Abstract
Although contemporary Confucianists tend to view Western liberalism as pitting the individual against society, recent liberal scholarship has vigorously claimed that liberal polity is indeed grounded in the self-transformation that produces “liberal virtues.” To meet this challenge, this essay presents a sophisticated Confucian critique of liberalism by arguing that there is an appreciable contrast between liberal and Confucian self-transformation and between liberal and Confucian virtues. By contrasting Locke and Confucius, key representatives of each tradition, this essay shows that both liberalism and Confucianism aim to reconstruct a society freed from antisocial passions entailing a vicious politics of resentment, and yet come to differing ethical and political resolutions. My key claim is that what makes Confucian self-cultivation so distinctive is the incorporation of ritual propriety (li) within it, whereas liberal self-transformation that relies heavily on a method of self-control comes back to the problem that it originally set out to overcome.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alford, Fred. 1991. The Self in Social Theory: A Psychoanalytic Account of Its Construction in Plato, Hobbes, Locke, Rawls, and Rousseau. New Haven: Yale University Press.
_____. 2000. “Arete, Rights, and Ren.” In Confucian Democracy, Why & How. Ed. by Hahm Chaibong and David L. Hall. Seoul: Jeongtong-gwa Hyundae.
Ames, Roger T. and Henry Rosemont Jr. 1998. The Analects of Confucius: A Philosophical Translation. New York: Ballantine Books.
Arendt, Hannah. 1958. The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Berkowitz, Peter. 1999. Virtues and the Making of Modern Liberalism. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Brooks, E. Bruce and A. Taeko Brooks. 1998. The Original Analects: Sayings of Confucius and His Successors. New York: Columbia University Press.
Chan, Joseph. 2003. “Giving Priority to the Worst Off: A Confucian Perspective.” In Confucianism for the Modern World. Ed. by Daniel A. Bell and Hahm Chaibong. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Chan, Sin Yee. 2000. “Can Shu be the One Word That Serves as the Guiding Principle of Caring Action?” Philosophy East and West 50: 507–524.
_____. 2006. “The Confucian Notion of Jing (Respect).” Philosophy East and West 56: 229–252.
Chan, Wing-tsit. 1955. “The Evolution of the Confucian Concept Jen.” Philosophy East and West 4: 295–319.
Creel, H. G. 1960. Confucius and the Chinese Way. New York: Harper & Row.
De Bary, Wm. Theodore. 1983. The Liberal Tradition in China. New York: Columbia University Press.
_____. 1988. East Asian Civilizations: A Dialogue in Five Stages. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
_____. 1998. Asian Values and Human Rights: A Confucian Communitarian Perspective. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Dunn, John. 1969. The Political Thought of John Locke: An Historical Account of the Argument of the ‘Two Treatises of Government’. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
_____. 2001. “The Contemporary Political Significance of John Locke’s Conception of Civil Society.” In Civil Society: History and Possibilities. Ed. by Sudipta Kaviraj and Sunil Khilnani. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fan, Ruiping. 2004. “Is a Confucian Family-Oriented Civil Society Possible?” In The Politics of Affective Relations. Ed. by Hahm Chaihark and Daniel A. Bell. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
Fingarette, Herbert. 1972. Confucius: The Secular as Sacred. New York: Harper & Row.
Galston, William A. 1991. Liberal Purposes: Goods, Virtues, and Diversity in the Liberal State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gellner, Ernest. 1995. Conditions of Liberty: Civil Society and its Rivals. New York: Penguin.
Howard, Marc M. 2003. The Weakness of Civil Society in Post-communist Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hsiao, Kung-chuan. 1979. A History of Chinese Political Thought: From the Beginnings to the Sixth Century A.D. Frederick W. Mote, trans. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Kaizuka, Shigeki. 2002. Confucius: His Life and Thought. J. Bownas, trans. New York: Dover.
Lai, Karyn. 2006. “Li in the Analects: Training in Moral Competence and the Question of Flexibility.” Philosophy East and West 56: 69–83.
Legge, James. ed. & trans. 1971. Confucian Analects, The Great Learning, and The Doctrine of the Mean. New York: Dover Books.
Lewis, Mark E. 1990. Sanctioned Violence in Early China. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Li, Chenyang. 2007. “Li as Cultural Grammar: On the Relation between Li and Ren in Confucius’ Analects.” Philosophy East and West 57: 311–329.
Liu, Qingping. 2003. “Filiality versus Sociality and Individuality: On Confucianism as ‘Consanguinitism’.” Philosophy East and West 53: 234–250.
Locke, John. 1975. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Ed. by Peter H. Nidditch. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
_____. 1980. Second Treatise of Government. Ed. by C. B. Macpherson. Indianapolis: Hackett.
_____. 1999. Some Thoughts Concerning Education. In Some Thoughts Concerning Education and Of the Conduct of the Understanding. Ed. by Ruth W. Grant and Nathan Tarcov. ndianapolis: Hackett.
Lomasky, Loren E. 2002. “Classical Liberalism and Civil Society.” In Alternative Conceptions of Civil Society. Ed. by Simone Chambers and Will Kymlicka. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Macedo, Stephen. 1990. Liberal Virtues: Citizenship, Virtue, and Community in Liberal Constitutionalism. Oxford: Oxford University press
Macpherson, C. B. 1962. The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Madsen, Richard. 2002. “Confucian Conception of Civil Society.” In Alternative Conceptions of Civil Society. Ed. by Simone Chambers and Will Kymlicka. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Mansfield, Harvey C. 1989. Taming the Prince: The Ambivalence of Modern Executive Power. New York: The Free Press.
Metzger, Thomas A. 2001. “The Western Conception of Civil Society in the Context of Chinese History.” In Civil Society: History and Possibilities. Ed. by Sudipta Kaviraj and Sunil Khilnani. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Miller, Alice. 2002. For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence. Trans. by H. Hannum and H. Hannum. New York: FSG.
Nosco, Peter. 2002. “Confucian Perspectives on Civil Society and Government.” In Civil Society and Government. Ed. by Nancy L. Rosenblum and Robert C. Post. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Okin, Susan M. 1989. Justice, Gender, and the State. New York: Basic Books.
Pateman, Carol. 1986. The Sexual Contract. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Pocock, J. G. A. 1971. Politics, Language and Time: Essays on Political Thought and History. New York: Atheneum.
Popenoe, David. 1995. “The Roots of Declining Social Virtue: Family, Community, and the Need for a ‘Natural Communities Policy’.” In Seedbeds of Virtue: Sources of Competence, Character, and Citizenship in American Society. Ed. by Mary A. Glendon and David Blankenhorn. Lanham, MD: Madison Books.
Rappa, Antonio L. and Tan Sor-hoon. 2003. “Political Implications of Confucian Familism.” Asian Philosophy 13: 87–102.
Rawls, John. 1993. Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press.
Rorty, Richard. 1989. Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rosenblum, Nancy L. 1998. Membership and Morals: The Personal Use of Pluralism in America. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Rubin, Vitaly A. 1976. Individual and State in Ancient China: Essays on Four Chinese Philosophers. S.I. Levine, trans. New York: Columbia University Press.
Scalet, Steven and David Schmidtz. 2002. “State, Civil Society, and Classical Liberalism.” In Civil Society and Government. Ed. by Nancy L. Rosenblum and Robert C. Post. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Seligman, Adam B. 1992. The Ideal of Civil Society. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Shapiro, Ian. 1986. The Evolution of Rights in Liberal Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Shils, Edward. 1996. “Reflections on Civil Society and Civility in the Chinese Intellectual Tradition.” In Confucian Traditions in East Asian Modernity: Moral Education and Economic Culture in Japan and the Four Mini-Dragons. Ed. by Tu Weiming. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
_____. 1997. The Virtues of Civility: Selected Essays on Liberalism, Tradition, and Civil Society. Ed. by S. Grosby. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.
Shklar, Judith N. 1984. Ordinary Vices. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of the Harvard University Press.
Shun, Kwong-loi. 1993. “Jen and Li in the Analects.” Philosophy East and West 43: 457–479.
Sullivan, William M. 1995. “Reinstitutionalizing Virtue in Civil Society.” In Seedbeds of Virtue: Sources of Competence, Character, and Citizenship in American Society. Ed. by Mary A. Glendon and David Blankenhorn. Lanham, MD: Madison Books.
Tan, Sor-hoon. 2003. “Can There be a Confucian Civil Society?” In The Moral Circle and the Self: Chinese and Western Approaches. Ed. by Kim-chong Chong, Sor-hoon Tan and C. L. Ten. Chicago, and La Salle, IL: Open Court.
_____. 2004. “From Cannibalism to Empowerment: An Analects-Inspired Attempt to Balance Community and Liberty.” Philosophy East and West 54: 52–70.
Tarcov, Nathan. 1998. Locke’s Education for Liberty. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
Taylor, Charles. 1994. “The Politics of Recognition.” In Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition. Ed. by Amy Gutmann. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Tőnnies, Ferdinand. 2001. Community and Civil Society. Ed. by Jose Harris & trans. by Jose Harris and Margaret Hollis. Cambridge: Cambridge University.
Tu, Weiming. 1979. Humanity and Self-cultivation. Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press.
Wagner, David. 1998. “Delegitimating the Family: The Classical Liberal Roots.” In The Family, Civil Society and the State. Ed. by Christopher Wolfe. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefiled.
Waley, Arthur. 1989. Introduction. In: The Analects of Confucius. Arthur Waley, trans. New York: Vintage Books.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Sungmoon, K. Self-Transformation and Civil Society: Lockean vs. Confucian. Dao 8, 383–401 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11712-009-9136-7
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11712-009-9136-7