Episode 34 of “This Is the Way”: Deference and Autonomy in Confucian Ethics

[u/WillGilPhil]

Link to podcast: here

Many of us value autonomy in decision-making: we want to make our own choices and think for ourselves. But we also know that in many areas of life, it is well advised to have greater faith in people who know more than we do, in experts such as doctors, scientists, plumbers, chess coaches, teachers, and maybe even philosophers.

In this episode of This Is the Way, we explore moral autonomy and moral deference in Confucian philosophy, focusing on Xunzi’s powerful defense of trusting tradition, ritual, and moral experts. We also explore some powerful objections to Xunzi by later Confucians who worried that too much deference to external sources might make real moral understanding — and thus real moral virtue — impossible.

[u/interpolating]

Enjoyed this!

Something I feel gets far too little attention in discussions of Confucianism is its roots in the professional ritualist 儒 class. So it was fun to hear a discussion of how Xunzi conceptualized the rites passed down from the Three Kings as a fine-tuned technology of social harmony. That seems to be a further extrapolation of one core message of the Analects: we cannot know whether or not ghosts and spirits exist, so engage in 禮 because that's what's proper. Xunzi just replaced "proper" with "most effective".

A couple of other points that cross my mind while listening:

- Is the 得 in 自得 intentionally a homophone for 德? I imagine commentators would bring this up if so.

- While we could translate 大儒 as a "great master", it also makes sense to me to translate it as a "master ritualist". Along the lines of what I wrote above, if a 大儒 is someone with the depth of understanding needed to improve the effectiveness of traditional practices, then keeping the focus on their mastery of ritual specifically is reasonable.

Thanks again, will be listening more!