Integrative ethical education: Narvaez’s project and Xunzi’s insight

Abstract

In the early 2000s, some scholars suggested integrative ethical education as an approach to reconcile the gap between cognitive-development education, based on rule ethics, and traditional character-ethics education, inspired by character ethics in Western ethical education. Darcia Narvaez also tried to establish a comprehensive and systematic model. Nonetheless, she has indicated four questions that need further research. This paper aims to respond to Narvaez’s project and its questions from the angle of Xunzi’s ritual education. It argues that Xunzi’s thought may provide some insights for Narvaez’s approach. To present this, it begins its discussion with an introduction of the main ideas of Xunzi’s thought. Later, it tries to show the insights from certain notions and elements, such as Junzi, reasoned judgment, of Xunzi’s ritual education for Narvaez’s project of integrative ethical education. Some relevant questions are also discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Li as Ritual
• ritual education
• Xunzi
• Darcia Narvaez
• integrative ethical education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 In Chinese, there is a situation that different characters sharing the same pronunciation and the English translation of any of them may differ. For example, as Dubs (1927) has pointed out, there have been various renderings of 禮 (Li), such as religion, ceremony, rite, ritual, propriety. Compared to other terms, ritual in English seems to have more comprehensive meaning (including at least religion, ceremony, rite). I use ‘Li as Ritual’ in this paper to represent the Chinese character 禮 due to that, in Xunzi’s philosophical system, 禮 also applies to a wide range of human activities. Besides, the reason I use ritual in capital is that, 禮 here basically serves as, in Xunzi’s words, a general term (總名, zongming), that means a term to cover any specified or concrete rites, rule, etiquette and so forth.

2 Some scholars, such as ZHOU Chicheng周熾成, insist that the chapter on human nature is bad was not authored by Xunzi and thus Xunzi cannot be seen as the advocator of the theory of human nature is bad and therefore we should not approach Xunzi’s philosophy in terms of the view in that chapter. They argue that it is the idea of the human nature is the raw material (性朴論 xingpulun) that is Xunzi’s position. This is an interesting observation. But it is not the concern of this paper and to go into the details of it will get this present study sidetracked. Nonetheless, their idea that Xunzi suggested that ‘human nature is raw material’ is basically in agreement with this paper. For the relevant debates, please see, for example, Zhou (2009), chapters 1-2. Another issue is the translation of 性惡. Knoblock, Watons and Dubs translated this term as ‘human nature is evil’. Knoblock also provided his reasons for this translation. But as Kurtis Hagen, although he himself suggests to translate it as ‘crude’, has indicated, those translations of 惡, especially ‘evil’, risk misleadingly implying that people are incorrigibly bad. And in this respect, Hutton’s translating 性惡 as ‘human nature is bad’ improves on this slightly. Please see Hagen (2007, pp. 122–123). I agree with Hagen’s view but, in this paper, I follow Hutton’s rendering.

3 All the English translations of Xunzi’s original Chinese text cited in this paper are mainly adopted from Hutton’s (2014) work. Thus, all the page numbers shown in brackets (p. XX) are of Hutton’s translation. However, in considering the context of my discussion and the complicated meaning of certain technical terms, I will sometimes use their transliteration (e.g., Junzi, which is usually translated in English as gentleman or noble man), while I will sometimes render them in English to express their proper meaning.

4 According to Masayuki Sato (2003, pp. 397–398; 2016, p. 372), Xunzi had offered a concrete, feasible and systematic proposal to the question of ‘how can a person become a sage like Yao and Yu’ raised in the perspective of his idea of human nature is bad in this essay. This perspective is insightful and informative. Nonetheless, as in this essay there are certain issues, such as the notion of vital breath (氣qi) and the reason of Xunzi’s mention of it, that are too complicated for this present paper to tackle. To clarify those issues might need more studies. Nonetheless, readers who are interested in the issues concerning the connection between Xunzi’s chapters on human nature is bad and self-cultivation can consult Sato’s The Confucian Quest for Order, section 2.2 of chapter 5.

5 The concept of ‘paradigmatic individual’ was suggested by Karl Jaspers in his Book Socrates, Buddha, Confucius and Jesus: The Four Paradigmatic Individuals. Antonio S. Cua (1969) then applied this notion to his interpretation of Confucian notion of Junzi. I was indebted to Cua’s discussion and use his idea here.

6 See the Analects of Confucius, 14.28, 15.7, 15.21, 15.22 15.23, for instance.

7 I was also indebted to A. S Cua’s interpretation of Xunzi’s notion of ‘以義變應 (yiyi bianying)’ and his relevant discussions. Please see Cua (1998, pp. 144–155; 2014, pp. 325–326).

8 The notion of ‘many others’ is coined by Vincent Shen. Generally speaking, it refers to ‘multiple others’, including our family, community, state and all under heaven. For Shen’s idea, see, for example, Shen (2008, pp. 291–304).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Ministry of Science and Technology, R.O.C [grant number: MOST 107 - 2410 - H - 142 - 001].

Notes on contributors

Yen-Yi Lee

In 2012, Yen-Yi Lee obtained his first PhD in philosophy of religion from the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom tackling the issue on religious pluralism from the perspectives of Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism. In July of 2015, he successfully defended his second PhD on the religiosity of classical Confucianism in light of Heidegger and Ricoeur’s phenomenology of religion at National Chengchi University in Taiwan. The main concern of his research over the past ten years has been Confucianism, especially its modern development and interaction with the West. Besides his major work in classical Confucian religiosity in his Chinese PhD thesis, he has worked on New Confucian figures such as Tang Chun-I and Mou Tsung-san. Most recently, he has also focused on the philosophy of education, especially on the Chinese philosophy of education and its relevance to the modern times and has published several relevant journal articles in Chinese.