Abstract
While China has become a worldly economic power, a moral crisis has permeated the society. It appears that a great number of Chinese individuals no longer take morality seriously, but are only interested in monetary wealth to satisfy their immediate, hedonistic desires and impulses. Even an outsider is easily acquainted with numerous reports of widespread instances of corruption on the part of Chinese officials, businessmen, and even ordinary residents. In short, while China has accomplished a worldly economic success, it has also encountered a grave moral crisis.
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Notes
- 1.
Wang Xiaoying proposes that current China is a moral vacuum which is, according to her view, marked by a gap between Chinese communism on the one hand and a rising egoism or hedonism on the other: “there is ‘communist’ morality and there is naked self-interest, but nothing in between” (Wang 2002, p. 10). Although I used to favor the term of “moral vacuum” to characterize the Chinese situation, it is necessary to recognize that Wang’s account is importantly defective. Although actual Chinese conduct is no longer constrained by the formal communist morality (as Wang rightly points out), it is still mediated and directed by the remnant of Confucian morality (rather than nothing but a moral vacuum). Without this recognition, we would have difficulty to account for the current success of the Chinese economy as well as basic Chinese familial and social relations, rituals, and mechanisms manifested in Chinese lives. I thank David Solomon and Dennis McCann for persuading me to drop the notion of “moral vacuum” in my account of Chinese society.
- 2.
In chapter 14 of Fan (2010), I provide a detailed account of the Chinese moral crisis in terms of a series of moral and psychological concepts, including the Confucian personality, the communist personality disorder, and the post-communist personality disorder.
- 3.
How many Christian believers there are in current China is up for debate. Some Christian websites claim that there are 100 million Chinese Christians in China. See, e.g.,
http://blog.beliefnet.com/roddreher/2010/07/china-is-turning-christian.html. Personally, I think the following summary figures offered by the Wikipedia website about the major Chinese religions are close to the reality:
Nowadays Shenism-Taoism and Buddhism are the largest religions in China with respectively over 30% … and 18-20% of the population adhering to them, thriving throughout the country as the government is allowing them to spread. Almost 10% of the population is composed of those regarded as non-Han ethnicities following their traditional tribal religions. Christians are 3-4% of the population according to various detailed surveys, although American press states there might be more due to the house church movement; Muslims are 1-2%. However, the biggest part of the population, ranging between 60% and 70%, is mostly agnostic or atheist. Various new religious movements, both indigenous and exogenous, are scattered across the country (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_China).
In fact, with certain regional exceptions (especially Tibet where the people are exclusively committed to Tibetan Buddhism and Xinjiang where Uyghur people (accounting for about 40 % of the Xinjiang population) are exclusively committed to Islam), most of the Chinese, no matter whether they are religious or non-religious, have been essentially influenced by and shaped by Confucian morality.
- 4.
See, for example, the famous “Charter 08” signed by Liu Xiaobo, the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner, and 302 others: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/10/08/charter_08.
- 5.
As Rawls states clearly, he does not prefer to think of his theory as a right-based view. Instead, he has worked into it “idealized conceptions,” namely, “certain fundamental intuitive ideas” that have been the “overlapping consensus” of modern Western democracies (Rawls 1985, p. 236, fn 19).
- 6.
Francis Fukuyama’s change of position is illustrative. In 1990 he announced “the end of history” thesis (hailing the final victory of liberal democracy in human history) after the fall of communism. Today he recognizes that “US democracy has little to teach China,” because “there is a deeper problem with the American model that is nowhere close to being solved. …Americans pride themselves on constitutional checks and balances, based on a political culture that distrusts centralised government. This system has ensured individual liberty and a vibrant private sector, but it has now become polarised and ideologically rigid. At present it shows little appetite for dealing with the long-term fiscal challenges the US faces. Democracy in America may have an inherent legitimacy that the Chinese system lacks, but it will not be much of a model to anyone if the government is divided against itself and cannot govern.” See online http://www.tehrantimes.com/PDF/11070/11070-15.pdf.
- 7.
For an account of how the Confucian moral personality shaped by the Confucian morality has motivated and facilitated the Chinese economic reforms, see chapter 14 of Fan (2010).
- 8.
Classical Moists critiqued Confucian love to be less universal and egalitarian than it should. See Ellen Zhang’s contribution to this volume. This essay points out that Confucius has offered a ritual-based reply to this challenge. The core of the reply is that it is not only morally tenable for one to love one’s family members more than other people, it is also feasible for one to take care of other people while practicing prominent familial love, as long as one observes the proper Confucian rituals in treating other people.
- 9.
I do not think there is any disagreement between Confucius and Aristotle in this regard. Aristotle even goes further by arguing that if one lacks an adequate supply of external goods, one’s virtuous activity will be to some extent diminished or defective (Aristotle 1985,,1153b17–19).
- 10.
Although Confucianism emphasizes human efforts, yet it recognizes that whether this order can be fully realized (or whether an individual can eventually gain the good life) is ultimately determined by Heaven (tian, 天): “Life and death are a matter of Destiny (ming, 命); wealth and honor depend on Heaven” (Analects 12.5). It is the Confucian religious conviction that the way of humans must follow the dao of Heaven (tiandao, 天道), which is disclosed by Confucian sages through the performance of the rituals. Indeed, it is part of the mandate of Heaven (tianming, 天命) that humans must make efforts to fulfill the unity of good humans and the good life by pursuing the order of good society. Indeed, if Confucianism is a type of teleology, it differs from Aristotelian teleology, because it is directed towards a final end, the dao of Heaven (tiandao, 天道). The dao of Heaven is the divine and permanent pattern of things that human conduct as well as the order of society must follow through the learning and exercising of the rituals. In his sense, Confucianism is no doubt a religious doctrine, while Aristotelianism is not.
- 11.
For a more detailed exploration of relevant issues, see Fan (2010, chapter 4).
- 12.
Confucian scholars after Confucius have formed a Confucian metaphysics of yin and yang—two fundamental forces of the university—to understand the dao of Heaven and explain the structure and dynamic of myriad things (human individuals included) in the university. As the dao of Heaven is the unity of yin and yang, the way of humans is the bond of man and women. Hence, from this Confucian metaphysics, human flourishing can only be fulfilled through family life, and the family is an eternal institution of the universe as long as humans exist.
- 13.
Some modern Chinese scholars argue that the family should be abolished for egalitarian love in an ideal society of ren. For example, Albert Chen (2013) in his article has shown how Kang Youwei has drawn this conclusion by drawing on mixed thoughts of Confucianism, Buddhism, Communism, utilitarianism, and progressivism. A fatal defect of such dramatic “new” arguments is that they attempt to reinterpret ren in separation from the Confucian commitment to the dao of Heaven and relevant rituals, so as to come close to the abyss of nihilism in the name of progressivism.
- 14.
For a useful argument for the importance of the family to the common good of society in terms of Confucian virtue consideration in general and the virtue of filial piety consideration in particular, see Jue Wang’s contribution to this volume (Wang 2013).
- 15.
P.C. Lo (2013) notes that Confucianism may hold a family metaphor of the state in its account; namely, the state is the family writ large. In fact, the importance of this metaphor for Confucianism is much diluted if one recognizes that, as indicated in the text of my essay, it is the family, not the state, that is a telos of the Confucian way of life. More accurately, the Confucian metaphor is that all-under-Heaven (tienxia) is an extended family in which people are all relatives without being separated by the boundaries of states. They are either close or remote relatives, but not strangers or enemies. Accordingly, Confucianism is by no means a type of statism or nationalism. In Chinese history, the family metaphor of the state has been used by the Legalists to repress the power of the family for the power of the state. I agree with Lo that this metaphor is not helpful to address the current moral crisis of China. However, it is important to note that the recent movement of Chinese nationalism that worries Lo gains their motivation and intellectual resources primarily from modern Western social Darwinism as well as traditional Chinese Legalism, not from Confucianism at all, because Confucianism sees the family, not the nation, in the foundational and permanent place of human society.
- 16.
Whether Rawls’ theory is suitable for modern Western society is evidently a controversial issue. But this issue goes beyond the concern of this essay.
- 17.
Some may take that the Confucians hold an agnostic view on these matters. That is a misunderstanding that I do not address in this essay.
- 18.
In contrast, Rawls contends that the ways in which modern Western citizens view themselves as free include that they take themselves to be “self-originating sources of valid claims” (Rawls 1985, pp. 242–243). Following such ideas, it is not just that we must accept that counting blades of grass is really good for this individual, but also that we may have to support it in some way—even though we disagree with it—because he is the source of such claims. I thank Bryan Pilkington for pointing out this important issue to me.
- 19.
There may not have been an explicit expression of this principle in the Confucian literature. However, the principle is implicit in the Confucian teachings of the virtues and the rituals. There are affluent relevant views and arguments entailing this principle from the works of Confucius, Mencius, and Xunzi, among others. Moreover, although parents are most effective in this function, other close family members as well as teachers play similar effects. Among contemporary scholars, Alasdair MacIntyre has recognized the Confucian principle of motivation: “The young novice does not act as justice requires because justice requires it, but to avoid the approval or disapproval of parents and teachers… we Aristotelians do have a great deal to learn from Confucians” (MacIntyre 2004, pp. 157–158). Finally, the principle may apply not only to children, but also to adults in relevant contexts.
- 20.
The essay has inspired intense debate regarding different parenting models. I personally think that she has been too extreme in disciplining her daughters: e.g., they were never allowed to “watch TV or play computer games, get any grade less than an A, not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama, or play any instrument other than the piano or violin.” These demands, I am afraid, are not consistent with the Confucian requirement of the middle way (zhongyong, 中庸). However, her point that the Chinese idea of good parenting is dramatically different from that of modern Western people is well made.
- 21.
I am not saying that only Western societies have such juvenile delinquencies. The point is that the Confucian principle of motivation has been ignored, if not rejected, in modern societies in the name of individual rights, domestic justice, or protection of children. Dennis McCann states that “the limitations of family-oriented morality… are not likely to be understood apart from first-hand experience in traditional families where the opportunities of some members for personal self-realization are all-too-often foreclosed for the sake of the family’s progress as a whole” (McCann 2013, p. 284, fn 10). I know such problems exist sometimes in traditional families. But one should recognize that if one attempts to solve the problems by forcibly imposing the so-called “domestic justice” or “gender equality” through the aggressive intervention of the state into familial affairs, one would cause even more harm and unfairness to family members than family autonomy. For instance, the Chinese had the tragic experience of the “Great Leap Forward” movement in the late 1950s when centrally planned industrialization and equalization were imposed on Chinese families. Surely human institutions, traditional families included, inevitably make mistakes. Confucianism holds that the family, as the primary and eternal community of human society, could and should be improved, along with other institutions, in the process of the gradual fulfilling of the four-element societal order advocated by Confucianism as the Confucian understanding of the common good of all human beings.
- 22.
For the Confucian virtue-based consideration of helping the poor, see Jonathan Chan’s contribution to this volume (Chan 2013).
- 23.
To emphasize the Confucian values of family-based benefits as well as the meritocratic pattern of distribution does not mean to advocate current Chinese governmental policy in which urban and rural residents are treated in numerous different ways; rural residents and families are unfairly constrained by such policy in pursuit of their happy lives. Such policy is neither familistic nor meritocratic. However, critique of such policy should not tempt one to move to the extreme of the modern Western egalitarian welfarism that demands that everyone have a right to equal welfare regardless of consideration of family and virtue.
- 24.
See Kang (2008, p. 43). The book covers rich materials to demonstrate that contemporary Chinese society remains Confucian in basic moral and political values, although these values are not well organized as a coherent Confucian configuration in a systematic way.
- 25.
A series of careful research made by late political scientist Shi Tianjian at Duke University shows that the Chinese understanding of “democracy” (minzhu, 民主) has been significantly influenced by the Confucian doctrine of minben (民本) – the people alone are the basis of the state, so as to be different from that of liberal democracy – the people alone are the master of the state. In particular, while the liberal democracy emphasizes procedural arrangements, the Chinese tend to trust qualified elites by reason of their superior knowledge and virtue; liberal democracy insists on the fair election of a government, but the Chinese care more about the substance and outcomes of its policies; and finally, liberal democracy claims a right to political participation for everyone, while the Chinese give political leaders greater freedom to deviate from public opinion when making policy (Shi and Lu 2010, pp. 125–126). In fact, as Karen Chan (2013) shows in her essay, there is a similar attitude in the Western Thomistic-Aristotelian tradition that ties virtue in a political leader’s personal life to success in public office in leading to the common good of the political community. Drawing on the Thomistic-Aristotelian intellectual resources, Chan has persuasively argued that the practical reasoning proper to the political leader presupposes the moral virtues.
- 26.
I thank P. J. Ivanhoe for making this sensible suggestion.
- 27.
Chinese civil society will be family-based in the sense that the family is the primary community of society, and that family associations (like clan charity organizations and family-based community compacts in tradition) will play active roles in guiding and assisting the social and economic lives of the people. Chinese civil society will be family-oriented in the sense that family values will be promoted through educational programs. All civic social organizations or institutions, as long as they are not anti-family in their missions or activities, are publicly supported in the Chinese civil society. In such a civil society, anti-family associations can only be tolerated, not publicly supported.
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Acknowledgment
I wish to thank the participants at the two conferences on the common good (held respectively at Hong Kong Baptist University on October 29–30, 2009, and at the University of Notre Dame on March 20–21, 2011) for their discussion of the previous versions of this essay. In particular, I am grateful to Daniel Bell, P.J. Ivanhoe, Dennis McCann, and Bryan Pilkington for their extensive written comments on the penultimate version of this essay
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Fan, R. (2014). A Confucian Notion of the Common Good for Contemporary China. In: Solomon, D., Lo, P. (eds) The Common Good: Chinese and American Perspectives. Philosophical Studies in Contemporary Culture, vol 23. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7272-4_10
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