Abstract
Taking Kant’s misjudgment on Confucian silver rule as the point for first cut, this article is designated to illustrate the fallacy of imposed Orientalism prevailing in mainstream cross-cultural psychology which tends to understand non-Western cultures by a mental set of dualism with a tendency of Westcentrism, particularly the popular research on individualism-collectivism. This type of Euro-centric or Westcentric misjudgments are very common in Western social sciences, for instance, Confucian ethics are frequently described as particularistic in consideration of the distinction between universalism and particularism made by Parsons. In order to help the international academic community to escape from the trap of Eurocentric bias, this article will argue for and illustrate its characteristic of contextualized universalism step by step on the basis of Hwang’s previous research. Finally, the meaning of constructing scientific microworld of Confucian ethics will be discussed to explain how Chinese people are facing the impact of Western cultured during the globalization age of multiculturalism.
Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) was a famous German philosopher in the age of European Enlightenment. He included a footnote in his book Metaphysik der Sitten pointing out that the Confucian maxim “do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself” cannot be a universal law, for it: contains no basis for prescribing duties to oneself or kindness to others (e.g., many people would agree that others should not help him or her if they don’t expect help themselves), or clearly demarcated duties toward others (otherwise, the criminal would be able to dispute the judge who punished him, and so on). (Kant, 1964, p. 97)
Kantian Eurocentric bias
As a senior researcher who has decided to devote his career life to the development of Chinese indigenous social science, I had been fascinated in thinking about “Why Kant mentioned this Confucian maxim in a footnote of this book?”
Metaphysik der Sitten
After years of investigation, I do believe that such an action reflects Kant’s academic position as well as his Eurocentric bias. Kant is a rationalist. His work Metaphysik der Sitten aims to seek the conditions of real Goodness as morality. Kant suggested that behaviors motivated by the will for Good should meet three conditions:
They originate solely from obligation rather than from an individual’s utilitarian preferences. Obligatory behavior is regulated by the principle of will without external motivations. Obligation implies behavioral inevitability which is a consequence of respecting moral principles.
Kant suggested that all moral principles are presented as categorical imperatives distinct from hypothetical imperatives: the former must be a transcendental formal imperative without empirical conditions. The universal Maxime is mandatory; it is an obligation that can be applied to any rationalist. The latter (hypothetical imperative) is a conditional statement which tells an actor the possible consequences of his behavior. An individual is autonomous so long as she/he regulates her/his own behavior using the will for Good and practices obligatory moral principles of categorical imperative. On the contrary, behaviors following hypothetical imperatives are regulated by factors other than the will for Good, so they are heteronomous. For example, moral theories based upon hedonism and utilitarianism are all heteronomous without any universal or transcendental moral implication, because both doctrines advocate that one’s behavior is determined by his/her evaluation on costs and benefits, rather than will for Good.
Postulates for practical reason
Kant argued that autonomy of will is the ultimate principle of morality. The will of all rationalists is the legislator of universal moral law. When one practices the objective, certain, and universal principle of morality, one treats oneself and other as the goal, but not means. In order to demonstrate the permanent practicability of moral principle, Kant further proposed three postulates for pure practical reason: immortality of soul, free will, and the existence of God (Kant, 1788/1963).
With the first postulate (free will), the will can be independent from the sensible world and human beings can make decisions according to moral principles in the intelligible world, The second postulate (immortality of soul) enables an individual to carry out moral principles permanently, while the third postulate (the existence of God) allows the unification of transcendent morality and permanent well-being. None of the three postulates can be demonstrated in the sensible world. However, they can satisfy human desire for the unification of well-being and morality which is the ultimate goal of practical reason. In other words, the three ideas (freedom, soul, and God) that are negated by theoretical reason have been turned into the basic ideas of Kant’s moral philosophy through the three postulates of practical reason.
Positive and negative duties
According to Nunner-Winkler (1984, p. 349), the distinction between perfect and imperfect duties was first introduced by Kant (1788/1963) in his Metaphysik der Sitten and later elaborated on as negative and positive duties, respectively, by Gert (1973) in The Moral Rules. Negative duties simply require abstention from action (e.g., do not kill, do not cheat, do not steal), they are duties of omission. So long as they are not in conflict with other duties, they can be followed strictly by anyone in any situation with regard to all. In Kant’s metaphysics of morality, they are termed perfect duties.
Positive duties are usually stated as maxims that guide actions (e.g., practice charity, help the needy). They are duties of commission, but they do not specify which and how many good deeds should be performed and whom they are to benefit so that the maxim can be said to have been fulfilled. The application of any positive maxim requires the actor to take into consideration all concrete conditions and to exercise powers of judgment. Because it is impossible for an individual to practice any positive maxim all the time and with regard to everybody, positive duties are called imperfect duties in Kantian terminology. In Western theory, perfect and negative duties are equivalent, as are imperfect and positive duties.
Confucian way of humanity
The theoretical analysis presented above is a meta-ethical reflection on the nature of Western ethics of Rationalism. Trying to understand the properties of Confucian ethics with the same line of reasoning leads to a series of problems. According to Kantian reasoning, all ethical demands emanating from the Confucian Way of Humanity are imperfect duties. However, Confucians believe that the Confucian ethics for ordinary people entails both perfect and imperfect duties. This seeming contradiction is a crucial point for understanding the difference between Eastern and Western philosophies, so it should be elaborated.
The Confucian Way of Humanity consists of both positive and negative duties. The positive duty of benevolence means doing favors by giving various resources to others. But how can ordinary people with limited resources possibly practice the positive duty of benevolence toward all other people? Mencius proposed a rule of thumb: Take care of one’s own aged parents first and then extend your care to aged people in general; look after one’s own children first and then extend love to others’ children (The Works of Mencius, Chap. 1 A: King Hui of Liang). Mencius advocated hierarchical love, or love with distinction. Love one’s parents who are the origin of one’s life first of all, then extend love to other people in accordance with one’s relationship (degree of intimacy) with them. Practicing this love with distinction accords with the Confucian ethics for ordinary people represents virtue.
Do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself
The Confucian Way of Humanity also includes negative duties as represented by the silver rule: Do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself. The term “others” in this sentence denotes other people in general, including those who do not belong to any of the five cardinal relations categories. The silver rule is a negative duty. It can be followed strictly by any person in any situation, so it should also be a perfect duty.
However, from the perspective of Kantian ethics, all demands emanating from the Way of Humanity, regardless of whether they are positive or negative duties, are considered imperfect duties. Kant proposed a single categorical imperative applicable to all rationalists: Act so that the outcome of one’s conduct is “the universal will.” Principles derived from an individual’s feelings, affections, dispositions, or preferences may not be universally applicable to others and should be considered merely subjective principles. The fact that an individual following the silver rule must rely on personal feelings and preferences led Kant to conclude that it is a kind of imperfect duty.
Now we can understand what means by Kantian Eurocentric bias from the aforementioned case. Kant is a very important philosopher and a real expert in European ethics of deontology. He should have had a certain extent of knowledge about Confucian ethics. Therefore, he chose its silver rule, evaluated it from the perspective of his deontology, and made his Eurocentric bias as a consequence.
Westcentric bias in cross-cultural psychology
This kind of Eurocentric bias or Westcentric bias can be found everywhere in the field of cross-cultural psychology. With their superficial or limited understanding of non-Western cultures, many mainstream psychologists have constructed various instruments of measurement for conducting empirical research in cross-cultural psychology. A well-known example in this field is the research on individualism-collectivism.
Historical origin of the instrument
Hofstede (1980), a well-known Dutch organizational psychologist, was the first one who began to conduct research on individualism-collectivism. When he was a director of the department of human resource management at IBM, Hofstede constructed a scale of 32 items to measure work goals or values. He administered this scale to equivalent, stratified samples of IBM staff in 40 countries, calculated means of their endorsement of the 32 work values for samples from each country, and created a correlation matrix amongst the 32 average nation-values. As a result of factor analysis, he obtained four factors, namely: individualism, power distance, masculinity, and uncertainty avoidance. Factor scores of the 40 countries were marked to show their positions on the map of space constituted by any two of these four dimensions respectively.
His empirical mapping of the world’s 40 major countries on these four cultural dimensions attracted great attention from the psychology community. Inspired by his research, many psychologists began to conduct research on related topics in the following decades. Tremendous research works have been done on the dimension of individualism-collectivism. An intensive review by Oyserman et al. (2002) showed that psychologists had constructed at least 27 distinct scales for measuring tendency of individualism-collectivism (IND-COL) and completed numerous empirical studies on related topics in the last two decades.
Attributes of antithetical other
Most researchers engaging in this research topic generally considered collectivism as the opposite of individualism. They assumed that the social structure of Western societies shaped by Protestantism and the process of civic emancipation contributed to the formation of psychological traits of individualism such as individual freedom, right of choice, self-realization, and so on (Triandis, 1995). The countries or ethnic groups that inherited a Protestant tradition should demonstrate more characteristics of individualism than the traditional cultures of non-Western countries. Individualism is more prevalent in Western industrialized countries than other countries, especially the more traditional societies of developing countries. Therefore, the individualistic tendencies of European Americans in the United States should be higher than other minority groups, and their tendencies for collectivism should be lower than that of other minority groups (Oyserman et al., 2002).
Psychologists studying individualism-collectivism tend to take psychological characteristics of European-Americans as a frame of reference for constructing their images of other cultural groups. European-Americans are situated at one end of the dimension with their cultural and psychological characteristics as coordinates of reference for understanding other ethnic groups around the world. The latter are situated at different locations along the dimension, suggesting their cultural identities are so vague that their own psychological characteristics can be understood only if they are described in contrast to Americans. Therefore, Fiske et al. (2002) criticized previous researches that individualism is the sum of characteristics by which Americans define themselves, while collectivism was formalized to show characteristics of the antithetical other in accordance with the American ideological understanding that “we are not that kind of person” (p. 84).
Two irrelevant constructs
This approach represents a kind of Orientalism in psychology (Said, 1978). Earley and Gibson (1998, p. 291) pointed out that there are no parallels in the contents measured by individualism and collectivism. They spoke bluntly that, looking at the highly varied operational definitions of individualism and collectivism, these scales seem to measure irrelevant constructs. Oyserman et al. (2002, p. 28) did a content analysis of the 27 individualism-collectivism scales most widely used in cross-cultural studies. Their results showed that individualism is comprised of seven components: independence, individual goal striving, competition, uniqueness, self-privacy, self-knowledge, and direct communication; while collectivism embodies eight components: relatedness, group belonging, duty, harmony, seeking advice from others, contextualization, hierarchy, and preference for group work. The lack of parallels between components of individualism and collectivism suggests that it is not feasible to compare them directly.
A yet to be developed approach of collectivism
Analysis by Oyserman et al. (2002) provided concrete evidence to indicate the heterogeneity among conceptual definitions of collectivism as well as contents of scales for its measurement. With an intensive review over previous literatures, they pointed out that: American and Western psychology are infused with an understanding of human nature on the basis of individualism, raising the question of our ability to separate our current way of understanding human nature based on individualism from a yet to be developed approach of collectivism. (Oyserman et al., 2002, pp. 44–45)
Cultural system approach for studying Confucianism
Following the principle of cultural psychology: “one mind, many mentalities” (Shweder et al., 1998), my epistemological strategy for cultural analysis contains two steps: First, based on Bhaskar’s (1975, 1978) critical realism, universal mechanisms should be sought to represent the operation of human mind. Second, based on Archer’s (1995) analytical dualism, the mechanisms of universal mind may be used as frameworks for analyzing any cultural tradition (Hwang, 2015a).
In accordance with such a strategy, I constructed a mandala model of self (Hwang, 2011) and a Face and Favor model (Hwang, 1987, 2012), which are supposed to represent universal mechanisms of self and social interaction, and then I used them as frameworks for analyzing the content of pre-Qin Confucian classics (Hwang, 2012, 2015b). The culture-inclusive theories thus obtained can be used to re-interpret meanings of some core ideas in Confucian ethics, including Ren-Yi-Li (仁,義,禮, Benevolence-righteousness-propriety), Four Origin (四端), and Five Virtues (五常).
Face and Favor model
In the Face and Favor model (Hwang, 1987), the dyad involved in social interaction was defined as “petitioner” and “resource allocator.” When the resource allocator is asked to allocate a social resource to benefit the petitioner, the resource allocator would first consider: “What is the guanxi (relationship) between us?”
In Figure 1, within the box denoting the psychological processes of the resource allocator, the rectangle is first divided into two parts by a diagonal. The shaded part stands for the affective component of interpersonal relationships, while the unshaded part represents the instrumental component.
A theoretical model of Face and Favor (adapted from Hwang, 1987, p. 948).
The same rectangle denoting guanxi is also divided into three parts (expressive ties, mixed ties, and instrumental ties) by a solid line and a dotted line. These parts are proportional to the expressive component. The solid line separating expressive ties within the family and mixed ties outside the family indicates a relatively impenetrable psychological boundary between family members and people outside the family. Different distributive justice or exchange rules are applicable to these three types of guanxi during social interactions. In expressive ties, the need rule for social exchange should be adhered to and people should try their best to satisfy the other party with all available resources. In mixed ties, following the renqing rule. When individuals want to acquire a particular resource from someone with whom they have instrumental ties, they tend to follow the equity rule with instrumental rationality.
In my article, Face and favor: Chinese power game (Hwang, 1987), I intensively elaborated on the meaning of the renqing rule in Chinese society. It is conceptualized as a special case of equality rule which emphasizes that once an individual has received favor from another, she/he is obligated to reciprocate in the future.
Elementary forms of social behavior
Following an intensive review of the sociology, anthropology, and psychology literature, in his book, Structures of Social Life, Fiske (1991) identified four elementary forms of social life, namely, communal sharing, authority ranking, equality matching, and market pricing. He also indicated that the four relational models will manifest in various domains of human relations, including works, activities, domains of action, and substantial problems and attitudes. This fact implies that those structures are produced from the same psychological schemata or the deep structure of the universal mind.
Sundararajan (2015, 2019) compared Fiske’s (1991) four elementary forms of relational models with my Face and Favor model (Hwang, 1987). It shows that the three relational models of communal sharing, equality matching, and market pricing are corresponded with the expressive tie, the mixed tie, and instrumental tie, as well as the three rules of exchange for the dyad of those relationships, namely, the need rule, the renqing rule, and the equity rule. The relationship between the petitioner and resource allocator implies the power distance (Hofstede, 1980) or the authority ranking. Such a comparison shows that Fiske provided a system for classifying elementary forms of social relations, while my Face and Favor model was constructed as a universal mechanism of social interaction.
Confucian ethical system
Using Face and Favor model as a framework for analyzing the content of pre-Qin Confucian classics, Hwang (2001, 2012) indicated that the structure of psychological process of the resource allocator in Figure 1 is isomorphic to that of the Confucian Ethical system (see Figure 2) as stated by Confucius with a paragraph in Chapter 20 of Zhongyung:
The Confucian ethical system of benevolence-righteousness-propriety for ordinary people (adapted from Hwang, 1995, p. 245).
Benevolence (ren) is the characteristic attribute of personhood. The first priority of its expression is showing affection to those closely related to us. Righteousness (yi) means appropriateness; respecting the superior is its most important rule. Loving others according to who they are, and respecting superiors according to their ranks gives rise to the forms and distinctions of propriety (li) in social life.
The above citation from Zhongyung not only demonstrates the interrelated concepts of benevolence (ren), righteousness (yi), and propriety (li) but also implies the dimensions along which Confucians assess role relationships in social interaction.
Specifically, Confucius propose that in interacting with other people, one should begin with an assessment of the role relationship between oneself and the other along two cognitive dimensions: intimacy/distance and superiority/inferiority.
After considering a role relationship along the dimension of superiority/inferiority, resource allocator should then choose an appropriate rule for social exchange or resource distribution. As illustrated in the Face and Favor model, the Confucian ethical system of benevolence–righteousness–propriety is used to make this choice. Proper assessment of the intimacy/distance of the relationship corresponds to benevolence (ren), choosing an appropriate rule for exchange according to closeness of the relationship corresponds to righteousness (yi) and acting properly after evaluating the loss and gain of exchange corresponds to propriety (li).
Confucian morphostasis
Chapter 20 of Zhongyong is a very important document for understanding Confucian thoughts. Confucius spent 13 years in traveling around various feudal states for soliciting his doctrine of Ren to the princes, but nowhere he got much attention. He returned to his home state Lu at the age of 68, when Duke Ai was the feudal prince of Lu, but the government was controlled by three powerful ministers. Duke Ai treated Confucius with great courtesy and asked him about governance several times. As a repay to Duke Ai’s hospitality, Confucius presented the most important principles of his thoughts in this chapter. Therefore, this chapter provides a best way for understanding Confucian morphostasis (Archer, 1995). It contains a very important statement: The broad Dao for practicing duties of universal obligation are five (天下之達道五), and the virtues of De wherewith they are practiced are three (所以行之者三). The relationships between sovereign and minister, father and son, husband and wife, elder brother and younger, and the intercourse of friends, those five are broad Dao in the universe (君臣也, 父子也, 夫婦也, 兄弟也, 朋友之交也。五者, 天下之達道也). Wisdom, benevolence and courage, those three are grand De in the universe (知, 仁, 勇三者, 天下之達德也). The means for carrying those virtues into practice is singleness (所以行之者一也).
Dao (道) and De (德)
In Chinese language, the term morality (道德, daode) is composed of two characters, Dao (道) and De (德), each of them has its own meaning, both of them are originated from the following passage of Daodejing (道德經), an ancient classic of Daoism:
Dao bears them (道生之),
De nurtures them (德畜之),
The material world shapes their form (物形之),
The circumstance of the moment make them complete (勢成之),
Therefore, all things in the universe honor Dao and exalt De without exception (是以萬物莫不尊道而貴德),
Dao is honored and De is exalted (道之尊, 德之貴),
Everything happens naturally which is not the result of any ordination (夫莫之命而常自然).
Zigong asked, “Is there one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one’s life?”
The Master said, “It must be compassion! Do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself.” (Analects, Weilinggong, Ch.13)
Shudao (恕道)
Since compassion (恕, shu) “may serve as a rule of practice for all one’s life,” it is universal and can be used to deal with anybody in any situation. Nevertheless, there is another dialogue between Confucius and his disciples Zeng Shen (曾參), author of the Great Learning, who was a young and bright follower of Confucius.
Once the Master said, “Shen, my doctrine is an all-pervading unity.” The disciple Zeng replied, “Yes.” The Master went out, and the other disciples asked, “What do his words mean?” Zeng said, “The doctrine of our master is loyalty (忠) and compassion (恕), and nothing more.” (Analects, Li Ren, Ch. 15)
Zhu Xi (朱熹) interpreted loyalty as “to exert oneself to the principle of sincerity” (盡己) and compassion “to exercise the principle of benevolence to others (推己及人).” When one is able to practice loyalty (忠) and compassion (恕) in dyad interaction, she/he is complying to the Confucian ethical principle of benevolence(ren).
Conceiving in terms of Western ethics, “to exert oneself to the principle of sincerity” is positive duty or duty of commission that is most likely to be used in interacting with others of expressive tie or mixed tie (see Figure 2), while “Do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself” is negative duty or duty of omission that can be applied to everybody. Kant argued that it cannot be a universal law without taking the whole ethical system into consideration; therefore, he made a misjudgment of Eurocentric bias.
Contextualized universalism
The complexity of Confucian ethics makes it inappropriate to use any Western idea of social science to understand its functioning. For instance, American sociologist Parsons (1949) proposed a set of contrast between universalism and particularism for interpreting Max Weber’s comparison between Protestant ethics and Confucian ethics. He argued that the ethical universalism of West emphasizes the importance of impersonal rules that can be applied to everybody. But, Confucian ethics endorse personal and particularistic structure of relationships with others, so it provides a case of ethical particularism.
Chinese sociologist Lin (2002) indicated that both Weber and Parsons noted only the particularistic aspect of Confucian ethics, but neglected its other aspect of combining particularism and universalism. For Confucians, universalism and particularism are not concepts of binary opposition; they should be viewed as two aspects of a totality, which can be termed as contextualized universalism (Lin, 2002).
Many scholars have similar views on the characteristic of binary but not opposition in Chinese culture. Bodde (1953) argued that Chinese way of thinking attempts to integrate the conflicting elements into a unitary harmonious totality. The concept of polarity can be found everywhere in Chinese philosophy, while elements of polarity ae conceptualized as mutually dependent and complementary, but not independent and mutually exclusive.
Confucian morphogenesis
The concept of contextualized universalism can best be illustrated by the morphogenesis of Confucian ethics. In his dialogue with Duke Ai, Confucius defined the five cardinal relationships categories as “five broad Dao” without mentioning any specific ethics for dyad interaction between sovereign and minister, father and son, husband and wife, elder brother and younger, and the intercourse of friends. Later, Mencius carefully evaluated the role characteristics of these five relationships and proposed the most appropriate ethical principle for each of them: Between father and son, there should be affection (親); between sovereign and subordinate, righteousness (義); between husband and wife, attention to their separate functions (別); between elder brother and younger, a proper order (序); and between friends, trustworthiness (信). (The Works of Mencius, Chap. 4A: Teng Wengong)
What are the things which humans consider righteous (yi)? Kindness (慈) on the part of the father, and filial duty (孝) on that of the son; gentleness (友) on the part of the elder brother, and obedience (恭) on that of the younger; righteousness (義) on the part of the husband, and submission (聽) on that of the wife; kindness on the part of the elders, and deference on that of juniors: benevolence (仁) on the part of the ruler, and loyalty (忠) on that of the minister. These are the ten things that humans consider to be right.
If we see only either Mencius’ five substantial values or the ten righteousness, we may say that Confucian ethics are particularistic. Nevertheless, if we take the whole Confucian ethical system into consideration, we will certainty get another conclusion. Because the Confucian ethical system for ordinary peoples (Figure 2) is a transcendental formal structure, any of the substantial ethical values must contain benevolence–righteousness–propriety, but benevolence–righteousness–propriety do not equivalent to any of the substantial ethical value. This specific relationship implies that Confucian substantial ethical values may change from time to time, but its transcendental formal structure is rooted in the universal deep structure of mechanism for social interaction, it is robust and unlikely to change with the external circumstance. This means the so-called contextualized universalism of Confucianism in last section (Lin, 2002).
Confucian moral topography in multiculturalism
In his masterpiece Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity, Charles Taylor (1989) argued that self is existing in a moral space where one has to deal with such questions as what kind of person she/he must be, how to evaluates various alternatives, and how to judge his/her final choices, and so on. An individual has to find one’s position in such space where she/he can formularize his/her own perspective.
The moral topography of the self advocated by Taylor (1989) can be described concretely by my Mandala model of self (Hwang, 2011). Language is the most important carrier of cultural tradition. All Chinese cultural heritage, including Daoism, Confucianism, Legalism, Martial School, as well as Buddhism, has been stored in the social stock of knowledge or one’s collective unconscious which may become the live goods of most Chinese. But, “common people practice the way of Heaven without noticing what they are” (I Ching, Ten Wings), if any of those cultural systems had been transformed into objective knowledge and acquired by the individual through the process of explicit learning, it may become a kind of constitutive goods stored in one’s personal stock of knowledge, which has a higher probability of being activated as hyper goods in competition with thoughts of utilitarianism and hedonism in the moral space of multiculturalism during the age of globalization.
Conclusion
In her comments on the first draft of this article, senior cultural psychologist Sundararajan (personal communication) conjectured that Kant mentioned Confucian silver rule in one of the footnotes to his masterpiece because he was thinking about golden rule of Aristotle which was stated in positive term: “Do unto others what you want others to do unto you.”
Her speculation might be correct. My “If you seek justice, choose for others what you would choose for yourself.” (Baha’i) “One should seek for others the happiness one derives for one’s self.” (Buddhism) “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” (Christianity) “Do naught to others which if done to thee would cause pain.” (Hinduism) “No one of you is a believer until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself.” (Islam) “What is hurtful to yourself, do not do to our fellow man.” (Judaism)
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
