Abstract
This chapter focuses first, on the differing and usually conflicting goals of truth and reconciliation commissions; second, how these goals are best achieved by employing the conceptual apparatus of religion; and third, how a Confucian perspective can place the religious dimensions of the work of reconciliation in a secular framework that does not require grounding in any theological beliefs.
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Notes
- 1.
Far and away the most well known of these is the first, and people interested in the subject should familiarize themselves with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa Report, by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa and Desmond Tutu (1999). Some general works that bear on reconciliation commissions are Rotberg and Thompson (2000), and Bar-siman-Tov (2007).
- 2.
Here is Solomon on Rawls: “…it would take a particularly uncritical reader to miss the overwhelmingly rationalistic frame of Rawls’s basic theory, as opposed to the cosmetic plaster that he adds between the structural struts to give his deductive theory some sense of humanity” (Solomon 1990: 301, n.3).
- 3.
The U.N. Declaration has been published in a variety of places, including The United Nations and Human Rights 1945–1995 (United Nations 1995). The Universal Declaration is Document 8.
- 4.
A plethora of books have appeared in just the last three years excoriating any and all beliefs in God. Among the more noteworthy are Harris (2004), Dawkins (2006), Stenger (2007), and Hitchens (2007). I have argued that all such efforts to exorcise the religious ghost from the human machine are fundamentally misguided (Rosemont 2001).
- 5.
All of the authors mentioned in the last note – and many others – seem to equate religion with fundamentalist readings of sacred texts, especially the New Testament and Quran. In this sense, Confucianism is clearly not a religion; it contains no theology, no concept of a creator god, has no beliefs that contradict any of the laws of physics, geology or biology. But I believe it is a deeply spiritual way of life, and hence of particular value in capturing the religious dimensions needed for the work of reconciliation commissions to be effective, and enduring.
- 6.
Many people of good will have insisted on the inseparability of all the rights enumerated in the UN Declaration. See for example, Twiss (1998). I endorse this view politically, but cannot do so conceptually or logically; the inconsistency I raise here I have also raised elsewhere, and it has never been responded to in any way to the best of my knowledge. See also Rosemont “Human Rights: A Bill of Worries,” in the Confucianism and Human Rights volume cited just above (Rosemont 1998). It is highly noteworthy that the Chinese Ambassador to the United Nations serving on the committee to draw up the Declaration was Carsun Chang, a noted scholar of Mencius; Articles 22–27 are in significant measure due to him.
- 7.
Figures compiled form the New York Times, April 5, 2006: C4.
- 8.
Human Rights: International Instruments. United Nations Press (United Nations 2002: 10).
- 9.
Especially, but not confined to, exemplary groups like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Witness for Peace, School of the Americas Watch, and the American Friends Service Committee, among others.
- 10.
This distinction was first made, I believe, in Baier (1966).
- 11.
Roger Ames and I have begun to elaborate this concept, and contrast it with the moral theories of Western philosophy, in the “Introduction” to our new collaborative work, Rosemont and Ames (2009). We have dedicated the book to the memory of Bob Solomon, our cherished friend as well as highly respected philosopher.
- 12.
Keeping “superiors” and “inferiors” for shang and xia virtually guarantees that Western thinkers will take Confucianism no more seriously in the future than they have tended to take it in the past; my view is that a reconstructed Confucian vision is needed today, and that my translation is faithful to the spirit, if not the letter of the classical texts, which is why I have been using these new terms in my papers over the past 20 years. To eschew “superiors” and “Inferiors” for shang and xia, should not at all suggest that a great many Chinese of the past – and even some of the present – have not interpreted the terms in that way, especially with regard to women.
- 13.
Solomon retains the concept of the individual in a way that I believe the Confucians would not, but in my opinion the similarities between his socially embedded persons and Confucian role-bearing persons far outweigh their differences.
- 14.
“No man is an island, entire unto itself… Any man’s death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind. Therefore do not send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” Donne (1997: 75).
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Rosemont, H. (2012). Solomonic Justice, Rights, and Truth and Reconciliation Commissions: A Confucian Meditation*. In: Higgins, K., Sherman, D. (eds) Passion, Death, and Spirituality. Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures, vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4650-3_14
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