Confucius on Loyalty and Betrayal

Date

November 2, 2020

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For Confucius, one’s personal loyalties to family, friends, co-workers and superiors are more important than the rules of some abstract ethical theory. This has been called the “particularism” of Confucian ethics. According to Confucius, we cannot judge an action in isolation, but we have to consider the particular circumstances surrounding it and the relationships between the agent and the other stakeholders.

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In the West, we’ve always been told that it’s good to obey the same laws that everyone else obeys, that our duty is to treat everyone the same, that we should be loyal only to the state, the government, the laws, the impersonal ethics of our societies. Confucius, the great Chinese philosopher, disagrees.

If your father stole something — what would you do?

Would you cover up for him, help him hide from the police? Or would you feel that it’s your duty to report him, to make him confess his crime and to make him take the responsibility for the consequences of his actions?

Confucius on the upright person

Most of us would probably think of the second as the morally “right” behaviour. Even if, in the end, we did help our father cover up the crime, we would feel bad about it, as if we’d done something wrong. But not everyone would agree. Confucius, the ancient Chinese teacher of ethics, law and life (551–479 BC), once had this conversation:

The Governor of She in conversation with Confucius said, “In our village, there is someone called [Upright] Person. When his father stole a sheep, he reported him to the authorities.” Confucius replied: “Those who are [upright] in my village conduct themselves differently. A father covers for his son, and a son covers for his father. Uprightness consists of this.” (Analects 13.18)

That’s surprising! Why would it be morally right for the son to cover up the father’s crime? According to Confucius, this action would not only be tolerable. It would, instead, be a reason to call the son an upright person, a virtuous man, and the son should be proud of himself for having behaved in this way. Why would this be?

Are we all egoists?

There seem to be two factors at play here. One is our Western, deeply rooted conviction that we are all individual actors, little units, each acting only in one’s own interest. In this world view, society is necessarily unstable. If everyone is just pursuing their own …

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