East Asian Pedagogies: Education as Formation and Transformation Across Cultures and Borders

By David Lewin

This book opens up philosophical spaces for comparative discussions of education across ‘East and West’. It develops an intercultural dialogue by exploring the Anglo-American traditions of educational trans-/formation and European constructions of Bildung, alongside East Asian traditions of trans-/formation and development. Comparatively little research has been done in this area, and many questions concerning the commensurability of North American, European and East Asian pedagogies remain. Despite this dearth of theoretical research, there is ample evidence of continued interest in (self-)formation through various East Asian practices, from martial arts to health and spiritual practices (e.g. Aikido, Tai Chi, Yoga, mindfulness etc.), suggesting that these ‘traditional’ practices and pedagogical relations have something important to offer, despite their marginal standing in educational discourse. This book will appeal to all researchers and students of comparative education studies with an interest in issues of interpretation and translation between different traditions and cultures.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Springer
• Release date: Jul 13, 2020
• ISBN: 9783030456733

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Part IIntroduction

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020

D. Lewin, K. Kenklies (eds.)East Asian PedagogiesContemporary Philosophies and Theories in Education15https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45673-3_1

1. Introduction: Positioning, Encountering, Translating, Reflecting

Karsten Kenklies¹ and David Lewin¹  

(1)

University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK

David Lewin

Email: [e-mail]

Conceptions of culture are bound to conceptions of human being and human becoming. Cultures endure through the processes of formation that they, consciously or unconsciously, initiate. But the ideas that underpin educational formation are diverse, complex, and often inexplicit. In general, a conception of human being is at stake, i.e. an anthropology which includes ideas of what a good life or educated person looks like. In particular, the relations between those educating, those undergoing education, and the subject matter of education, are thereby shaped by distinctive normative considerations reflecting the diverse cultural circumstances of their origin. This, of course, is also true for those who discuss educational concepts and practices originating in contexts other than the author’s contexts: those presentations are usually done for formative, i.e. educational reasons, and those educational aspirations also need to be reflected upon with regard to the normative anthropologies which underlie, enable and restrict the way those presentations are shaped. A book such as this, which intends to raise questions of international and intercultural comparative education must, therefore, reflect on the ways it attempts to achieve its goal, which is to participate in the dialogue between different educational cultures, or, more specifically: between our (i.e. the editors’) own cultures and those we might in a preliminary (and maybe overly hasty) step call East-Asian cultures. This collection of essays seeks to explore the Anglo-American traditions of educational trans−/formation and Germanic constructions of Bildung, alongside East Asian traditions of trans−/formation and development. Whether such juxtapositions are legitimate or worthwhile must itself be explored.

Juxtaposition, dialogue, comparison … how are we to begin? Immediately envisioning certain difficulties with even beginning (language capacities or, more precisely, the lack thereof, and the lack of cultural insights that result from being immersed in a culture for a long time come to mind), the question arises why one should embark on such a journey at all? Given the constructive exercise of writing a text like this, we should ask about what our constructions are founded upon. Why build an edifice on foundations that might not be fit for purpose or that are established on prejudices, stereotypes, and banalities? Is it only the promise of entering a quarry where we may discover a rich seam of new concepts to be explored freely in developing theoretical and practical ideas, extracting them from their natural environment to build our own houses, or cathedrals of education? Are we simply looking for inspiration to expand the catalogue of our own educational theorems and activities? Are we looking for material to be plundered or transplanted from ‘there’ to ‘here’ as so often seems to be the case with regard to the international comparative studies (like PISA)? These studies are seemingly used as an answer to the question: What can we do to become equally or more successful in subject XY (of course, usually in complete oblivion of the different cultural contexts that not only provide the conditions which make those concepts and practices possible in the first place, but also offer the normative framework within which something like ‘success’ is defined in a very specific and not so easily translatable way)? It cannot be denied that pragmatic thoughts like this are initially part of most decisions to present and engage with concepts and practices that are not one’s own: one wants to learn something new that might be enriching, maybe even useful for oneself. However, whereas this might actually happen sometimes – within the boundaries hinted at above – to see this as the main reason for subjecting oneself to the efforts related to encountering the other might be misleading. It would, at least, be misleading to take it as the only reason for us here to be interested in East Asian pedagogy. It might have been serendipity that brought both of us into contact with East Asian culture in general, and East Asian pedagogy in particular, and yes, we did learn something new, i.e. new ideas, new practices, new ways to see the world, but actually, more happened: we experienced what in continental traditions of educational thinking is often called Bildung; through the encounter with the other, i.e. through a crisis-inducing self-alienation that is inevitably part of this encounter, we became (or so we believe) more ourselves in the sense that we became more aware of ourselves. As Gadamer has described: it is in the encounter with the other that we become more aware of our own prejudices, of our prejudgements, of our fundamental expectations and therefore of all that we think of as normal; and it is only through this awareness that one becomes able to critically engage with those otherwise hidden foundations of thought and action. Indeed, it is this process of raising the awareness of others, but equally of ourselves, which drives us to engage with a project like the one in hand. Despite these difficulties, as editors we still affirm the basic idea that it is only the encounter with something or someone very different which enables us to understand both ourselves and others – as individuals and as cultures. But we must continue to ask ourselves: how far do we really allow the genuine encounter with difference?

Relatively little work in this area has been undertaken and many questions about the commensurability of North American, European and East Asian pedagogy remain. It is not obvious that educational formation as Bildung is generalizable at all. Nor is it obvious that the lifeworlds of these different traditions are mutually illuminating or at all commensurable. What is striking, though, is the continued interest in the varied ways of (self-)formation through various East Asian practices, from varied martial arts to health and spiritual practices and religious paths (e.g. Aikido, Tai Chi, Yoga, mindfulness, Buddhism, etc.), suggesting that ‘traditional East-Asian’ practices, their underlying anthropologies, their ideas about pedagogical relationships, about teaching methods and curricula, have something important to contribute to modern educational life despite the marginal place they seem to occupy (for different reasons) within educational discourses.

Of course, dialogues as the one suggested pose certain difficulties, and an introduction to such a book as presented here has to begin with qualifications and caveats acknowledging these difficulties, in order to establish the proper scope and limits of the project being undertaken. The key task of our introduction is just this: acknowledging proper scope and limits. This entails: sketching borders in terms of what will and will not be relevant, and why; acknowledging the dangers of a supposed universalism from which the other can be imagined; in short: becoming self-aware. It will therefore be a helpful first step to reflect on the structure of what is presented here.

1.1 Positions

The emergence of an inter-cultural dialogue might be characterised by different aspects: firstly, positions need to be presented as stances in their own right; they need to be allowed to speak for themselves without an immediate positioning in a comparative framework – as if they would have significance only in relation to other concepts. It is the individual chapters in the first part of the book which represent such endeavours: here, authors introduce specifically East-Asian concepts of formation, of education and cultivation; here, different aspects of the East-Asian educational culture become visible. Readers are introduced to specific Confucian ways of thinking education: with the chapters of Wai Lam William Sin and Qasir Shah, we look into more traditional Confucian thinking; Chien-Ya Sun explores the relational anthropology of Mahāyāna Buddhism through the concept of ‘interbeing’; and with the chapter of David Brown/Simon Dodd/ George Jennings, characteristics of (especially East Asian) Martial Arts pedagogy are introduced.

1.2 Encounters

Paul Standish introduces the reader to one of the most eminent contemporary Confucian scholars, Tu Weiming, and brings him in conversation with positions of the classic Western tradition of Liberal Education. Thus, we move from presenting concepts and practices to a second step: relating positions, and it is in the second part of the book – Encounters – in which the individual chapters present the reader with comparisons, through discussions about educational concepts and practices from both sides of the cultural divide. Viktor Johansson also addresses characteristics of Martial Arts pedagogy though in relation to something rather different: the pedagogical ideas of Søren Kierkegaard. Whereas Karsten Kenklies explores the different theories and practices of educational journeys, the chapter of Joris Vlieghe is dedicated to investigating the different practices with which people are initiated in different literacies; with the chapter of James MacAllister, readers are confronted with culturally different readings of an aesthetic experience through an interpretation of Kurosawa’s film Ikuru; Sandra Töpper presents us with different accounts of what we can call the ‘pedagogical relationship’ with reference to Axel Honneth’s concept of recognition and Takeo Doi’s notion of Amae.

1.3 Translations

The third part, then, goes one step further: in discussing attempts to translate pedagogies from one context into the other, the authors reflect on the specific opportunities, but also difficulties of such attempts. Acknowledging the paradoxical condition of translating what is ‘untranslatable’, Naoko Saito debates the general approach for translations from one culture into another, whereas Hiroyuki Sakuma discusses a more concrete example of such a translation by showing what actually happens when someone tries to transplant one concept into another culture.

1.4 Reflections

However, those different steps that hopefully lead us into a more general dialogue about education, might lead to more complexity but they are not yet resulting in self-awareness. To achieve this, the book must also reflect on itself, and it is the last section, and the chapter of Paul Bowman, that aspires to put a question mark against the very distinction that is at the foundation of the book – the distinction between what we called our ‘own cultures’ and ‘East-Asian culture(s)’. What do we think we are doing when we juxtapose, compare and put in dialogue? We cannot repeat all the discussions around Orientalism and Reverse Orientalism, around Colonialism and Post-Colonialism, about cultural essences, about trans- and inter-culturality. However, in including this last chapter, we at least wanted to acknowledge the need for such an awareness, and we would like to leave it to the reader to take the insights of this last chapter and read again all the preceding chapters to see how they might be affected, how they might change in the light of those kind of questions. The book might end with that chapter – the reflections, however, do not.

So where do we stand with respect to the question of East Asian pedagogy? How is it that the concerns raised in this book are concerns at all? In view of the possible problems of Orientalism and Colonialism just mentioned, what in our circumstances leads us to imagine that an encounter with other cultures will help us to catch sight of the self? Does this mean that the other culture serves only the project of self-understanding and self-formation? Are we restoring a universalist assumption of the priority of the subject and its inalienable right to interpret the other for the self?

As editors we take the project of self-understanding and understanding the other to be mutually related, even dialectical. The metaphorical educational journey, or Bildungsreise of this book concerns the relations between knowing the other and knowing the self. This capacity for mutual illumination between self and other provides justification for making the effort to learn about the other. Through alienation from the familiar, the self may be understood. Paul Ricoeur has described this path to self-understanding as involving a ‘long route’ by way of a mediated opening to and interpretation of the other (Ricoeur 1992). Taking further this image of a long detour, interpreted through the concepts of the ‘way’ from East-Asian thinking (e.g. 道; Chinese: dao, Japanese: dō) towards self-understanding and self-cultivation, the path has often been understood as hard, rough, narrow, and often steep. There is an admitted mutuality between understanding the self and the other, and we resist prioritising the one over the other, despite the obvious risks of appropriating the other into the self, which may, indeed, never actually entail leaving the self.

It would be remiss of us not to acknowledge some of the other conditions that have made the pathway (the Bildungreise) and the product of this book possible. In 2012, Naoko Saito and Paul Standish published Education and the Kyoto School of Philosophy: Pedagogy for Human Transformation (Springer), a text which set the stage for intercultural encounter and dialogue. In November 2017 some of the authors from this text were invited to a conference generously supported by the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain (PESGB) and the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow at which some of the initial ideas for projects around international comparative education and intercultural dialogue were developed. Some of those papers formed drafts for chapters for this book and we are grateful to participants for their enthusiasm for, and commitment to, this ongoing project. We are also grateful to Jan Masschelein and Lynda Stone, editors of the ‘Contemporary Philosophies and Theories in Education’ series of which this book is a part, and the editorial team at Springer for their support.

Reference

Ricoeur, P. (1992) Oneself as another (K. Blamey trans) Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Part IIPositions

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020

D. Lewin, K. Kenklies (eds.)East Asian PedagogiesContemporary Philosophies and Theories in Education15https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45673-3_2

2. Filial Piety, Zhixing, and The Water Margin

William Sin¹  

(1)

Education University of Hong Kong, Tai Po, Hong Kong

William Sin

Email: [e-mail]

What are the demands of Confucian filial piety (or xiao 孝)? How stringent are they in comparison to the demands of impersonal morality¹? Between the demands of filial piety and those of impartial justice (which is a prominent instance of impersonal morality), how should individuals find a place for their personal interests within the confines of Confucian doctrines? In this paper, I attempt to answer these questions with reference to the virtue of zhi直 or zhixing 直性. Zhixing refers to an agent’s ability to act ‘straightly’ in accordance with his beliefs.² An agent with such a character will be inclined to act from self-honesty, courage, and determination in situations where moral dilemmas arise.

The virtue of zhixing is worthy of our attention because when an ordinary person is faced with a moral dilemma and cannot fulfill both the demands of filial piety and those of impersonal morality, he may be confused and overwhelmed by emotion. Even if this person eventually complies with the demands of impersonal morality, he might only do this because it is viewed as acceptable in the public eye. In contrast, the person with zhixing has a different motivational source. For him, it is more important to be committed to his principle than to live safely, or to live free from reprimand or the moral disapproval of others.

In the early part of this paper, I will engage with the debates between Liu Qingping and his critics on the priority of filial piety against the values of other virtues and those of impersonal morality (Liu 2003, pp. 234–250, 2007, pp. 1–19, 2009, pp. 173–188). Liu argues that Confucianism attaches overriding importance to the spirit of consanguineous affection, and that as such Confucianism has contributed to the spread of corruption in Chinese society. Liu’s arguments germinate in his discussion of the cases in Analects 論語13.18 and Mencius 孟子7A35, which will be introduced in section one.³ In sections two and three, I offer an alternative reading of the demands of filial piety with reference to the two cases in Analects 13.18 and Mencius 7A35. I argue that in these cases, Confucian teachers have deliberately created moral dilemmas to train their students’ reactions. I believe that the criteria of an appropriate response to the dilemmas is not necessarily determined by the position the agent takes, but by the way he handles the normative concerns in the scenario. The character trait of zhi is pertinent here as it enables the agent to perform well in difficult situations. I will explain this point by analyzing the case with regards to Analects 13.18. Finally, in section four, I will use the narratives of The Water Margin 水滸傳 to demonstrate the myriad ways filial piety can be expressed.⁴ I will focus on the case of Zhu Tong 朱仝and that of Song Jiang 宋江. Zhu is a person with zhixing, who can respond to moral dilemmas with authenticity, even though he protects his friend’s interests over the demands of impartial justice. In contrast, in Song’s case, because of his lack of sincerity, he seldom performs well in moral dilemmas, despite how often he proclaims the importance of the demands of impartial justice or that of filial piety to him.

2.1 Xiao: The Supreme Principle?

In Analects 13.18, Confucius 孔子makes a brief reply to the Duke of She regarding his opinion on the idea of uprightness. Confucius states that an ‘upright’ son should not report his father’s theft (of a sheep) to the authorities; he should conceal his father’s wrongdoing and an upright father would do likewise to conceal his son’s act of theft too.

The Case of Concealment: The Duke of She said to Confucius, "In our village we have one Straight Body [Zhigong直躬]. If a father steals a sheep, his son will give evidence against him."

Confucius answered, In our village those who are straight are quite different. Fathers cover-up for their sons, and sons cover-up for their fathers. In such behavior is straightness to be found as a matter of course (Analects 13.18, in Lau 1979, with my modification).

The second case is from Mencius 7A35. Mencius 孟子’s disciple Tao Ying桃應 asks him a hypothetical question. If Shun舜’s father (Gu Sou瞽瞍, who is a blind man) commits a murder, should Shun, being the emperor, excuse him for the crime or allow the authorities to apprehend him? After an initial exchange, Tao Ying presses Mencius for a more precise response. Mencius affirms that Shun would abdicate the throne and carry his father away, living outside the bounds of civil society.

The Case of Evasion: Tao Ying asked: If Shun was Emperor and Gao Yao 臯陶 the judge, what should have been done if the Blind Man killed a man?

The only thing to do is to apprehend him.

In that case, would Shun not try to stop it?

How could Shun stop it? Gao Yao had authority for what he did.

Then what would Shun have done?

Shun thought of casting aside the Empire as no more than discarding a worn shoe. He would have secretly carried the old man on his back and fled to the edge of the Sea and lived there happily, never giving a thought to the Empire (Mencius 7A35, in Lau 1970, with my modification).

Liu Qingping believes that the above two cases support the view that Confucianism places filial piety above the value of the principle of justice, and even the Confucian ideal of humane government (Liu 2004, p. 859, 2007, pp. 4–5). Liu calls it the spirit of consanguineous affection, representing an integral feature of the Confucian theory. There are general statements in both the Analects and Mencius attributing a prime position to the value of filial piety or xiao: You Zi 有子, a disciple of Confucius, states that being filial and having brotherly respect is the root of a person’s character (Analects 1.2). Mencius also says that the substance of benevolence is serving one’s parents and that the substance of righteousness is obedience to one’s elder brothers (Mencius 4A27). And the greatest achievement a filial son can make is to serve his parents and honor them (Mencius 4A19; 5A4).

Critics of Liu have provided useful reminders on how we should understand the circumstances of the Cases of Concealment and Evasion. They point out that even if a value is outweighed by another in a circumstance, it does not follow that this value is unimportant or will lose its normative force in other circumstances. In fact, even in these controversial cases, the agent must still make an effort to respect the overridden values. I shall sum up these observations in terms of three points.

First, in the Case of Concealment, Van Norden notes that when the conversation took place, the punishment for the theft of sheep was likely to be harsh, such as the amputation of a limb, or tattooing thief on the criminal’s face.⁵ As such, the adult child’s violation of the demands of justice (or those of honesty) is performed to protect his father’s core interests, such as his physical integrity. If the punishment for the crime was more lenient, or if the father had committed a more serious crime, the balance of considerations would tilt towards the son reporting the event to the authorities. Second, in the Case of Evasion, Shun’s father Gu Sou has committed murder. Shun evades justice by escaping with him. However, Shun did not interfere with the process of prosecution (even if he could have done so); on the contrary, he withdrew from the throne and secretly carried his father away. In this case, though Shun did not fulfill his official duties as an emperor, Shun did no positive harm to its legal authority (Li 2008, p. 76).

Third, both Huang, and Rosemont and Ames, draw attention to the fact that remonstration plays a prominent role in Confucianism when an adult child’s parents have performed morally problematic actions (Huang 2013, p. 134; Rosemont and Ames 2008, p. 11). In other words, in either the Case of Concealment or that of Evasion, the adult children may be acting to create a favorable environment in which they can remonstrate with their parents (Huang 2013, pp. 142–144). In the two cases, evading justice or concealing wrongdoing may not in themselves represent the overarching goal of the adult children’s actions. They may be instrumental conditions for the creation of a moral remedial exercise in the future (Chen 2011, p. 455).

2.2 The Pedagogical Intention and the Use of Moral Dilemmas

In this section, I will explain Confucius’s and Mencius’s pedagogical considerations behind their remarks in the two cases. On the face of it, both teachers seem to value filial piety over impartial justice. However, this is not the only judgement we can obtain from studying the conversations. I believe that one of the aims of these Confucian teachers is to set out moral dilemmas for their students. In the Confucian tradition of education, students are not regarded as mere ‘vessels,’ blindly receiving orders to do things; they are educated to become junzi 君子, and to use creativity and courage to find their way out of difficult situations.⁶ The setting of cases with moral dilemmas is a means to achieve these educational goals.

Why do I think the two cases represent moral dilemmas rather than simple cases in which one consideration overrides another? With regard to the Case of Evasion, if filial piety were taken to be the supreme principle of human life in Confucianism, Shun would have a greater range of options as to how to best protect his father’s interests. He could simply give his father immunity from prosecution, forbidding Gao Yao from investigating the murder.⁷ In that case Shun would not have to escape with his father from the administration in secret. That Mencius offers such an indirect strategy for Shun to protect his father’s interests indicates the serious concern Mencius has for considerations of justice and the public interest.

With regard to the Case of Concealment, despite the brevity of Confucius’s remarks, two points are worth noting. The first is the confident tone the Duke of She uses to inform Confucius of the moral achievement of people in his village: that Zhigong will report even his own father’s misconduct. This background allows Confucius to overturn the Duke of She’s beliefs about the meaning of uprightness. If the Duke had told a more modest story about the moral performance of people in his village, then it is probable that Confucius would have responded differently.

The second point concerns the use of the keyword: yin 隱. In Huang’s translation, he prefers ‘not disclosing’ to ‘concealing’ (Huang 2013, pp. 144–145). The former, as an omission, involves an agent’s more passive participation in the situation than the act of concealment. However, if filial piety absolutely outweighs the considerations of public justice, it would be appropriate for Confucius to recommend a more active course of action (than non-disclosure) to the agent. Why not, for instance, just openly lie to the investigators? The fact that Confucius uses an indirect expression to describe the upright person’s behavior shows the concerns Confucius has when proposing behavior that conflicts with the value of justice and public morality.⁸

Finally, a more serious problem with Liu’s interpretation is that he has ruined the tension in the scenarios. If we accept his view, then it would be a moral requirement to honor the demands of filial morality at the expense of public morality. Yet this is inconceivable in both scenarios (Van Norden 2008, pp. 126–7). It seems that under the doctrine of Confucianism, agents are at least morally permitted to act for the sake of social justice and public morality at the expense of their own parents’ or other family members’ interests.

Now, let us turn to the idea of moral dilemmas. In a genuine moral dilemma, neither of the incompatible requirements can be overridden (Sinnott-Armstrong 1988, Chapter 1; see also Nagel 1979, pp. 134–5). So no matter which option the agents take, they will be doing something wrong and, if the consequences are sufficiently grave, they would appropriately feel distraught with remorse or guilt for their decision (McConnell 2018). The rise of these feelings is not unimportant because they signify the presence of a desire in the person to act according to the respective commitment in life (see also Smart and Williams 1973, p. 116, 1981, p. 74).

There are pedagogical benefits to using moral dilemmas in teaching. Because of their challenging nature, dilemmas can motivate students and foster learning (Berlyne 1960). Confucius has emphasized that students should do their own inferential thinking and contemplation as he provides the initial points of stimulation.⁹ In addition, by using moral dilemmas, Confucian teachers can enable students to understand the practical limits of ethical principles. Because of the non-ideal circumstance of ordinary lives, agents must often use practical wisdom (zhi 智) and discretion (quan 權) to decide how to balance the conflicting concerns of different moral principles (Analects 9: 30; Mencius 4A17, 6B1, 7A26; Van Norden 2008, p. 128). This involves a process in which people sacrifice and negotiate principles as well as experience guilt and regret. It is also a process through which people develop their own virtues.

Finally, with regard to the Cases of Concealment and Evasion, though Confucius and Mencius demonstrate their ways of responding to the situations, this does not preclude the possibility that other virtuous persons under the same circumstances may do things differently: they may choose to affirm the values of impartial ethics and justice and still act in a way which matches the Confucian ideal of the Mean. In other words, there may be different ways for an agent to respond to a moral dilemma in an appropriate manner. It matters not only which side the agent has ended up defending, but how he handles the situation, juggling between competing concerns. In an alternative case, even if a certain agent may choose to honor the value of social justice at the expense of his parents’ interests, he may be acting poorly when he lacks in courage or moral integrity.

2.3 On Uprightness and the Character Trait of Zhi

In this section, I will explain the important role which the character trait of zhi plays as agents deal with moral dilemmas. Using the Case of Concealment, I will explain how Confucius elaborates the demands of xiao through the diverse meanings of the concept of zhi.¹⁰ With this elaboration, I will make sense of the prudential dimension which underlies the Confucian conception of filial virtue.

Sometimes being aware of a wide array of reasons is not a blessing; the reasons may support opposing sides of an issue. An agent aware of this can become stuck, rather than be enlightened, by his cognitive understanding. It is unclear if this is what the Duke of She goes through after hearing that for Confucius, ‘uprightness’ means something contrary to his view. The dialogue ends at the point when the suspense heightens.¹¹

But the writer of the Analects has not left us without a hint. When Confucius says that he can find zhi in the adult child’s act of concealment (or non-disclosure) on behalf of his father, he may not have contradicted the Duke of She’s ‘ethical’ approach to the case; for Confucius is talking about something else: in Analects 13.18, the two occasions in which zhi appears represent a pair of homonyms (see also Huang 2013, p. 140; Meng 2004, p. 460; Guo 2011, p. 6). The Duke of She uses the concept of zhi in a moralized way: it is morally right for someone to comply with the demands of justice even at the expense of his father’s interests. However, in Confucius’s expression, zhi is taken as a notable feature of a person’s character. Using the Duke of She’s sense of the word, we cannot ask further why Zhigong should report his father’s wrongdoing to the authorities; that such an upright action is morally right is analytically true. Confucius offers a substantive answer: the act of concealment is something that the (upright) person will do because this action springs from a deep attachment of his life.

In the Case of Concealment, although the adult child conceals his father’s wrongdoing and thus contravenes the ethical expectations of society, the adult child has a clear idea of how to live for the rest of his life. This presents a distinctive prudential dimension in the Confucian understanding of the demands of filial piety. From the adult child’s perspective, even though there is a garden-variety of ethical reasoning, partial and impartial, which he should consult in the scenario, a more basic question is how he will want to shape his life from a whole-life’s perspective. Zhi is a pertinent character trait in this context. It does not provide the person with an additional reason to do things, but represents, at a more basic level, a disposition to act according to the person’s deepest commitments. The agent who does not have such a disposition in his character will either lack the ability to act well in the critical moment, or may fail to cognize the meaning of his fundamental principle in life.

The antonym of zhi is qu 曲or xiequ邪曲, which refers to a calculating and insincere character.¹² Confucius has stated that a calculating person may cheat his way through life, gaining power and fortune, yet his downfall is inevitable (Analects 6.19). By contrast, a straightforward person (zhi) may sometimes act stubbornly and imprudently from a practical point of view (Mencius 2A2). Yet when a person acts truly in a critical moment, whatever takes place consequently may hardly affect the completeness of his life. Thus, Confucius says, He has not lived in vain who dies in the evening, having been told about the Way in the morning (Analects 4.8.; see also Sin 2018, pp. 238–240).

The Analects has various descriptions concerning the role of zhi in relation to other virtues: zhi alone is not sufficient for someone to be a junzi, who must acquire both a refinement as well as a truthful native substance in his character (wenzhibinbin文質彬彬) (Analects 6.18); a person acting straightly but without propriety could appear to be rude (Analects 8.2); a person should also learn the intricacies of social relationships, otherwise he will be blunt and impatient.¹³ However, Confucius also says that those who are resolute, simple, and speak little are close to being benevolent, and if one cannot have moderate persons around oneself for associates, one must turn to the ardent and the over-scrupulous (Analects 13.27; 13.24).

2.4 Zhixing and Filial Piety in The Water Margin

There are a variety of ways to