May We Harm Fellow Humans for the Sake of Kinship Love?: Responses to Critics
LIU Qingping
I am grateful to Editor HUANG Yong for giving me such a precious chance to respond to the thoughtful comments on my article “Confucianism and Corruption” (2007a), a chance of which I, through lack of guanxi, have often been deprived in the similar discussions of China’s academia. I will begin with an inspiring question of Professor BAI Tongdong (2008:3-4): suppose my mother and a stranger are about to drown and I could only save one of them, how would I do?
My reply is naïve: I may first save either my mother out of kinship love or the stranger according to radical altruism. In either case, however, I will not harm the other person. Thus, if I first save my mother with “partiality,” I will not take the stranger as a springboard and trample her down. While my capability is limited, what I do in either case is morally right, because, contrary to Bai’s sophisticated prediction that “to love one human being inevitably leads to the harm or neglect of another” in this case (2008:3), I harm no one (I do not even let the other person die indifferently), but try to benefit humans. In my view, this is the crux of the issue.
Now turn to three Confucian cases. Professor Bryan Van Norden seems convinced—his words are: “keep in mind”—that the stolen sheep in Lunyu 13.18 was bound to belong to an extremely wealthy landowner (2008:2). I wonder what the textual evidence is for this claim. In my view, it seems also likely that the sheep was the whole property of a poor family. In either situation, the son’s concealment of his father’s wrongdoing safeguarded the undeserved interests of his father—earning a faked reputation and escaping just blame and punishment—on the one hand, and refused to extricate the victims from the harm done by his father—a thing that he was able to do if he was willing to bear witness to the fact—on the other hand. Keep in mind how the poor family would lead their life without their sole sheep, and also keep in mind that it is a generally recognized moral evil to benefit one’s relatives unrightfully at the expense of others.
Suppose Gusou in Mengzi 7A35, like the main character of the movie The Brave One (see Jung 2008:2), killed a wicked man who had beaten his significant other to death (it is totally possible, since Shun had a stepmother). Suppose the punishment for him is likely to have been, at the least, amputating his foot or hand. Then I will say Shun did not become corrupted by condoning the murder. Suppose Gusou killed an innocent person out of malice. Suppose Gao Yao would punish him justly. Suppose Mengzi would hold that Gusou deserves this punishment. Then what Shun did safeguarded the undeserved interests of his father—escaping just punishment—on the one hand, and seriously did the victim an injustice as well as harmed the kinship love of the victim’s children on the other hand. Then I will say Shun become corrupted by condoning the murder. May I take the liberty to ask a naïve question to the defenders: would you, especially speaking as a Confucian, still defend Shun’s action if Gusou had killed your own innocent parent out of malice?
Suppose Xiang in Mengzi 5A3, like Robert Kennedy or Hillary Clinton (see Van Norden 2008:1-2), was qualified for his position. Then I will say Shun, like President Kennedy or Clinton, may appoint Xiang as the king. Van Norden might be surprised by my position, because he claims that “Liu’s position entails that Presidents Kennedy and Clinton did something positively immoral in giving even slight preference to their competent relatives for official positions” (2008:2). Indeed, this is a counterintuitive conclusion. Given that I have repeatedly affirmed the Confucian principles of “appointing people on their merits,” which implies “promote able persons, whether your relatives or not,” and of “love with distinctions” on the basis of humane love (2007a:5-9, 17), I wonder why Van Norden, as a well-disciplined scholar, wants to make such a claim without any textual evidence to show how absurd my position is.
Suppose Xiang was neither virtuous nor competent. Then Shun should not appoint Xiang as the king, even if he might make his personal choice to forgive Xiang. Then what Shun did is a typical corruptive act, because it enhanced the undeserved interests of his brother—occupying a profitable and honorable post without doing useful work—on the one hand, and substantively harmed the deserved interests of Youbi’s subjects on the other hand. Even if Shun, like most other nepotistic rulers, took some measures to limit Xiang’s power, he still made Xiang rich and honorable purely by the wealth created laboriously by Youbi’s subjects—an obvious fact stressed repeatedly by me and neglected by most of my critics who believe Shun’s action did not injure Youbi’s people at all. In the final analysis, the only difference these measures could make is that the degree to which Xiang harmed Youbi’s subjects is lesser, like those persons who run only fifty paces (Mengzi 1A3). Anyway, it is not a world of difference.
Bai makes it clear: “it is relatively clear to a Confucian what interests to sacrifice because there is a clear rank-ordering of interests” (2008:5). Unsurprisingly, thus, the three actions share a common feature: benefiting one’s relatives unrightfully at the expense of others. In Professors Henry Rosemont’s and Roger Ames’ words, their aim is to “protect family members at any cost” (2008:2), not merely at the cost of loyalty to the state but also at the cost of humane love for others. Or in Professor AN Yanming’s words, they show an intention that “we should…pursue all kinds of gains for our family members, even if such gains may be of cost to our neighbors or to society in general” (2008:2). As Professor Sidney Callahan remarks, “To use personal privilege and power to make an exception of one’s kin from the just and common norms of one’s community will do harm to the whole community” (2008:3). This is the key reason why these actions, though highly praised by Confucianism, are morally wrong and unacceptable in essence.
Undoubtedly, people always have various moral and other intuitions, such as “I like eating instant-boiled mutton,” “I wish my brother rich and honorable,” “I should maximize the overall utility,” etc. Most of them have “good” reasons, since they aim at something “good” at least for somebody. The problem is: these different intuitions or goods often clash with one another and thus we have to face various moral dilemmas involving various “counterintuitive” choices. For example, Van Norden might regard Professor LI Chenyang’s intuition as “counterintuitive”: “at certain point, one must tell about someone’s wrongdoing, no matter who that someone is” (2008:2). How should we solve these dilemmas? In my view, we must ultimately resort to a naïve moral intuition: “harm no one and benefit human beings.” However strongly one hopes to eat instant-boiled mutton, to make one’s brother rich and honorable, to maximize the overall utility, etc., therefore, one should not do substantive harm to any humans for the sake of these goods, since this harm is essentially an unacceptable, absolute, and ultimate moral evil. By contrasts, it is merely a tolerable imperfection to fail to realize any other goods, such as eating instant-boiled mutton, making one’s brother rich and honorable, maximizing the overall utility, etc. Correspondingly, only the moral intuition “harm no one and benefit humans,” or its modern reformulation “respect everyone’s deserved fundamental rights and interests (henceforth ‘DFRI’),” which I called the basic principle of “Critical Humanism” (2007a:14), can trump anything else, because it alone is a universal, absolute, and supreme moral good. In this sense, it just constitutes the ultimate principle of moral rightness, which is prior to any other goods: any acts against it are morally wrong, whereas any acts conforming to it are morally right. Put differently, any good, be it a personal good of self-interest, a communal good of religious faith, or a universal good of the overall harmony, is right if and only if it does not significantly violate anyone’s DFRI. Furthermore, this principle can be also regarded as the universal minimum standard of tolerance: anything harming no one is tolerable, whereas anything infringing anyone’s DFRI is intolerable.
Kinship love is certainly a communal good. However, it is neither an absolute and supreme good, nor the ultimate criterion of moral rightness. Rather, it must be subordinated to the principle “harm no one and benefit humans.” Like any other goods, it will be morally wrong and blameworthy if it seriously costs anyone’s DFRI. Therefore, we cannot “immunize” family against moral examination by attaching it to a “private” realm wherein moral and political philosophy cannot enter. Rosemont and Ames say, “Too much freedom becomes license, too much independence becomes loneliness…” (2008:10). If transgressing the principle of right, similarly, “too much” kinship love becomes corruption. The three Confucian cases just witness such an immoral kinship love, since they entail the evil of harming fellow humans. By contrast, only the naïve universalistic principle “respect everyone’s DFRI” is incorruptible, because it is always right and praiseworthy if what we do harms no one and benefits humans. In my judgment, when Callahan claims that “the more encompassing moral obligations to universal love should take priority over the particular loyalty to family, no matter how painfully and regretfully” (2008:2-3), when Professor Ashraf Adeel declares that “Family love…does not define right and wrong” (2008:6), and when Professor John Berthrong remarks that “Xiao demands a true understanding of what authentic morality entails” (2008:5), what they stress from different angles is this very position.
Professor FAN Ruiping would remind us of the reason why Confucian morality is neither modern Western, nor Christian, nor Islamic, nor Xunzian, or nor any morality other than what Kongzi and Mengzi advocate—“G.W.F.Hegel” seems to be the sole exception, since “Confucius recognizes a kind of Sittlichkeit with its grounding in the family” (2008:3). In my opinion, this does not mean that Kongzi and Mengzi alone insist that one should benefit no one and harm humans. Perhaps we should also remember why they advance universal humane love, an ideal that clearly implies the demand “harm no one and benefit humans.” More significantly, they take it as a basic criterion of good and evil. Kongzi says, “If you set your heart on humaneness, you will be free from evil” (Lunyu 4.4). While reminding us of the reason why Kongzi is neither Boyi 伯夷nor Yiyin伊尹, Mengzi claims, “None of them, in order to obtain the empire, would have committed one act of unrighteousness, or killed one innocent person” (Mengzi 2A2). This claim seems naïve enough even today. Contrary to Professors Ames, Stephen Angle, Fan, NI Peimin, and Rosemont, however, I think it is an “anonymous universal principle” to which Confucianism, like many other ethics, often appeals, because Kongzi and Mengzi would believe that it cannot be refuted by any single counter-example. Indeed, they almost carry this principle out to the end in theory except facing the conflict with kinship love.
Then, why do they hold that one may commit acts of unrighteousness to benefit one’s relatives? As I have argued, the reason is simple: they regard kinship love alone as supreme, insisting that it can trump anything else, including humane love. Within the Confucian framework, thus, any act out of kinship love is virtuous and praiseworthy, however seriously it transgresses the principle “harm no one and benefit humans.” Many radical Confucians even hold that one may kill the innocent to fulfill the duty of filial piety, as shown by one famous story of “the twenty-four exemplars of filial piety,” which describes a filial son who tried to bury his son for the sake of his mother (see De Bary and Lufrano 2000:140). Professor Hwa Yol Jung must have seen in London the ivory engraving that illustrates this story (2008:4). Now this sophisticated story is more and more popular in China by virtue of the Confucian revival.
Van Norden gives two counter-examples against my claim: there is “no textual evidence” that Mengzi believed obedience to one’s parents can be overridden. The first one is Mengzi 5A2, which was partially discussed when I made this claim for the first time in English (2003:240). As Van Norden puts it wisely, “self-preservation can be seen as a manifestation of humane love as applied to oneself” (2008:5). Similarly, getting married can be also seen as a manifestation of “humane love” as applied to one’s significant other(s). According to Mengzi’s descriptions (see also 4A26, 5A1), however, it is not for his “humane love” as applied to himself that Shun refused to allow himself to die, and it is not for his “humane love” as applied to his two honorable and beautiful wives, either, that Shun got married against his parents’ wishes. Rather, Shun did both ultimately for the sake of filial piety. For this reason, somewhere else I called what Shun did here “being filial to parents in a tortuous way” (quxian jin xiao 曲線盡孝). Van Norden claims that “Mengzi’s defense of Shun’s action is open to interpretation, but it is not obvious to me that it is based upon kinship love” (2008:6). Probably this point would be more obvious in light of the famous Mengzian intuition, which Van Norden shares with “most of us”, that such a person would be “not human” (2008:3). The second one is Mengzi’s praise of Yu in 3A4. Van Norden wonders why, if Shun had Yu’s father executed (because of—my guess—extending his affection for Gusou to others’ fathers?), Mengzi still praised Yu instead of condemning Yu for serving Shun (2008:6). My explanation is simple: this passage does not concern the conflict between humane love and filial piety, and Mengzi praised Yu for his achievement of humane government, not for his service to a ruler who had his father executed. It seems to me that Van Norden needs other counter-examples to argue against my claim: there is “no textual evidence” that Kongzi and Mengzi believe obedience to one’s parents can be overridden.
Then, why do they believe obedience to one’s parents cannot be overridden? As I have argued, the reason is simple: they regard filial piety as the ultimate foundation of all morality and the sole lifeblood of Confucianism. Within its framework, then, this lifeblood is inevitably sacred and inviolable and must be injured in no circumstances; otherwise, Confucianism and all the morality grounded on it would be like a tree without roots (also see An 2008:3).
Many professors defend the three Confucian cases by stressing the specific role of kinship love. Indeed, kinship love provides an important training ground for moral life. For this very reason, yet, we should do our best to keep it morally right and prevent it from being corrupted at the beginning. Put differently, if we really hope kinship love can constitute a necessary condition for the cultivation of humane love, we must not make it evil by substantively harming fellow humans for its own sake. Otherwise we will fall into a “deep paradox” of Confucian kind: to negate humane love by its sole source—filial piety. Anyway, it is ironical enough if we claim on the one hand that we cannot imagine how to love others if we do not first love our relatives, and, on the other, allow ourselves to harm others in order to safeguard our love for our relatives. Put in an analogy: although we may claim in some sense that we cannot imagine one will love fellow humans if one does not first love oneself, this does not mean that one may do substantive harm to fellow humans in order to safeguard one’s love for oneself. Unlike humane love, as argued above, filial piety is not an absolute moral good, since it will be wrong if the ultimate principle of right is violated. Unlike humane love, therefore, it is not the infallible and incorruptible source of all moral conduct, either. Jung declares, “In Confucianism, filial piety is the primogeniture, good or ill, of all moral conduct” (2008:7). In my view, an “ill” kinship love preserved by harming others is morally wrong and corrupted, and all the conduct grounded in this “ill” love will be morally wrong and corrupted, too. May I take the liberty to ask another naïve question: how can we imagine a tree will grow up healthy with ill roots?
Indeed, Shun’s actions are not out of selfish or evil motives. However, this does not change their immorality. We can notice a strange phenomenon in real life: on the one hand, most people are intuitively convinced that harming fellow humans is evil. On the other hand, there are still many evils of this kind, and most of the wrongdoers are not hopeless malefactors, but rather good persons who, like Shun, have no selfish or evil motives and even zealously pursue some loftier or holier goods like filial piety. A key reason for this ironical phenomenon is: these good persons are unwilling to give supreme weight to this naïve conviction and thereby deem it permissible to harm others for those loftier or holier goods. Actually, the evils of harming humans for various communal or universal goods are far more than the evils out of selfish motivations or sheer malice. More ironically, if the latter are generally condemned by most people, the former are usually commended by many influential religious and philosophical doctrines, which take other communal or universal goods, not the good of right, as the supreme value. Correspondingly, the persons who do these evils under the influence of these doctrines also often feel at ease and even happy, like Shun in 7A35. Li says, “No good idea or ideal can escape being (mis)used for rationalizing bad actions” (2008:3). Meanwhile, I think we must critically examine whether or not those “good” ideas themselves place other goods above the good of right and thus make this “rationalization” possible. Jung states in a universal/abstract tone: “We humans have a tendency to favor what is familiar and close to us in both thinking and doing,” and thus “favoritism/nepotism has been and is pervasive throughout history in different cultures” (2008: 2). Among various influential doctrines, however, Confucianism alone tries to justify, and encourage directly or indirectly thereby, the evils of harming fellow humans for the sake of kinship love by virtue of its “ill,” characteristic consanguinistic spirit, which puts kinship love above humane love absolutely.
What makes the Confucian justification and encouragement morally worse is: in real life, it is mainly those powerful rulers and officials who can successfully cover up their relatives’ crimes or appoint their incompetent relatives to profitable positions by favoritism/nepotism, with the result that the commoners’ DFRI are seriously infringed. As Callahan remarks, “If the more powerful do not uphold the common and agreed upon moral norms and use secrecy for their own interests, then others will feel at risk; they can fear that they are vulnerable to other infringements by the powerful of moral norms” (2008:3). This is why it is always the common people rather than the rulers and officials who most disgust these corruptive practices as well as other ones, such as the “party of princes” and the network connected through one’s relatives. This is why many thinkers like LU Xun魯迅 blame Confucianism for primarily speaking for the persons in authority. This is why I personally dislike Confucianism, although I academically have always affirmed the positive significance of its advocacy of humane love and of kinship love per se, and put forward a Post-Confucian framework in which, I hope, the Confucian tradition could be carried forward in modern China without the negative consequences of harming the commoners for the sake of officials’ kinship love. By contrast, although I academically have criticized the paradox of Christian love (2007b), I personally like Christianity more, and the reason is simple: “In recent centuries, some Christian thinkers have added that humans should treat each other equally, for they are all brothers and sisters from the same family” (An 2008:1).
Therefore, certainly I disagree with Van Norden’s defense of Mengzi 7A35: if a murderer is no longer a threat to anyone, his relatives, like Shun, can rightfully cover up his crime and even “go into self-exile” with him to protect him from prosecution. Speaking as a Confucian, he asserts, “most people would share my intuition about the right way to deal with the situation I describe” (2008:4). Now suppose a Chinese official’s father killed an innocent person or he himself embezzled lots of public money to send his children to university abroad three months ago. Suppose his father or he regretted it and could not even imagine himself doing anything like that again. Suppose then he managed to “go into self-exile” as a private citizen with his father or family, away from China to USA, after “self-giving up” his position (this often highly praised “self-resignation” seems a precondition of his “self-exile”). Suppose his father or he is now a productive member of the society, with a happy family and without any threat to anyone. I am sure that, though having never read the Mengzi or Van Norden’s article to get inspiration and support, this ex-official, as well as most other Chinese officials in similar situations, would share Van Norden’s intuition about the “right” way to deal with the situation: the murderer or embezzler should be “protected from prosecution.” Unfortunately, most Chinese commoners would “single-mindedly” claim that this “harmless” ex-official or his “harmless” father should be brought to justice for what they did, even though Van Norden, speaking as a Confucian, as well as those Chinese officials, would regard this claim as “counterintuitive.” Speaking personally as an anti-Confucian or academically as a post-Confucian, I am definitely on the side of the Chinese commoners, not on the side of Van Norden and those Chinese officials.
Angle seems to share another sentimentalistic intuition with Professor GUO Qiyong: if Mengzi could have let Shun feel negative emotions like grief in 7A35, the whole picture of Confucian sagehood would be perfectly harmonious (2008:4). In my opinion, like Mengzi’s authentic intention of letting Shun feel positive emotions like happiness, their intuition concerns primarily about the feelings of a Confucian sage-emperor, not about the feelings of the murder victim’s relatives, which seem something that, in some internet words now popular in China, can be “harmonized away” (hexie diao和諧掉) merely by negative emotions of a Confucian sage-emperor. Similarly, Guo regards WAN Zhang’s criticisms of Shun as merely representing “the commoners’ opinion” in a defense of Mengzi 5A3 (2004:17). In response to my complaint that what Shun did “already harmed the interests of the people of Youbi,” Angle also claims, “This complaint is unconvincing because it relies on the idea that unless every effort is single-mindedly devoted to maximizing their interests, the people will be ‘harmed’” (2008:4). In his view, Shun’s nepotistic effort to make Xiang rich and honorable seems more convincing. But why? In this case, as argued above, Xiang’s interests Shun helped him acquire are what Xiang did not deserve and entail the significant harm to Youbi’s people, whereas the interests of people in Youbi violated by what Shun did are what they deserved and entail no harm to Xiang. In the commoners’ opinion, which is also mine, thus, even the minimal realization of the former is morally wrong and unacceptable, whereas even the maximal realization of the latter is morally right and acceptable. It is just a simple truth.
Throughout history, Confucianism always exhorts the Chinese people to become the filial children of their “parent-officials” according to its “hackneyed notion that xiao is unthinking obedience to the father, and by extension, unwavering loyalty and subservience to the ruler” (Berthrong 2008:2). Under its profound influence, most Chinese commoners hardly ever hope for maximizing their interests to be rich and honorable without doing useful work. They even seldom manage to safeguard the fundamental, rightful interests they deserve because of their hard work, which has created and is creating the prosperity of China. What they often wish is merely that their “parent-officials” will not take away all the wealth they produce, but may leave something by which they can make out a living. While declaring that all the people are their dear “child-subjects,” yet, the rulers more than often appoint by favoritism/nepotism their own dearer, “more reliable” children, relatives, friends, and flatterers (sometimes they, like Mengzi, also call such appointment “a form of banishment”), and allow them to maximize their interests by unrightfully depriving the commoners of their deserved interests within limitations like what Shun imposed on Xiang, which can secure the system longer. When the commoners complain that they are harmed by these corruptive practices, those “parent-officials” will shout to them—unfortunately, often by resorting to the Confucian notion of harmony: why do you always want to maximize your own interests without considering the country’s stability and the society’s harmony, which should override anything else?
Angle declares in a culinary metaphor, a cook’s goal is an appropriate saltiness—the perfect contribution to the overall harmony—rather than maximizing the amount of salt. “Once he finds the harmony, we are not tempted to say that some saltiness was sacrificed in order to preserve the right amount of pepper.” (2008:3) According to Confucian morality, it is certainly true. My questions are simple: why is Shun, or the ruler of a Confucian harmonious society, qualified to sacrifice the deserved interests of the commoners for the undeserved interests of his relatives, whereas the commoners are not even qualified to complain this “sacrifice”? Is it because Shun or the ruler is the “cook” of Confucian sagehood, whereas the deserved interests of the commoners are merely “salt” in his hand and thus can be “harmonized away” at his pleasure? In my view, thinking of this kind is a deeply impoverished approach to our ethical lives especially in China. Harmony is surely a desirable value or good. However, it is morally right only if it takes humane love as its supreme principle—namely, only if it does not involve the substantive infringement of anyone’s, especially of the commoners’, DFRI. Otherwise, it is (dare I say it) a hypocritical and crisis-ridden harmony, as shown by the long Chinese history.
Bai remarks that the conflict between the private and the public “may well be a fundamental dilemma of human life which can never be fully overcome” (2008:6). However, I am naïvely optimistic. Actually, Rosemont and Ames provide a “more imaginative” approach to the dilemma of Lunyu 13.18: the parents may accompany their child who has been shoplifting back to the shop, and allow the child to negotiate the situation with the shopkeeper (2008:9). I fully agree with their approach, not merely because it is suitable for the child, but primarily because it does not conceal the child’s wrongdoing (thus contrary to Kongzi’s teaching), but demands that parents urge their child to what is good (thus contrary to Mengzi’s teaching in 4A18). Therefore, I am confused and wonder why Rosemont and Ames use it to defend Kongzi without noticing such putative differentials. To their rejoinder “Where did the adult with moral competence come from,” furthermore, my supplement is simple: if an adult came from a child educated by Kongzi’s approach, she would always cover up her children’s wrongdoings; if from a child educated by their approach, she would always teach her children not to do wrong. Anyway, it is a world of difference.
By contrast, Fan’s approach seems problematic. He declares, if his father “picked up” a watch, he would return it back and explain that his father “is suffering from dementia” (2008:3). In contrast to Kongzi’s approach, this approach shows a great progress, since it eventually remembers why the watch should be returned, although Van Norden might still think it unnecessary because it gives so little satisfaction to an extremely wealthy shopkeeper who has lost a single watch from his huge stock (2008:3). However, what would we think of a son who told others his father “is suffering from dementia,” even if his father is really suffering from dementia? In Van Norden’s words, “Most of us share the Mengzian intuition that such a person would be ‘not human’.” According to Confucian morality, the son should explain that someone else “picked up” the watch because of “suffering from dementia,” and then he would be praised for his “sincerity and truthfulness” by Confucians. In my view, this is an important way by which the Confucian tradition of chengxin 誠信 have taken shape in effect, with the result that “concealment” (yin 隱) means not merely “not telling rumors about others’ misconduct,” but also “telling lies to cover up the truth.” Unfortunately, this tradition can also explain such disgusting practices in China as telling lies to conceal negative information for the positive reputation of government bodies and officials, and a recent example of this kind is the pictures of the “Huanan tiger.” Anyway, it is a long-standing Confucian slogan precisely rooted in Confucius’ teaching in Lunyu 13.18 “to conceal the wrongdoings of elders, of superiors, and of sages” (wei zhangzhe hui, wei zunzhe hui, wei shengren hui為長者諱，為尊者諱，為聖人諱). Therefore, a Confucian scholar should do her best to defend the wrong ideas of Confucian sages out of her sincere belief in Confucianism, with the result that, while being always “sincere,” the Confucian tradition of “chengxin” is not always “truthful” or “trustworthy.” Fortunately, I am not a Confucian scholar. Therefore, I will not place those wrong ideas above the naïve universalistic principle of right or humane love and defend them out of my sincere belief in Confucianism, either.
Regarding Shun’s cases, I fully agree with Ni’s approaches: Shun might be better off offering Xiang some decent means of living rather than appointing him as the prince, or visiting Gusou in prison after he is apprehended rather than helping him avoid punishment (2008:4). Actually, they, as well as Rosemont’s and Ames’ one, are extremely similar to my Post-Confucian approaches in sharing such a universal, unconditional principle (see Liu 2007a:15, 18): although we have different relationships to our close kin than we have to others, we should not harm others’ DFRI in order to benefit our close kin, because these DFRI are not the so-called “branches” that can be sacrificed for such “roots” as kinship love.
Some professors worry over the abstractness of universal love, and An holds that “the agent to implement ‘universal love’ should be an omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent Being” (2008:4). However, as Callahan argues, “Problems of conflicting moral obligations are never abstract” (2008:1). Indeed, if we benefit our relatives without harming others in the conflicts, universal love is concretely realized to some degree, since no one’s DFRI are infringed wrongfully. Furthermore, if we observe public order, comply with public morality, take good care of public property, do not spit and scatter garbage everywhere, do not waster natural resources, etc., we are the agents to implement “universal love” because we harm no one and benefit fellow humans. Insofar as everyday life is concerned, therefore, humane love, like kinship love, is not at all a “distant” virtue for anyone who is unwilling to confine herself to the Confucian “ill” idea of filial piety. As Kongzi says, “Is humaneness distant? No sooner do I desire it than it is right by me” (Lunyu 7.30).
Angel (2008:1) and Ni (2008:4) remark that solutions to the conflicts between values should be different from a simple choice of wanting one rather than the other. It is true in most circumstances. In my opinion, however, it is an “either/or” choice when the alternatives are either benefiting humans rightfully or harming them wrongfully. May I finally take the liberty to ask the third naïve question to everyone, then: would you substantively infringe others’ DFRI in order to benefit your relatives? My reply is naïve again: no. This is where I stand.
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Work on this paper was supported by the MOE Project of Key Research Institute of Humanities and Social Science in Universities, China. I gratefully acknowledge its support.