The universality of virtue ethics—II—Confucianism

The Philosophy Garden, Stoicism and beyond

Confucius, image from picryl.com, CC license.

We have recently seen that a case can be made for Buddhism to be understood as a type of non-western virtue ethics, with significant similarities to both Stoicism and Aristotelianism. This is interesting because it may suggest that not only the concept of virtue, but the notion of an ethics of virtue, are not limited to the Greco-Roman-Christian tradition.

Usually, though, it is not Buddhism, but Confucianism that is taken to be a good example of non-western virtue ethics, particularly akin to Aristotelianism. That notion is debated, defended, and criticized in Virtue Ethics and Confucianism, edited by Stephen C. Angle and Michael Slote (Routledge). You can find an in-depth review of the book, by my CUNY colleague Hagop Sarkissian, here.

Confucianism scholars have engaged for a while now in a discussion about whether and to what extent the philosophy is akin to Aristotelian or Humean virtue ethics. Famously, Alasdair MacIntyre, one of the modern authors chiefly responsible for the revival of virtue ethics, suggested that early Confucians advocated ritual training because it was conducive to virtue, thus directly linking two of the crucial concepts of Confucianism and Aristotelianism.

In the book edited by Angle and Slote, however, Lee Ming-huei is critical of virtue ethical interpretations of Confucianism, suggesting instead that “because the distinction between [consequentialist] ethics and deontological ethics is exhaustive and mutually exclusive, logically it is not possible that there exists a third type of ethics. … [Virtue ethics] is so ambiguous a concept, the strategy to interpret Confucianism with it can only make things go from bad to worse” (pp. 50-51). Which is bizarre to say the least. Of course there can be, and there has been for a long time, a third type of ethics that is different from consequentialism and deontology. Indeed, virtue ethics far predates both of the other two, at least as understood nowadays (some type of deontology has been around at least since the Ten Commandments).

Ming-huei seems to make the usual mistake of modern moral philosophers: to conceive of ethics in a very particular way, as concerned either with universal rules or with quantities to be maximized, therefore ending up unable to even imagine any other way. Virtue ethics is about the development of the character of the individual, not about judging actions to be morally right or wrong, and as I mentioned at the beginning of the first essay in this series, it seems to me that the modern development of Kantian-type deontology and Bentham and Mill-style consequentialism have been distinct steps backwards in the field of moral philosophy.

In the same edited volume, Bryan Van Norden suggests that considering Confucianism in discussions of virtue ethics may be helpful because, after all, Aristotle’s and Aquinas’s accounts were not exhaustive of the plausible ways to live a flourishing life. He suggests a number of possibilities not contemplated by the Greco-Romans, including a life of artistic performance or appreciation, one of skillful activity, and one of loving relationships. I sympathize with Bryan’s approach, but I think in this case he misses the point of both Aristotle’s and Aquinas’s standpoints. There certainly are multiple satisfactory ways to live a human life, but virtue ethics is about living a moral human life, and someone dedicating themselves exclusively to, say, the solitary pursuit of music or painting doesn’t satisfy that requirement. You can be a great musicians or painter, and also a world-class asshole. For Aristotle and Aquinas that would not be a good human life, and I tend to agree.

Figs in Winter: New Stoicism and Beyond is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

A different approach is suggested by Liu Liangjian, who invokes the well known Wittgensteinian concept of family resemblance as the best way to see the relationship between Western and Confucian virtues. Wittgenstein famously argued that complex concepts cannot be defined by a small set of necessary and jointly sufficient conditions because such concepts are inherently fuzzy, that is, characterized by gradations rather than sharp boundaries. The term “family resemblance” invokes an analogy with genetic families: no particular characteristic defines the genetic family “Pigliucci,” and yet, if you look at photos of myself, my brothers, my sister, our parents, and so forth, you will notice enough similarities to conclude that yeah, probably we do belong to the same family. Likewise, Liangjian’s idea runs, it will be futile to attempt to define virtue ethics in an exact manner, but if one carefully considers the various characteristics of Aristotelian and Confucian thought one will begin to discern a good degree of congruity.

In another chapter of Virtue Ethics and Confucianism, Benjamin Huff engages in an interesting discussion of the Confucian concept of sagehood, using the Neo-Confucian Wang Yangming (1472-1529) and comparing him to Aristotle. Yangming argued that sagehood is the ultimate goal, and that one can arrive at it by a combination of cultivation of character and learning. According to Yangming, we are all endowed with a mind that can aspire to sagehood, because our minds are aligned with li, the ordering principle of the cosmos. This strikes me as sufficiently similar to Stoicism, particularly the idea of a sage who lives in agreement with Nature, understanding and participating in the inherent order of the cosmos, the logos. A major difference is that the Stoics thought that very few people, if any, can become sages.

Sean Drysdale Walsh’s essays discusses the role of luck in Aristotle and Confucius, concluding that both thinkers recognize such a role, for instance in the type of family environment and society one happens to grow up. Even the Stoics, especially Seneca, had to admit that we get our initial moral training from our caregivers, and that the choice of parents and society in which we grow up is not up to us. What is up to us is to gradually take ownership of our faculty of judgment and refine it as much as it is in our ability to achieve. Think of it like the goal of improving our physical fitness by exercising: we know that, because of variation in natural endowment and early environment, few people will be able to make it to the Olympics. Yet, everyone can become more fit by way of mindful exercise.

Back to the Angle and Slote volume. Another contributor, Yu Jiyuan, finds similarities in the practical use of virtue ethics across thinkers as diverse as Socrates, Aristotle, Confucius, and Mencius. He chastises modern academics on the ground that for them ethics has become a professional objective, rather than a personal practice. As someone who does philosophy in both modes I think such criticism is understandable but partially unfair. Modern academic philosophy is a specialized field of scholarship analogous to modern science, history, or literary criticism. It has to be done in certain ways or one doesn’t get hired or promoted, and most importantly doesn’t end up making novel contributions. That said, I do find problematic that many professional philosophers think the whole idea of philosophy as a way of life is beneath them, looking with contempt to people who practice and write about it. Perhaps nothing can make the point better in this sense than empirical evidence that professors of moral philosophy are no more ethical than your average academic. They really ought to be!

Yang Xiao’s chapter focuses on Mencius’s political ethics and his advice to rulers to practice a virtuous type of government. For Mencius not doing so is not just unethical, but irrational, because unvirtuous ruling undermines the long term prospects of the ruler himself. Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and the Stoics would vigorously nod in agreement. Plato famously wrote in the Republic that the ideal state ought to be run by philosophers, meaning not professional academics, but people of uncommon wisdom. Despite some of the repellent—by modern standards—features of his Kallipolis, the ideal city, it is hard to disagree with that general contention. As for Cicero, he wrote a whole book, On Duties, about the character of a good statesman and the contention that there cannot be a real conflict between expediency (i.e., practically useful courses of action) and virtue.

Finally, Marion Hourdequin writes about the controversial concept of empathy from a Confucian point of view. Interestingly, she tells of a story, from Mencius, in which a character, King Xuan, feels empathy for the wrong object (in this case an ox instead of people). This suggests that Xuan needs more than just empathy, he needs some framework of norms and values that can direct his empathy toward the right object. Similarly, the Stoics propose to shift the focus on sympathy rather than empathy, on the grounds that the latter is dependent on the passions (i.e., unhealthy emotions) and is therefore easy to manipulate, while the former is more grounded in a rational assessment of the situation, bringing our emotions in alignment with reason.

It seems to me that the overall picture emerging from Virtue Ethics and Confucianism is that Confucian philosophy can indeed profitably be seen as a type of virtue ethics analogous to some of the Greco-Roman traditions, at least when these philosophies are considered in a Wittgensteinian family resemblance fashion. And it is important to note that Confucianism, just like Buddhism, arose and initially developed largely independently from western influences, so that we may meaningfully talk of cases of convergent cultural evolution rather than direct cross-fertilization.

[Next: Daoism.]