Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Self-Interest

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Confucianism and the Chinese Self

  • 595 Accesses

Abstract

Self-interest is depreciated in Confucian ethics, according to Weber’s assessment. The chapter shows, however, that traditional Chinese family relations operate through their members’ self-interested actions. The chapter examines Confucian filial piety and the tensions in family life between intergenerational and conjugal relations, each producing distinctive patterns of interests. The chapter shows that self-interest is widely acknowledged in Chinese thought traditions. The chapter develops a novel account of self-interest in which selection of different temporal phases of self (past, present, or future) account for distinctive formations of self-interest. Confucian antipathy to ‘selfishness’ relates to admonishment of satisfaction of present self-interests against those of past selves. In Daoist self-cultivation practices, on the other hand, the interests of future selves are encouraged.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
eBook
USD 16.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 119.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 119.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Ainslie, George. 1986. ‘Beyond Microeconomics. Conflict among Interests in a Multiple Self as a Determinant of Value’. Pp. 133–75 in The Multiple Self, edited by Jon Elster. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Akerlof, George A. and Kranton, Rachel E. 2010. Identity Economics: How Our Identities Shape Our Work, Wages and Well-Being. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Ames, Roger T. 1983. The Art of Rulership: A Study in Ancient Chinese Political Thought. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baker, Hugh D.R. 1979. Chinese Family and Kinship. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Balazs, Etienne. 1964. Chinese Civilization and Bureaucracy. New Haven: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barbalet, Jack. 2008a. ‘Pragmatism and Economics: William James’ Contribution’. Cambridge Journal of Economics. 32(5): 797–810.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barbalet, Jack. 2008b. Weber, Passion and Profits: ‘The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism’ in Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Barbalet, Jack. 2009. ‘Disinterestedness and Self Formation: Principles of Action in William Hazlitt’. European Journal of Social Theory. 12(2): 195–211.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barbalet, Jack. 2012. ‘Self Interest and the Theory of Action’. British Journal of Sociology. 63(3):412–29.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barbalet, Jack. 2014. ‘Laozi’s Daodejing’. Pp. 17–31 in The Oxford Handbook of Process Philosophy and Organization Studies, edited by Jenny Helin, Tor Hernes, Daniel Hjorth and Robin Holt. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bauer, Wolfgang. 1976. China and the Search for Happiness. New York: Seabury Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bedford, Olwen and Hwang, Kwang-kuo. 2003. ‘Guilt and Shame in Chinese Culture: A Cross-cultural Framework from the Perspective of Morality and Identity’. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour. 33(2): 127–44.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brook, Timothy. 1997. ‘Profit and Righteousness in Chinese Economic Culture’. Pp. 27–44 in Culture and Economy: The Shaping of Capitalism in Eastern Asia, edited by Timothy Brook and Hy V. Luong. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cheng, Chung-ying. 1986. ‘The Concept of Face and its Confucian Roots’. Journal of Chinese Philosophy. 13(3): 329–48.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cheung, Steven N.S. 2005. ‘The Enforcement of Property Rights in Children, and the Marriage Contract’. Pp. 389–43 in his Economic Explanation: Selected Papers of Steven N.S. Cheung. Hong Kong: Arcadia Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, Myron L. 1976. House United, House Divided: The Chinese Family in Taiwan. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Csikszentmihalyi, Mark. 1999. ‘Mysticism and Apophatic Discourse in the Laozi’. Pp. 33–58 in Religious and Philosophical Aspects of the Laozi, edited by Mark Csikszentmihalyi and Philip J. Ivanhoe. Albany: SUNY.

    Google Scholar 

  • Durkheim, Emile. 1964. The Division of Labor in Society. New York: Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Durkheim, Emile. 1970. Suicide: A Study in Sociology. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eastman, Lloyd E. 1988. Family, Fields and Ancestors: Constancy and Change in China’s Social and Economic History, 1550–1949. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Elvin, Mark. 1985. ‘Between the Earth and Heaven: Conceptions of the Self in China’. Pp. 156–89 in The Category of the Person, edited by Michael Carrithers, Steven Collins and Steven Lukes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fei, Hsiao T’ung. 1962. Peasant Life in China: A Field Study of Country Life in the Yangtze Valley. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fei, Xiaotong. 1992. From the Soil: The Foundations of Chinese Society. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fei, Hsiao T’ung and Chang, Chih-I. 1948. Earthbound China: A Study of Rural Economy in Yunnan. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

    Google Scholar 

  • Frank, Robert H. 1988. Passion within Reason: The Strategic Role of the Emotions. New York: Norton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Freedman, Maurice. 1979. The Study of Chinese Society: Essays by Maurice Freedman, selected and Introduced by G. William Skinner. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fung, Yu-Lan. 1952. A History of Chinese Philosophy, Volume 1. Princeton: Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fung, Yu-Lan. 1998. ‘The Philosophy at the Basis of Traditional Chinese Society’. Pp. 632–39 in his Selected Philosophical Writings of Fung Yu-lan. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gardner, Daniel K. 2007. The Four Books: The Basic Teachings of the Later Confucian Tradition. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Graham, A.C. 1990. The Book of Lieh-tzǔ: A Classic of the Tao. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Greenhalgh, Susan. 1994. ‘De-Orientalizing the Chinese Family Firm’. American Ethnologist. 21(4): 746–75.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hall, David L. and Ames, Roger T. 1998. Thinking from the Han: Self, Truth and Transcendence in Chinese and Western Culture. Albany: SUNY Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hamilton, Gary G. 1984. ‘Patriarchalism in Imperial China and Western Europe: A Revision of Weber’s Sociology of Domination’. Theory and Society. 13(3): 393–425.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hamilton, Gary G. 1990. ‘Patriarchy, Patrimonialism, and Filial Piety: A Comparison of China and Western Europe’. British Journal of Sociology. 41(1): 77–104.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hazlitt, William. 1969. An Essay on the Principles of Human Action. Gainesville: Scholars’ Facsimiles & Reprints.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hirschman, Albert O. 1997. The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism before its Triumph. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ho, D.Y.F. 1998. ‘Interpersonal Relationships and Relational Dominance: An Analysis Based on Methodological Relationalism’. Asian Journal of Social Psychology. 1: 1–16.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ho, D.Y.F. and Chiu, C.Y. 1998. ‘Collective Representations as a Metaconstruct: An Analysis based on Methodological Relationalism’. Culture and Psychology. 4(3): 349–69.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hsu, Dau-lin. 1970–71. ‘The Myth of the “Five Human Relations” of Confucius’. Monumenta Serica. 29: 27–37.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hsu, Francis Lang-Kwang. 1943. ‘The Myth of Chinese Family Size’. American Journal of Sociology. 48(5): 555–62.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hwang, Kwang-kuo. 1987. ‘Face and Favor: The Chinese Power Game’. American Journal of Sociology. 92(4): 944–74.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hwang, Kwang-kuo. 2000. ‘Chinese Relationalism: Theoretical Construction and Methodological Considerations’. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour. 30(2): 155–78.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ji, Jainlin, Kleinman, Arthur and Becker, Anne E. 2001. ‘Suicide in Contemporary China: A Review of China’s Distinctive Suicide Demographics in their Sociocultural Context’. Harvard Review of Psychiatry. 9(1): 1–12.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Johnson, Ian and Wang, Ping. 2012. Daxue and Zhongyong: Bilingual Edition, translated and annotated by Ian Johnson and Wang Ping. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • King, Ambrose Yeo-chi. 1985. ‘The Individual and Group in Confucianism: A Relational Perspective’. Pp. 57–70 in Individualism and Holism: Studies in Confucian and Taoist Values, edited by Donald J. Munro. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, The University of Michigan.

    Google Scholar 

  • King, Ambrose Yeo-chi. 1991. ‘Kuan-hsi and Network Building: A Sociological Interpretation’. Daedalus. 120(2): 63–84.

    Google Scholar 

  • Knight, Frank H. 1971. Risk, Uncertainty and Profit. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • LaFargue, Michael. 1994. Tao and Method: A Reasoned Approach to Tao Te Ching. Albany: SUNY.

    Google Scholar 

  • LaFargue, Michael. 1998. ‘Recovering the Tao-te-ching’s Original Meaning: Some Remarks on Historical Hermeneutics’. Pp. 255–75 in Lao-tzu and the Tao-te-ching, edited by Livia Kohn and Michael LaFargue. Albany: SUNY.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lau, D.C. 1963. Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching. London: Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Legge, James. 1971. Confucius: Confucian Analects, The Great Learning and The Doctrine of the Mean. New York: Dover.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee, Sing and Kleinman, Arthur. 2000. ‘Suicide as Resistance in Chinese Society’. Pp. 221–40 in Chinese Society: Change, Conflict and Resistance, edited by Elizabeth J. Perry and Mark Selden. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Liu, Athena. 1999. Family Law for the Hong Kong SAR. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lufrano, Richard John. 1997. Honorable Merchants: Commerce and Self-Cultivation in Late Imperial China. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maine, Sir Henry Sumner. 1905. Ancient Law: Its Connection with the Early History of Society and its Relation to Modern Ideas. London: John Murray.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mencius. 2004. Mencius, translated with an Introduction and Notes by D.C. Lau. Revised edition. London: Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Parfit, Derek. 1986. Reasons and Persons. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Phillips, Michael R., Liu, Huaqing and Zhang, Yanping. 1999. ‘Suicide and Social Change in China’. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry. 23: 25–50.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pizzorno, Alessandro. 1986. ‘Some Other Kinds of Otherness: A Critique of “Rational Choice” Theories’. Pp. 355–73 in Development, Democracy and the Art of Trespassing: Essays in Honor of Albert O. Hirschman, edited by Alejandro Foxley, Michael S. McPherson and Guillermo O’Donnell. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Qi, Xiaoying. 2011. ‘Face: A Chinese Concept in a Global Sociology’. Journal of Sociology 47(3): 279–96.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Qi, Xiaoying. 2014. Globalized Knowledge Flows and Chinese Social Theory. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ropp, Paul S., Zamperini, Paola and Zurndorfer, Harriet Thelma. 2001. Passionate Women: Female Suicide in Late Imperial China. Leiden: Brill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schwartz, Benjamin. 1959. ‘Some Polarities in Confucian Thought’. Pp. 50–62 in Confucianism in Action, edited by David S. Nivison and Arthur F. Wright. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shang, Yang. 2006. The Book of Lord Shang, translated into English by J.J.L. Duyvendak and into Modern Chinese by Gao Heng. Beijing: Commercial Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, Adam. 1979. The Theory of Moral Sentiments, edited by D.D. Raphael and A.L. Macfie. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Veblen, Thornstein. 1946. The Instinct of Workmanship and the State of the Industrial Arts. New York: Viking Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Veblen, Thornstein. 1970. The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions. London: Unwin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wang, Bi. 1999. ‘Outline Introduction to the Laozi (Laozi zhilue)’. Pp. 30–47 in The Classic of the Way and Virtue: A New Translation of the Tao-te ching of Loazi as Interpreted by Wang Bi, translated by Richard John Lynn. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Watson, Rubie S. 2004. ‘Wives, Concubines and Maids: Servitude and Kinship in the Hong Kong Region, 1900–1940’. Pp. 169–98 in James L. Watson and Rubie S. Watson, Village Life in Hong Kong: Politics, Gender and Ritual in the New Territories. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weber, Max. 1964. The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism, translated and edited by Hans H. Gerth, with an Introduction by C.K. Yang. New York: The Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weber, Max. 1978. Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, edited by Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weber, Max. 1970. ‘The Social Psychology of World Religions’. Pp. 267–301 in From Max Weber, edited by H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weber, Max. 1991. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, translated by Talcott Parsons. London: Harper Collins.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wolf, Margery. 1975. ‘Women and Suicide in China’. Pp. 111–41 in Women in Chinese Society, edited by Margery Wolf and Roxane Witke. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wu, Fei. 2011. ‘Suicide, A Modern Problem in China’. Pp. 213–36 in Deep China: The Moral Life of the Person, edited by Arthur Kleinman. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yang, C.K. 1959. ‘Some Characteristics of Chinese Bureaucratic Behavior’. Pp. 134–64 in Confucianism in Action, edited by David S. Nivison and Arthur F. Wright. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Australian Catholic University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

    Jack Barbalet

Authors
  1. Jack Barbalet
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Barbalet, J. (2017). Self-Interest. In: Confucianism and the Chinese Self. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6289-6_5

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation