Confucian Ethics and Care Ethics: The Political Dimension of a

Scholarly Debate

Chenyang Li李晨阳

Nanyang Technological University (Singapore)

Confucian Ethics and Care Ethics: The Debate

The comparative study of Confucian ethics and feminist care ethics has attracted attention from scholars of both Chinese philosophy and feminist philosophy.

(Li 1994; Kupperman 2000; Li 2000; Tao 2000; Star 2002; Yuan 2002; Herr 2003; Wee 2003; Held 2006; Noddings 2010; Rosenlee 2014; Heisook Kim forthcoming).

Confucian Ethics and Care Ethics:

• Are there similarities?• How significant are these similarities?• What do they tell us about each of

them?

Three similarities (in comparison with Kantian and Utilitarian ethics):1. The caring element2. Not rely on universal principles3. Care with gradations.

Confucian Ethics and Care Ethics

Based on the analysis of the work by two mainstream feminist thinkers, Nel Noddings and Virginia Held, I disclose the political dimension of this scholarly debate, which may have interfered with our assessment of the theoretical contents of these philosophies.

Understanding this hidden dimension will help us better grasp the dynamics of the entire debate.

The Maternal Factor: Two Paths to Morality

Nel Noddings

1. Noddings: Confucianism has oppressed women. Therefore Confucian ethics cannot be a kind of care ethics.

My Argument

I. Theory and practice do not always match. E.g., the Christian principle and practice of “love your neighbor.”

II. Similarly, at least it is theoretically possible for care ethics to be restricted to a narrow domain in practice, excluding a certain fraction of the human population in its application.

III. Therefore, the historical association of Confucianism with mistreating women cannot be taken as direct evidence for its moral theory being uncaring in nature.

The Maternal Factor: Two Paths to Morality

Nel Noddings

2. Noddings: Care ethics holds that “Natural caring is to be preferred, and ethical caring is invoked to establish or restore it” (138). Mencius places ethical caring above natural caring.

My point: Does Mencius make a distinction between ethical caring and natural caring? Does he place ethical caring above natural caring?

The Political Dimension of a Scholarly Debate

Is the distinction between ethical caring and natural caring a necessary criterion for care ethics?

Carol Gilligan

The Political Dimension

Who decides on what is and what is not anecessary criterion for care ethics?

Virginia Held

Held does not agree that Confucian ethics is a form of care ethics. But unlike Noddings, Held is more open in that she does not insist that Confucian ethics must satisfy a set of specific criteria in order to qualify as a form of care ethics

Virginia Held

Instead, Held bases her argument on the historical development of care ethics.

She writes, “My own view is that to include nonfeminist versions of valuing care among the moral approaches called the ethics of care is to unduly disregard the history of how this ethics has developed and come to be a candidate for serious consideration among contemporary moral theories.” (Held 2006, 22)

Response to Virginia Held

But does sharing the same history a necessary condition for being a kind of ethics?

On Virginia Held

Christine Swanton has argued that virtue ethics should be treated as a “genus” rather than a “species.”

“As a genus,” Swanton writes, “virtue ethics should be thought of as analogous to consequentialism, as opposed to, say, hedonistic utilitarianism,” even though it had been closely associated with neo-Aristotelianism (Swanton 2003, 1).

Political Dimension of a Scholar Debate

If care ethics must be confined to a particular historical movement, then we are fighting primarily over the use of the label “care ethics.” We are saying that a form of philosophy closely associated with a particular history should monopolize the usage of “care ethics.”

This is more a political than a scholarly issue. We have to ask, is care ethics meant to have universal and transcultural significance, or is it culture-specific and history-specific, and thus without universal and transcultural status?

Political Dimension of a Scholar Debate

The politics of using labels (for Held).

The politics of identity and recognition (for both Noddings and Held).

These are not scholarly issues. They cannot be resolved by scholarly debates.

Political Dimension of a Scholar Debate

Perhaps politics is inevitable in scholarly debates.

However, it would be useful if we became aware of the fact of politics in scholarly discourse. It helps us to keep a clear mind if we can identify the element of politics and understand its effects in scholarly discourse, particularly in this cross-cultural discourse. Otherwise, we may confuse desire with fact and lose focus on what is of real scholarly significance.

Confucian Ethics and Care Ethics: The Political Dimension of a

Scholarly Debate

Chenyang Li

The EndThank you!