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A legitimate public institution must fulfill the duty to provide favorable social conditions and a compatible legal framework so that everyone has the basic opportunity to develop the inner worth and become a dignified member of community.To this end, society is obliged to establish an equitable constitutional system of basic rights.Construed in this way, the Confucian idea of human dignity can provide a sound philosophical basis for the modern notions of human rights and freedom, together with a balanced theory of reciprocal duties.Such a reconstruction of Confucianism can help us understand, I hope, the connection between two types of universal ideals to which the United Nations appealed half a century ago, that is, “the dignity and worth of the human person” and “the equal rights of men and women”.
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NANJING UNIVERSITY,P.R. CHINA.
【注释】 See e.g. Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1953), pp. 80-85.
The “difficulties” here are referred to substantive ones.The logical difficulties, such as the “naturalistic fallacy” which Moore charges the naturalists for committing (ibid., pp. 37-58), seem to be rather minor.If Hobbes can establish that self-preservation is universally desired by every rational animal, then the opposition against defining such desire as a “good” (i.e. the natural right) carries little force.The transition from “is” to “ought” does have a logical problem of violating the “Hume’s Law”.Yet the problem is not so serious if one omits the prescriptive element inherent in the “ought”, so that ethics can be identified with factual inquiry.
For example, the Christian God in Locke’s Two Treatises of Government.
But partial corrections can be found in, among other works, Butler’s Five Sermons, Hume’s Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, and The Theory of Moral Sentiments by Adam Smith.
Stetson, ibid., pp. 4-8, 165-6.
Munroe, ibid., pp. 49-83.
On defending Confucianism against morally nihilistic freedom without basic values and norms, see Xu Fu-guan (徐复观), Confucian Political Thought and Democracy, Liberty and Human Rights 《儒家政治思想与民主自由人权》 (Taipei: Bashi Niandai Press, 1979), pp. 284-293.
For the common assumption of all classical Chinese philosophers about the natural equality innate in every man, see Munroe, ibid., pp. 1-14, 49-50.
See my arguments in Section 3.2.
Thus, “the Way of great learning lies in the brightening of virtue, in renovating the people, and in the end of the perfect good.” In Great Learning, Ch. 1.
Analects, 15: 22; trans. Legge, ibid., p. 137.
“As a ruler, he abided in humanity.As a minister, he abided in reverence.As a son, he abided in filial piety.As a father, he abided in deep love.And in dealing with the people of the country, he abided in faithfulness.” In Great Learning, sec. 3; trans. Wing-tsit Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), p. 88.
The same can be said to have occurred--much more frequently but perhaps at a reduced scale--in the traditional family, which is supposed to be both the foundation and a miniature of the state.Similar opposing arguments made below apply, though with some difficulties owing to the nature of Chinese metaphysics of life, which I won’t get into here.
Analects, 14: 3.
See Fung Yu-lan, A Short History of Chinese Philosophy (Derk Bodde ed., New York: The Free Press, 1948), p. 8.For an argument for the possible compatibility of Confucianism with the notion of human rights, see Xia Yong (夏勇), The Origins of the Human Rights Concept 《人权概念起源》 (Beijing: Zhongguo Zhengfa Daxue Chubanshe, 1992), pp. 177-192.For the neo-Confucian effort to derive a compatible political mechanism from the Confucian ethics, see Xu Fu-guan, ibid., Ch. 4.For a critique on the alleged failure of such effort, see Jiang Qing (蒋庆), “From Heart-Nature Confucianism to Political Confucianism” (“从心性儒学走向政治儒学”), In Liu Shu-xian (刘述先) et al., Collection of Papers on Contemporary Neo-Confucianism 《当代新儒学论文集》 (Taipei: Wenjing Press, 1991), pp. 153-178.
Principle of the Mean, sec. 20.
Mencius, 7A: 45.
Mencius, 3B: 9.
Matthew, 22: 39.
This says nothing against setting up penal institutions for those criminals, whose dignity has fallen below the minimum that can be tolerated by the community.But these institutions cannot be created merely for the sake of punishment or the maintenance of public order; they must treat these people as human beings, aim to help them to find their own worth, and make them capable of becoming a gentleman upon their own efforts.This is very much in line with the Confucian thinking of the reformative function of law and punishment.
]Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Preamble.
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