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Second, the gentleman’s sense of justice presupposes his conscious recognition of the same basic worth in all other persons that command his respect.The respect for others is the natural extension of his self-respect, since a just man must obey the basic rule of reciprocity, which Confucius takes to be the Way for every gentleman: “whatever you do not wish others impose upon you, nor do you impose on others”.
Thus, when his student asks about the practice of virtue, he says: “When you leave home
, behave
as if you were receiving a great guest; to employ the people as if you were assisting a great ceremony.Do not impose on the others what you do not wish the other to impose on you”.
If a gentleman wants himself to be respected, then, he must first respect others and treat them as human beings who, like him, are endowed with moral and intellectual faculties capable of being fully developed.To imitate the absolute justice of Heaven, a gentleman must refrain from doing anything that might prevents anyone from actualizing his/her potential and achieving full dignity.Thus, his respect is due not only to cultivated gentlemen with comparable moral achievements, but also to every ordinary person, whose innate capacities make human improvements always possible.
But even that is not enough.For a gentleman is concerned not only with interpersonal moral conduct, but also with the ideal state and society in which he prefers to live.While he respects every human being in the universe, it would be quite rational for him to require others to pay reciprocal respect for himself.Further, he should also like to be able to require that we all (not only he himself) respect the basic dignity of any other person.Human dignity requires universal respect, from which no one ought to be excluded.For this purpose, recognizing the weaknesses and limitations in individual human beings, a gentleman should concern himself with setting up proper laws and social institutions to secure such an end, that is, to prevent everyone from taking actions that would diminish anyone else’s (and his/her own) dignity.These laws and institutions establish what are in nature private rights, because they protect the dignity of every citizen against private encroachment from others.Last and most important, he should be concerned, above all, with establishing fundamental rules that can prevent these institutions themselves, especially the state, from exercising powers in such a way as to defeat the very aim for which they are erected.We thus need a constitution that can limit the powers of the state and social organizations, and provides basic rights to every individual against public encroachment.Although, historically, the Confucianists were not always conscious of the need for the institutional balance of powers, it seems to be reasonable to derive these basic institutional requirements from the Confucian concept of dignity.
3.3.The Sense of Dignity in a “Shame Culture”
Is there any ground for holding this fundamentally optimistic self-evaluation and for believing that the distinctive virtues in a human being make him/her nobler than all other animals?It is true that, even if we can prove that we are in fact endowed with the Confucian virtues (e.g. the innate abilities to acquire, among other things, humanity and justice), we are by no means logically compelled to confer highest value on them or even regard them as “good” at all.
Without endorsing existentialism as a whole, we may nevertheless agree that human beings are free to value or devalue everything existing.Nor is it is feasible to empirically demonstrate--in the strict sense of the word--the universal existence of these virtues in every individual person.Yet at least a partial vindication can be made to support the self-consistency of holding such a belief.That is, for those who have succeeded in developing their virtues, they do feel the existence of the inner worth, as shown in the psychological satisfaction and self-confidence; on the other hand, if they undertake actions contrary to the opinion they hold about their moral nobility, they will have a distinctive experience of feeling degraded.Further, even ordinary men and women do have a sense of dignity within themselves which, though perhaps not consciously articulated, shows itself when their self-esteem is harmed by degrading treatments.Thus, it does seem that some sense of dignity is universally felt in every human being.
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