AS 201 More on Confucianism

1. Confucian philosophy emphasizes self-development, both in terms of:

--(i) academic study that trains the intellect, requires discipline and restraint, and that provides idealized models of virtuous rule (the Sage-Kings which are the wise rulers of the distant past), and

2. Confucianism was institutionalized through a system of education and examination that was a necessary requirement for public officials. The examination system increased the level of competence of the officials, created a shared national culture, and opened the ranks of governments, in principle and often in practice, to all classes of society. Academic study thus becomes a clear path to social advancements, and it was also valued in-itself as essential to becoming a Junzi, the ideal or "exemplary" person.

3. Good government essentially involves promoting and maintaining social harmony. The key to social harmony is the discernment and wisdom of rulers in designing the social institutions that encourage the natural virtues of the people.

Therefore, Confucian morality includes all of the customs, manners, habits, conventions, and indeed all of the ordinary behavior of daily life. In Confucian philosophy this is characterized as the following of Li (禮), which is protocol, etiquette, propriety, and ritual. Most simply, Liis simply acting in accordance with conventionally recognized right behavior. Following Li involves self-discipline, inner calm, and an internalization of good habits. Acting rightly is not always easy and indeed can often require discernment.  Li, of course, also includes the appropriate behaviors of rulers and subjects, and thus the principles of good government and citizenship. An interesting and related Confucian doctrine is the Rectification of Names: “Let the ruler be a ruler, the subject a subject, the father a father, the son a son” and the state will also be well order (Analects 12:11).

Persons who manifest Li 禮 fulfill their role specific responsibilities and display characteristic virtues. A teacher, for example, has a specific role which includes distinct responsibilities and excellences of character, and students also have specific responsibilities and distinct virtues. When students and teachers both realize their natures, when each is what it is, the class is harmonious and successful. We must each be what we are, for society to flourish.

4. The other Prime Virtue of Confucian thought is Ren (or Jen, 仁), which is often thought of as benevolence and humaneness; sometimes, "goodness" or "humanity," but also can be rendered as "authoritative conduct." The cultivation of Ren is essential to human virtue and excellence and it is what individual cultivate in themselves if they consider themselves to be following a pathway, the Way or the Dao (道).

Ren and Li are intimately connected: Ren as humanness and benevolence--authoritative conduct--guides and shapes social conventions and the principles of propriety (or Li); and, on the other hand, Ren as humanness/benevolence, in one’s dealings with others, is only realized through all of the daily practices and rituals of life--Li (禮).

Li (禮) is blind without Ren, and Ren (仁) is empty without Li.

Closely related to Ren (humanness/benevolence) is the Confucian principle of Reciprocity (恕). We have already seen that proper social relations involve mutual benefit. Indeed, like all of the major religious traditions, Confucians have a version of the “golden rule": “What you do not want done to others, do not do to others.” It is interesting that the principle is not focused on one’s self but on what one does not want done to others, and here we perhaps see a deeply relational, non-individualistic element in Confucian thought--treat others as you would want them to treat you.

In the Analects, 7.34, Confucius says that he cannot be considered a Sage, shengren, 聖 人 and in 7.26 he laments, ‘I have no hopes of meeting a sage. I would be content if I would meet someone who is a junzi 君子.’  The junzi holds ‘the words of the sage’—along with the Mandate of Heaven and great men—‘in awe’ (16:8). The sage is the one person who ‘can listen to music and discern in it the original details and quality of an age and its culture’ (Hall and Ames).

Ignoring the words of their Master, the Confucian tradition soon designated Confucius a sage, indeed, it viewed him as the archetypal sage. Hall and Ames further fill out the portrait of the sage as ‘the rare person [who] elevates the human experience to profound aesthetic and religious refinement, making the human being a worthy partner with the heavens and the earth.’ Moreover, and in keeping with the metaphorical imagery of dao, ‘the shengren have traveled, appropriated and enlarged a longer stretch of the road than the shi 士 (knight, later scholar-official) and junzi, and they are providing signposts and bearings for the latter as well.’
- See more at: http://www.religiousleftlaw.com/2011/04/the-confucian-worldview-a-rational-reconstruction.html#sthash.RnWYhibP.dpuf

There could be a perception the Ren 仁 is the good, more Daoistic side of Confucianism, and Li 禮 is the more rigid or less exciting side. However, we should also consider that the way the two interact and reinforce each other. Ren and Li create a synergy and a dynamism. As stated above, Ren as humaneess and benevolence guide and shape social conventions and the principles of propriety (or Li); while, on the other hand, Ren as humanness/benevolence, in one’s dealings with others, is only realized through all of the daily practices and rituals of life. Li is blind without Ren, and Ren is empty without Li. Li 禮 provides the social forms in which the Raw, Personal Energy of Existence can be realized; once they are realized, a certain "Virtue" or Excellence" (De 徳) arises and this is what constitutes our Humanity, our Ren 仁. When this kind De 徳 "Virtue" or "Excellence" (at becoming one's own person) appears it may manifest itself as a kind of "Charismatic" or even magical power that human beings can emanate.

And Li is not totally devoid of flexibility. Although the training through which virtues are acquired proceeds according to a general set of rules or principles, the actual decisions made by a person with fully virtuous dispositions are both more flexible and more authoritative than the rules themselves. Thus, once a practice has been mastered, in the sense that the requisite virtues have been developed, this mastery brings with it a certain independence from the rules that constitute the practice: the master is able to reflect upon the rules and may even chose to transgress or revise them if, in her best judgment, this is what is required to realize the good or goods specific to that practice. Practice and mastery thus bring with them a type of transcendence: the freedom to evaluate, criticize and seek to reform the practice tradition itself.  Someone who has acheived this master could be considered a person capable of manifesting Ren although Confucius did say that it was hard to find people who could actually do this! Li, then becomes not something static and rigid, but something spentaeous and effortless, something flowing and beautiful to behold.　

But we can safely say, and Fingarette is helpful here, that "Authoritative Conduct" or Ren resides in community, and community is rooted in inherited forms of life (we often call this tradition) which can be reproduced through the Imagery of Ceremony or Ritual/Li 禮. Of course, ceremony is always communal and imbedded in our ceremonial practices, our Li 禮' if they are done correctly and are genuine or "right on," is a quiet Dignity and Power that is symbolic of all human relationships. So, society, and how we conduct ourselves in it, is a kind of cermonial performance in itself that is rooted in moral obligations, what we stand for and what we are supposed to do, what is appropriate or Yi (義) as in what is just, moral, fair, correct, and upright.

Closely related to Ren (humanness/benevolence) is the Confucian principle of Reciprocity (恕). We have already seen that proper social relations involve mutual benefit. Indeed, like all of the major religious traditions, Confucians have a version of the “golden rule:” “What you do not want done to others, do not do to others.” It is interesting that the principle is not focused on one’s self but on what one does not want done to others, and here we perhaps see a deeply relational, non-individualistic element in Confucian thought –treat others, as you would want them to treat others.

One could also say that Ren or Humaneness is the ultimate goal, is the larger vision, but it starts with filial piety. See this excerpt from the Analects:

Few of those who are filial sons and respectful brothers will show disrespect to superiors, and there has never been a man who is respectful to superiors and yet creates disorder. A junzi 君子, an "Exemplary Person," is devoted to the fundamentals, the Root. When the root is firmly established, the moral law will grow. Filial piety and brotherly respect are the root of humanity.

We all have some implicit awareness of the good or ren as a consequence of our enculturation and socialization through Li practices, and further Confucian self-cultivation draws us closer to ren as the essence of our humanity. If ren is ultimately rooted in the dao of tian, and we owe our existence to such cosmological forces and powers, it might even be argued, Socratic-like, that individuals possess an innate knowledge of ren, however dim, and that Confucian self-cultivation and education serves to bring such knowledge into ever-greater awareness and fruition, hence we are not ‘taught’ ren in the conventional sense. This is certainly in keeping with Mencius’ later assertion that human nature is intrinsically or innately good, accounting for how one can come to recognize and appreciate the good through psychological and moral developmental processes. It is traditionally argued that there are two indispensable parts to jen: shu 恕 (‘reciprocity,’ or the negative formulation of the Golden Rule: ‘do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire’) and zhong 忠 (loyalty). Empathy appears to be fundamental to both shu and zhong, and of course both can be no less appropriate to roughly equal relations as well.  

In the Analects, Confucius says:

The Ren Person (仁者), the "authoritative" and humane person, desiring to be established himself, seeks to establish others; desiring to succeed, s/he helps others to succeed. To judge others by what one knows of oneself is the method of achieving Ren 仁 or humanity...(6:30)

Confucius believed in the perfectibility of all people and he was against the idea that some humans are born superior to others. During his time it was held that nobility was a quality determined by status and that belonging to a specific social circle made a person morally superior. Confucius challenged this idea by saying that being morally superior had nothing to do with the blood, rather, it was a matter of character and personal development, a revolutionary concept at that time. And one could achieve this kind of moral superority through a program of self-cultivation and development that includes formal Education, the purpose of which should be to help one develop one's original ethical nature, one's character, one's native substance (質).  Such education is called self-cultivation, and it is only through such an education one achieves humaneness (仁).  A healthy emotional state of being helped one better grasp the proper ways to approach life, therefore to be constantly joyful was important. (Analects, 1:1)  Despite that the ultimate goal of Confucius was to serve in a government office, there were many passages where Confucius expressed joy and contentment at a life of learning and observation.  (Analects, 6:18; 6:21; 7:15; 7:18)

It seems that the formula that worked for Confucians was:

In other words, you take a Person (人) and add actions that are "apprpriate" and "fitting" (義) given the circumstances, plus add the practice of "observing ritual propriety" (Li 禮) and from this potent and dynamic interaction can emerge Ren (仁) or "morally authoritative conduct."

 

The Confucian concept of humaneness 仁 became the distinction of the cultivated person, or junzi 君子.   It transcended all social classes (15:38; 16:9) and became the basis of the future Chinese meritocratic system that replaced hereditary aristocratic rule.  Those who resisted education and self-cultivation, according to Confucius, should fall to the bottom of society.  But along with these "education-resistant people" that Confucius called the "small" or "petty" person (小人 xiaoren, literally, small people), women were permanently subordinate to men. (17:25) See this ecellent series of pages: http://www.friesian.com/confuci.htm

While definitions of Ren 仁 are hard to come by in the Analects, we can tease out some notions like:

 

 

 

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