Confucius believes junzi, a noble person, must be ren, a term that encapsulates a comprehensive set of ethical virtues that include “benevolence, humanness, [and] goodness” (P. vi Analects). Filial piety (xiao) is an essential virtue one must support to become a junzi. Confucius voices this requirement clearly: “the junzi works on the root” and filiality is a root of ren (Analects 1.2).
Xiao establishes the basis of how to treat one’s parents properly. To have xiao consists of practicing rituals (li), serving one’s parents needs, and more importantly, maintaining a respectful and caring attitude towards them. Practicing behavior can be demanding (e.g. a three-year mourning period after one’s parents die) (Analects 1.11). While one’s parents are alive, one “cannot make distant journeys,” so one is around to exert “all his effort when serving his parents” (Analects 1.7). Shouldering “the hardest chores” and serving “food and wine at meals” are still insufficient because “hounds and horses” receive similar service (Analects 2.7). What ultimately makes one filial is to have xiao attitude. One must “never disobey”, “bear no complaint” and possess “respectful vigilance,” and care towards one’s parents (Analects 2.7, 2.5, 2.11, 4.18). Thus, Confucius states that “the expression on the face” is what makes conducting genuine xiao difficult (Analects 2.8). “The expression” is a metaphor used to convey the significance of having the genuine filial mentality from which xiao actions bloom.
Yi is another crucial virtue of the Confucian ideology. It can be translated as righteousness and appropriateness (P. vii Analects). A junzi gives “the topmost place” to and “simply aligns himself beside” yi (Analects 4.10, 17.23). Because the junzi acknowledges yi’s supremacy, he lives in accordance to yi and yi only to always do what is appropriate and righteous. More specifically, the junzi “takes yi as his basic substance” and enacts it with “compliance” (Analects 15.18). The junzi can only act properly according to yi by placing the importance of his personal desires below yi and thus become selfless. Yi, however, is not dogmatic. Confucius gives different answers to the same question asked by different disciples. This shows that the appropriateness aspect of yi requires flexibility because one should do what is right based on the context and its participants (Analects 11.22).
Moreover, rationality and fairness are also integral to yi. Confucius suggests the idea that order originates from yi by juxtaposing valor with yi. He believes a valorous person without yi “creates chaos” (Analects 17.23). This statement implies that a person who acts with yi perpetuates order. Also, Yi is sustained through selflessness and rationality. Confucius comments that a junzi should be “generous in nurturing the people,” “righteous in directing the people,” turn his thoughts to “what is right” when “seeing profit,” and take what he wants “when it was righteous,” so “people did not take of his taking.” (Analects 5.13, 5.16, 14.13). In other words, the junzi makes sound and objective decisions that support a society’s orderliness and prosperity and achieves long-term sustainable gains through morally justifiable means. To do so, yi also requires rationality and fairness. An unfair but selfless person may still do what is best for the few close to him but not for society as a whole, although he personally receives no benefits. An irrational person tends to make poor decisions and causes chaos. With both rationality and fairness, one wants to and manages to sustain order and makes optimal decisions for society. Therefore, yi demands the junzi to have both virtues.
The most controversial story in the Analects demonstrates how xiao and yi may conflict in interpersonal situations. After hearing an “upright” man’s testifies against his father who steals a sheep, Confucius comments that in his district, “fathers coverup for their sons and sons cover up for their fathers. Uprightness lies therein.” (Analects 13.18). Regardless of what the Analects says, many will hesitate about whether to prioritize preferential love and xiao for one’s parents (i.e. protect the father from punishment from the criminal justice system), over yi for the benefit of one’s community (i.e. uphold the law by testifying against one’s father or rectify the situation somehow without resorting to government authority).
Before investigating which option is better, this paper will establish the basic premises. The primary assumption is that the son attempts to be a junzi. Since Yi reigns supreme, regardless of what the son chooses to do, a junzi cannot neglect the factor of righteousness in his solution. The second assumption is that both the son and father are willing social participants of a reasonable criminal justice system. Moreover, this paper will reflect on the value of each choice through analyzing each choice’s potential to reduce negative effects and thus restore order according to yi and xiao. The default negative effects after the theft are: 1) the sheep owner’s financial losses, 2) the father’s damaged moral integrity and 3) the damaged relationship between the father and the sheep owner.
Now this paper will present the two possible cases, analyze how the son should approach the consequences of his decision and the best justifications for each case.
The first case is that the son does not testify against the father. This is justifiable under the Confucian emphasis on xiao because if people choose to place xiao and familial bond over yi, fathers and sons should cover up for each other. But a junzi cannot stop here. The junzi with yi will attempt to restore order and be fair; he has not dealt with all the negative effects. Thus, a junzi will attempt to minimize the damage the father has inflicted on the sheep owner and the father’s own moral character (e.g. convince the father to apologize and give the sheep back with additional payment as compensation for the sheep owner’s trouble). These steps taken after one chooses to not testify against the father is aligned with xiao and mostly with yi for protecting the father from official punishment and mitigating all three negative effects mentioned above, restoring order between the sheep owner and the father.
However, one significant externality arises from this choice. The son has compromised his own moral duty as a participant in his criminal justice system and thus becomes a living example of someone who neglects the sacredness of law, indirectly harming the legitimacy of the criminal justice system that stabilizes his entire community for his father’s personal interest. The son is being unfair, a crucial aspect of yi, to other law-abiding people who would have reported their fathers in a similar scenario. He thus violates Yi by choosing to not testify against his father.
The second case is that the son chooses to testify against the father. This approach minimizes two of the three negative effects and prevents the initial violation of yi. The sheep owner will receive his compensation by official decree, and the father atones for his sin after he receives official punishment. If the son repairs the father’s relationship with the sheep owner somehow, the last effect is mitigated. Furthermore, case one’s externality is avoided—the sanctity of the criminal justice system remains unharmed. The second choice is more aligned with Yi than the first choice because the son does what is best for everyone who participates in the criminal justice system, not only for the sheep owner and his father. If the father wishes/is convinced by the son to be turned in, the son also will be making a filial decision by acting in accordance with his father’s wish.
If the father does not want to be turned in, the shortcoming of the second approach is its violation of xiao. By reporting the father to the authority against his father’s wish, he is also disobeying his father. Although obedience is not the only way to be caring and loyal to one’s parents, being disobedient is violating xiao. Confucius has stated: “If they [parents] are not inclined to follow your urgings, maintain respectfulness and do not disobey” (Analects 4.18). There may also be more serious consequences that violate xiao. For example, if the father is imprisoned, the son loses the ability to take good care of the father.
So is it ever right to turn this father in? If the father wants to be turned in, the son should choose the second approach to be both filial and righteous. He will be yi and xiao by obeying his father’s wish and repairing all three negative effects through means mentioned above.
This leaves us with a harder case when the father does not want to be turned in. If one wants to decide which approach is better by Confucian standards, one must make the verdict based on whether to prioritize not violating xiao and not act in accordance to yi, or acting in accordance to yi but violating xiao.
I believe choosing which Confucian value to always prioritize is not difficult. This paper has referenced a direct quote from Confucius that states clearly that aligning with yi is the junzi’s highest priority. If the matter is only between parents and children, usually doing what is xiao is doing what is yi because the externalities will only affect those in the family, which is the social sphere in this case. When other people are involved, xiao cannot always guide all of one’s decisions and override yi, but doing what is yi is always the best because yi is the definition of righteousness. Thus, Xunzi, a prominent Confucian philosopher, also argues that doing what is appropriate is a greater virtue than obeying one’s father (P. 306 Norden).
Working from the conclusion that we should prioritize yi, we must consider appropriateness and its relationship with righteousness. The yi decision about whether to testify against the father vary for different sons because of appropriateness. People come from different backgrounds, so for each individual, what option works best may differ. The flexibility implied by the appropriateness aspect of yi is to urge one to rationally consider all the factors to make the best creative decision rather than make rigid decisions based on some set-in-stone criteria. For example, testifying against one’s father who will be punished fairly in a broken criminal justice system for the sake of being a law-abiding citizen is not appropriate.
Now, we can consider the question, “is it ever right to turn in a family member for a crime?” Yes, it is. Because yi is flexible and a greater virtue than xiao, some scenarios will require one to turn in family members and completely ignore xiao. If all of my family members have access rights to nuclear bombs and plan to launch all the nuclear bombs in the world onto every country on Earth after I, in a caring and respectful manner, have given them the best argument anyone can possibly make to make them stop, I will turn all of them in for the crime of conspiring to murder humanity. What is at stake here is the survival of not only our species but also every human morality. Confucianism and the concept of family may all disappear.
Someone may argue that there are other ways to be just as yi but more xiao. I can somehow subdue my family members non-violently and take the time to figure out a way to convince them to stop without involving the authority, or just send them to a place where they will live a peaceful life but never be able to launch the bombs.
This outcome seems better because it accommodates xiao, but the likelihood of its success is too low and the cost of failure is too high, given that they have more people to subdue me and already won’t listen after I have given them the best argument in the world.
After weighing all the factors and priorities and following the principle of yi, we need to be flexible by prioritizing feasibility of solution over the possibility of an outcome that is perfectly yi and xiao. Turning them in and disregarding xiao is yi because it is a flexible and the more rational, selfless, and fair choice by minimizing risks and saving humanity and all human thoughts. It is thus more righteous and appropriate than trying to accomodate for xiao at all.
Citation
Ivanhoe, Philip J., and Van Norden Bryan William. Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy. Hackett Publ., 2007.
Eno, Robert. The Analects of Confucius. Online, 2015.
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