A reexamination of the structure and content of Confucius' version of The Golden Rule

Philosophy East and West

Volumn 54, Issue 2, 2004, Pages 218-248

  Mou, Bo ^a  

^a SAN JOSE STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 4444232388     PISSN: 00318221     EISSN: 15291898     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/pew.2004.0007     Document Type: Review

References (38)

1. For some of its presentations in various cultural traditions as well as in various periods in the Western tradition, see the citations in Jeffrey Wattes, The Golden Rule (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 9
2. For example, Fung Yu-lan, A Short History of Chinese Philosophy, ed. Derk Bodde (New York: Macmillan, 1948), pp. 43-44
3. D. C. Lau, trans., Confucius: The Analects (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1983), Introduction
4. Herbert Fingarette, "Following the 'One Thread' of the Analects," thematic issue S, Journal of the American Academy of Religion 47 (35) (1979): 373-405
5. Robert E. Allinson (1985): "The Confucian Golden Rule: A Negative Foundation," Journal of Chinese Philosophy 12, No. 3, pp. 305-315
6. David L. Hall and Roger T. Ames, Thinking Through Confucius (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987), pp. 283-304
7. Philip J. Ivanhoe, "Reweaving the 'One Thread' of the Analects," Philosophy East and West 40 (1) (1990): 17-33
8. David S. Nivison, "Golden Rule Arguments in Chinese Moral Philosophy," in Nivison, The Ways of Confucianism, ed. Bryan Van Norden (La Salle: Open Court, 1996), pp. 59-76
9. Shu-hsien Liu, Understanding Confucian Philosophy: Classical and Sung-Ming (Westport: Praeger Publishers, 1998)
10. Qingjie Wang, "The Golden Rule and Interpersonal Care - From a Confucian Perspective," Philosophy East and West 49 (4) (1999): 415-438
11. Sin Yee Chan, "Can Shu be the One Word that Serves as the Guiding Principle of Caring Action?" Philosophy East and West 50 (4) (2000): 507-524
12. and Bryan Van Norden, "Unweaving the 'One Thread' of Analects 4: 15," in Van Norden, ed., Confucius and the Analects (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 216-236
13. Also see several relevant entries related to 'zhong and shu' in Antonio S. Cua ed. (2003): Encyclopedia of Chinese Philosophy (New York and London: Routledge)
14. It is clear that Confucius himself did not use (the Chinese equivalents of) such explanatory terms as 'three dimensions' in the text. These conceptual or terminological resources are used in this essay to capture and elaborate more explicitly and clearly the characteristics of Confucius' thought in this connection. See later in this section my brief discussion of some of the methodological issues involved
15. In their recent book, The Original Analects (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), E. Bruce Brooks and A. Taeko Brooks argue that 4.15 is not a genuine record of Confucius as a historical figure (551-479 B.C.) but an interpolation made by his follower, Zi Gao, around 294 B.C. (Brooks and Brooks, The Original Analects, pp. 148-149). Bryan Van Norden also challenges the authenticity of 4.15, trying to show that this is an interpolation planted by Confucius' disciple Zeng Zi (Van Norden, "Unweaving the 'One Thread' of Analects 4:15")
16. For a more detailed discussion of some of the related methodological issues, see Bo Mou, "Three Orientations and Four 'Sins' in Comparative Studies," APA Newsletter 2 (1) (Fall 2002): 42-45 (in the portion on comparative philosophy edited by Chenyang Li)
17. Kwong-loi Shun, Mencius and Early Chinese Thought (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997), p. 7
18. Bo Mou, "An Analysis of the Structure of Philosophical Methodology - in View of Comparative Philosophy," in Bo Mou ed., Two Roads to Wisdom? - Chinese and Analytic Philosophical Traditions (Chicago and La Salle: Open Court, 2001), pp. 337-364
19. Legge, Confucius: Confucian Analects, The Great Learning and The Doctrine of the Mean, p. 301. Some of the more recent interpretations can be also classified according to this type of understanding. For example, Irene Bloom translates and interprets this passage as "The Master said, 'Reciprocity (shu) - what you would not want for yourself, do not do to others" (Wm. Theodore de Bary and Irene Bloom, comps., Sources of Chinese Tradition [New York: Columbia University Press, 1999], vol. 1 p. 60). The Brookses translate and interpret this passage as "The Master said, That would be empathy [shu], would it not? What he himself does not want, let him not do it to others" (Brooks and Brooks, The Original Analects, p. 137); nevertheless, they also interpret 'shu'/'empathy' in terms of 'reciprocity' (see their commentary on p. 137). To this extent, I would render Bloom's and the Brookses' interpretations of this passage essentially the same as Legge's
20. Wing-Tsit Chan, trans. and comp., A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), p. 44
21. Lau, Confucius: The Analects, p. 154. Note that in Lau's translation, passage 15.23 is numbered 15.24, and 15.1 is divided into 15.1 and 15.2. Some of the recent interpretations of the passage can be understood this way
22. For example, Gilman Slingerland translates it as "The Master answered, 'Is it not shu, 'sympathetic understanding'? Do not impose upon others what you yourself do not desire" (in Philip J. Ivanhoe and Bryan W. Van Norden, eds., Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy [New York: Seven Bridges Press, 2001], p. 42)
23. In the recent literature, in contrast to widely identifying the methodological aspect of shu merely as the principle of reversibility involving the situation of "putting oneself in another's shoes," Shu-hsien Liu is the only author (to my knowledge) who explicitly points out the component of the CGR that is labeled here 'the principle of extensibility,' although he does not offer further analysis of this, as is given here. He says, "The spirit of this statement [the passage in 6.28] is similar to that of the Golden Rule, and the formulation of the statement is more detailed than its Western counterpart. Not only should you do unto others what you would like others to do unto you, but you should mold yourself into an ideal character and help others to do the same" (Liu, Understanding Confucian Philosophy: Classical and Sung-Ming, p. 19)
24. It seems that Chan's and Lau's translations/interpretations suggest (d). Chan translates this as "A man of humanity, wishing to establish his own character, also establishes the character of others, and wishing to be prominent himself, also helps others to be prominent" (Chan, Source Book, p. 31)
25. Legge's translation is this: "Now the man of perfect virtue, wishing to be established himself, seeks also to establish others; wishing to be enlarged himself, he seeks also to enlarge others" (Legge, Confucius: Confucian Analects, The Great Learning and The Doctrine of the Mean, p. 194)
26. For various traditional difficulties with the principle of reversibility, see Kant, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. James Ellington (1785; Hackett, 1981), p. 37 n. 23
27. Henry Sidgwick, The Method of Ethics, 7th ed. (1907; Macmillan, 1962), pp. 373-390
28. and Alan Gewirth, "The Golden Rule Rationalized," Midwest Studies in Philosophy 3 (1978)
29. See Marcus Singer, "The Golden Rule," Philosophy 38 (1963): 293-314
30. Alan Gewirth, "The Golden Rule Rationalized," pp. 133-147
31. For an elaboration of the Christian version of the Golden Rule, see E. W. Hirst, "The Categorical Imperative and the Golden Rule," Philosophy 9 (1934): 328-335
32. For a recent systematic examination of these two prominent cases, see Jeffrey Wattes, The Golden Rule
33. Ivanhoe, "Reweaving the 'One Thread' of the Analects," p. 24
34. To my knowledge, translating ren-zhi-fang along this line can be traced back to Fung Yu-lan's translation, "the way to practice yen [ren]" (Fung Yu-lan, A Short History of Chinese Philosophy, p. 43)
35. Shu-hsien Liu, Understanding Confucian Philosophy, p. 18
36. Nivison, "Golden Rule Arguments in Chinese Moral Philosophy," p. 73
37. The two concepts zhong and xin are clearly not exactly the same concepts; that is, they represent two related but distinct virtues. For a helpful discussion of how the two concepts developed from early Confucianism through Neo-Confucianism, see Kwong-loi Shun: "Zhong (Chung) and Xin (Hsin): Loyalty and Trustworthiness," in Antonio S. Cua, ed., Encyclopedia of Chinese Philosophy (New York and London: Routledge, 2003), pp. 885-888. Nevertheless, what is stressed here is an aspect of their connection so as to identify some characteristic feature of zhong
38. For one recent discussion of the issue of the relation between ren and li, see Kwong-loi Shun, "Ren and Li in the Analects," Philosophy East and West 43 (3) (1993): 457-479