Response to Professor Rosemont

Response to Professor RosemontAuthor(s): Herbert FingaretteSource: Philosophy East and West, Vol. 28, No. 4 (Oct., 1978), pp. 511-514Published by: University of Hawai'i PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1398653 .

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Comment and Discussion

Herbert Fingarette Response to Professor Rosemont

I propose to comment on Professor Rosemont's major points in his review of my work

(Philosophy East and West 26, no. 4) seriatim. On a number of specific points he and

I differ. But such differences cannot reduce an author's greatest-and all too rare-

pleasure in discovering a reviewer who has on the whole read his work with genuine care and insight into its arguments and aims. Rosemont's essay has given me just such

pleasure. I have been encouraged where he agrees, and I have profited from exploring our differences.

Rosemont says that if one is "to take seriously" the main thesis of my second chapter (about the absence in the Analects of the concept of moral choice), we must give "serious consideration" to a further proposal of his. He proposes that my conclusion requires one to assume that "every human action does have moral consequences" (his emphasis). Put somewhat differently, though still in his language, his proposal is that one must assume "there can be no amoral or non-moral actions." That is, "... any action A, will be moral if and only if it is in accordance with the li. It follows that any action

A2 which is incompatible with A, cannot be in accordance with the li, and hence A2

must be, by definition, an immoral action." Moreover, there are never "two or more

morally viable options in any given situation." Only from these necessary assumptions, says Rosemont, can one draw as a conclusion the view that I ascribed to Confucius in my book: There can be "no situations which would involve genuine moral conflict or moral choice."

I do not see that the views I ascribe to Confucius necessarily presuppose what Rose- mont says they do. Of course, as Rosemont says, Confucius himself does not distinguish any distinctively "moral' significance in conduct; it is the Western philosophers who have this concept. All that I presuppose, or need presuppose, is that Confucius' concept of the li is such that what Western philosophers might take to be moral prescriptions for conduct will fall within the larger class of prescriptions that for Confucius constitute the li.

What caused confusion, I think, and what may have led Rosemont to the conclusion he reached, is that the basic logic of my argument was entirely general. It was to show that choice, that is, choice as crux, as a crucial reality or value determinant of what are in other respects equally real or equally valid alternatives, is simply absent in respect to the li in its entirety. But when I discussed this material, I was particularly interested in the areas of what might be called moral and spiritual psychology and in the con-

sequent absence of such choice-related notions as moral choice, moral responsibility, guilt, and repentance. And I elaborated my discussion in this light. I feel that Rosemont sensed the complete generality of my basic argument, but I invited the erroneous

impression that it was a thesis concerned with the moral realm alone because of my frequent references to the moral and spiritual dimensions, and my failure to mention such less portentous dimensions of the normative as the minor rules of etiquette.

Professor Rosemont's remarks in the same context imply that in the world of the li-as seen in my interpretation of Confucius-there are only two contrasting possibi- lities: either one conforms to the li, which is to act rightly, or one does not conform, which is to act wrongly. But I myself see no good reason to forego the richer imagery

Herbert Fingarette is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Philosophy East and West 28, no. 4, October 1978. ©c by The University Press of Hawaii. All rights reserved.



512 Fingarette

of the Way: One can walk along it uprightly and consistently; one can falter; one can lose one's way-either slightly or a lot; one can grow tired and indulge one's fatigue by sitting it out for a while; one can even misuse the Way, using one's knowledge of some piece of local terrain to set traps for wayfarers, to try to seduce them onto another

path that looks easier, prettier, shorter. There are degrees and kinds of failure. Rosemont's second main substantive topic concerns my arguments about the nature

of jen. He finds my theses to be based on "negative" evidence and to be "basically incomplete and therefore unconvincing." He poses three principal questions that he

says need examination and were not examined in the book. In his discussion of jen I find us to be furthest apart.

"First," says Rosemont, "it is not at all clear that Fingarette has done anything other than proffer a behaviorist interpretation of the Lun Yii." But then, he asks, how can Fingarette maintain that "when we see man ... in rite ... he takes on to our eyes a new and holy beauty"? After all, says Rosemont, on a behaviorist view we should be seeing merely the raising and lowering of arms or heads. Where is the beauty or holiness in that?

Rosemont has knocked down a straw man. Of course he is right in having detected the aura of "behaviorism" in the air. That is because there is, especially in this chapter, a tacit contrast between Confucius' view and the thin and sterile "behaviorist" view.

The beauty we hear on hearing a piece of music is a beauty that we hear in the music, not in some inner realm within the artist or ourselves. Why should it be puzzling that it is the music that is beautiful and not the performer's interior? In any case it is a fact.

Anyone who has seen a ballet or a living ceremony does not merely see "the raising and lowering of arms and head." This is not because he has also seen into the "interior" of the dancer or participant, but because he has seen the dance or the ceremony. Cer-

tainly, creative artists find no problem in this-they study the materials, the structures, the textures, and colors and sounds that they manipulate. There, in the object, is where

they see their task, their problem, their solution, their oeuvre. Where is the mystery? all this is fact.

The kind of puzzle Rosemont sees in my account is the kind that arises for one who is already committed to the theory that everything of value "really" dwells in the "inner," and is therefore convinced that a failure to refer to an inner realm must be a failure to refer to the sacred and the beautiful. It is this doctrine that causes the trouble. The whole complex philosophical paraphernalia, with all its mysteries, of the Western

attempts to reconnect the human being with his world is necessitated because, for

questionable reasons, the two were split apart in the first place. I hoped that the Lun Yu could help free us of this gratuitous philosophical burden, could help us to see the facts and not be blinded by a mind-matter dualism, or by the behaviorist acceptance of the dualistic way of dividing the world, along with the denial of the reality of the "mental" half.

Rosemont's second question about my treatment of jen concerns the difficulty Confucius finds in determining whether various individuals of historic repute were

jen, or, indeed, whether he himself isjen. If, as I say, jen is something "public" and not

"inner," why should not Confucius easily be able to determine the answers to such

queries? Jen, as I said, is the personal perspective on the public act. When we look at the act



513

as a performance, we see the jen aspect, the distinctively personal characteristics of the

performance (we see this by observing the performance, not by looking "inside" the

performer). However, when we look at the act as an instance of a prescribed kind of action-that is, as a specific rite, or a particular dramatic or musical work-we see the li aspect of it. We can transmit, with reasonably adequate reliability, generalized descriptions of kinds of performances-that is, we have musical scores, play scripts, histories, texts on rituals, or the oral analogues of these. However, we cannot transmit with comparable adequacy descriptions of the personal stance (the "interpretative" aspect of a performance, as we might say). For example, lacking as we do any musical

recordings of how musical performers of earlier centuries interpreted musical works, we have only the crudest of speculative reconstructions built up from unsystematic written records. Analogously, Confucius could discuss the general form of a certain rite but would find it impracticable, on the basis of a general, verbal description, to assess some particular person's performance of it on a certain occasion.

The case of Confucius himself is special. I believe that Confucius' attitude toward himself reflects not merely the minor virtue of modesty, but, far more important, his sense of his own "ignorance" and fallibility. This is characteristic of many great teachers and spiritual aspirants as they come closer to Truth or to God; they become increasingly and far more profoundly aware than most of us how great is their ignorance, how

deep their spiritual need. On the other hand, and like so many such persons, Confucius

expresses no modesty about himself as excelling in the quest to learn. Rosemont finally asks, rhetorically, if my position on jen does not imply that Con-

fucius' follower, Mencius, must have departed radically from Confucius. For, says Rosemont, concern for an inner psychic life is a central thread in Mencius, and concepts pertaining to this concern "permeate" the Mencius.

If we grant, as Rosemont claims, that concepts of an inner psychic life permeate Mencius' text, we must ask Rosemont if he makes the same claim about the Lun Yii. I presume that if Rosemont thought such concepts comparably "permeated" the text of the Lun Yi, too, he would dismiss my argument based on "negative" evidence (that is, the absence of such concepts) as patently false and unworthy of discussion. But he does not do that at all. Would it be fair then-I ask rhetorically-to conclude that Rosemont agrees that Confucius does not use concepts of the inner psyche extensively and explicitly, whereas Mencius' thought is plainly permeated with them? If so, do not the two men differ "radically" in this respect? And is this not just the difference one would expect if I am right about Confucius? After all, why should Mencius not differ radically with Confucius on some major issue? Is that not a common mark of a major thinker, even when we compare him to someone from generations past in his own tradition?

I have reserved until last my comments on the section of Rosemont's essay entitled "The li and 'Government.'" His discussion there brings out so well what in my mind is the deepest meaning and point of my book, and he raises the truly relevant and basic questions that remain.

Rosemont stresses that my account shows a Confucius who is not a reactionary defender of an authoritarian or totalitarian view, but, by contrast, a kind of "anarchist."

As to Confucius' being a kind of anarchist, there is an important truth in this, and an important untruth. Confucius, as I see him, is a kind of anarchist in the respect



514 Fingarette

that he is radically opposed to the use of force, compulsion, coercion, or punishments in government or in human affairs generally.

But in another respect Confucius is not an "anarchist." His emphasis, as I see it, is on the li and the Way, rather than on individual choice, as the crucial and legitimate shaper of conduct. In the West, individual choice has become for many thinkers the ultimate, irreducible foundation stone of human dignity. In the Lun Yii, as I read it, rootedness in tradition and ceremony is what transforms man the animal into man who dwells in the light of the divine. Moreover, in Western anarchistic thought, spontaneity is valued but is often seen as the purest expression of individualism. On the other hand, while Confucius also puts a premium on spontaneity, it is viewed as the fruit and flower of having cultivated, assimilated into oneself, and finally achieved creative mastery of supra-individual norms (the i/). I think Confucius' view is far more realistic, and provides, in particular, a truer understanding of what makes us human and gives us our dignity.

Rosemont emphasizes my "warning" that much will be irretrievably lost if traditions are not treasured and enhanced. This goes to the heart of my book. For his perception and understanding of this, I am profoundly appreciative.

He says that I may be "faulted," however, for ignoring completely the problems of

establishing criteria for identifying those traditions that are worth preserving, or

adapting, and those that are not. And I might myself add that there is no discussion in the book of the problems of engendering new forms for social life, forms that in time may become tradition.

Rosemont is quite right-I do not discuss these issues. He is right in raising those as the great and pressing issues that are posed by my principal thesis.

Whether I am to be "faulted" for these omissions, this is for the reader to decide. I was, and I remain, acutely aware of these problems. They do seem to me to be profoundly important, profoundly perplexing. I do not see that Western thought has as

yet even seriously addressed itself to these problems. That is largely because we have not yet been truly seized with the problems.

Confucius, of course, does not even raise such issues. I presume that he was still too much a victim of the essentially parochial, monocultural view of the world that has been held by most peoples, except those of the modern West. Confucius was in this a man of his times. So in a book on Confucius' thought, there was a certain formal

legitimacy in not introducing problems that were not part of his thought. But my deeper and more substantive reason for avoiding the issues was one of strategy.

If indeed it is true that something akin to the li is of the essence of man's humanity and dignity, then we must seek out ways to resolve the problems of cultural evolution, conflict, and revolution. But these problems are so great, as yet so ill-understood, and our Western bias is so antitradition, that it is worse than pointless, at the end of a small book, to raise these issues briefly, pro forma, and in a way that can only reassure an

unsympathetic audience that the difficulties of the problems prove the inadequacy of the thesis. Only if one has focused clearly on the positive thesis, seen it vividly, fully, richly, on a large scale, and on a philosophic as well as a symbolic plane, only when one has been entranced by the vision, only when one is captured by its truth, will one find the necessary will to begin grappling with the problems. I hoped Confucius might show others the vision, as he did me.



Documents

Response to Professor Rosemont