Communal harmony and the self

This demonstrates an important feature shared by these concepts involving humility—the sense in which they are seen as necessary to facilitate harmonious interpersonal activity. It turns out that, for the Confucians, the social effect of humility is what makes it an important trait—one that facilitates the development of virtues, most of which, for the Confucian, are grounded in communal thriving.

humility promotes the formation, development, maintenance and deepening of social bonds. Humility is especially called for when social bonds are under challenge in four common situations: (1) when a person receives honor/recognition; (2) when the authority fears rebellion from the subordinate in a hierarchical relationship; (3) when empathy/respect is reduced in a conflict; and (4) when different social norms between different groups are encountered.¹⁰

This view of humility suggests that it should be seen as communal in nature, and primarily plays a facilitating role in supporting the operation of other virtues, as well as supporting the perfor­mance of roles, which are of central importance in early Confucianism.¹¹

One of the main aims of early Confucianism—perhaps the main aim of early Confucianism, is the establishment of social harmony (he ⅛), understood as the proper functioning of soci­ety in terms of role exemplification and communal commitment.

Given that social harmony is a central concern for the Confucians, and that they saw humility as necessary for attaining such harmony, why then did the Confucians have no single term that we can unproblematically translate across contexts as ‘humility’? Why did they have no single concept expressing this idea? Why didn’t they speak directly and explicitly about this centrally important virtue? The main reason for this, I contend, is that humility can be understood as part of a host of other concepts Confucians focused on, and that humility can be captured through particular uses of the terms associated with these concepts, given the right context. As we have seen above, for example, while in certain passages, the meaning of rang is closer to “deference” or “yielding”, in others “humility” is closer to the meaning. The conceptual overlap between humility and a number of other virtues is an important feature that explains its crucial role in the construction of virtue in general and the generation of social harmony. Looking to the particular virtues and moral features taken to be connected with humility tells us much about what humility is, what its effects are when cultivated in the individual, and how the Confucians think humility can be cultivated.

Among the virtues most often discussed by early Confucians are ren (humanity), yi É(righteousness), xiao ⅜(filiality),xinfa (honesty), and zhengffi.

In discussion of the numerous virtues of the early Confucian tradition, we find discussion of humility of various kinds, colored by the virtue in question. In Analects 12.1, the broad virtue of humanity (ren ^T, a term notoriously difficult to define, which even Confucius and his students struggled with)¹³ is associated with ‘turning away from the self and returning to ritual’ (ke ji fu li ½S^l?).While there are a number of competing views as to what is meant here by ‘turn­ing away’ (ke), ranging from selfish desires to self-concern (making it a statement of altruism),¹⁴ there seems little discussion of what I think is a more critical issue—that is, just what Confucius means in 12.1 by ‘self’ (ji). On a plausible way of understanding the passage, 12.1 refers to mov­ing away from an improper commitment to some aspect of self-regard, concern, or interest. It is in this way the diminishing of a kind of self-consideration or self-concern as a motivation for action. The humane (ren) person acts based on ritual propriety and righteousness, rather than out of a problematic self-concern.We see other passages reiterating this notion of the humane or exemplary person’s rejection of self-concern, such as Analects 9.4:

The master rid himself completely of four things: ‘he was without rigid opinions, he was without inalterable imperatives, he was without stubbornness, and he was without a sense of self (wo)’.¹⁵

The problem here is that while there are a number of passages in the Analects and other early Confucian texts that, like Analects 12.1, argue that the exemplary person rejects the ‘self’, there are other passages that appear to endorse the exact opposite view—that the exemplary person not only has self-concern, but should have a greater self-concern than the so-called ‘petty per­son’ (xiao ren ΦA).The humane person cannot be self-effacing or completely neglectful of the self—so this ‘turning away from the self’ cannot be understood as simply the undermining of all self-concern.

In a well-known (and, for many, perplexing) passage of the Analects, Confucius discusses the importance of fame or renown, claiming that the exemplary person (junzi) will constantly be concerned about making a name for themselves, or leaving a name to memory for posterity.

The master [Confucius] said: ‘The exemplary person is bothered by the prospect of his name not being spoken of by later generations after he is gone'.¹⁶

Note the strength of the exemplary person's concern for renown—such a person literally becomes sickened ji) at the prospect of being forgotten. Part of the reason this passage is perplexing to so many is that it comes directly after a passage that seems to maintain just the opposite position, and seems to advocate humility in the sense of undermining self-concern. This passage reads:

The master (Confucius) said: ‘The exemplary person is bothered by the prospect of lacking ability—he is not bothered by the prospect of people not knowing of him'.¹⁷

There have been many attempts to make sense of the seeming contradiction between these two joined passages (as well as other seeming contradictions in the Analects).¹³ One that has been relatively overlooked, however, might simply turn on a distinction between different kinds of self-concern, and different aspects of the self.The right response here seems to be that there are only certain aspects of the self (or self-concern) that the humane person, the exemplary person, will turn away from. Looking to other passages of early Confucian texts will help us discern what these aspects are.

There are a range of terms used to refer to the self in Confucianism—all reflexive terms that also have the content generally associated with personhood.¹⁹ In Analects 1.4, Confucius' student Zengzi says that he examines himself (wu shen ∙⅛⅛) three times daily, to make sure that he is acting consistently with moral norms. The self is the kind of thing that can be proper or improper, depending on its action.We also see passages discussing the necessity of certain kinds of concern for the ji (self), especially the kind of evaluative concern connected to moral devel­opment.

The master said: ‘Do not worry that people do not know of you—worry that you do not know others'.²⁰

The master said: ‘Do not worry about being unable to stand, worry about having nothing for which to stand. Do not worry about no one knowing of you, seek instead to be worthy of being known'.²¹

The master said: ‘The scholars of ancient days were concerned with themselves—the scholars of today are concerned with others'.²²

The discussions in the Analects and other early Confucian texts can help us make sense of the distinction between virtuous and vicious self-concern, which I distinguish below in terms of “self-adornment” (vicious) and “self-utilization” (virtuous) forms of self-concern.While humil­ity in terms of abandonment of self-adornment is necessary for the Confucians, so is the insist­ence on self-concern in terms of self-utilization. Indeed, part of the Confucian commitment to the self in this latter sense is a commitment to the community of which we are part. The Confucian conception of personhood ensures that a proper commitment to the community requires a commitment to the self. Our communities, particularly our familial and ancestral communities, are embedded into our selves—we are literally constituted by aspects of our com­munities in this way. Each feature of oneself is not only a shared feature, but a contributed feature from some member or members of one's community. One's physical features come from one's parents and ancestors, for example, while one's preferences and attitudes are attributable to one's local culture.This shows that one cannot exist autonomously, but rather exists only as a relational self, made up of communal features. We can begin to see why a certain sense of self-regard or self-concern is important for the Confucians, given their commitment to social harmony (he) as central to human thriving.

One common contemporary way of understanding humility is that of Robert Roberts and W. Scott Cleveland, as something like ‘intelligent lack of concern for self-importance, where self-importance in construed as conferred by social status, glory, honor, superiority, special entitlements, prestige, or power'.²³ This conception of humility does not map perfectly onto the early Chinese or early Confucian background. This is partly because, according to the Confucians, adequate self-concern even in the sense that we might call self-importance is nec­essary for moral cultivation.While special entitlements, prestige, or superiority (depending on how we understand this) may not be of particular importance to the Confucians, social status, honor, and power are important. Self-importance, as Roberts and Cleveland define it, is not a wholly negative trait according to the Confucians, and thus they do not understand humil­ity as a ‘lack of concern for self-importance'. The Confucians would agree in part with the above definition of humility. For the early Confucians, concern for self-importance in terms of social status and some sense of power is a necessary step for the requisite social influence to make changes in the world with one's virtue or potency (de). The Confucian exemplary person will care about making a name for themselves just because it is the wide influence of the virtue of such a person that can have a transformative effect on society. The Confucians understand the person with virtue (de) as having a kind of natural attractive power. Because of this, people in positions of greater power, visibility, or influence will have the opportunity to influence society much more broadly with their virtue.Thus, if the exemplary person cares about bringing about social harmony through the encouragement of virtue in the people of the community, the exemplary person will have to also care about gaining a prominent position, a measure of power, and a broad influence. This self-concern must itself be part of the cultivation of virtue. At the same time, the Confucians did worry about the negative side of self-concern, and the ways in which aspects of such concern might undermine com­munal commitment. Thus the Confucians made an important distinction between positive and negative forms of self-concern, associating humility with the undermining of the latter. Thus, the Confucian view disagrees with the view of humility as involving ‘low self-focus', which Thomas Nadelhoffer and Jennifer Cole Wright describe as ‘being hypo-egoistically decentered and aware of one's place in the grander scheme of things'.²⁴ Indeed, it might even be useful on the Confucian view to have an inaccurate or overinflated view of one's own importance, insofar as this may lead one to aim for the kind of social prominence necessary for gaining the influence to motivate people broadly to cultivate virtue. This inflated view of one's own importance can be consistent with humility, insofar as humility has to do with the undermining of a self-concern that is oppositional to others, other-undermining, or even neutral with respect to others.

21.3