Premier Wen Jiabao

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Premier Wen Jiabao
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• Ancient China
• Neolithic Period circa 12000 - 2000 BCE
• Xia circa 2100-1800 BCE
• Shang circa 1700-1027 BCE
• Western Zhou 1027-771 BCE
• Eastern Zhou 770-221 BCE
• Spring and Autumn period 770-476
• Warring States period 475-221

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1.2 The gentleman is concerned with the root. If
the root is firmly planted, then the way (moral
law/ dao) will grow. Filial piety and fraternal
respect are the root of humaneness (ren).
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China during the time of Confucius
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• The Chinese date their history back to the 3rd
  Millennium BCE, when the legendary Emperors Yao
  and Shun are said to have reigned and the
  historically verifiable Xia dynasty (2183-1752
  BCE) ruled the middle kingdom.
• China is thought to have 308 emperors from the
  21st century BCE to the 20th Century CE!
• China was already ancient when Confucius / Kongzi
  lived (circa 551-479 BCE) during the Spring and
  Autumn Period (722-481 BCE) of the Zhou dynasty
  (1111-249 BCE).

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Huangdi ?? / The Yellow Emperor
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• The Zhou dynasty (1111-249 BCE) was one of the
  earliest most advanced civilizations, using
  irrigation and agriculture on a mass scale
  (Mencius and other thinkers from this period
  already discuss environmental destruction).
• Ancient Chinese thought is characterized by
  humanism, by the concern for this-worldly ethics
  and politics rather than religious speculation
  and devotion, and the primacy of virtue. Thus
  Confucius says to live virtuously and keep
  spirits at a distance (6.22, 7.21, 11.12).
• Confucius takes tradition as an authority (7.1,
  7.20) and uses the historical example of the Zhou
  dynasty as a model for political judgment (2.23,
  3.14).

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• Instead of emphasizing a personal deity or
  deities, humans exist within a moral-cosmic order
  (the mandate of heaven or the way of
  nature/virtue) with the myriad things between
  heaven and earth.
• The ancient Chinese already showed great respect
  to the family and tradition as well as reverence
  for ancestors.
• Confucius based his thought on, even as he
  reinterpreted, a number of ancient texts
  including The Book of Odes and The Book of
  Histories.
• The Book of Changes (Yi Jing) developed from the
  use of oracle bones.

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Two great Confucian thinkersConfucius ?? (c.
551-479 BCE) and Mencius ?? (c.370-300 BCE)
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Confucius is the author of the Analects, a
collection of his sayings about various moral and
political topics. The sayings of Mencius are
called The Book of Mencius.Both discuss moral
problems through historical examples.
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Confucianism is a moral philosophy (comparable
to those of Aristotle, Mill, and Kant) and not a
religion.Confucianisms closest Western
counterpart is the ethics of Aristotle.They are
both considered forms of communitarian,
prudential, virtue ethics.Confucianism is not
Confusionism!
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• Whereas philosophical Confucianism is the moral
  theory developed by Confucian philosophers over
  the last 2,500 years,
• cultural or popular Confucianism is a way of
  thinking about moral issues and social relations
  that has been dominant throughout the history of
  East Asia and continues to inform how people in
  China, Vietnam, Korea, and Japan think and behave.

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• Confucian ethics is centered in rites and ritual
  or socialized practices rather than in rights and
  laws. This means that ethics concerns ones way
  of life in relation to others and goes beyond
  legality or the focus on state and individual
  that dominates modern western thought.
• Li (rites or ritual propriety, such as practices
  of politeness, recognition, solving problems
  without appeal to external authorities, etc) is a
  necessary part of the ethical life of the
  individual in relation to the community.

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• Ritual propriety is (1) the traditional primarily
  social mechanism for community and social order
  and (2) it does much of the work in Chinese
  culture that civil and human rights do in western
  cultures.
• Li literally means bonding and it is cognate
  with to embody such that it means that morality
  is a performance, an enactment, a social
  practice.
• it does not mean passive deference but rather a
  making of social relations by investing oneself
  in them.

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• Loyalty and reciprocity are primary virtues
  (4.15).
• The goal of Confucian ethics is the moral
  cultivation of the self.
• For Confucius, true wisdom does not mean
  studied but the cultivation of morality (1.7).
• By cultivating oneself in relation to ones own
  tradition and community, Confucianism is not only
  conservative but allows for the creative
  uniqueness of each person as a participant in
  that tradition and community.

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• Loyalty and reciprocity are primary virtues
  (4.15).
• The goal of Confucian ethics is the moral
  cultivation of the self.
• For Confucius, true wisdom does not mean
  studied but the cultivation of morality (1.7).
• By cultivating oneself in relation to ones own
  tradition and community (antiquity), Confucius
  emphasized not only conservation and continuity
  but the creative uniqueness of each person as a
  participant in that tradition and community.

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• Is it consistent or convincing for Confucius to
  be culturally conservative and emphasize the
  creative appropriation and use of tradition?
• How does this compare to western forms of
  conservativism?

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• The emphasis on cultivation also means that
  although people are naturally equal, they are
  socially not equal, since not everyone cultivates
  themselves and their communities to the same
  degree.
• On what basis can Confucius and the Confucians
  claim that people are naturally equal, and
  deserve to be educated and have opportunities,
  and socially unequal, the elderly and the
  educated deserving greater respect? Why do you
  agree or disagree?

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• For Confucians, individuality is realized
  through community and to be socially
  unresponsive is to be irresponsible.
• Compare this to the Western idea of individual
  autonomy developed by Western philosophers such
  as Kant
• Should Individual autonomy be the highest ideal
  or does self-cultivation occur through social
  rituals and customs as the transmission of
  tradition through which the individual is
  socialized?

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• Although both Confucian and Communist values
  emphasize community and social harmony, they are
  in conflict about issues such as equality and
  self and communal cultivation as the goal of
  life.
• Confucianism emphasizes the pursuit of excellence
  and cultivation of ones virtues in a social
  context and with regard to others.

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Communism (especially under the leadership of Mao
Zedong) sought to eliminate Confucian (as well as
Daoist and Buddhist) thought and practice.
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1974 - The working class is the main force in the
campaign to denounce Lin Biao and Confucius
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How is Confucian communitarian virtue ethic
different from both western rights-philosophy
(liberalism) and communism? 1970s Propaganda
PosterRelentlessly criticize Chinas
Confucians of today
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• Personal integrity and dignity requires
  mutuality, doing unto others, such that each
  person is both an end and a means for others.
• Is it ethically justifiable to treat yourself and
  others as both ends and means?

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Both the self and community unfold like a work of
art, flexibly in response to its given conditions
and situations rather than according to a
pre-given plan, formula, or blue-print forced
upon allIs responsive flexibility ethically
important?
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Self-cultivation and participation in the life of
the community is highly valued and implies social
inequality and social elitism Is this bad or
can these be interpreted positively?
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Those who (1) educate and cultivate themselves
and (2) care for and have a stake in others and
the community should be more highly respected
than those who do not.Although recognition is
owed to all, it is owed in varying degrees and
the highest forms of respect should be given to
those who have most earned it, whereas compassion
and benevolence is owed to those less well off.
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• The local is more important than the universal.
• The concrete is better than the abstract.
• History and tradition is better than theory.
• The social is the medium of self-realization and
  individual accomplishments.
• Whereas laws and rights ask the minimum of
  people, ritual propriety asks the maximum.
• Without you, community will not happen!

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• Humanity is seen as the result of cultivation and
  education rather than as innate.
• Humans are, according to Mencius, spontaneously
  good but this needs to be developed in practices.
  Otherwise these fragile shoots will be trampled
  under.
• Society and nature are seen as matrixes which are
  constituted through participating in them and
  through performing what one ought. Otherwise
  chaos follows.

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There is no self-realization without family,
friends, community. To undermine these is to
undermine your own ability to be yourself. That
is, individuation and socialization are
intrinsically interconnected. You should
therefore selfishly care for them!Is it in your
self-interest to be socially-minded?
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Mutuality is the key. But this is not selfless
but rather social selfishness, where one pursues
the self with others in mind, primarily the
family, then the local community, lastly those
father away. Your primary moral obligations are
to those closest to you.Are your primary
obligations to your family?
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• Personal and Social order are mutual. There is no
  social order when families are in disorder.
• Order and harmony begins with the family and ends
  with the state. The family can survive under the
  hardships of a bad state, but society does not
  survive without the family.
• Thus filial piety is a primary virtue. children
  must always obey and respect their parents.
• Just as you obey as a child you will lead as a
  parent. Just as you follow the will of the
  community as a younger, you help the lead the
  community as an elder.

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To use western language, every right is
intrinsically a duty rather than simply a
costless benefit.If you have a right to public
education, then you have the obligation to do
your best to be educated.Those who dont
perform their obligations are increasingly
excluded from the benefits of society.Is such
ethical or social pressure fair or just?
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Ancient Chinese Philosophiesare usually centered
on questions of ethics (virtue) and life (nature).

• Four prominent positions among the hundred
  schools
• Confucianism emphasizes cultivating moral
  propriety and understands dao as morality.
• Daoism focuses on becoming one with the way (dao)
  that runs through and governs all things.
• Mohism, named after Mozi not Moe, argues for the
  priority of universal benevolence based on
  general concern for the public welfare).
• Legalism has three components fa (law), shi
  (legitimacy), and shu (arts of the ruler). It
  holds law and the state as supreme authorities.

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• Some Western reactions to Confucian thought
• Jesuit Confucianism Since the Jesuits arrived
  in China during the 16th Century, some have been
  impressed on the emphasis on moral purity and
  self-cultivation in Confucian thought.
• Confucian moral ideas influence western ethics
  (Kant through Christian Wolff, Voltaire) and
  politics.
• Boston Confucianism Some contemporary
  Christian theologians from Boston have argued
  that Confucian ethics is the most coherent
  ethical model for Christian and secular ethics.
• Are Christianity and Confucianism complementary
  or compatible positions?