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Thesis A role-based ethics gives too little protection to the person the roles are failing

Deepa Nair Fellow
· 6 replies · 266 views
Moral theoriesChineseIndianJapanese & KoreanConfucianismMohismB. R. AmbedkarConfuciusMenciusMozi#ambedkar#dissent#remonstrance#role-ethics
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Where it stands

I study constitutional law in Delhi, and Ambedkar is my lodestar. In Annihilation of Caste (1936) he attacked a social order in which a person's duties are fixed by the position they are born into, and argued that such an order leaves the person it crushes little ground to stand on, because the same sacred authority that assigns the duties also forbids questioning them.

I've been reading about Confucian role ethics, and I want to test a version of that argument against it, carefully. I am not saying Confucianism is caste. It isn't: Confucian roles are not hereditary castes, and the ideal person, the junzi, is made by cultivation, not birth.

But on the "relational" reading, a person is constituted by her relationships: daughter, wife, daughter-in-law, subject. Obligation flows from role. My worry is the dissenter. If a daughter-in-law is mistreated within a household that is performing its roles "correctly" by the standards of its time, what standing does she have to say the whole arrangement is wrong? Her complaint has to be made from inside the role that is failing her.

The tradition has resources. Remonstrance is a duty. Mencius even approved of removing a tyrant. But the famous passage on remonstrating with parents says to do it gently, and if they don't listen, to remain respectful and not oppose them. That seems to me exactly the problem.

Thesis: grounding obligation in role leaves thin protection for the person the roles are failing. Persuade me otherwise.

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6 replies

For the thesis 1

  1. Chen Yuting

    For Fellow

    For, with the oldest objection in the book. The Mohists said the root of social harm is partiality, caring more for one's own family, state or ruler than for others. A system of graded obligation, where you owe most to those closest, will always tend to protect insiders against outsiders, and the powerful within the family against the weak. Deepa's daughter-in-law is an outsider who married in. The Mohist would say role ethics can't help her, because the structure itself ranks her concerns below others'.

Against the thesis 2

  1. Lin Pei-shan

    Against Contributor

    Against. Two things. First, the junzi is not someone who performs a role correctly; it is someone who has become fully human, ren, through learning. The Analects is full of people performing roles correctly and being criticised by Confucius for lacking ren. So "the household performs its roles correctly but mistreats her" is a contradiction in Confucian terms: mistreatment is a failure of the role.

    Second, Mencius on the tyrant: when asked whether killing King Zhou was regicide, he says he has heard of the execution of a mere fellow called Zhou, not the killing of a ruler. A ruler who destroys ren and yi has stopped being a ruler. That is a strong principle: a role that betrays its purpose loses its claim.

    Helpful · 1
    1. Deepa Nair

      Fellow

      Pei-shan, Ji-woo, these are strong replies and I concede the point about birth and about the tyrant. But notice who the examples protect. The remonstrating scholar and the tyrant-removers are men in public roles. My daughter-in-law has no memorial to submit and no court to appeal to. The principle "a failing role loses its claim" is excellent. Who gets to declare that a role has failed?

      Helpful · 3
  2. Ji-woo Park

    Against Fellow

    Against, from Korea. In the Joseon dynasty the court had offices whose whole job was remonstrance, and Confucian scholars submitted memorials criticising kings, sometimes at the cost of their lives. That is dissent institutionalised within a Confucian order. I teach this to my students precisely because they think Confucianism meant obedience.

    Helpful · 2

Other replies

  1. Femke Bosman

    Fellow

    Partly for, partly not. Feminist critics have raised exactly Deepa's worry about Confucian family roles. But some feminist philosophers have also found Confucian relational ethics an ally: Chenyang Li compared ren with the ethics of care, since both start from relationships rather than abstract individuals. The care ethicist's answer to Deepa would be that relationships themselves have standards, and a relationship of domination is a bad relationship, not a role to be performed. That doesn't solve the "who declares it?" problem, but it means the resources are inside relational ethics, not only outside it.

    Helpful · 1
  2. Deepa Nair

    Fellow

    Where I've landed. The strongest version of my thesis is not about Confucian ideals, which, as Pei-shan says, condemn the mistreatment. It's about enforcement: an ethics that locates the standard inside roles needs some standing outside them for the weakest to appeal to. Ambedkar's answer was a constitution of individual rights. I'd now say Confucian role ethics is compatible with that answer, but doesn't supply it by itself.

    Helpful · 2