Abstract
This essay argues that Confucian ritual propriety (li 禮) and Aristotelian habit (hexis, ἔξις) play analogous roles within their respective ethical systems and that we can come to appreciate important dimensions of each category by juxtaposing it with the other. Despite numerous and deep dissimilarities, both li and hexis work to organize and publicize emotions and dispositions, ground true moral quality in phenomenally-present activity, and (leveraging insights from Marcel Mauss) contribute to shaping and actualizing an agent’s body and behavior. The essay unpacks several semantic subtleties of li and hexis, and attempts to respond to alleged disanalogies. Finally, the success of a such a li-hexis analogy reveals the ways in which Aristotle’s virtues are more socially contingent and Confucian morality is less particularistic than is often allowed; which in turn, I argue, lessens some of the distance between virtue-based and role-based ethical frameworks.
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Acknowledgments
I am grateful to Yong Huang, editor of this journal, for his patience and encouragement. Two anonymous referees for this journal, and two for another journal, graciously provided extremely detailed, timely, and helpful feedback. Additionally, a preliminary version of this essay was delivered to the South Carolina Society for Philosophy and the North Carolina Philosophical Society, and I benefitted greatly from the perspectives and contributions of those who attended my presentation.
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DeLapp, K.M. Confucian Rituals and Aristotelian Habits. Dao (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11712-024-09930-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11712-024-09930-1