Lessons from Early Chinese Humanist Impulses

Kirill Ole ThompsonNational Taiwan University

Tampere, Finland, September 16, 2014

Introduction: The Aims

• 1) Explore Humanist impulses in Confucius’ Analects and in the Mozi, Laozi and Zhuangzi,

• 2) See how they offer solutions to some problems with Western Humanism.

• 3) Two main problems are Western Humanism’s individualist predilection and its species-centrism.

“Celebration of the individual” a tenet of Humanism since the Renaissance

• Humanist education aimed to cultivate individuals culturally and spiritually so as to unleash their personal creative potential

• The notion of individual selfhood was etched into Modern philosophy from Descartes.

• Individual selfhood was important for Human-ist views of the subject of epistemology and ethics, and the object of ethics

Fall of individual self 1750-2010• 1) Hume’s skeptical decomposition of self • 2) Kant’s artificial reconstruction of self • 3) Darwin’s discovery that it is populations, not

individuals, that are significant in life• 4) Nietzsche’s subsequent view that human selves as

centers of consciousness are just fleeting bubbles in the flow of life. inconsequential.

• 5) Industrialization, urbanization , mass society, mass culture and mass media… the glories of modernization

• 6) Consumer culture, Internet and globalization, etc., all denuding individual selfhood and eradicating its home in local cultures, languages, Lebensformen.

Problems for Humanism’s species centrism

• Now, ecological balance, health of the biosphere, & human kinship with other species are popular ethical concerns

• An ethical problem is that human activity is invading/despoiling ecosystems & making species go extinct.

• Species evolve together and are symbiotically related, so the human species has no prima facie right to lord it over the entire domain of nature

• Now natural ecological systems are taken to have intrinsic value • Disciplines like sustainability ethics and environmental ethics

transcend traditional Western Humanistic ethical concerns.• Human evolution occurred over millions of years. Human beings

evolved as part of nature. The notion of human beings transcending nature is hubris. At best, human beings are nature become self-conscious, though some self-deception is involved.

Some Chinese Solutions

• Some early Chinese Humanist impulses provide solutions to Western Humanism’s individualist predilection and species centrism.

• Disclaimer: Confucianism became ossified as official ideology from the Han,

• This weakened the early Humanist impulses’ tonic effect.

Confucius’ Ethics: From Individual Self to Relational Being

• The decline of the Zhou court had led to adventurism among local feudal lords and increasing chaos.

• Confucius’ diagnosis of these problems was that: • A) people had lost sight of their inherent relatedness• B) and had lost sensitivity to “family ties ” and the affect-

ions and responsibilities. His teachings were twofold : • 1) remind people of their inherent relatedness, and • 2) inculcate virtues, cultivations, rituals and practices to

reinforce people’s sense of relatedness• Psychologists today are developing a new view of the

person, self, as “relational” as “relational being”• Psychologist Kenneth Gergen (2009) is a leading voice

Confucius’ Relational Ethics

• Confucius’ virtues are based on human relationality. “The junzi (exemplary person) devotes himself to the roots.... filiality and fraternity are the roots of ren .”

• Ren, in turn, is the root of ritual conduct (li ): “If a person is not motivated by ren, what has he to do with ritual conduct? What has he to do with music (yue )?” (3.3).

Confucius’ Relational Ethics

• The person of ren, “establishes others in seeking to establish himself, extends others in seeking to extend himself” (6.28).

• Ren practice is fulfilling relationships; yet it flows entirely from oneself; when ren is required, one does not defer even to one’s teacherIn sum , Confucius’ ren ethics is based on the idea

of relational self/being • the cultivation of ren and other virtues involves

other cultivation & interpersonal regard.

Confucius’ Vocabulary for “Self” as Relational Being

• “Ji” refers to the basic, raw self that has to be worked, i.e.,“relationalized,” via learning and cultivation. For example, he gives the admon-ition to: “Master the self (ke ji ) by prac-ticing the rites (li ); this is to be humane (ren )”

• Confucius’ call to undertake learning is to work the self so as to relationalize self (weiji zhi xue )

Wu , another term Confucius uses for self.

• “If I am not at the sacrifice, it is as if I did not sacrifice” (3.12). • It is important to show face to others on important occasions in

Chinese culture, as a mark of sincerity and other regard. • “I am not employed in office, so I have cultivated the arts” (9.7).

Cultivating the arts is embellishing one’s social graces-- and face—for future encounters.

• Finally, Confucius said “I (“wu”) have nothing I have not told you, my disciples” (7.24).

• He means not that his oral teachings were complete but that his repertoire of presentations and conduct as teacher-partner in their relationship “communicated” the fullness of his instruction.

I (Wu) am with Dian

• Confucius instruction was not just about etiquette, & professional training

• He wanted to guide his students to co-relate, interact positively in the pulse, the flow of life

• for Confucius, such relational participation in life’s flow should be regarded as a personal, aesthetic, joyful dance that betokens, and bestows, harmony.

Confucius also uses the term “Wo” for “self”

• The Master “abstained from self” (wu wo) (9.4).

• “Abstention from self” is for relational being:• Relationships in the flow of life are realities in

which one’s self is just a facet, a reflection.• To insist on one’s self is isolating and

obstructive of the intercourse that is living fully-- and thus most richly being oneself.

• Multiplicity of our relational self/being. • We present ourselves & act differently

according to relationship and context. • Kenneth Gergen: people relate and develop in

three basic ways: 1) modeling others, 2) becoming somebody and 3) co-acting with others

Formation of Relational Self/Being and Confucianism

Confucius has Gergen’s three ways• Confucius instructed by 1) modeling, “setting an example,” esp by

speaking and interacting with his students and others. • Book-learning was to get models of conduct and elocution• The rites themselves were “models” from the past, kept alive

through each new re-enactment. • Confucius knew 2) we become new selves in the contexts of new

relationships. He equipped students to adapt to and fulfill the new relationships.

• Finally, he regarded 3) human action as co-action. This is reflected in his instruction by dialogue and modeling, his comments on conduct as well as his advice for ministers and rulers: Rulers, too, were to regard themselves in the context of their interactive roles, not their personal perks, interests and powers.

Mozi’s Critique of Confucius’ Stress on First-Order in-group Morality

• To Mozi , Confucius’ ethics prioritized one’s nearest relations, from family and community, but excluded people from other families, communities

• Moreover, it was too hierarchical and top-down. • Confucius provided for harmony within specific

human groupings, but gave little guidance for dealing with others from outside these circles

• Again, while Conf’s in-group respect and obliga-tion were reciprocal, they were not adequately horizontal.

Mozi’s Solution

• Ideal of impartial regard (jianai), i.e., treat others fairly on an (adjusted) equal footing.

• Principle: Since others are just like us, lead similar lives in relations, they are deserving of impartial regard.

• Pragmatics: If we dealt with others fairly, we would have more security, less conflict and more harmony in the world.

• This was the guiding principle for a second order morality

• Mozi envisioned the formation of an equitable civil society to replace the old feudal clan system.

Mencius’ Response to Mozi• Mencius (371-289 B.C.E.) criticized that Mozi’s

impartial regard meant denying one’s own parents• This criticism was unfair: Mozi accepted the psychological

priority of Confucius’ ethics within family and community • His point was that the larger problem was to encourage

peaceful and beneficial relations with other groupings of peoples.

• Ethics must do more than just remind people of what is already natural to them; ethics must provide guidance in wider spectra of human affairs where ppl’s instincts are uncertain and the stakes are high

• Mozi’s view of self was relational; however, Mozi began to replace family with community as the core of self/being

Relational Self/Being and Humanism

• Confucius’ relational self/being solves problems associated with Western Humanism’s individualist predilection.

• His reminders about relational self/being are suggestive in offering a more stable, secure and interactive conception of self

• His relational self/being provides a more adequate ground for interpersonal responsibility and duty; i.e., if self is relational, it will be interpersonally responsible as long as one is aware of its formation as such.

Negative Argument for Relational Self• Why are personal/familial betrayals the worst forms of immoral conduct? • Why are they so emotionally rending? • Isn’t it because we are part-and-parcel of those who closest to us? • We are at one with them; they are part of us and vice versa. • So, personal betrayals strike us as terrible, and trigger emotional reactions • In Western culture, we think of Judas Iscariot’s betrayal of Jesus. • in Graham Greene’s The Third Man, this feeling underlies Anna’s rejection

of Holly Martins after she knew he had assisted the police to entrap Harry, leading to his death (1948).

• Anna’s rejection of Holly for betraying Harry reflected a deep human impulse, religious, while Holly thought he was right according to a dry ethical code-- which made everything black or white. (Kierkegaardian analysis.)

On Species Centrism• Confucius failed to see larger, more inclusive patterns of

relationality that nest and contextualize humanity in nature. • Mozi’s utilitarian approach to morality would conduce to an

exploitative approach to nature, like Xunzi’s.• Laozi and Zhuangzi regard this sort of one-sided approach to nature

as resulting from the Confucian and Mohist prioritization of human concerns, i.e., species-centrism.

• They regard this as unsustainable and self-defeating, for• it alienates human life from its roots in nature and destroys the

environment which human life needs. • Note that Mencius saw nothing ethically wrong with the

destruction of Niu Mountain per se; he just presented it as an analogy for the degradation of human nature, his ethical preoccupation.

Laozi

• For Laozi, humanity’s problems stem from thinking as humans in a limited human perspective.

• This narrow view prevents us from the seeing the larger picture, so that what we take as “our advantage, our right” often turns out to be “our over-reach, our loss.”

• Our perspective should embrace other perspectives. • Laozi ch. 1, guides the reader to a meditative standpoint in

order to experience the emergence of things from the indeterminate, and the interpenetration of perspectives.

• Ch. 2 reveals the one-sidedness of judgments in linear human thinking, and advocates dealing with things “non-intentionally” as well as “teaching without words.” In which situation,…

Laozi• All things flourish without interruption. • They grow by themselves, and no one

possesses them.• Work is done, and no one depends on it.• Achievements are made, but no one claims

credit.• Because no one claims credit, achievements

are always there.•

(Laozi ch. 2; Chang 1975 8)

Laozi• This sort of perspective is bound up with the ultimate “relational

being”: i.e., the selflessness of identifying one’s self with the world: • We have great trouble simply because we have a self.• If we are selfless, then where is the trouble?• If we identify ourself with the world,• Then within ourself there is the world. • (Laozi ch. 13; Chang 1975 40)•• Dao is all-pervading; hence, by attaining Dao, one will be

increasingly open to other views. In effect, one will (non-intentionally) begin to nurture all creatures to live and flourish together. All creatures will thus be nourished; none will be controlled (Laozi ch. 34; Chang 1975 97).

Laozi• How does this view relate to Humanism? • It is a reflective or critical Humanism.• For us to achieve lasting peace and human flourishing,

humanity must realize its relationality with nature, its nestedness in nature, its identity with nature.

• Our well-being is a function of the well-being of local ecosystems , the interrelated species, the natural environment, the world.

• To achieve this view and to work for its realization would manifest a deep, reflective Humanism.

• One thinks of Arne Naess’ notion of deep ecology.

Laozi

• Laozi ch 80 depicts an anarchic utopia, • a sustainable human society at one with

nature, before the Fall -- the advent of agrarian society and values -- when humanity became possessive and selfish,

• and the second Fall when moralists like Confucius arose to create artificial moral countermeasures to such possessiveness and selfishness:

Laozi, ch. 80• There is a kingdom which is small and sparcely populated.• There are numerous implements, but no one uses them.• The people love their lives and no one wants to move afar.• Boats and carriages are available, but no one rides them.• Fine weapons are in their possession, but no one uses them.• The people are back in the times when knotted chords were • used to record things.• They enjoy fine delicacies and are handsome in their dress.• They enjoy their homes and are pleased with their customs • Although the next state is within sight, and the sounds of cocks• crowing and dogs barking are heard,• The people live their whole lives without traveling to and fro.• (Laozi ch. 80; Chang 1975 207).

Zhuangzi

• In ch. 6, “The Great Teacher,” Zhuangzi questions the dichotomy between humanity and nature:

• Some people know and live according to nature while others know and live according to humanity. However, the latter category tend to “nourish what they know with what they do not know” and only thus live full lives).

• Their human knowledge is unwittingly attuned to nature–• Zhuangzi concludes, “Knowledge depends on something to

be correct, but what it depends on is uncertain and changeable. How do I know that what I call nature is not really human and what I call human is not really nature? “

• Wittgenstein discusses similar issues in On Certainty (1974).

Zhuangzi• What is Zhuangzi’s solution to this conundrum? • In ch. 17, “Autumn Floods,” he writes:• ‘What is natural lies within and what is human lies

without-- and virtus abides in the natural. Know the action of nature and of man, follow nature as the basis,

• be at ease with one’s own situation. Then one can expand or contract as the times require.

• The essential of learning and the ultimate of truth. • The key is to be sensitive to the natural context as well

as to the human element: the former is deeper, inner while the latter is apparent, outer.

Zhuangzi• Re the interplay of nature and humanity, Zhuangzi concludes with

cautionary words:• A horse or a cow has four feet, that is nature. Put a halter around a

horse’s head and put a string through a cow’s nose, that is human. Therefore, it is said,

• “Do not let humanity destroy nature. Do not let cleverness destroy destiny.

• And do not sacrifice your name for gain.” Guard carefully your nature and do not let it go astray.

• This is called returning to one’s true nature.

• Note to quotation on preceding page:• The term “nature” (xing ) refers to people’s basic “natural propensities.”

They are fully realized as virtus (de ). Zhuangzi did not intend for this term to refer to a human essence but rather to a person’s potential and responsive efficacy.

Zhuangzi• Zhuangzi introduces the discussion of nature and

humanity as an exercise in “rectification of names.” • However, he soon reveals that these terms are

correlative and mutually dependent. • Human beings do not tend to see it, for we focus on

our pressing concerns, and these concerns revolve around our interpersonal relationships.

• We are neglect and take for granted the nature, the Way (dao ), that is the womb of human existence.

• Thus, we arrogantly grant no ethical status to nature and non-human species and compare the worst of humanity to animals a la Mencius.

Zhuangzi• By cutting off our roots in nature, dao, we become

shallow. Whether in dream or waking life, we start to • “Scheme and fight in our minds. When we have small

fears we are worried, when we have great fears we are at a loss. One’s mind shoots forth like an arrow to judge right and wrong. Now it is quiet like a solemn oath in order to hold its advantage. Later,… it declines every day…. Finally, it is near death and cannot be revived. Pleasure and anger, sorrow and joy, anxiety and regret, fickleness and fear… come to us like music from the hollows or like mushrooms from the damp. Day and night alternate within us but we do not know where they come from. Alas! “ (Zhuangzi, ch. 2)

Zhuangzi• This is Zhuangzi’s diagnosis of humanity’s shallow,

diminished existence as alienated from nature, dao. • It parallels Confucius’ diagnosis of the chaos in his time, but

Confucius focused on people’s awareness of interpersonal relationality and concomitant concerns,

• Zhuangzi looked into their deeper relationality and identification with nature. He questioned, when “People proudly say to each other, ‘I am I,’ how do they know that their ‘I’ is the genuine ‘I’?”

• To him, the genuine “I” was relationally connected and identified with nature. We are “the universe hidden in the universe,” to be realized through practices conducive to the dao experience.

Conclusion• Early Chinese philosophy offers solutions to some basic problems of

Western Humanism: • Esp Western Humanism’s individualistic predilection and species

centrism.• Confucius reminded people that they are not isolated selves

but relational beings. His example and instruction reflected and supported this realization.

• Mozi broadened relational being by introducing the concept of impartial regard, so people would treat others as if they were related, thus reducing social strife.

• Confucius and Mozi thus enriched the notion of self and put Humanistic ethics on a solid psychological foundation.

• Again, Kenneth Gergen (2009) shows that personal self is relational being. It is not merely a hypothesis, assertion or article of faith.

Conclusion• Regarding Western Humanism’s species centrism, Laozi

and Zhuangzi argue it is self-diminishing and defeating to view the human narrowly through the human,

• to fancy ourselves superior to the myriad other creatures . • After all, we all go through similar processes of formation

and dissolution and return indistinguishably to dao. • Laozi and Zhuangzi argue that the human is nested and

contextualized in the natural, and • people ought to meditate and cultivate so as to appreciate

their identification with the world holistically. • In this way, LZ & ZZ opened the way to an enriched

Humanistic ethics that would incorporate natural, environmental and animal concerns.

Conclusion• The Laozi (ch. 81; Chang 210) ends by summarizing Daoist

relational being which unites humanity and nature:• The wise does not accumulate.• The more he works for other people, the more he gains.• The more he shares with other people, the more he receives.• The dao followed by nature is to do good and not to do harm.• The dao followed by the wise is to work and not to claim credit.•• As Professor Chang remarks, these words are “brief, yet essential…

easy to understand, yet difficult to achieve” (Chang 1975 212).• For present purposes, we can regard Laozi’s wise person as parallel

to Confucius’ exemplar (junzi).