Equality and Inequality in Confucianism (Dao, 2012, 11.3: 295-313)

Philosophy East and West, 2019

Daniel Bell’s The China Model: Political Meritocracy and the Limits of Democracy is a significant contribution to contemporary political theory. I am very much in sympathy with his ideal of political meritocracy, although I would disagree with him on the degree to which it is realized or practiced in China today; for me, the reality is as distant from Bell’s ideal of political meritocracy, if I understand it correctly, as it is from democracy. However, in the present comment, I will not exploit this disagreement. Instead, I will try to make two friendly amendments to his political meritocracy as an ideal, with which I have a lot of agreements. In the Introduction to the book, Bell discloses that “I developed an interest in political meritocracy as a result of engagement with the Confucian tradition, and my earlier writings on political meritocracy tended to be inspired more by Confucian philosophy than by actual politics” (Bell 2015, p. 12; references to this book hereafter will be indicated by page number only). Although in the book itself he does not make too explicit this source of his inspiration, since he believes the ideal of political meritocracy developed in the book may also be supported by other schools of thought, he still makes extensive references to Confucians and Confucian classics. Moreover, in the second appendix, he and his conversation partner explicitly and directly draw on the Confucian tradition in developing this ideal of political meritocracy. So the two friendly amendments to this ideal that I am about to offer are also explicitly and directly Confucian.

Some democratic theorists have argued that contemporary people should practice only a civility that recognizes others as equal persons, and eschew any form of deference to authority as a feudalistic cultural holdover that ought to be abandoned in the modern era. Against such views, this essay engages early Confucian views of ethics and society, including their analyses of different sorts of authority and status, in order to argue that, properly understood, deference is indeed a virtue of considerable importance for contemporary democratic societies and the citizens who constitute them.

The subtle and complex relation between Confucianism and modern democracy has long been a controversial issue, and it is now again becoming a topcal issue in the process of political modernization in contemporary China. This paper argues that there are some quite basic early Confucian values and principles which are not only compatible with democracy, but also may become the theoretic foundation of modern democracy in China. Early Confucianism considers “the people’s will” as the direct representative of “Heaven’s will”, with which it legitimizes political power. Confucian theory of “human nature is good” endorses equal potential good for every man. These principles can be used in reasoning towards a system of democracy. In terms of decision-making, the Confucian “Doctrine of the Mean” accords with certain democratic principles. The independent personality and committed individualism advocated by early Confucianism is a required civic merit in a democratic society. These fundamental Confucian principles, through contemporary hermeneutics, may provide a philosophic grounding for democracy and support the construction of a democratic system with a Chinese dimension. To get democracy rooted in the spirit of traditional Chinese culture will benefit the healthy and smooth development of democracy in China.

My study explores the thorny question of (in)equality in Confucian thought. It revolves around two pivotal concepts in Confucius’s ethical and social thought: that of a “noble man” (junzi 君子), and of a “petty man” (xiaoren 小人). By comparing the usages of both terms in the Analects with earlier texts, primarily the Zuo zhuan 左傳 (Zuo Commentary), I demonstrate that Confucius had revolutionized the usage of the former term, expanding it to include members of his own shi 士 stratum. The more flexible conceptualization of the elite belonging coupled with persistently rigid emphasis on sociopolitical hierarchy became the effective recipe for preserving highly stratified society on the one hand, and maintaining potential for social mobility on the other. This legacy made Chinese social structure incomparably more flexible than the European ancien régime against which the notion of equality emerged as one of the fundamental ideas of Occidental modernity.

By clarifying the original meanings of the Confucian maxims of sangang 三綱 (three norms/bonds) and wulun 五倫 (five tenets/relationships) and Dong Zhongshu’s yin-yang theory, I argue that the foundation of Confucian civil order is not a hierarchy of power and domination, but the graded structure of honor and dedication. Contrary to liberal and feminist accusations, the “structural limitations” for women and the masses are not means of oppression, but expedients for the general culture of devotion and the cosmic cycle of grace and sacrifice.

2002

Opposing Sides of the Human Rights Debate The human rights debate has typically been framed as an argument between opposing sides: Asia vs. the West, "Asian values" vs. "Western values," and specifically Eastern (Confucian) Communitarianism vs. Western Individualism. In Asia, according to this view, the "rights of the community" are emphasized over individual, "political and civil" rights. In addition, defenders of "Asian values" accuse Western liberal democracies of pursuing an oppressive, colonialist agenda, threatening the viability of communities-in-transformation by the one-sided and single-minded assertion of selfish individual needs. This debate has assumed a series of associations: Asian, Confucian, communitarian, authoritarian, and statist, on the one hand; Western, Christian, individualist, and liberal-democratic, on the other. I would like to argue in this paper that these are false associations, focusing on the Asian side of the equation, and that Asian, and specifically Confucian, values are a powerful, universal resource for a profound affirmation of human freedom expressed in both individual and communitarian terms. Far from asserting the hegemony of the state, community, or family over and against individuals, Confucianism supports human liberation for individuals-in-community. Western liberal democracy is not the only model for universal human rights: I will argue that Confucianism can and should be a universal ethic of human liberation. The goal of personal freedom is not uniquely Western, and it is not anti-Confucian. Selfdetermination is as much a Confucian value as it is a Western value, and the West has a great deal to learn from the East about self-cultivation in the context of family and community life. Embedded in the Confucian classics, as well as historically in specific Confucian institutions, is a profound idea of individual possibility, creativity, and achievement, in some ways more dynamic and

Political Theory, 2005

This article identifies a foundation for Confucian democratic political thought in Confucian thought. Each of the three aspects emphasized is controversial, but supported by views held within the historical debates and development of Confucian political thought and practice. This democratic interpretation of Confucian political thought leads to (1) an expectation that all people are capable of ren and therefore potentially virtuous contributors to political life; (2) an expectation that the institutions of political, social, and economic life function so as to develop the virtue of being a perfected human being; and (3) an expectation that there be public space for political criticism and for ongoing contestation over the duties and behaviors of individual leaders and citizens and over the functioning of the institutions that are to cultivate their behavior.

This paper is a literature review and exploration of early Human Rights in Eastern Cultures, focusing specifically on the philosophy of Confucianism. It includes an historical overview of Confucian China and development of Human Rights in the West, the roles of individual and collectivistic views of rights, and egalitarianism vs. more socially stratified view of society in relation to human rights. This paper was written for the capstone of my Independent Course Study in Philosophy in 2013.

Cambridge University Press eBooks, 2004

I would like to begin by considering some familiar contexts in which talk of rights, especially those one person might claim against another, seems quite out of place.