Confucianism and acceptable inequalities

Philosophy and Social Criticism

Volumn 39, Issue 10, 2013, Pages 983-1004

  Kim, Sungmoon ^a  

^a CITY UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG   (Hong Kong)

Author keywords

Confucianism; Democracy; Distributive justice; Family model; Meritocracy

Indexed keywords

EID: 84888606796     PISSN: 01914537     EISSN: 1461734X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0191453713507015     Document Type: Article

References (108)

1. Daniel A. Bell, East Meets West: Human Rights and Democracy in East Asia (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000)
2. Daniel A. Bell, Beyond Liberal Democracy: Political Thinking for an East Asian Context (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006)
3. Tongdong Bai, 'A Mencian Version of Limited Democracy', Res Publica 14 (2008): 19-34
4. Tongdong Bai, 'Against Democratic Education', Journal of Curriculum Studies 43(5) (2011): 615-622
5. Joseph Chan, 'Democracy and Meritocracy: Toward a Confucian Perspective', Journal of Chinese Philosophy 34 (2007): 171-193
6. Chenyang Li, 'Where Does Confucian Virtuous Leadership Stand?', Philosophy East and West 59(4) (2009): 531-536
7. Chengyang Li, 'Equality and Inequality in Confucianism', Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 11(3) (2012): 295-313
8. Ruiping Fan, Reconstructionist Confucianism (New York: Springer, 2010).
9. Sor-Hoon Tan, 'Beyond Elitism: a Community Ideal for a Modern East Asia', Philosophy East and West 59(4) (2009): 537-553
10. Sungmoon Kim, 'A Pluralist Reconstruction of Confucian Democracy', Dao 11(3) (2012): 315-336.
11. Fred Dallmayr, 'Exiting Liberal Democracy: Bell and Confucian Thought', Philosophy East and West 59(4) (2009): 524-530.
12. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, [1971]1999).
13. Although this article attempts a normative political theory of economic justice in the Confucian context, a substantive part of it is inevitably concerned with the history of Confucian political thought, particularly the early Confucianism of its founding masters such as Confucius, Men-cius and Xunzi, in that the existing normative theory of Confucian distributive justice, with which I critically engage, is formulated with reference to it.
14. Hereafter, unless otherwise noted, by 'Confucian political theorists' I mean a particular group of scholars - that is, contemporary Confucian social and political theorists/philosophers who advocate political and economic meritocracy.
15. Mencius 1B5. Throughout this article, the English translation of the text of the Mencius is adopted from Mencius, trans. D. C. Lau (New York: Penguin, 1970). Chan also relies on Lau'S translation.
16. Interpreting this and related passages in Confucian classics literally, Ruiping Fan espouses what he calls 'family care' (family-oriented welfare) and strongly opposes social welfarism as anti-Confucian, even calling it immoral (interestingly for some libertarian reasons).
17. Fan, Reconstructionist Confucianism, pp. 83-102.
18. Though acknowledging a limited role of state welfarism, Joseph Chan makes a similar argument when he says: 'Welfare assistance should first be provided on the basis of ties of family and social networks and welfare entitlements sanctioned by government should be seen as a fallback support.' Note
19. Joseph Chan, 'Giving Priority to the Worst Off: a Confucian Perspective on Social Welfare', in Daniel A. Bell and Hahm Chaibong (eds) Confucianism for the Modern World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 236-253 (p. 248).
20. Of course, whether political meritocracy can be understood as an alternative to liberal democracy is a completely different issue but in the present article I will not delve into this problem, which I consider a confused view. Rather, my focus will be on the view that sees a merit-based economic meritocracy as an alternative to liberal egalitarianism.
21. Joseph Chan, 'Making Sense of Confucian Justice', Polylog: Forum for Intercultural Philosophy 3 (2001), accessible online @: http://them.polylog.org/3/fcj-en.htm.
22. Joseph Chan, 'Is There a Confucian Perspective on Social Justice?', in Takashi Shogimen and Cary J. Nederman (eds) Western Political Thought in Dialogue with Asia (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2008), pp. 261-275
23. Joseph Chan, 'Confucianism and Social Justice: Historical Settings', in Michael Palmer and Stanley Burgess (eds) The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Religion and Social Justice (Oxford: Blackwell, 2012), pp. 77-92.
24. Chan, 'Is There a Confucian Perspective?', p. 270.
25. Xunzi 4:12; 9:1.
26. In this article, the English translation of the text of the Xunzi is adopted from John Knoblock, Xunzi: A Translation and Study of the Complete Works, 3 vols (Palo Alto, CA.: Stanford University Press, 1994[1988, 1990]). When I quote the Xunzi I have also consulted with Knoblock'S translation. Also see Mencius 3B4.
27. Karl Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1957).
28. Confucian thinkers clearly distinguish benevolent government operating on the Kingly Way (wang dao I3M) from Hegemonic Rule (ba dao H3M), which relies on force (li jj) rather than moral virtue (de Hi) but still maintains a decent political order, as well as from tyranny (wang dao tjM).
29. Mencius 2A3
30. Xunzi 11:1a-d.
31. Chan, 'Is There a Confucian Perspective?' p. 276.
32. Harry Frankfurt, 'Equality as a Moral Ideal', Ethics 99 (1987): 21-43
33. Roger Crisp, 'Equality, Priority, and Compassion', Ethics 113 (2003): 745-763.
34. Chan, 'Is There a Confucian Perspective' p. 277 (n. 23).
35. Mencius 1A7; Xunzi 10:3a.
36. Mencius 1A7.
37. For the liberal presumption of personal happiness and individual freedom in Frankfurt'S doctrine of sufficiency.
38. Harry G. Frankfurt, The Importance of What We Care About (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
39. Paula Casal, 'Why Sufficiency Is Not Enough', Ethics 117 (2007): 296-326 (296).
40. Derek Parfit, 'Equality and Priority', Ratio 10 (1997): 202-221.
41. In his paper cited above, Che-nyang Li calls Telic egalitarians 'numerical egalitarians' and contrasts them to 'proportional egalitarians' but without noting that proportional egalitarians can be either sufficientarians or prioritarians. See his 'Equality and Inequality'.
42. Martin O'Neil, for instance, critiques Parfit'S distributive egalitarianism from the perspective of what he calls 'non-intrinsic egalitarianism'.
43. Martin O'Neil. 'What Should Egalitarians Believe?', Philosophy and Public Affairs 36(2) (2008): 119-56.
44. Li, 'Equality and Inequality', 301-303.
45. Chan, 'Is There a Confucian Perspective?', p. 275.
46. Chan, 'Confucianism and Social Justice', pp. 89-90.
47. Li, 'Equality and Inequality', 301-302.
48. On the positive and negative theses in the doctrine of sufficiency, see Casal, 'Why Sufficiency Is Not Enough'.
49. Chenyang Li does not go as far as denying the relevance of additional distributive requirements after meeting the threshold of sufficiency, although he strongly opposes liberal egalitarianism.
50. Li, 'Equality and Inequality', 308-309.
51. As will be clear, however, Li'S argument calling for constraint on inequalities after meeting the threshold of sufficiency is unstable because of his outright rejection of political equality. In fact, in his earlier essay ('Making Sense of Confucian Justice'), Chan, too, adds this caveat in parentheses: 'Of course it [inequality ensuing after meeting the threshold of sufficiency] may still be a concern for other reasons. For example, extreme inequality of wealth might upset social harmony and stability, which Confucians also treasure.' As will be clear later in this article, however, the constraint of inequalities should not be a passing caveat but must be fully integrated into the Confucian conception of justice, as determinant of the very meaning and content of desert.
52. Chan, 'Is There a Confucian Perspective?', pp. 275-276.
53. Amy Gutmann, Liberal Equality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), pp. 160-167.
54. David Miller, 'Two Cheers for Meritocracy', Journal of Political Philosophy 4(4) (1996): 277-301 (278).
55. Some Confucian advocates of economic meritocracy, however, believe giving priority to one'S family members is morally justifiable, even encouraged, in the Confucian ethical tradition. For them, the basic unit of Confucian meritocracy is the family, not a person.
56. Fan, Reconstructionist Confucianism, pp. 53-54.
57. Chan, 'Is There a Confucian Perspective?', p. 277 (n. 23).
58. The cited work is Principles of Social Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999) which incorporates Miller, 'Two Cheers for Meritocracy' as ch. 9.
59. Michael Walzer'S. Spheres of Justice: A Defense of Pluralism and Equality (New York: Basic Books, 1983), pp. 1-30.
60. Miller, Two Cheers for Meritocracy, 301.
61. This line of reasoning is most salient in Chenyang Li's espousal of Confucian meritocracy.
62. Rawls, A Theory of Justice, pp. 86-87.
63. But note that Rawls does not subscribe completely to Telic egalitarianism: 'The natural distribution is neither just nor unjust; nor is it unjust that persons are born into society at some particular position. There are simply natural facts. What is just and unjust is the way that institutions deal with these facts' (p. 87). For a typical Confucian critique of Rawls.
64. Ruiping Fan, 'Confucian and Rawlsian Views of Justice: a Comparison', Journal of Chinese Philosophy 24 (1997): 427-456.
65. Rawls, A Theory of Justice, pp. 62-3.
66. Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974), p. 214.
67. George Sher, 'Effort, Ability, and Personal Desert', Philosophy and Public Affairs 8(4) (1979): 361-376 (364).
68. Alan Zaitchik, 'On Deserving to Deserve', Philosophy and Public Affairs 6(4) (1977): 370-388.
69. Robert Young, 'Egalitarianism and Personal Desert', Ethics 102(2) (1992): 319-341 (324).
70. Gutmann, Liberal Equality, p. 109.
71. Young, 'Egalitarianism and Personal Desert', 323.
72. Gutmann, p. 163.
73. At this point, whether the threshold is justified in sufficientarian terms or with reference to the difference principle is not so important. After all, Confucian political theorists do not show strong interest in the politically more important question of where and how the line of the threshold should be drawn.
74. Li, 'Equality and Inequality', 296.
75. As Jane Mansbridge shows, inequalities in power could be acceptable to some degree in a certain form of democratic society ('unitary democracy') but how economic inequality is beneficial to society at large is completely unclear to me, unless the society at issue is an aristocratic (or rather an oligarchic) one.
76. Mansbridge'S. 'Acceptable Inequalities', British Journal of Political Science 7(3) (1977): 321-336.
77. Chan, 'Is There a Confucian Perspective?', p. 275.
78. Xunzi 4:12.
79. Li, Equality and Inequality, 301.
80. Sher, 'Effort, Ability, and Personal Desert', 368.
81. As Young remarks, 'Many supporters of desert have argued that to fail to accord people their deserts is to fail to treat them as autonomous beings, as people who can actively and purposefully intervene in the world.' Young, 'Egalitarianism and Personal Desert', 335.
82. Some Confucian advocates of political and economic meritocracy such as Ruiping Fan therefore present his normative vision in terms of Confucian aristocracy and as opposed to liberal democracy; Fan, Reconstructionist Confucianism, pp. 55-6. that when discussing desert contemporary moral philosophers generally reject its aristocratic notion. For instance, Norman Daniels says: 'I am not concerned with certain classical meritocracies, that is, with certain views of aristocracy according to which social class was thought to imply differences in merit or ability with positions and rewards conferred accordingly.' Note
83. Norman Daniels, 'Merit and Meritocracy', Philosophy and Public Affairs 7(3) (1978): 206-223 (206).
84. Both Chan and Li present Xunzi'S support of emolument based on merit as desert-based distributive justice but their case is almost negligible as moral theory because no contemporary moral and political theorist would deny the virtue of this type of meritocracy.
85. Confucius' seminal idea of benevolent government is found in Analects 13:9: 'Ranyou drove the Master'S [Confucius'] carriage on a trip to Wey. The Master remarked, "What a teeming population!" Ranyou asked, "When the people are already so numerous, what more can be done for them?" The Master said, "Make them prosperous." "When the people are already prosperous," asked Ranyou, "what more can be done for them?" "Teach them", replied the Master.' The English translation is adopted.
86. Roger T. Ames and Henry Rosemont, Jr, The Analects of Confucius: A Philosophical Translation (New York: Ballantine Books, 1998).
87. Mencius 1A5 [translation slightly modified].
88. Eric L. Hutton, 'Character, Situationism, and Early Chinese Thought', Philosophical Studies 127 (2006): 37-58 (50).
89. Analects 16:1. The English translation here is adopted from The Analects, trans. D. C. Lau (New York: Penguin, 1979).
90. This point is not visible in the given statement but considering the ultimate purpose of Confucian ethics and politics, it must be included here. The reasoning is that social harmony and stability are not matters of political engineering or statecraft as such but are what naturally result from the moral elevation of the people.
91. Julian Lamont, 'The Concept of Desert in Distributive Justice', The Philosophical Quarterly 44 (1994): 45-64 (47).
92. I differentiate 'the Xunzian regime', which I reconstruct from his moral philosophy, from the ritual-based hierarchical/aristocratic regime that Xunzi actually idealized, which I do not endorse.
93. Xunzi 23:1b [translation slightly modified].
94. Xunzi 19:1a.
95. Philip J. Ivanhoe. 'Character Consequentialism: an Early Confucian Contribution to Contemporary Ethical Theory', Journal of Religious Ethics 19(1) (1991): 55-70.
96. Bryan W., Van Norden, Virtue Ethics and Consequentialism in Early Chinese Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
97. Xunzi 3:1.
98. Analects 14:12.
99. Xunzi 23:3a (emphasis added).
100. For an excellent account of Mencius' and Xunzi'S moral self-cultivation.
101. Philip J. Ivanhoe, Confucian Moral Self Cultivation (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2000).
102. Mencius 3A3.
103. Amartya See, 'Merit and Justice', in Kenneth Arrow, Samuel Bowles and Steven Durlauf (eds) Meritocracy and Economic Inequality (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000), pp. 5-16 (p. 5).
104. Mencius 1A7.
105. Analects 1:2
106. Mencius 3A5.
107. Robert E. Goodin, 'Vulnerabilities and Responsibilities: an Ethical Defense of the Welfare State', American Political Science Review 79(3) (1985): 775-787 (778).
108. One of the main reasons it has to be a democratic form of government is to guard against and put curbs around the natural preferences we tend to give to the family. In traditional Confucianism, this presented a real tension which needs to be negotiated in modern life.