1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 Jana S. Rošker Confucian Ethics of Relations and Alternative Models of Social Organization in Periods of Crises I. Introduction Global crises, such as the Covid-19 pandemic, must be resolved through a process of global cooperation. Strategies to contain the spread of the viral disease cannot be confined to the narrow boundaries of individual nation-states. Within this framework, transcultural dialogues are not only possible, but also necessary and important. This chapter starts from the assumption that different models of ethics and humanism that have emerged in various cultural traditions can help us to create a new global ethics that can respond to these burning issues and to the general social demands of today’s globalized age. On this basis, it offers a brief introduction and analysis of the specific features of Confucian relational ethics and the relational constitution of personhood. The main aim here is to provide some theoretical foundations for future crisis resolution strategies and for the possible construction of such a new global ethics. Drawing on Confucian relational ethics, this chapter explores the connection between the cultural conditionality of Confucian moral philosophies and their possible implications for crisis resolution strategies. The desire to write about this topic arose in me immediately after the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. As I write these lines, the pandemic has not yet been fully brought under control. At present, much of our lives are still on hold, and our mutual responsibility requires us to act in ways that are uncomfortable or even painful. Although we cannot know when all this will stop or what the post-pandemic “new normal” might look like, philosophy can change the way we respond to the situation in which we are caught. It can show us how to use this crisis as an opportunity to cultivate our sense of togetherness and mutual aid. Moreover, in these uncertain times, philosophy can awaken in us an awareness of our individual mortality and moral responsibility. Since this pandemic is a crisis of global proportions, all of humanity must be engaged to find a strategic solution to it. Therefore, knowledge and thoughts from different cultures and times may well prove helpful in such times. 108 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 Jana S. Rošker Thus, in such situations, it is especially important to consider ideas and ethical theories from different cultures. Dialogues between different forms of such intellectual legacies are therefore not only advisable but also necessary and the most sensible thing to do. Such exchanges, which could or should take place in the context of the current developments of globalisation, are important and valuable not only in terms of solving the current pandemic crisis, but also when taking into account other global problems that it is accompanied by and linked to, such as the constant environmental disasters,1 the ever-widening gap between rich and poor, the resulting migration crises, and so on. Indeed, solving such problems requires the cooperation and solidarity of the entire world population — something that will only be possible if there can be mutual understanding between different cultures and civilizations. As a Sinologist who is working on Chinese intellectual history, I will focus on the Chinese experience in this context, and in particular, as the title of this chapter suggests, on Confucian philosophy and ethics. Many people believe that human beings tend to be self-interested and guided by immediate goals. Unless curbed by appropriate information and hindered by insights into the existential significance of the relationship between the individual and society, this tendency becomes even more apparent in times of crisis. Especially in the modern world, concern about the risks of community contagion seems abstract and less important than the preservation of individual freedoms. If we are to develop other principles and embrace the values of cooperation and solidarity, we must modify and reshape our thinking so that it can proceed from a communal or social rather than an egocentric perspective. Indeed, the Covid-19 pandemic has shown that we need to put our moral theories into action in order to change our individual performances. It is in this context that Confucian relational ethics can certainly offer us useful and valuable alternatives, for, as we shall see, it is based on a different conception of humanity from that which has historically prevailed in Western culture. Within the framework of 1 In this context, it is worth noting that many contemporary Confucians and numerous Western scholars of Confucianism, such as Tu Weiming and John A. Tucker, repeatedly stress the importance of reviving the Confucian tradition of ecological thought. Tucker, for instance, places it in constructive dialogue with the concepts of “deep ecology” and “ecological egalitarianism” (Tucker 2013, 48), and Tu Weiming suggests (2001, 243) that such thinking has long been recognized by Confucians and manifests itself in the idea of the “unity of heaven and humanity” (天人合一). Although this expression as such is actually a rather modern term, for it does not appear in this form in any work of classical Chinese philosophy, it refers to the holistic nature of the classical Chinese worldview inherent in most of the dominant currents of traditional Chinese philosophical history. In this context, the epistemological aspects of bodily recognition (tiren 體認) or the unity of body and mind, as developed, for example, by the Modern New Confucian scholar Xu Fuguan, were also of utmost importance (cf. Sernelj 2014, 86). Confucian Ethics of Relations and Alternative Models of Social Organization 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 109 traditional Confucian ethics, personalities are constituted not by an emphasis on their individual particularities, but by their vital embeddedness in a dynamic social network created by their relationships with their fellow human beings. As such, this ethics can provide us with a whole range of valuable foundations for new forms of mutual empathy and solidarity, which are certainly among the most solid foundations for new crisis-solving strategies. Such transculturally conditioned theoretical foundations can help us to create new models of intersubjectivity and new foundations for more human-centred politics, legislation and decision-making systems. II. Confucianism: Original Teachings vs. Ideological Doctrine As a Sinologist, I cannot forget that the coronavirus, which can cause a lung disease with high contagiousness and mortality, first appeared in China, and thus in the very cultural-linguistic space that is the core of my personal and professional interests, and therefore essential to the fundamental content of my research. However, although the onset of the pandemic can be located in this area, this is not the only reason why it is worthwhile to investigate the connection between China and the entire East Asia on the one hand, and the Covid-19 pandemic on the other. As the infection spread on a global scale and assumed pandemic proportions, it quickly became clear that it was the Sinic cultural and linguistic areas,2 rather than the Euro-American regions, that were more effective in stemming the tide of this viral epidemic and partly even eradicating it. The research on which this chapter is based has clearly shown that in seeking the reasons for the greater efficiency and effectiveness of Sinic cultural spaces, it is necessary to refute the unfounded claim that this is due to the allegedly autocratic practices of Sinic states, which act “top-down”3 and can do so because of the traditional “obedience” of their people. On the contrary, in the months following the epidemic, it became clear that measures were less effective in Sinic autocratic systems than in those countries of the region that are liberal democracies, such as Taiwan or South Korea. In this paper, I start from the assumption 2 Let me here briefly explain and define the term Sinic regions. These are the regions that have historically been heavily influenced by Chinese writing and also by some crucial cultural discourses that originated in China, especially Confucian ethics and the Chan Buddhist religion. These cultural regions include but are not limited to Eastern Asian countries; thus, in addition to China, Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, they also include Vietnam, Hong Kong, parts of Laos, and even Singapore. 3 In this context, many sociologists point out that, according to empirical research, Sinic successes were “both top-down, in that governments imposed strong control policies, and bottom-up, in that the people supported governments and followed government-mandated health measures (Sachs 2021, 93). 110 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 Jana S. Rošker that the real reasons for this better performance are more likely to be found in Confucian relational ethics, which does not start from the notion of an isolated individual and within which the contextualized human self and society are placed in a mutually complementary relationship. What underlies all liberal axiological systems, and what therefore constitutes the crucial moral foundation of today’s global modernization, are the European Enlightenment values based on the idea of a free and autonomous individual subject. The current pandemic has clearly shown that these values in their present form can no longer function as a coherent moral force even for Europe, let alone for all currently globalized and highly differentiated societies. However, the ideas of free and autonomous subjectivity and humanism are among the ideational foundations of modernization and constitute an important part of the European intellectual heritage, which still serves as the basis for numerous legal and ideological paradigms of today’s societies. It is therefore necessary to revive, improve and update the key humanist concepts of autonomy and free subjectivity, and to place them in a new framework of intersubjectivity in order to adapt them to the requirements of the present age. To achieve this goal, the tradition of European Enlightenment must be placed in a fruitful dialogue and dialectical relationship with similar and related intellectual heritages of non-European cultures. As a Sinologist, I will attempt to sketch the foundations of such a dialogue through an introduction and critical evaluation of the ethics of Sinic Confucianism, which represents a specific East Asian version of humanism, for it is based on a high valuation of interpersonal relationships, mutual empathy, and responsible autonomy. Within this dialectical framework, this chapter explores the ways in which specific Confucian notions of personhood and autonomy can contribute to a meaningful cross-cultural adaptation and revitalization of humanist values. Nowadays, the prevailing view of Confucian ethics is based on a number of prejudices, for in today’s world it is usually seen as a strictly normative, hierarchical ethic, supposedly based on gerontocracy, patriarchy, and the oppression of subjects by the ruling elites, who in this system supposedly demand absolute obedience from their people. The vast majority of today’s Western-trained philosophers are not too familiar with the deeper levels of Confucian ethical systems. The contemporary Berlin philosopher of Korean descent Byung-Chul Han, for example, sees the reasons for the more rapid establishment of pandemic control measures in the East Asian region as rooted in the autocratic traditions of those regions. Han writes: What advantages, compared to Europe, in the fight against the pandemic, can we find in the Asian system? Asian countries like Japan, Korea, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore have an authoritarian mindset, originating from their cultural tradition Confucian Ethics of Relations and Alternative Models of Social Organization 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 111 (Confucianism). People are less rebellious and more docile than in Europe (Han 2020, 2). Such assertions are populist, generalising, and without scientifically provable basis. First of all, the thesis of the alleged “all-around obedience” of people throughout the Sinic region compared to Europe and America, where people are supposed to be more critical and less docile (as the above statement implicitly implies), is completely ungrounded. It is based instead on the widespread assumption that Confucianism is a conservative normative ethic that advocates gerontocracy and the suppression of the individual in favour of the state. Few of those who blindly advocate such theses actually know the subject under discussion, and few know that the ethics of the original Confucianism was very progressive and critical of the social and political elites of the time for the period in which it arose. The original Confucian teachings emphasized “humaneness (ren 仁)” and “rituality (li 禮),” advocated diversity and pluralism, and also contained many proto-democratic elements. However, during the period of the first Confucian reform (i. e., the Han period, 206 BC–220 AD), there was an ideological misappropriation of Confucian teachings for the needs of a new state-building doctrine. These processes led to an assimilation of many elements of autocratic Legalism into the framework of the teachings and studies of Confucian ethics. In this way, a new state doctrine was formed out of proto-philosophical Confucianism (Bauer 1971, 117–140). Compared to the original philosophical ethics of Confucianism, which contained many pluralistic views and was highly contextual and based on flexibility and autonomy, it was a prescriptive, extremely rigid and restrictive set of social rules that received its institutional foundation somewhat later with the introduction of the civil service examinations, which required all candidates for government positions to uncritically adopt the contents of Confucian classics, especially their formal rules (Bauer, 117–140). While the latter became the basis not only of institutionalized Confucian state doctrine but also of constitutive social ethics characterized by strict vertical hierarchy, gerontocracy, discrimination against various marginalized groups, including women, social standardization, and suppression of individual autonomy, the former represents a dynamic and changeable framework of constant reopening of diverse philosophical questions, appreciation of social diversity, and negation of dogmatism and autocratic rules.4 4 See, for instance, the following commentary from the Confucian Chun Qiu Zuo Zhuan: “If the ruler says something is right, everyone says it is right. And if he claims something is wrong, then everyone will claim the same thing. But that’s like adding more water to an already watery soup — who would want to eat it? Or as if the instruments in an orchestra all played the same musical line — who would want to hear it? Such sameness is not good (君所謂可，據亦曰 112 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 Jana S. Rošker For at least a basic understanding of the respective traditional ideologies, therefore, we must first understand the differences between Confucianism as a humanistic philosophy, on the one hand, and Confucianism as a dogmatic state doctrine or conservative normative ethic, on the other. However, due to the complexity of the specific features that define Chinese political and ethical culture, these two currents have often overlapped throughout Chinese history: “Since rulers and scholar-officials joined themselves together to form an inseparable tie as members of the same community, culture and power existed in an unusually close relationship” (Huang 2014, 281). Nevertheless, for the sake of conceptual clarity and because of many specific elements that define each of the two approaches, we must distinguish between political and philosophical Confucianism, and for the purposes of this paper we will focus on the latter. We will thus be concerned specifically with Confucian ethics, which in turn cannot be separated from its philosophical (or metaphysical) foundations.5 At the heart of such Confucian humanism6 is the fundamental virtue of humaneness or co-humaneness (ren). The Chinese character with which this term is written consists of two parts; the left part denotes a human being, the right the number two, which also stands for the plural. So, the term ren tells us, among other things, that no human being can exist alone, isolated from other human beings. We can all survive (and even come into existence) only through our vital connections with other people. No person is an island, and we can therefore only live in communities with our fellow human beings. This interconnectedness can only work if most people in a community are aware of its vital importance; therefore, ren also implies a mutual empathy, the ability to identify with other people, to feel their needs and fears, and to understand their situation. Such mutual empathy is, of course, a foundation of social solidarity, which is of paramount importance, especially in times of widespread social crisis, such as 可，君所謂否，據亦曰否，若以水濟水，誰能食之，若琴瑟之專壹，誰能聽之，同之不 可也如是; Chun Qiu Zuo Zhuan, s.d. Shao Gong ershi nian, 2). 5 Chun-chieh Huang pointed out that this close relationship was already established before the second reform of Confucianism, as Zhu Xi, the most eminent Neo-Confucian philosopher from the Song Dynasty, highlighted this dual axiological nature of Confucian teachings by interpreting the Confucian concept of “dao 道” as both a metaphysical principle and an ethical norm (Huang 2011, 69). 6 Proponents of the Modern New Confucian movement have often emphasized that traditional Confucian teachings involve a “humanistic religion,” implying the unity or fusion of humanism and religion. Lee Ming-huei, for example, states that according to Mou Zongsan, “the humanistic focus of Confucianism has a religious dimension as its essence” (Lee 2017, 26). Lee also notes that Mou’s basic conception of the unity of morality and religion could be traced to the Modern Confucian “Manifesto on Chinese Culture for People All Over the World” (為中國 文化敬告世界人士宣言). In this paper, however, we will not discuss the possible transcendent elements of this specific type of humanism, but rather focus on its immanent ethics of relationships. Confucian Ethics of Relations and Alternative Models of Social Organization 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 113 the current Covid-19 pandemic. On the other hand, such solidarity based on mutual empathy is also the foundation of Confucian relational ethics, relics of which are still present, albeit often in a latent form, in most contemporary Sinic societies. This relational ethic, together with its elementary virtue of humaneness (ren), undoubtedly has much to do with promoting mutual interpersonal cooperation and solidarity among people. Therefore, such traditional ethical elements have, in my view, contributed much to the effective yet democratic containment of the pandemic in the Sinic region. In what follows, I will illuminate this conjecture through the lens of traditional Confucian relational ethics and its inherently humanistic values. III. Relational Self and Independent Individuality With regard to the traditional structure of the relationship between the individual and society, there is a fundamental difference between the modern European (or “Western”) and the traditional Chinese socio-political system. While the former is based on the idea of a free and abstract individual, the Sinic social order is founded on a network of relationships and could therefore be called “relational virtue ethics” (Li Zehou and Liu Yuedi 2014, 209). This fundamental distinction leads to major differences in the ethical thinking prevalent in these two discourses of cultural philosophy, not only in terms of their respective views on the relationship between the individual and society, but also on the relationship between reason and emotion. Traditional Sinic societies were structured as networks of relations that connected individuals who were not constituted as isolated and independent entities but as so-called relational Selves, meaning that people were essentially related to one another and their social relationships largely determined their identities. In Confucian ethics, the human Self is always located in particular concrete situations and social environments; therefore, all conceptions of the person focus on his or her relationships. This also implies that a person’s chosen aspirations, failures, and achievements can only be understood in light of their interactions with others (Lai 2018, 64). Morality, then, is rooted in the harmonious interaction of different persons embedded in different social roles. Contemporary Chinese philosopher Li Zehou uses the term “relationism” or (in his own translation) “guanxi-ism” (Li 2016, 1076) to refer to such particularities of Confucian ethics that grounds morality in social relations rather than in individualism. Ancient Confucians defined the main structure of human social networks as consisting of five basic relationships (wu lun 五倫). This model can be regarded as a summary of the elementary human relationships in any civil society, as it consists of the familial, political, and comradely relationships. However, it also 114 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 Jana S. Rošker shows the Confucian emphasis on the family, as three of the five basic relationships are rooted in it. According to Li Zehou (2016, 1076), this is the basis of the relationism mentioned above. This social system infuses emotions into interpersonal relationships, with the sincere emotion of parent-child love being the root, substance, and foundation (Jia 2018, 156). Thus, it is no coincidence that in this view, the family was linked to the state through the ideal of a good citizen; in Confucian ethics, a good citizen had to be a good family member first. The core idea behind such a view is that regulating relationships within one’s family leads to a well-ordered state (see, e. g., Mengzi, s.d. Li Lou 1, 5).7 In their book Confucian Role Ethics: A Moral Vision for the 21st Century, Henry Rosemont and Roger Ames also emphasize that family reverence (xiao 孝) is the origin of virtuous social behaviour and the source of humaneness (ren). They refer to the model that Li Zehou called “relationism” as “role ethics” instead, emphasizing that it is a network of social roles that emerges from the roles of members within a family. In such roles, people’s lives are embedded in meaningful contexts. Moreover, the network is dynamic and multi-layered, because no one takes only one role, but everyone plays many of them. Before modern society, Confucian individuals existed for the totality of their family, clan, tribe, or religion (Li 2016, 1118). But in the context of Western-type modernity, which emphasizes the values of subjective autonomy, the totality (e. g., society) exists for the individual.8 Moreover, within the framework of Western individualism, personal uniqueness is given central importance because it is a basis for human creativity and progress. And since personal uniqueness is also an important issue when it comes to the relationship between society and the individual in general, let us take a closer look at its place within traditional Confucian philosophy. This is all the more important because many people mistakenly believe that Confucianism does not allow for individual uniqueness, but rather tends to emphasize social 7 天下之本在國，國之本在家，家之本在身。 8 In this context, one is inclined to ask whether the relics of traditional ethics are still relevant in the social behaviour and attitudes of people in modern societies based on the rule of law, principles of normative-rational justice, and individual rights. It is true, of course, that modernization has been brought from the West to most regions of the world and that it is accordingly grounded upon the individual-based values of the European Enlightenment. However, in most regions of the so-called Sinic area, many Confucian elements still remain in contemporary social ethics. This is evidenced by many empirical studies; see, for example, my own transcultural survey (Rošker 2012), which found that over 80% of Taiwanese informants believed that society is more fundamental than the individual, and 78% of them believed that morality is more important and fundamental than laws. In contrast, over 90% of European informants believed the opposite. Confucian Ethics of Relations and Alternative Models of Social Organization 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 115 unification and the merging of all individuals into an indiscriminate social whole.9 Many people see the Confucian moral Self and the Western unique individual as posited in mutual contradiction. However, common Western arguments based on the belief that the Chinese notion of the Self does not have strong “individualistic” connotations are largely too generalized. Moreover, the Western notion of an isolated, detached, and completely independent individual is also, to a large extent, merely a product of the ideologies of modernization. Confucian ethics is based on the idea of self-cultivation and self-realization. However, people who have been socialized in modern Western societies tend to see these concepts as relating to individual existence. In fact, however, the Confucian Moral Self is a relational Self. It can therefore only be constituted and cultivated through one’s fellow human beings, in community. Similarly, misunderstanding in Western arguments commonly arises from a failure to recognize that the term “individuality” has two different meanings (Hall and Ames 1998, 25). On the one hand, individuality refers to a concrete and indivisible entity with distinct characteristics that can be assigned to a particular class. As such, it is interchangeable and actually contradicts plurality. Such an individual has no discrete personality or distinct identity. As an element (or member) of a particular species or class, this “individuality” is replaceable and interchangeable. This concept of individuality represents the fundamental level of a human being, since an individual belonging to this category is merely the product of his or her own effort to survive. As Hannah Arendt writes: To be sure, he too lives in the presence of and together with others, but this togetherness has none of the distinctive marks of true plurality. It does not consist in the purposeful combination of different skills and callings as in the case of workmanship (let alone in the relationships between unique persons), but exists in the multiplication of specimens which are fundamentally all alike because they are what they are as mere living organisms (Arendt 1998, 212). This solitude of any living creature struggling to survive is usually overlooked in Western literature; and the reason for this lies in the fact that the concrete organization of labor necessary for survival and the social conditions that accompany it require the simultaneous presence of a large number of people engaged in a particular task. Therefore, it seems that there are no barriers between them (Arendt, 212). 9 One of the many passages of the Confucian Analects in which this supposition is emphasized, for example, is the well-known quotation (Lunyu s.d. Zi Lu, 23) in which Confucius sets forth that morally conscious and cultured people know how to harmonize with others and are opposed to unification, while primitive and uneducated people prefer unification because they do not know how to harmonize (君子和而不同，小人同而不和). 116 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 Jana S. Rošker These individuals have no face, no definite, concrete personhood or identity. And yet it is precisely this concept of interchangeable, unitary individuality that forms the basis for the equality of all before the law, for the establishment of the concept of universal human rights, for equality of opportunity, and so on. This is the most generalized kind of equality, not pluralistic equality.10 However, as Hall and Ames (1998, 25) point out, it is precisely this kind of understanding of the individual that provides the basis on which it is possible to form the ideas of autonomy, equal rights, free will and similar concepts. This kind of Self belongs in the realm of the one-dimensional empirical Self, or, in Chinese terminology, in the realm of the “external king (waiwang 外王).”11 IV. Personal Uniqueness vs. Faceless Collectivism The concept of the individual, however, can also be linked to the ideas of singularity and uniqueness that exist outside of any species or class. In such a conceptualization of the Self, the equality of individuals is rooted in the principle of parity (Hall and Ames 1998, 25). This notion of uniqueness inherent in each individual is something that also strongly defines the specific Confucian idea of the human Self. According to numerous Confucian scholars, this uniqueness that underlies such a traditional idea of the Self is a value in itself (Fang 2004, 259). But this kind of uniqueness is not constituted by an isolated position or a demarcation of an individual from his or her fellow human beings. As part of the relational paradigm, it is shaped by the uniqueness of one’s position within the network of interpersonal and social relations. However, due to the prevailing understanding of individualism, there is a pervasive bias in the Euro-American regions as regards the traditional Sinic view of the Self: people in Western countries generally still see East Asians as people who are fundamentally subordinate to collectivist requirements and therefore do not know how to fully develop their individuality, autonomy, and personal freedom. In the Western view East Asian populations tend to think and act 10 This kind of equality is in fact a sameness, which is best expressed in collectivism. Actual equality, in the sense of an integral equal valuation of all human beings, is something quite different from sameness, and is possible only on the basis of a pluralistic conception of man, in which individuals are by no means all equal. It is also worth pointing out Arendt’s differentiation between the two concepts (cf. Arendt 1998, 213). 11 This is the second part of the traditional Chinese distinction between the transcendental subject and the empirical self (Kupke 2012, 1), which usually manifested itself in the Confucian tradition as the problem of the relationship between the “inner sage and the external ruler (neisheng waiwang 內聖外王).” Ideally, these two concepts have a complementary and interdependent relationship, constantly seeking to harmonize with each other through their mutual interactions. Confucian Ethics of Relations and Alternative Models of Social Organization 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 117 “collectively.” The term collectivism is usually seen as the antithesis of individualism. Based on such a framework, many people believe that collectivism is essentially an autocratic or even totalitarian social system, as it supposedly does not take into account or value individual life. In a common view, such “collectivism” is typical of Sinic societies, which are often seen by Westerners as products of authoritarian and despotic traditions. In fact, just the opposite is true, for collectivism is a system that also proceeds from the notion of an individual whose Self and existence are constituted in isolation from his or her fellow people. Therefore, collectivism is in fact a form of individualism, and one in which all individuals are considered equal. Collectivist social orders, in the common Western view, refer to the mechanistic systems of a group or society in which individuals are dehumanized and relate to each other only in the pragmatic sense of enabling the most efficient forms of production or for the benefit of the whole social system as such. In this context, the position and work of individuals are defined by their subordination to the system as well as by their isolation from other individuals, since in a collectivist system people are related only by functions and objects and not by their personalities. In this sense, they are not only “equal” but practically the “same.”12 In such a system, individuals are a part of the faceless mass; comparable to small individual cogs functioning mechanistically within a large, all-encompassing machine. Hannah Arendt describes this system, which is only possible as a unity consisting of individuals deprived of their concrete identities, as follows: It is indeed in the nature of laboring to bring men together in the form of a labor gang where any number of individuals “labor together as though they were one,” and in this sense togetherness may permeate laboring even more intimately than any other activity. But this “collective nature of labor,” far from establishing a recognizable, identifiable reality for each member of the labor gang, requires on the contrary the actual loss of all awareness of individuality and identity (Arendt 1998, 213). The equality of all members of a collective is actually a form of conformism based on the somatic experience of common labor, where “the biological rhythm of labor unites the group of laborers to the point that each may feel that he is no longer an individual, but in fact one with all the others” (Arendt, 214). Of course, this is precisely why certain systems of collectivism lend themselves well to autocratic, dictatorial, and totalitarian regimes, as they allow for effective centralized leadership and control over all individuals in society. Therefore, in the 12 We find a good illustration of this problem in Hannah Arendt’s distinction between the concepts of “equality” and “sameness” (Arendt 1998, 213). In European culture, this understanding of equality, which is actually based on sameness, stems from the basic concept of Christian doctrine, within which we are all equal (and at the same time completely the same) before God and death (Arendt, 235). 118 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 Jana S. Rošker context of liberal modernization, which emphasizes human autonomy and freedom, it is sometimes difficult to understand that collectivism is actually the most typical system that emerges from the most emblematic forms of individualism, in which the relationship between the individual and society is such that all individuals are equal. In this context, it is important to see that Confucian relationism is not at all a form of such an ideological understanding of collectivism. In relational societies, people are aware of the fact that no human being can really survive alone, without other people. Therefore, they tend to develop a contextualized sense of self (Arendt, 214). This specific type of individual personality is comparable to Jung’s (1953; 1976, 301, 402, 433) idea of so-called “individuation.” In the context of individuation, each person is understood to have an inimitable, completely unique combination of characteristics that are in themselves universal. All human faces, for example, have two eyes, two eyebrows, a mouth, and a nose. All of these elements are universal. But the shape, colour, size and texture of these elements in each face is unique, special and one of a kind. Individuation, then, is an ongoing process of culturalization that achieves the uniqueness of each person’s individual qualities through her particular and specific consolidation of factors that are, as such, universal in nature. Such self-realisation is part of traditional Confucian self-cultivation, a process of human unfoldment that is central to Confucian ethics. It is within such a framework that (co)humaneness or ren, this specific type of Confucian empathy and solidarity, can be most efficiently developed: Indeed, it is only through his or her uniqueness that a person can truly understand the significance and integral meaning of the social contexts and relationships of which he or she is a part. Therefore, a relational view of the Self and the Other is more realistic than assumptions based on the idea of an abstract individual. A completely isolated and independent individual Self does not exist in the real world. No human being can be separated from her feelings, intentions, and relationships. V. Individualism and Relational Models of Social Organization In contrast to such a relational view, individualism, which is closely linked to the root of modern European values, turns out to be an egocentric and even selfish phenomenon, because it focuses on how one is different from everyone else rather than on how one relates to others. This is why Henry Rosemont and Roger Ames wrote: It increasingly seemed to us that describing the proper performances of persons in their various roles and the appropriate attitude expressed in such roles in their relationship to Confucian Ethics of Relations and Alternative Models of Social Organization 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 119 others with whom they are engaged … conform to our everyday experience much better than those abstract accounts reflected in the writings of the heroes of Western moral philosophy, past and present (Rosemont and Ames 2016, 9). These different ways of conceptualizing the relationship between “Self” and “society” have important consequences for understanding how communities function in different cultures and how they respond to different crises. Empirical studies in cultural and environmental psychology suggest that the interdependent, relational Self tends to care more about others and better controls one’s own desires and behaviour in favour of collective social benefit (Silova et al. 2021, 3). The independent Self, on the other hand, is based on the assumption that “the individual comes before society” and therefore emphasizes individual autonomy and self-preservation. The independent Self therefore tends to exhibit values and attitudes that undermine collective efforts to solve problems of public interest (Silova at al., 3 Although the independent self has traditionally been a major cornerstone of Western civilization and further promoted as the key to achieving modernity from Descartes onward, its era of unthinking valorisation may now need to be brought to a close. To do so, we need to begin to recognize that self-construal manifests concretely in wider social arrangements and these arrangements, in turn, constitute the underlying driver of our current social trajectory. As such, rearticulating western Modernity’s dominant concept of Self (i. e., independent Self) might be necessary to effect a departure from the present catastrophe trajectory and move — collectively — towards sustainability (Komatsu et al. 2019, 11). A large-scale comparison by the British polling institute YouGov (Sachs 2021, 96) also suggests that people in Sinic societies — due to social norms and a better scientific understanding of the pandemic — demonstrate significantly higher willingness to engage in health-preserving behaviour than people in EuroAmerican regions. Both factors, namely the belief in the importance and positive function of social norms and the emphasis on critical education, can also be linked to elementary Confucian values. In several European and other Western countries, on the other hand, there have been public protests against even the most basic public health measures, such as the wearing of face masks, with agitators rejecting the mask requirement in the name of “freedom” (Sachs, 96). However, these people seem to have forgotten that one of the most elementary principles of classical liberal political theories is that the right to liberty and freedom stops at the limit of potential harm to other people in society. In his famous and highly influential essay, On Liberty, John Stuart Mill wrote, “The only purpose for which power can be rightfully 120 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 Jana S. Rošker exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others” (Mill 1998, 14). In the context of the Covid-19 crisis, Mill would certainly approve of the government’s request to wear face masks. And so would Confucius: While, as we saw in the previous section, Confucian relationism is in no way comparable to socalled “collectivism,” the Confucian Moral Self may well be compared to a free individual acting in accordance with such elementary liberal values.13 It is therefore understandable that numerous scholars have been critical of Western discourses, accusing them of a one-dimensional emphasis on individual autonomy and on the notion of unlimited freedom of choice. Such paradigms are ultimately always based on the assumption that individuals can be separated and abstracted from their social contexts, relationships, and even from those elements of the human condition that are actually vital to human life, such as the capacity and need for interpersonal relationships and mutual care (Fan 2010, 13). Compared with such models, Confucian relationism seems to be a model composed of interdependent relational individuals. In this context, Li Zehou writes: That people are raised and cared for by their families and communities leaves them with duties and responsibilities to this relationality and even their “kind” (humankind). People do not belong to themselves alone. The very first passage of the Classic of Filial Piety (Xiao jing) tells us that as our bodies are received from our parents, we are not allowed to harm them. If even harming one’s body is denounced, how could suicide possibly be allowed (Li Zehou 2016, 1131). Relational ethics, as we saw above, is deontological ethics. In moral life, duty is of paramount importance. And even more complicated is the fact that such a life is full of self-control, for one must overcome (almost) all immediate instincts and desires. In relational social systems, the individual is not supposed to act as an independent moral agent, separate from his fellow human beings (Lai 2008, 6). But all this may not be as bad as it seems at first sight. In relationism, judgments about the individual are (almost) never defined in terms of an idealized standard of an independent Self. In such an understanding of the Self, it is the actual relationships and environments that define individual values, thoughts, motivations, behaviours, and actions in the first place. Moreover, in relationism, relationships are always characterized by multiplicity, mutuality, and complementarity: “A good teacher and a good student can only emerge together, and your well-being and the well-being of your neighbour are congruent and mutually dependent” (Rosemont and Ames 2016, 12). Ideally, not even the “unequal positions” that form the core of social ethics in all Confucian teachings, nor the strict hierarchy in which these positions are 13 Although the former is both immanent and transcendent, while the latter is merely a kind of “transcendental illusion,” they can nevertheless be compared on the purely conceptual level. Confucian Ethics of Relations and Alternative Models of Social Organization 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 121 embedded, are as terrible as one is inclined to think. For somehow it is clear, for example, that the differences between a baby and his parent automatically lead to unequal positions. Over the course of a lifetime, of course, that position can change completely.14 Even though relationism contains unequal positions — both parties involved in a given relation are complementary and equal to each other, both in the metaphysical and moral sense, since together they form a part of the social whole that consists of these interpersonal relations. This kind of ethics does not derive from the concept of normative justice, but from a tendency towards social harmony (he 和),15 which appears in the relational network of interactions between individuals, whose individual identities — as we have seen in the description of individuation — are perceived as harmonies of different combinations of the unique, particular characteristics of each of them. The network of relationships is dynamic and diverse since no individual in it forms a fixed specific identity or entity. Each individual in it is the bearer of numerous roles which are interwoven and complement and perfect each other. Thus, I myself am, say, a mother, but also a daughter; I am a teacher, but also a researcher, that is, I learn from the work of others. I am also a consumer, a singer, a driver, a citizen, a worker, etc. Analogously, my relationships with people are multi-layered and changeable. Therefore, in the network of relationality, I am never simply a fixed and unchanging entity, defined by my role within the network. As we have already indicated, Confucian relationism also contains a special kind of virtue ethics,16 though it is — unlike the ancient Greek virtue ethics — not based on the concept of the isolated individual, but rather defined by relations, or 14 This is not so readily true, for example, of the unequal relationship between ruler and subject, although in Confucianism, the former had to be benevolent and the latter was often regarded as the “root of the state” (minben民本); but Confucian scholars were never motivated to change the formal structure of these hierarchical relationships. Rather, they were inclined to allow the modifications of the concrete contents of the two oppositional conceptualizations at issue. These consisted mainly of patterns of behaviour, norms and possibilities. As mentioned earlier, however, in this chapter we are not concerned with reformist Confucian political theory, but instead focus on its ethics as a way of learning some new possible forms of alternative social organization. 15 This concept of social harmony is, of course, not to be confused with the ideologically abused concept of harmony manifested in the patriotic propaganda of the Chinese leadership. For a more detailed description of this problem, see Rošker 2019. 16 At this point, it should be noted that all three types of ethics that are considered basic categories of this discipline, namely virtue ethics, deontological ethics, and utilitarian ethics, are categories that emerged in the context of Western philosophy. Since the transfer of concepts and categories from one historical-cultural domain to another is a problematic process tied to different culturally conditioned frames of reference, we must take into account that none of the three above-mentioned categorizations is entirely suitable to define or describe the basic nature of Confucian ethics, which at the same time certainly belongs to the domain of deontological ethics (see, for example, Lee Ming-huei 2017, 94). 122 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 Jana S. Rošker relationships, which are emotional in their intrinsic nature. But many other authors point out that it is rational and even necessary to include, cultivate, and socialize emotions in visions of social systems, as they are rooted in biological instincts that need to be channeled into mechanisms of mutual aid (see Li Zehou 2016, 1097). Another feature of relationism that is important for crisis situations, as in the Covid-19 pandemic, is the factor of inequality of younger and older persons, which is certainly related to the inequality of near and far, outer and inner,17 etc. Confucianism emphasizes family relations in which people are automatically unequal. Therefore, relationism contains both a rational order and an emotional identification within conditions that are always concrete, unrepeatable, and connected with sensations and feelings. Concrete obligations, responsibilities and actions in this context are different for each individual, depending on the concrete, changeable situation in which they find themselves. VI. Conclusion This view of social composition is especially important in times of crises, such as that of the Covid-19 pandemic. Indeed, such times undoubtedly reinforce the need for cooperation that bridges the gap between the uniqueness of the individual on the one hand and his socio-relational Self on the other. It also poses a challenge to the artificially established dichotomies between the Self and the Other, or between the specific and the general, the particular and the universal. This understanding is rooted in the paradigm of contrastive complementarity since the uniqueness of the individual can be measured not only by his or her individual achievements but also by his or her social influence. And the latter, in turn, can be measured by an individual’s position within their contextual environment and their relationships with other individuals (Lai 2018, 88). From the perspective of ethics, such a web of relationships has several important implications, especially when compared to frames that postulate an individual’s independent stability. Both Confucian relationism and its corresponding role ethics represent a system in which people internalize the insight that they cannot survive alone, without their fellow human beings, and they therefore develop a contextual selfawareness. In China and most Sinic cultures, such self-awareness is more realistic precisely because each person, by virtue of his or her uniqueness, can actually understand the meaning and importance of the social contexts into which he or 17 The terms “outer” and “inner” in this context refer to positions of persons who are “inside” or “outside” certain social groups to which the subject associated with these persons belongs. Confucian Ethics of Relations and Alternative Models of Social Organization 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 123 she is embedded. 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