristotle’s, but is at odds with Kant’s position. Kant sets out the principles of moral conduct based on his philosophical account of moral agency as being rational and autonomous, and then on that basis defines virtue as the trait of acting according to these principles. Thus a virtue for Kant is not a quality of one’s character, emotions, feelings, desires, or any other feature of human nature that might be amenable to habituation, but is rather a quality of one’s will, a pure rational volition.
- 12.
In the Analects, Confucius and his disciples often explain ren in terms of more specific virtues and depict ren as most complete Confucian virtue. For example, “filial piety (xiao, 孝) and fraternal submission (di, 弟) are the root of ren” (1.2); “while at home hold yourself in a respectful attitude (gong, 恭); when serving in an official capacity be reverent (jing, 敬); when dealing with others be loyal (zhong, 忠)” (13.19); “unbending strength (gang, 剛), resoluteness (yi, 毅), simplicity (mu, 木) and reticent (ne, 訥) are close to ren” (13.27); “to be able to practice five things under heaven constitutes ren…: courtesy (gong, 恭), tolerance (kuan, 寬), trustworthiness (xin, 信), quickness (min, 敏) and generosity (hui, 惠)” (17.6), and so on.
- 13.
This observation could hold even if Confucians agree on Mencius’ understanding that every human already has a potential power to become a man of ren. In his view, “no man is devoid of a heart (xin, 心) sensitive to the suffering of others….The heart of compassion is the germ (dan, 端) of ren…” (Mencius 2A6). But this is only saying that everyone has the beginning or starting-point of virtue, which still needs cultivation or development to become actual virtue.
- 14.
The Confucian principle of reciprocity (shu,恕) can be used as another example to indicate the point. The principle states that “do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire” (Analects 12.2). This is not meant to substitute for the rules of the rituals. It rather provides guidance as to how you perform the rituals appropriately. For example, when you perform a present-giving ritual, this principle reminds that you do not give to your friend a present that you yourself do not like.
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Fan, R. (2012). Confucian Ritualization: How and Why?. In: Solomon, D., Fan, R., Lo, Pc. (eds) Ritual and the Moral Life. Philosophical Studies in Contemporary Culture, vol 21. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2756-4_9
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