Confucianism and Transgenerational Grounds for Justice (original) (raw)
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In this chapter, by drawing on the ideas mostly developed by the neo-Confucian philosopher Wang Yangming, I have argued that Confucian environmental virtue ethics can avoid some pitfalls of deontological and consequentialist approaches to environmental issues as well as those of other versions of environmental virtue ethics, particularly the Aristotelian ones. Central to this Confucian environmental virtue ethics is the idea of being in body with ten thousand things. A virtuous person in this sense feels the pain and itch of these ten thousand things, just as he or she feels the pain and itch on his or her own back, because he or she feels to be in one body with ten thousand things; or reversely, the person feels to be in one body with ten thousand things, because he or she feels their pain and itch. Such an ability to feel either (both) the pain and itch of ten thousand things or (and) to be in one body with ten thousand things is ren, the cardinal Confucian virtue that characterizes a human being as a human being. It is not merely cognitive but also affective. A person who feels the pain and itch on his or her back is not merely a person who knows that there is pain and itch on his or her back but also a person who is motivated to get rid of such pain and itch. Similarly, a person who feels the pain of a bird, for example, is not a merely a person who knows that the bird is in pain but also a person who is motivated to help the bird get rid of the pain. So a Confucian environmental virtuous person takes care of ten thousand things not because of their intrinsic values but because they are part of his or her own body. Despite its appearance, such a person is not self-centered, as there is nothing outside the person, or, to put it another way, everything is part of the person, while egoism assumes the separateness of the self from others.