Filial Piety and Ritual: A Confucian Approach to Well-Being

Thanks to Owen Flanagan for helpful comments. I am especially indebted to Meilin Chinn for her insightful comments and discussion on an earlier draft of this paper.

[1] For further discussion of a contemporary account of exemplarism, see (Zagzebski 2004 and 2017).

[2] Although filial piety has been discussed in a variety of settings, my focus will be on the Analects given the limitation of space. Filial piety in other Chinese writings can be found, inter alia, in the works of Confucius’ disciple Mencius (van Norden 2008), the Xiaojing (Rosemont and Ames 2008), and the Hsiao Ching (Makra 1961). Filial piety can also be found in the western tradition, e.g. Thomas Aquinas grounds filial duties in human nature and divine commandments (Blustein 1982, 56-62).

[3] All translations of the Analects are from (Slingerland 2003).

[4] Consider the following remarks by Sarkissian:

This seems to be the rationale within Confucianism: cultivate moral emotions in the family, where they naturally arise, and then extend them to others in an ever-broadening circle of moral concern. If one can learn to be devoted, reverential, and respectual within the family, then one already has a head start on the moral life (2010, 729).

[5] cf. (Dixon 1995). For a sympathetic though critical examination of the relationship between filial piety and friendship, see (Connolly 2012). For discussion of other theories regarding filial piety, see (Keller 2006).

[6] Ivahhoe makes this point, which explains “why Confucians have tended to see teachers as second parents—referring to good teachers as shifu (‘teacher-father’) or shimu (‘teacher-mother’)” (2007, 309).

[7] As we will see, ritual (li) ties naturally with filial piety given that the “process of learning does not begin in formal institutions but in the family” (Sigurosson 2012, 234).

[8] For one such interpretation, see (Nuyen 2004a, 435).

[9] It is worth stating that the proposal here does not require reverence and obedience to abusive parents. As mentioned earlier, filial piety will be directed towards those who genuinely take on the parental role. Since the aim is the formation of correct dispositions, those individuals who fail to love or care for their children (by hampering their moral development) can and perhaps should be replaced by parental surrogates.

[10] Although the correct dispositions are what is sought in the practice of rituals, there is a legitimate worry that such rituals can become stale and retrogressive in the sense of harming the individual and her community. With such a worry in mind, Curzer defends the employment of ritual with the addendum that new rituals can be generated to supplement and, in some cases, supplant older, stagnant rituals (2012, 304-305).

[11] As Ames notes:

li requires the utmost and relenting attention in every detail of what one does at every moment that one is doing it, from the drama of the high court to the posture one assumes in going to sleep, from the reception of honored guests to the proper way to comport oneself when alone, from how one behaves in formal dining situations to appropriate extemporaneous gestures (2011, 174).

[12] The notion of ‘tradition’ here is the one found in (Gadamer 1975).