Is Confusianism Compatible with Care Ethics
Year: 2001
Type: article
Abstract: In recent years, some Confucianists have pointed out certain affinities Caonfucianism shares with the feminist ethic of care(Li 1994 & Rosamont 1997), and some even claim that feminism in Confucian societies might take the form of "new Confucianism"(Li p.86). This is a surprising claim given the fact that Confucianism as the dominant ideology of East Asia for over two millennia has played a central role in subjugating women under one of the most systemic and prolonged patriarchy in human history. Against this disbelief, these scholars argue that what gave rise to the subordination of women was the distortion of pre-Chin Confucianism of Confucius and Mencius; were we to retrieve the original spirit of Confucius, they continue, reconceptualizing Confucianism as feminist would be possible.\n My purpose in this paper is to critically assess this claim by examining two aspects of Confucianism and Care Ethics that allegedly converge: First, their emphasis on human relationships, and second, their prescription as to how to maintain harmonious human relationships, the cultivation of jen in Confucianism and ethical caring in Care Ethics. By providing a rather detailed explication of Care Ethics along with that of Confucianism, I hope to illuminate their distinctiveness and even contradictory maral injunctions entailed by their respective ideals of jen and caring. While these two perspectives share certain surface similarities with respect to their emphasis on human relationships, a careful and methodical analysis of their respective prescription as to the best way to maintain human relationships will reveal their unbridgeable differences. The effort to assimilate Confucianism and Care Ethics, in my view, rests on the downplaying and neglect of the twin virtue of jen, li, in Confucianism, and on the misunderstanding of the feminist conception of care.
Author: Ranjoo Seodu Herr
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2165637552