Liu Qingping:To Become a Filial Son, a Loyal Subject, or a Humane Person?—On the Confucian Ideas about Humanity

To Become a Filial Son, a Loyal Subject, or a Humane Person?
—On the Confucian Ideas about Humanity

Confucius, Mencius, and Xunzi regard the human as an emotional being and especially consider such moral feelings as humane love, filial piety, and devoted loyalty to be the constituent elements of humanity. On the one hand, they try to integrate the corresponding multiple roles of the humane person, filial son, and loyal subject in harmony in order to make one become a true human in the ethical sense; on the other hand, they assign a supreme position merely to filial piety or loyalty in cases of conflict because they regard one’s parents or ruler as the greatest root of one’s life, respectively. As a result, their ideas about humanity fall into some in-depth moral paradoxes, which might be resolved by a post-Confucian transformation of the traditional Confucian framework from particularistic consanguinism to universalistic humanism.

Confucianism is surely a humanist theory because it pays most attention to the problem ‘how to become a true human’. However, a few more specific questions may be more significant: What kind of humanist theory is it? What kind of human being does it hope one becomes ultimately? Through a critical reading of such Confucian classics as the Lunyu, the Mengzi, and the Xunzi, this essay tries to discuss the Confucian ideas about humanity and examine some in-depth paradoxes contained in these ideas. 

The Human as an Emotional Being
As is well known, most Western rationalist philosophers usually define the human as a rational being. For example, Socrates is convinced that the gods have implanted in humans the noblest type of soul with the faculty of reasoning, whereby humans are able to acquire knowledge and reason about things, so that they are peerless by nature in comparison with other animals (see Xenophon, 1959, p. 61, p. 303). In his view, thus, it is the ‘reason’, an inborn ability to think logically, that separates humans from other animals. By contrast, the Confucian thinkers seem to regard the human first of all as an emotional being and some specific inborn or learned moral emotions (qing) as the intrinsic elements of humanity that can distinguish humans from other animals.

It is said that Confucius seldom talked about ‘xing’ with his disciples (see Lunyu 5:13).  This does not imply, yet, that he has no idea of humanity, for he does claim that ‘Human beings cannot herd with birds and beasts’ (Lunyu 18:6). In addition, he also repeatedly stresses the importance of such moral sentiments as ren (humaneness) and xiao (filial piety) to being a true human. He says, ‘If one be without ren, what has one to do with ritual propriety? If one be without ren, what has one to do with music?’ (Lunyu 3:3) This saying highlights the vital significance of ren, a sort of universal love for fellow humans, not only for maintaining propriety and music in an explicit way but also for the human as a moral being in an implicit way. To be sure, today we can distinguish in Confucius’ teachings between ren as a specific virtue of humane love and ren as a general virtue that embraces all specific virtues and thus can make a person truly human (see Chan, 1955, pp. 297-298). Nonetheless, we may not overlook the simple fact that Confucius himself never separates them from each other definitely, but just employs this single term to refer to both of them. It suggests that, for him, to love one’s fellow humans in a humane way is essential for one to be a true human. Meanwhile, You Ruo, one of his most distinguished disciples whose words have often been regarded to resemble those of the Master himself, remarks: ‘Filial piety and brotherly respect are the root of ren’ (Lunyu 1:2). No matter whether here ren means humane love or the all-embracing virtue or even the human being per se, this remark deems filial piety, a kind of particular kinship love for parents, fundamental to the human as a moral being. It is true that, like humaneness to fellow humans as well as loyalty to ruler, filial piety to parents as a virtue is more than an emotion in the Confucian framework. However, its emotional dimension is plainly far more essential and decisive than its practical one, as one may be called authentically filial only if one has a sincere affection for one’s parents in the service of them. It is in this sense that Confucius asks, ‘The filial piety of nowadays means supporting parents. But even dogs and horses can be supported in a similar way. If one does not revere one’s parents, what is the difference?’ (Lunyu 2:7) These ideas of Confucius have set the keynote for Mencius’ and Xunzi’s theories of humanity.

Mencius displays a clearer tendency to relate humanity to moral emotions when he puts forward a systematic theory of human nature and develops the celebrated topic of the distinctions between humans and beasts (ren shou zhi bian) (see Shun, 1997, pp. 183-186). First, he argues that the ‘hearts’ of compassion, shame, modesty, and approving and disapproving are not only the beginnings of the four cardinal Confucian virtues but also the constituent elements of humanity, for whoever is devoid of these ‘hearts’ is no longer the human being proper (Mengzi 2A6).  All these ‘hearts’ denote ‘feelings’, as Zhu Xi observes (Zhu, 1983, p. 238); even the ‘heart of approving and disapproving’ (shifei zhi xin) as the beginning of wisdom does not refer to the faculty of reasoning to acquire rational knowledge of the world, but first of all to moral judgment with emotional implications. As Benjamin Schwartz comments on Mencius’ position, ‘If properly “nourished” and if unblocked by impediments, such feelings will grow plantlike into the full maturity of the four cardinal moral sentiments which together constitute the fully actualized human nature’ (Schwartz, 1985, p. 267). Thus, Mencius more often uses ren, which by him is said to begin with the ‘heart’ of compassion and is defined as the ‘nature’ of the superior man rooted in his heart (Mengzi 7A21), to emphasize affective concern or love (Shun, 1997, p. 49).  Secondly, he also stresses the key role of some particular moral feelings, such as love between father and son and righteousness (yi) between ruler and subject, in humanity. In his famous criticisms on Yangzi and Mozi, Mencius declares, ‘Yang’s principle is “everyone for oneself”, which means a denial of the particular claims of ruler. Mo’s principle is “universal impartial love”, which means a denial of the particular affection for father. But to acknowledge neither father nor ruler is to be in the state of a beast’ (Mengzi 3B9). As a result, filial piety and loyalty form the very distinctions between humans and beasts. It is noteworthy that these distinctions are not biological but ethical, since the ‘beast’ here does not refer to some biological species distinctive from humans, but to the person who is devoid of filial piety or loyalty and thus is considered to be a human without the humanity identified by Confucianism or even a ‘human beast’ (see Ames, 1991, p. 149, pp. 162-164). Only from this perspective can we explain why Zhu Xi denounces Yang and Mo as ‘beasts’ (Zhu, 1983, p. 272) on the one hand and yet calls some animals like wolf and ant ‘humane beasts’  because of their ‘filial piety’ or ‘loyalty’ (Zhu, 1986, p. 73) on the other hand.  In terms of the Confucian ethic, undoubtedly, the ‘human beast’ is far worse than the ‘humane beast’.

While Xunzi is sharply divergent from Mencius on the issue whether human nature is good or evil, he also spotlights its intrinsic connection with emotions, holding that ‘The like and dislike, delight and anger, sorrow and pleasure of the nature are called emotions…. The emotions are the substance of the nature’ (Xunzi 22:1b, 22:5b).  For this reason, he even introduces a new concept of ‘qingxing’ (emotional nature) and takes it as the ‘basic motivational structure’ of human beings (see Cua, 2005, p. 14). In his view, indeed, merely following these inborn emotions will result in evil; yet, the goodness of  human nature realized by purposeful activity (wei) just lies in the ‘way of propriety and righteousness’, which is full of learned moral sentiments such as loyalty and filial piety (Xunzi 23:1a, 23:5a). He touches on the distinctions between humans and beasts thereby:

What makes humans as truly human lies in…their ability to draw distinctions. Though beasts have father and son, they have no love between father and son; though beasts have male and female, they have no proper separation between man and woman. …Of all distinctions, none is greater than hierarchical differentiations; of all hierarchical differentiations, none is greater than propriety; according to propriety, none is greater than sage kings. (Xunzi 5:4)

At first glance, Xunzi seems to regard the ability to make distinction alone as humanity. However, what he proceeds to state clearly shows that, like Mencius, he also values the vital importance of a few particular human relationships and corresponding moral feelings, such as love between father and son and righteousness between ruler and subject, to becoming a true human. It is in this sense that Xunzi says, ‘Beasts have awareness but no sense of righteousness (yi). Humans have vital breath, life, awareness, and, in addition, a sense of righteousness’ (Xunzi 9:16a). Therefore, we may safely argue that Xunzi explains both human nature and humanity chiefly in terms of human emotions.

Of course, the Confucian thinkers never ignore the important role of learning (xue), knowledge (zhi), and thinking (si) in human existence. Nonetheless, this does not mean that they take these factors also as what makes a person truly human, as many modern scholars argue under the subtle influence of Western rationalist philosophy.  For these thinkers, rather, they should be deemed the function (yong) instead of the substance (ti) for being a true human. In other words, they can help a person further strengthen and extend those moral affections essential to humans through self-cultivation, but they themselves alone cannot make a person truly human. For example, Mencius insists that the substance of ‘wisdom’ consists in ‘knowing to serve parents and obey elder brother and not departing from these two things’ (Mengzi 4A27). Xunzi also says, ‘what made Yu a Yu was that he practiced humaneness, righteousness, obedience to law, and rectitude…. Thus it is clear that everyone on the street can become a Yu because they have the capacity for knowing them and the means to carry out them’ (Xunzi 23:5a). Within the Confucian framework, then, these factors would be of little significance if they could not take those moral emotions as their own ‘substance’. Fung Yu-lan even claims in this sense, ‘Chinese philosophers for the most part have not regarded knowledge as something valuable in itself…. If a man is a Sage, he remains a Sage even if he is completely lacking in intellectual knowledge; if he is an evil man, he remains evil even though he may have boundless knowledge’ (Fung, 1952, p. 2). The reason is quite simple: for Confucianism, what really can make a person a sage is not at all knowledge, but is such cardinal moral sentiments as humane love, filial piety, devoted loyalty, etc.

To sum up, all the three classical Confucian thinkers regard the human primarily as an emotional being with various moral feelings, not as a rational being with the faculty of reasoning.  In this sense, we may call Confucianism ‘moral-emotional humanism’, which is in sharp contrast to the ‘cognitive-rational humanism’ of Western philosophy. In view of this point, surely we have no sound reason to describe Confucianism as ‘practical rationalism’ or ‘moral reason’ in the proper sense.

Choices before Moral Dilemmas
Since each of the moral emotions cherished by Confucianism can prompt some specific activities, the ‘true human being’ identified by it may be also ‘incarnated’ by some specific roles—a humane person, a filial son, a loyal subject, etc.—in real life. It goes without saying that Confucianism always encourages one to realize a harmonious unity of these multiple roles. For instance, You Ruo remarks in defining filial piety as the root of humaneness, ‘Few of those who are filial and fraternal will show disrespect to their superiors’ (Lunyu 1:2). According to him, then, the ‘superior man’ (junzi) of the Confucian kind may be described as a person who can not only be humane to fellow humans but also be loyal to ruler on the very root of filial piety to parents.

The other side of the coin is, yet, that since those different affections are essentially aimed at different persons—parents, ruler, or other people in general—respectively, these multiple roles may conflict with one another in real life so that the Confucian agent has to face moral dilemmas of competing values. Methodologically speaking, moreover, this kind of situations seem more helpful for us to determine further what kind of humanism Confucianism is at bottom. Indeed, we could hardly discern the Confucian thinkers’ differential attitudes towards those different feelings and roles in the cases of harmony, as they usually value all of them to a similar extent. Only through a careful analysis of the cases of conflict could we find out which one of those sentiments is deemed the ultimate element of humanity and which one of those roles the ultimate goal of personality development by them, since they have to make their choices before moral dilemmas and thereby display their value orientations in this respect.

In the Lunyu and the Mengzi, Confucius and Mencius discuss quite a few cases of conflict between humane love and filial piety. Significantly, they just take an identical position that one ought to give up the role of a humane person and choose the role of a filial son. For example, Confucius holds that one should conceal the misconduct of one’s father even if he steals a sheep (Lunyu 13:18). Contrary to Herbert Fingarette’s view that ‘We could have no better proof than this that the problem of genuine choice among real alternatives never occurred to Confucius’ (Fingarette, 1972, p.23), here he is not only at a crossroads of moral dilemma, but he also makes a genuine choice between such two real alternatives as filial piety to the father and humane love for the victim of the theft. Likewise, Mencius contends that Shun, as a sage king, should secretly take his father on his back and flee to the edge of the Sea and live there happily even if his father kills a person, and raise his brother to be the prince of Youbi in order to enrich and ennoble his brother even if his brother is the most destitute of humaneness, at a cost of his humane love for the murdered person along with his family and for the people of Youbi (Mengzi 7A35, 5A3). It must be stressed that what the Confucian agents do in these cases is not merely to display their partial or differential love for different people, but it seriously harms the proper interests of the victims to benefit their relatives in an improper way, which plainly amounts to a negation of their humane love for the innocent victims (see Liu, 2007, pp. 1-19). In these two classic texts, more significantly, Confucius and Mencius never take the contrary position that one may sacrifice filial piety for humane love in case of conflict. Accordingly, we may safely argue that both the Confucian thinkers regard filial piety rather than humane love as the ultimate element of humanity, because they give top priority to the role of a filial son over the role of a humane person.

Their specific orientation in the cases of conflict can be further proven by their general belief that not humane love but filial piety along with loyalty could form the bottom line for the human as a moral being. While assessing Zhongyou and Ran Qiu as mere ‘ordinary ministers,’ Confucius is convinced that they would never follow the order of patricide or regicide (Lunyu 11:24). In other words, he regards practicing filial piety and loyalty, not humane government, as the moral minimum for a minister. Zilu, another disciple of his, also holds that proper order between old and young and righteousness between ruler and subject are the most important relationships for humans (Lunyu 18:7). According to Mengzi 3B9, similarly, one will fall into the state of a beast like Mozi even if one impartially loves all humans (including one’s father) without giving priority to filial piety as well as to loyalty. According to Mengzi 7A35, by contrast, one will lay a solid foundation for being a sage king like Shun even if one loves one’s father in a particularistic way at a cost of one’s humane love for other people. It is also in this sense that Mencius declares, ‘The humaneness of Yao and Shun did not extend to the point of loving all humans, but they urgently cultivated the affections for their parents and the worthy’ (Mengzi 7A46). He even comes to a general conclusion that ‘one can have no greater sins than to neglect one’s parents and relatives, and the relationships between ruler and subject or superior and inferior’ (Mengzi 7A34). For both the thinkers, therefore, the role of a filial son or a loyal subject as a true human could overrides the role of a humane person as a true human substantively.

While regarding these two particular virtues as the bottom line for one’s moral existence, furthermore, Confucius and Mencius seem to put filial piety above loyalty in the cases of conflict. According to the context of Lunyu 13:18, the son concealing his father’s misconduct would abandon not only his humane love for the victim but also his loyalty to the ruler. In a discussion with Zai Wo about the three-year mourning for late parents, Confucius also holds that, in order to requite his parents’ love for him, the superior man ought to observe this ritual even at the risk of making propriety go to ruin and music collapse by forsaking his duty for ruler (Lunyu 17:21). Despite dealing with few cases of the direct conflict between filial piety and loyalty, Mencius also always places the relationship between father and son above the one between ruler and subject. This position is expressed not only by the order of the ‘five human relationships’ described in Mengzi 3A4 but also by the two cases of Shun discussed in Mengzi 7A35 and 5A3. He even insists that nothing else is more important than filial piety in human life, since ‘The service of parents is the greatest’ (Mengzi 4A19).  For the two thinkers, then, although such moral feelings as filial piety, loyalty, and humane love all belong to the substance (ti) of humanity, filial piety alone may be called the ‘greatest substance’ (dati) of humanity. It is against this Confucian stance that Han Feizi remarks, ‘a man who is a filial son to his father may be a traitorous subject to his lord. The magistrate of Ch’u executed a man, and as a result the felonies of the state were never reported to the authorities; Confucius rewarded a man, and as a result the people of Lu thought nothing of surrendering or running away in battle’ (Watson, 1964, p. 106).

In Xunzi’s teachings, as Homer Dubs observes, ‘Jen [ren, humaneness] has almost disappeared. It remains only as an attribute of the benevolent and kindly prince who seeks the welfare of his people’ (Dubs, 1927, p. 135). Consequently, Xunzi pays more attention to the conflict between filial piety and loyalty than to the one between filial piety and humaneness, and his position on this issue seems quite different from the other two Confucian thinkers. He says, ‘It is of minor value to be filial at home and respectful to the elders abroad’ (Xunzi 29:1). Obviously, this statement is diametrically opposed to Mencius’ one that ‘The service of parents is the greatest.’ What is the greatest for Xunzi, then? In defining ‘what makes humans as truly human’, as stated above, he stresses that ‘according to propriety, none is greater than sage kings’ (Xunzi 5:4). In his view, thus, it is not filial piety to parents but loyalty to ruler that forms the ultimate element of humanity, and one surely ought to sacrifice the former for the latter in the cases of conflict. Indeed, Xunzi claims, ‘It is of major value to follow the way rather than ruler, and to follow righteousness rather than father’ (Xunzi 29:1). Though he puts the ‘way’ above ruler as well, here his authentic intention would rather be to emphasize that righteousness between ruler and subject could trump love between father and son, for sage kings alone are the greatest precisely in the ‘way of the human’ (Xunzi 5:4). It is true that this stance of Xunzi comes to some extent under the influence of Legalism (Fajia), a theory that assigns a supreme position to the authority of ruler alone. Nevertheless, it still belongs to the Confucian framework in large measure because, as stated above, Confucius and Mencius never totally deny the crucial importance of loyalty as one of the essential elements of humanity, and Xunzi never totally denies the crucial importance of filial piety as one of the essential elements of humanity, either. The subtle difference between them is simply that Confucius and Mencius prefer to give top priority to filial piety in the cases of conflict, whereas Xunzi prefers to give it to loyalty.

Although their difference in this issue is primarily a theoretical one, it is of great significance for the historic fate of Confucianism as a political ideology. For the very reason that Han Feizi points out, no ruler in ancient China would really hope to put the Confucian ideas into practice and educate his subjects to give up their loyalty to himself in order to preserve their filial piety to parents in the cases of conflict. That is the main reason why Confucius and Mencius kept failing to be employed by their contemporary rulers. Doctrinally speaking, it is chiefly because Xunzi made those subtle and decisive adjustments to their theories and put the relationship between ruler and subject above the one between father and son, which was expressively embodied in the so-called ‘three bonds’ (sangang) first established in the Han dynasty, that Confucianism could have eventually become the sole orthodox ideology in ancient China since the same dynasty. 

Then we may find some moral paradoxes in the choices of these Confucian thinkers. One of them comes from the well-known dilemma that ‘loyalty and filial piety cannot be both attained at the same time’ (zhong xiao buneng liangquan). While the ‘three bonds’ definitely prescribed that one should place the authority of ruler above the one of father, one would still have to make a tough and painful decision in such a dilemma due to the profound impact of Confucianism. No matter whether one sacrifices kinship love for the greatest righteousness between ruler and subject (dayi mie qin) or sacrifices political righteousness for the greatest love between father and son, one’s existence as a moral being will hopelessly fall into a tragic state of half-human and half-beast according to Mencius’ standard that ‘to acknowledge neither father nor ruler is to be in the state of a beast’. Another moral paradox coming from the dilemma that ‘humaneness and filial piety or loyalty cannot be both attained at the same time’ is perhaps more significant, though it has often been covered by the former one. On the one hand, Confucianism believes that one cannot truly develop humane love for fellow humans unless one first develops filial love for one’s parents; on the other hand, it has to demand that, in case of conflict, one should sacrifice the role of a humane person for the role of a filial son or loyal subject at the cost of the proper interests of other people in general. As a result, it will inevitably confine its ideal of personality development to the partial dimensions of filial piety and loyalty. In spite of its overt stress on the importance of universal humane love, then, Confucianism is no longer a genuine kind of universalistic humanism, but it eventually becomes a narrow-minded kind of particularistic humanism, since it hopes that one should ultimately become a filial son or a loyal subject, not a humane person.

The Root of One’s Existence as a Human
A further question arises, then: why do these Confucian thinkers prefer to give top priority to the particular dimensions of filial piety and loyalty, not to the universal one of humane love that is apparently loftier and nobler, so that their ideas about humanity fall into in-depth moral paradoxes? Viewed from a theoretical perspective, an important reason seems to be their explanations of the root of one’s existence as a human being.
In the dialogue about the three-year mourning, Confucius presents some strong grounds for his position: ‘It is not till a child is three years old that it is allowed to leave the arms of its parents…. Could Zai Wo also show the three-year love for his parents?’ (Lunyu 17:21) In his view, since one’s parents not only gave birth to one but also brought one up with parental love, certainly one ought to respect and requite them by carrying out such filial practice as the three-year mourning with sincere affection, even at a cost of one’s responsibility for the ruler or humane government (see Liu, 2006, pp. 173-188). We may say that the famous remark of You Ruo in Lunyu 1:2 is also based on the same grounds: since one’s parents are the root of one’s life as a human, certainly filial piety ought to be regarded as the root of one’s moral existence as a human, too.

Mencius further develops this idea of Confucius. When rebutting the Moist Yizi’s position that ‘one ought to love all humans without distinctions and yet the application of this love should begin with one’s parents’, he gives a similar account for the Confucian position that kinship love for relatives should trump humane love for strangers absolutely: ‘When Heaven produces things, it always gives them one root, yet Yizi treats them as having two roots’ (Mengzi 3A5). Zhu Xi explains this claim as follows: ‘One’s birth must be rooted in one’s parents alone, not in other people; this is out of the principle of nature, as if Heaven makes it so’ (Zhu, 1983, p. 262). Put differently, since one’s life has no other origin than one’s parents, certainly one should give supremacy to filial piety and regard the service of one’s parents alone as the greatest. Otherwise, ‘If one cannot get the hearts of one’s parents, one cannot be considered a true human’ (Mengzi 4A28). By contrast, since those strangers on the street are not the root of one’s life, humane love for them is surely not the bottom line of one’s moral existence, though it is also quite important in the ethical life. As a result, one has sufficient reason to sacrifice everything else, including humane love for other people or loyalty to ruler, for filial piety to parents in case of conflict. In this way, Mencius persuasively justifies the top priority of filial piety on the basis of the fact that one’s parents alone can give birth to one.

As a Confucian thinker, Xunzi does not negate the principle that one’s parents are the root of one’s life as a human. In order to provide a solid foundation for his distinctive idea about humanity, he puts forward a new doctrine of ‘three roots’: ‘Propriety has three roots. Heaven and Earth are the root of life, ancestors are the root of species, and ruler and teachers are the root of order…. If even one of these three were lacking, one as a human would not be at ease’ (Xunzi 19:2a). Strictly speaking, Mencius does not negate the principle that Heaven is the root of everything in this world. In his view, however, the significance of Heaven in this regard is compatibly consistent with the one of one’s parents as one’s single root, for only one’s parents can give birth to one in a direct way according to the Heavenly principle. Thus, it is not necessary for Mencius to list Heaven as another independent root of one’s existence. Considering Xunzi’s original idea of ‘distinguishing between Heaven and humans’ (Xunzi 17:1), in addition, it seems odd for him to define Heaven as the first root of humans in such a noticeable way. Perhaps it would be better to say that his authentic intention is to contradict Mencius’ theory of ‘one root’ and pave the way for regarding the ruler as the third root. As a matter of fact, Xunzi does make a striking contrast between one’s parents and ruler as the two separate roots of one’s existence. In explaining the key reason why one should practice the three-year mourning also for the late ruler, he remarks, ‘People always look up to their ruler as to a parent. A father can beget a child, but he cannot suckle it. A mother can suckle it, but she cannot educate it. The ruler can not only feed his subjects, but can also educate them wisely. Is three years not too short a time to mourn for him?’ (Xunzi 19:10)  In his view, obviously, the import of the ruler as the root of one’s existence is even far greater than one’s parents. It certainly follows that the greatest thing for one in human life is not merely to become a filial son, but is first and foremost to become a loyal subject, since only by so doing can one fairly repay the ruler for what he has done for one.

Plainly, all the three Confucian thinkers try to justify their ideas about humanity from the perspective of the ‘root’ of human life. Comparatively speaking, Confucius’ and Mencius’ arguments seem to accord with the direct experience of ancient people more than Xunzi’s and thus to be more persuasive. While often worshiping ‘Heaven, Earth, ruler, parents, and teachers’ in an inseparable way (from which we can easily find out the imprint of Xunzi’s theory of ‘three roots’), then, the Chinese people have usually treated their parents alone as the sole and greatest root. Correspondingly, as Max Weber points out, ‘Family piety, resting on the belief in spirits, was by far the strongest influence on man’s conduct’ (Weber, 1964, p. 236). At least, no matter whether consciously accepting the ‘three bonds’ or not, most Neo- and New-Confucians have embraced Confucius’ and Mencius’ ideas about humanity without reservation and yet excluded Xunzi’s from the Confucian orthodoxy due to its Legalist mark. Based on the belief that ‘One’s birth must be rooted in one’s parents alone’, for instance, Zhu Xi agrees with all those choices of sacrificing humane love or loyalty for filial piety made by Confucius and Mencius and even commends them as ‘the perfect expression of the Heavenly principle and human feelings’ (Zhu, 1983, p.146). When refuting Hu Shi’s ‘intellectualistic doubt’ why one should not wear glasses with the golden frame but with the silver frame during the mourning period for one’s late parents according to the Confucian principle of filial piety, Zongsan Mou also declares: ‘As soon as you ask why in this regard, you are not a human but a beast’ (Mou, 2003, p. 447). Put another way, though Mou does define the ‘heart of humaneness’ as the ‘fundamental heart’ (ben xin) of humans, he still considers filial piety to be the ultimate distinction between humans and beasts. Consequently, the mainstream of Confucianism has always cherished consanguineous affection alone as the most decisive element of humanity and taken the filial son alone as the ultimate goal of becoming a true human. In this sense we may say that, as a kind of particularistic humanism, Confucianism is even neither ‘communitarianism’ nor ‘familism’ in general, but is ‘consanguinism’ or ‘filialism’ in particular (see Liu, 2003, pp. 234-250).

A Post-Confucian Conception of humanity
Theoretically speaking, the primary fault of the Confucian ideas about humanity seems to be: they overestimate the significance of one’s parents and ruler as the roots of one’s existence and further mistake the particular roles of the filial son and loyal subject for the ultimate elements of universal humanity.

Undoubtedly, only one’s parents can give birth to one. Besides, one will certainly receive love, care, or education in one’s life from such specific persons as one’s parents, teachers, and superiors, who thus have great impacts on one’s personal growth and stand in some particular relations to one. Correspondingly, one should also play one’s proper roles as a filial son, a good disciple, and a loyal inferiors in these relations, respectively. No matter how important these relations and roles are in human life, however, none of them could form the ultimate essence of the human as such. Actually, one’s parents can give one by birth merely one’s material existence as a human (one’s natural life, organic body, genetic features, etc.), not one’s ultimate essence as a human per se. Likewise, while those specific persons standing in particular relations to one can indeed help one learn knowledge or cultivate one’s morality, neither these persons nor these relations constitute the ultimate source of one’s existence as a human per se. After all, the ultimate essence of these persons as humans per se does not come from their parents by birth or other specific persons standing in particular relations to them; otherwise, we would fall into a vicious circle. Hence, the ultimate essence of one as a human per se does not come from any of one’s particular roles in these particular relations, either. In the final analysis, it comes mainly from one’s universal relation to all humans, including one’s parents, teachers, superiors, and oneself as humans, since the so-called ‘humankind’ exists first and foremost as a species in this world and it is in this species that every individual member of it can become a ‘human being’ in the strict sense. Put another way, the ultimate essence of one as a human per se is established primarily on one’s universal relation to all humans, not merely on one’s particular relations to one’s parents or ruler—on which the particular roles such as a filial son or loyal subject could be established. When the Confucian thinkers greatly highlight those particular relations and roles and even deem them ultimate and supreme in an undue way, they relatively underestimate the fundamental significance of one’s universal relation to this species (that is, to all humans) and of one’s universal role as a humane person in this relation for one’s ultimate essence as a human per se, thereby falling into some in-depth moral paradoxes.

Fortunately, Confucianism seems to be able to resolve these paradoxes by its own efforts. As stated above, the Confucian concept of ‘humaneness’ means first of all one’s universal love for all humans and thus refers to a important dimension of one’s moral existence in the universal relation to all humans per se, which is also expressed explicitly by the celebrated idiom ‘yi shi tong ren’ (treating all humans with the same humaneness). As is well known, moreover, there is a Confucian maxim that ‘Humaneness means the human’ (Zhongyong 20, Mengzi 7B16; see Zhu, 1983, p. 28, p. 367), which suggests the decisive significance of humaneness for becoming a true human. As Peter Boodberg says, ‘the consubstantiality of the two terms is part and parcel of the fundamental stratum of Chinese linguistic consciousness’ (Boodberg, 1953, p. 328). Indeed, this ancient maxim would fully recover its great vitality today if we first reinterpret ‘humaneness’ as the sincere respect for the basic rights and proper welfare of all humans and then assign an ultimate position to it alone in a new framework of Confucianism through its self-transformation.  As a result, the ‘humaneness’ with this new meaning and position could surely be set as an ultimate moral standard by which a human becomes the true human in the ethical sense, because it is plain that one will inevitably be immoral if one violates this standard by seeking private interests for oneself or one’s relatives at a cost of the basic rights and proper welfare of other people, that is, at a cost of one’s universal humane love for other people. According to this very standard, in other words, one becomes the true human in the ethical sense not because one is merely a filial son or a loyal subject, but ultimately because one is essentially a humane person.

It is true that, in this self-transformation of the Confucian framework, we have to cease to regard particular filial piety to parents or loyalty to superiors as the ultimate essence of the human per se and to place them above universal humane love absolutely. However, it does not imply that we should totally negate the great value of these virtues themselves. In view of the importance of those particular relations for one’s personal growth, they may still form the significant elements of one’s moral existence on the ultimate basis of humane love. Put differently, a humane person still has the duty to play one’s proper roles as a filial son, a good disciple, and a loyal inferiors in these particular relations. According to a new interpretation of the traditional Confucian principle of ‘love with distinctions’, furthermore, one may be even encouraged to love those persons standing in particular relations to one to a greater extent precisely on the single premise:  this greater love will infringe the basic rights and proper welfare of anybody else under no circumstances; otherwise, this greater love would become immoral like Shun’s partial love for his father and brother described in Mengzi 5A3 and 7A35.

To be sure, one seems to have to give up filial piety or loyalty in order to maintain humane love in the cases of conflict in light of the ultimate position of the latter. Nevertheless, this universalistic choice will not fall into moral paradoxes as the particularistic ones of Confucius, Mencius and Xunzi do, for it is grounded ultimately on the universal humane love for all humans, including one’s parents or other persons who stand in particular relations to one, and therefore will not injure the basic rights and proper welfare of these specific persons as humans per se. In other words, one will not harm the basic rights and proper welfare of one’s father as a human per se even if one has to sacrifice filial piety for humane love in the cases that one’s father steals a sheep or kills an innocent person. We may take Shun and Yu, the two legendary sage kings in remote antiquity, for the exemplifications of these two kinds of choices, respectively. Because of his particularistic position that kinship love can trump humane love, Shun’s choices described in Mengzi 5A3 and 7A35 are not only biased toward the improper interests of his relatives but are also harmful to the proper welfare of other people. Due to his universalistic position that humane love is supreme and sacred, on the other hand, Yu’s choices, who ‘was eight years away from his home and thrice passed his door without entering it’ when he was busy with ‘repressing the floods and putting the empire in order’ according to Mengzi 3A4, 3B9, and 4B29, can extensively confer benefit on the people and assist all merely at a cost of family reunion. While also facing a dilemma between the universal and the particular, therefore, Yu’s choices do not fall into an in-depth moral paradox as Shun’s ones do.  

Such a transformation seems to be a kind of deconstruction of Confucianism, since universal humane love will substitute for particular filial piety and loyalty as its ultimate mainstay and thereby its particularistic framework of consanguinism will be overturned upside down. Therefore, it may be called a ‘post-Confucian’ transformation in this sense. On the other hand, it can be also seen that almost all characteristically Confucian ideas—perhaps with a single exception of its traditional idea about the relationship between ruler and subject—will remain within its new universalistic humanist framework based on the ultimate dimension of humaneness. Then, this post-Confucian transformation is still an authentic ‘Confucian’ transformation in this sense. Actually, this self-transformation is not only in complete continuity with the overt stress on the importance of humane love for all humans throughout the whole Confucian movement, but it can also effectively overcome the in-depth moral paradoxes of traditional Confucianism and help one become a true human at ethical level in a harmonious unity of those multiple roles, such as a humane person, a filial son, a good disciple, a loyal inferiors, etc.

Through this post-Confucian transformation, furthermore, Confucianism can also contribute towards the self-understanding of humankind in a characteristic way and even rectify some faults of the Western rationalist ideas about humanity in particular. In defining humans as a rational being and considering reason alone the ultimate distinction between humans and beasts, Western rationalist philosophy often overlooks to some extent the constructive significance of other truly human elements—for instance, moral sentiments such as humane love and filial piety emphasized by Confucianism—in human life, thereby falling into some in-depth paradoxes of its own. From his standpoint of ethical cognitivism, for example, Habermas still holds that moral feelings do not have a monopoly on the truth in the ethical field, though they can perform a useful ‘cognitive function’ (Habermas, 1993, pp. 174-175). By highlighting the importance of those moral emotions for becoming a true human as a moral being, certainly Confucianism can remedy the theoretical defect of Western rationalist philosophy in this regard. However, this remedy could be done only on the prerequisite that, through a deconstructive and yet creative self-transformation, Confucianism overcomes the in-depth paradoxes of its own and becomes a kind of universalistic humanism, a genuine kind of humanism that encourages everyone first of all to become a true human who is able to respect the basic rights and proper welfare of all humans.

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