[ Article ]

Journal of Confucian Philosophy and Culture - Vol. 35, No. 0, pp.47-76

ISSN: 1598-267X (Print) 2734-1356 (Online)

Print publication date 28 Feb 2021

Received 09 Oct 2020 Accepted 16 Jan 2021

DOI: https://doi.org/10.22916/jcpc.2021..35.47

Integrating Care and Respect: Early Confucian Ethics as Inclusive Ethics

Shirong Luo^*

*Shirong Luo is an Associate Professor of Philosophy and Director of Health Humanities Minor Program at Simmons University. luo8@simmons.edu

Abstract

What it is commonly referred to as “early Confucian ethics” has its textual sources in two canonical Confucian texts—the Analects and the Mencius, and to a lesser extent, in the Xunzi. This article breaks fresh ground in the study of early Confucian ethics by defending a new interpretation that Confucian ethics is an inclusive ethics in the sense that all of its key notions contain the dual dimensions of care and respect. I call this “the inclusion thesis.” This paper will proceed as follows. First, I make some general remarks about the importance of integration of care and respect in ethics. Second, I distinguish between two ways of making ethics inclusive—(1) the integration by reduction and (2) the integration by complementation. Between the two, I suggest that the method of integration by complementation should be preferred. Third, I present two case studies to illustrate the importance of inclusivity of care and respect. Lastly, by meticulous exegetical analysis, I attempt to substantiate my inclusion thesis that early Confucian ethics is a moral theory in which care (or love) and respect are conceptually amalgamated through the complementary integration.

Keywords:

Confucian ethics, respect, care, inclusive ethics, Confucius, Mencius

I. Introductory Remarks about the Importance of Inclusive Ethics

According to Aristotle, the purpose of engaging in ethics is to become a good person, not merely to acquire knowledge. Studying ethics is not merely to know what is good and right but to do good things and perform right actions. Moral theory as practical philosophy is supposed to serve as a guide to our actions and a basis for evaluating them, but there are a variety of moral theories on offer, such as consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics, which are not always compatible with one another. In many cases, they give conflicting counsels as to what we should do and how our actions should be appraised. The rise of the feminist ethics of care has certainly enriched our understanding of morality and provided a new conceptual framework in our theoretical toolkit, but the questions remain: Which of the above-mentioned theories is the best guide to our actions if they do not point in the same direction? On which theory should we settle as our practical guide? To resolve the difficulty, we ask: what is it that we as human beings ultimately want? While this is a question that falls under the heading of moral psychology, moral theorists do have an answer to it in an explicit or implicit form. Utilitarian ethicists would declare that we want happiness. A right action, according to them, is one that results in a net increase in happiness.¹ Kantian theorists would lay great stress on human autonomy. They urge us to respect every human being’s autonomy and do things that do not infringe it.² Care ethicists would say that ultimately it is care (or love) that we want. The right thing to do, therefore, is one that establishes or strengthens a caring relationship. An inclusive answer, however, would go something like this: If we are happier when more of our needs are met, and we need both love and respect from human interactions, then we will be happier when we are treated with both love and respect. As we can see, the inclusive answer is in line with maximizing happiness.

Kant calls love and respect “two great moral forces”—the former drawing us together while the latter keeping us at a respectful distance (Kant 1996, 568-569). But it is a challenge to achieve what may be called the Goldilocks’ distance—not too close, not too far, but just right. More than 2,000 years ago, the Chinese philosopher Confucius (551-479 BCE) recognized how difficult it is to maintain an optimal distance in human relationship.³ We can make use of the dual forces of love and respect to regulate our relationships because human relationships are dynamic, always in flux, and in need of constant adjustment. We cannot help but act, and our actions may either strengthen or undermine our relationships with others. Kant cautions us about the dire consequences of letting one moral force dominate the other because the immorality that ensues will destroy humanity. Kantian ethics, however, is not a paragon of balanced moral theory as it is favorably inclined toward the moral force of respect. On the other hand, the contemporary ethics of care is not an exemplar of balanced moral theory, either, as it leans decisively toward the moral force of love. Thus, there is a need for an inclusive ethics that can help us harness and coordinate the two great moral forces at the service of maintaining a harmonious relationship with others.⁴

II. Reductive Integration vs Complementary Integration

In recent years, some scholars have done just that, by working toward an integrative ethical theory that incorporates both care and respect (Dillon 1992) or love and respect (La Caze 2005). It seems to me that there is more than one way to proceed in this direction. Such integrative projects can be pursued through different approaches. One approach may be referred to as “the integration by reduction” or “reductive integration” through which a key idea in one moral theory is reduced to a core idea of another theory. Robin Dillon, for example, argues that care—a core idea in the ethics of care—is a kind of respect, which is a key concept in Kantian ethics. She writes,

[T]here is a conception of respect for persons which incorporates many of the most characteristic elements of the care perspective. This conception . . . views caring for a person as a way of respecting her. Care, on this conception, is one kind of respect . . . it is a kind of respect we owe to all persons, not just to our loved ones and friends. . . . I believe we may find in a union of respect and care resources for a more integrative approach to moral theory and moral life. (Dillon 1992, 107)

It seems that the way her approach towards the integration of (the concepts of) care and respect is a case of integration by reduction because it attempts to reduce the idea of care to the notion of respect. In contrast, there is a different method by which an integrative project can be undertaken. Such a method may be called “the integration by complementation” or “complementary integration” according to which care and respect are seen as opposite and yet complementary to each other; their polarity and complementarity are preserved as the integral components within a higher-order concept, which plays a more central role in moral and political agency and appraisal. In Dillion’s reductive integration, respect plays the role of a higher-order notion that assimilates the idea of caring into itself. Nel Noddings, however, sees the notion of caring as the higher-order notion in relation to the idea of respect as she thinks that the desire to be treated with respect is a variant desire to be cared for. Noddings writes,

After a discussion with Jim Gibbs, a Stanford anthropologist, I was convinced that caring may not be universal. What is universal . . . is the desire to be cared for. . . . There is nothing moral about that desire in itself. But its universality makes . . . the caring relation… a primitive good. Manifestations of the desire to be cared for range from the absolute need of infancy to the aloof desire to be treated with respect that is so characteristic of mature persons in individualistic cultures. . . . [The caring] relation is everywhere taken as a basic good. (Noddings 1999, 38)

If the desire to be treated with respect is a variant of the desire to be cared for, as Noddings notes, then it seems reasonable to say that respect is a variant of caring because the desire to be cared for can be met with caring; the desire to be treated with respect can be satisfied with respect. If respect is reduced to caring, the distinction between them would evaporate into thin air. As a result, there would be only connectedness without separateness in human relationships; only intimacy without appropriate boundaries. There would be no room for being left alone. Having a personal space in which one is left alone to do or be what she wants to do or be, without interference from the state or others is what Isaiah Berlin refers to as “negative liberty” (Berlin 1958, 7).⁵ Respecting negative liberty is respecting people’s negative rights such as the right to privacy. When Blaise Pascal says in his Pensées that all the unhappiness of men arises from the fact that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber, he may have overstated his case to make a point but personal space is an important value. While respect not balanced by care would make us isolated like Leibniz’s monads, care not tempered with respect would render us undifferentiated nonentities. When human relationship is dominated by care alone, it would be like a universe having gravity without the countervailing force to keep it in check, resulting in all matter squeezed into something like Parmenides’ Being—a solid sphere of uniformity. In the absence of either care or respect, we would be deprived of a powerful tool to regulate and harmonize human relationships. Nodding’s reducing (the concept of) respect to the umbrella notion of care would leave little personal space. “All you need is love” sounds good, but your life would certainly go better if you are also respected as a chart-topping artist. Dillon’s and Nodding’s seemingly opposite approaches are problematic because both involve a denial of the fundamental differences between respect and care (or love)—the “two great moral forces” that are supposed to pull us in opposite directions in moral life. To say that respect is a kind of care, as Noddings does, or care is a kind of respect, as Dillion does, is to obliterate their basic differences. If such differences are denied, then the project of integration becomes unnecessary. Since care (or love) and respect are not only opposite, but also complementary to each other, there are two kinds of errors that can be made with regard to their relationship: one is to deny or downplay their polarity, whereas the other is to deny or downplay their complementarity. By claiming care is a kind of respect or vice versa, Dillon and Noddings seem to have erred on the side of denying their polarity (or fundamental differences).

Why do these scholars use the reductive method of integration to unite care and respect if the two concepts are obviously distinct? The answer to this question seems to be twofold. First, in philosophy, science, and religion, there is a prevalent tendency to apply Oakham’s razor to reduce the complexity of reality to a minimal number of fundamentals. The least number of fundamentals is, of course, one. This tendency may explain why in religion there is monotheism. In physics, there have been attempts to unify the four fundamental interactions into a single force on the basis of which an all-encompassing framework called the “theory of everything” is to be built. There are a variety of monistic theories in philosophy. In ethics, as mentioned earlier, the all-important value for utilitarianism is aggregate utility. Respect for the moral law lies at the center of Kant’s moral universe like a supermassive black hole. The concept of care plays a similar overarching role in the ethics of care. The attempt to reduce care to respect or vice versa is to turn morality into a single all-inclusive fundamental value. Einstein famously said, “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”⁶ Trying to reduce what is irreducible is to make things simpler.

The second reason is that among care theorists, there has been no agreement with regard to the nature of care, even though there exists a large and growing body of literature on care ethics since it burst on the scene decades ago (Held 2006, 29). In philosophy, this is not surprising because after thousands of years, we are still nowhere near a consensus about the nature of truth, justice, beauty, or some other important philosophical notion. Despite a lack of agreement, some definitions are more illuminating than others. According to Nel Noddings (1984), caring means focusing one’s attention on the needs, desires, and preferences of those under one’s care, and trying to understand a situation from their perspectives. However, paying attention is not nearly enough. Your adversary can closely study your feelings, needs, desires, and thoughts in order to find out your weaknesses to subdue you. Care is first and foremost an action that addresses perceived needs. According to Diemut Bubeck (1995, 129), care means meeting the needs of one person by another person, when those needs cannot possibly be met by the person in need herself. Care is “a response to a particular subset of basic human needs, i.e. those which make us dependent on others” (133). All babies and ailing elderly need care all the time; all healthy adults need care some of the time (when they get seriously ill, or incapacitated due to injuries). Sympathy (or compassion) motivates care as action. Care is based on negative appraisal in the sense that someone is in an unfortunate or unenviable position that calls for sympathy, pity, or compassion. You need care if you are injured or sick and incapable of taking care of yourself. Respect, in contrast, is based on positive appraisal and is not motivated empathy, rather than by sympathy.⁷ We respect someone not because of her vulnerabilities or weaknesses, but rather because of her strength, dignity, superiority, excellence, or merit. In an influential paper, Stephen Darwall (1977) distinguishes between two kinds of respect—recognition respect and appraisal respect. Recognition respect is what we owe all persons as persons in so far as they are rational, free, and autonomous. It is what Kant has in mind when he says we should treat humanity as ends, not merely as means. According to Darwall (1977, 38), recognition respect is also conferred on “the law, someone’s feelings, and social institutions with their positions and roles.”⁸ Although Darwall does not discuss specifically respect for parents, it seems reasonable to classify parental respect as recognition respect because the family is a major social institution. I would also add social norms and religious rituals as the objects of recognition respect. When Confucius laments that some officials perform rituals (禮) without the proper attitude of respect (敬), he clearly has something like recognition respect in mind.⁹ By contrast, appraisal respect is not automatically conferred on all persons; to deserve appraisal respect, one must possess excellent character, ability, or skill. In Confucian ethics, junzi and ren are honorific designations for someone in possession of virtuous character traits, who deserves appraisal respect. Roughly, what distinguishes care from respect is that care is based on negative appraisal while respect is based on positive appraisal. Even recognition respect that is owed to all persons is based on positive appraisal because rationality, freedom, and autonomy are of great value. Another difference is that care implies proximity. “When I need help, she is always there for me.” “He offered me a shoulder to cry on when I lost my beloved pet.” Respect, however, implies distance. “Please respect the privacy of the grieving family during this extremely difficult time.” “Leave me alone.” Therefore, to say that respect is a kind of care or care is a kind of respect, is to downplay the fundamental differences between the two. On the other hand, to say that care is based on negative appraisal does not mean there being no positive appraisal at all. To assert that respect is based on positive appraisal does not imply there being no negative appraisal. Person A tries to save Person B in part because it seems to A that B is savable. If B has already died, A’s caring efforts will cease. Our respect for the privacy of a grieving family also involves some negative appraisal—the family is in a difficult situation and needs to be left alone.¹⁰ It seems to me that the method of integration by complementation is a better way to unite care and respect because it retains their polarity (differences) as well as their complementarity. In the integration by complementation, the concepts of care and respect are incorporated into an inclusive idea that is situated on a higher conceptual echelon and plays a more central role in ethical and political agency, evaluation, and education. For example, filial piety in early Confucius ethics is such an inclusive and higher-order notion in which care and respect are united.

Having argued against the reductive integration, my main goal for the rest of this essay is to show that Confucian ethics exemplifies inclusive ethics in that all of its key concepts contain the dual dimensions of care and respect.¹¹ What we refer to as “early Confucian ethics” has its textual sources in two major Confucian classics—the Analects and the Mencius. It has been variously characterized as the ethics of respect (Wawrytko 1982), the ethics of care (Li 1994), virtue ethics (Ivanhoe 2000), role ethics (Ames 2011), and relational ethics (Connolly 2012). I call these characterizations “the five theses” about or “the five portraits” of early Confucian ethics: respect, care, virtue, role, and relation theses. This essay breaks fresh ground in the study of early Confucian ethics by defending a new interpretation that Confucian ethics is an inclusive ethics in the sense that all the key virtues it endorses contain the dual dimensions of care and respect. I call my new interpretation “the inclusion thesis,” which is not incompatible with all the aforementioned characterizations. For example, my inclusion thesis does not undermine the virtue thesis, nor does it downplay the importance of the role thesis or relation thesis. It can be seen as a synthesis that preserves the insights of both the respect thesis and the care thesis, and yet as a more comprehensive representation of Confucian ethics. Through meticulous exegetical analysis I attempt to substantiate that early Confucian ethics is a morality in which (the concepts of) care and respect are integrated into the following higher-order notions—filial piety (xiao 孝), Goodness (ren 仁),¹² the virtuous person (junzi 君子), care-respect (renyi 仁義), and ritual (li 禮). In what follows, I will present two case studies to illustrate what might have motivated early Confucian philosophers to develop an inclusive ethics in which care and respect are coalesced into one organic unity. These cases will serve as a segue into the elaboration of my inclusion thesis.

III. Two Case Studies

The First Case: I use the following case to bring home the need for integration of care and respect in ethics. It is mentioned by Mencius (372-289 BCE) probably as a cautionary tale (Mencius 6A.10) against unbalanced philanthropy in particular and lopsided morality in general. The story, also included in the Book of Rites (Liji 禮記), is about an indigent man who dies of starvation after rejecting food offered him disrespectfully (Legge 1885, 194-195). It turns out that philanthropy was a common practice in ancient China.¹³ During difficult times, benevolent wealthy merchants, government officials, or monks would use their own resources to set up what was analogous to today’s soup kitchens, food banks or food pantries to help sick or famished indigents. Presumably they were motivated by something like the ethic of care. However, in their eagerness to care for the unfortunate, they tended to skimp on courtesy. “Hey you! Here’s something for you to chew on,” the wealthy merchant shouted. It happened that the starving person approaching the soup kitchen was a Kantian, acutely aware of his human dignity and very sensitive to slights and insults. He took umbrage at not being addressed as Sir, and a lack of other formalities such as “welcome” and “please,” staggered away, and finally died of starvation. The story raises a question for utilitarian ethicists: When hunger meets food, there is supposed to be a happy ending—satiation; both the philanthropist and the starving person should be satisfied. But why in this case did their encounter result in the worst outcome—death? For Kantian and care ethicists, this story should be read as a cautionary tale about the importance of inclusivity of both care and respect because an inclusive ethics would have more resources to strike a balance between them. The proverbial “beggars cannot be choosers” turns out to be problematic, as the above tale suggests, because even a starving beggar on the verge of death can exercise his autonomy, wherein lies human dignity. As the above story indicates, caring not balanced with respect may result in failure or even tragedy. On the other hand, respect without caring can be equally inadequate, if not more so. Just imagine a world in which everyone is scrupulously respectful, but mothers do not feed their babies; adult children dutifully visit their ailing parents but never lift a finger to help them. It seems therefore that an integration of caring and respect would lead to a better human relationship.

The Second Case: In the Mencius 7A.19, there is a story about how Zengzi 曾子 (505-436 BCE), a disciple of Confucius, takes care of his father. The way Zengzi treats his father exemplifies both care and respect because in addition to providing his father with food and drink, he always consults his father about what to do with the unconsumed meat and wine after the old man finishes his dinner. However, when Zengzi himself grows old and has to be taken care of by his son, the young man never asks him what to do with the leftovers. In both cases the fathers are cared for by their sons, but there is a crucial difference: the way Zengzi treats his father is an embodiment of integrative care, which Mencius endorses, whereas the way his son treats him leaves something to be desired and that something is respect.

IV. Integration of Care and Respect in Confucian Ethics

A. The Mouth-Body Nourishing Care vs the Mind-Nourishing Care

The abovementioned cases lead Mencius to distinguish between two kinds of care—the mouth-body nourishing care (yangkouti 養口體) and the mind-nourishing care (yangzhi 養志) (Mencius 4A.19). While we immediately recognize the mouth-body nourishing care as care, the mind-nourishing care is, in fact, respect because the respecter acknowledges that the person under his care is his father and defers to his autonomy. To some extent, it is analogous to seeking the informed consent of a patient in a healthcare context. The contrast is clear: Zengzi’s father was treated with both care and respect whereas Zengzi himself was cared for but not respected. It is not hard to see which of the two ways can lead to a more satisfying relationship and which is prone to resentment. It seems clear that for Mencius, the mouth-body nourishing care paired with the mind-nourishing care is conducive to a better caring relationship because it takes into account the fact that human beings desire not only to be cared for, but also respected, and Zengzi’s way of caring for his father satisfies both. In all likelihood, Mencius’ integrative thinking is influenced by his predecessor, Confucius.

B. Filial Piety as Integrative Notion

Confucius is dissatisfied with the prevailing opinion of his time according to which filial piety means no more than the mouth-body nourishing care, that is, providing parents with nourishment (yang 養). According to Confucius, there is something amiss with the conventional idea of care prevalent in his time. He asks rhetorically, “In the absence of respect (jing 敬), how can we distinguish providing for parents from providing for dogs and horses?” (Analects 2.7). Indeed, human beings have both physiological and psychological needs. Bertrand Russell observes, “The boa constrictor, when he has had an adequate meal, goes to sleep, and does not wake until he needs another meal. Human beings, for the most part, are not like this” (Russell 2009, 447). Unlike the boa constrictor, human beings are not satisfied with the mouth-body nourishing care alone. What makes an inclusive care ethics more efficacious as a guide than either an ethic of care or an ethic of respect is that the former can counsel us to be mindful of the universal human desires to be cared for and respected, and to act accordingly.

If the desires to be cared for and respected are universal, their fulfillments must be good. However, such fulfillments require the cultivation of the virtues of care and respect, which is central to Confucian ethics. Mencius, for example, maintains that there is a twofold approach to win the hearts and minds of the people—to provide them with what they need and not to impose on them what they dislike (Mencius 4A.9). “To provide them with what they need” is to care for them; “not to impose on them what they dislike” is to respect them. The two-fold approach, however, should not be construed only as a strategy for rulers or political leaders to gain power. For Mencius, the combination of the two familial virtues of filial piety and brotherly respect (ti 悌) is accessible to most people. It is a formula for social harmony because he believes that if everyone loves their own parents and respects their elders (and extends such love and respect beyond their own families), the world will be at peace (Mencius 4A.11; 1A.7).

For Confucius, the foundation of the two-fold approach to win the hearts and minds of the people is filial piety constituted by love of and respect for parents. In the opening chapter of the Classic of Filial Piety (Xiaojing 孝經), he identifies it as the all-important virtue possessed by the sage kings of antiquity, who, by exercising it, won the hearts and minds of the people who consequently lived in peace and harmony; there was no resentment between the rulers and their subjects (Hu 1999, 49). With such a far-reaching impact, filial piety has a humble beginning at home where it is instilled and cultivated (Analects 1.2). The state, as the family writ large, is the realm where filial piety can expand into the general virtue of Goodness (ren). In Confucian ethics, there are at least five integrative virtues having care and respect as their integral constituents: filial piety, Goodness (ren), the virtuous person (junzi 君子), care-respect (renyi 仁義), and ritual (li 禮). Since filial piety is considered a foundational virtue in classical Confucian ethics (Analects 1.2), in what follows, I first present textual evidence to show that it is an inclusive virtue with both care and respect as its integral constituents. I then demonstrate that care and respect are also integrated into the rest of the aforementioned virtues.

The Confucian concept of filial piety is both philosophically interesting and pragmatically significant.¹⁴ It is philosophically interesting because there are two integral aspects to it—care and respect. It is pragmatically significant because the issue of caring for parents may very well become an important topic in public debate and moral discourse in years to come if the rate of population aging is to continue unabated. Caring for parents is a significant part of caring for senior citizens. While the former seems to be a familial and private matter and the latter a public health issue, for classical Confucian philosophers there is no sharp demarcation between the family and the state since they see the state as the family writ large. If, in the style of Mencius, every family could take care of their elderly parents in the inclusive manner discussed in this paper, the world would be a better place.

We can hardly overestimate the importance of filial piety as a fundamental virtue in the Chinese tradition. While filial attitude is highly valued in many different cultures around the world, the Confucian tradition’s preoccupation with filial piety is extraordinary (Ivanhoe 2004, 189). Almost all early Chinese philosophers (perhaps with the exception of Yang Zhu 楊朱) concur that filial piety has pride of place in the Chinese ethos (Chan and Tan 2004, 1). Over the course of two thousand years the Confucian canon exerted and is still exerting enormous influences on the hearts and minds of the people in China as well as other Asian countries such as Korea, Vietnam, and Japan. Every aspiring public servant would take great pains to master the Confucian classics before taking the civil service examination. The pronouncements of Confucius, his disciples, and successors on the topic of filial piety are recorded in canonical texts such as the Analects (Lunyu 論語), the Mencius (Mengzi 孟子), the Great Learning (Daxue 大學), the Doctrine of the Mean (Zhong Yong 中庸), the Book of Rites (Liji 禮記), as well as the Classic of Filial Piety (Xiaojing 孝經). The latter, as one of the most influential of Confucian classics, is comprised of eighteen short chapters and about eighteen hundred words, and yet this slender volume had been among the most widely read classics over the past two millennia thanks to the clarity and conciseness of its language (Hu 1999, 3). While its authorship is a matter of controversy, many scholars believe that it was probably written by Confucius’ disciple Zengzi or his disciples based on the teachings of Confucius. This classic played a profound and enduring role in promoting filial care and respect in Chinese society because it instilled the idea of filial responsibility in the minds of the young during their most formative years.

That the meaning of the character “孝” is more than filial care can be seen from careful etymological and exegetical analyses. It seems that in the period prior to the time of Confucius, the character does not mean caring for parents. In the oracle bone inscriptions (jiaguwen 甲骨文) and bronze inscriptions (jinwen 金文), the character consists of two parts: one part represents an old person and the other a child (Holzman 1998, 186; Chen 2007, 2-11). This construction therefore may be read as symbolizing the parent-child relationship. According to Holzman, however, most inscriptive messages on the sacrificial vessels that contain the character seem to be of religious significance because they convey the intention of those who perform the ritual to make offering of their filial piety to their dead father, or their dead father and uncles, or to the ancestral temple (ibid). Thus, it seems clear that in its archaic usage the character is imbued with a strong sense of religious reverence for deceased fathers and their brothers. By the time of Confucius, however, filial piety has lost its religious significance and acquired the meaning of caring for parents in the sense of providing for them (yang 養).

Confucius is dissatisfied with this conventional understanding; he argues that parents deserve more than just physical sustenance—they deserve respect (Analects 2.7). Given the fact that the sense of respect is contained in the original understanding and practice, we may say that Confucius has restored in the meaning of filial piety what is originally there in the beginning, namely the idea of (religious) respect that has since been extended from the dead to the living. This is consistent with Confucius’ agnostic and humanistic stance toward supernatural entities. When disciple Zilu 子路 asks about serving the spirits of the dead, Confucius replies,

“You are not yet able to serve people—how could you be able to serve ghosts and spirits?” “May I inquire about death?” “You do not yet understand life—how could you possibly understand death?” (Slingerland 2003, 115)

Thus, for Confucius the notion of filial piety is humanistic and secular; it has the integral dimensions of both care and respect (for parents).

If filial care involves providing for parents, that is, attending to their physical needs and comfort, what does filial respect involve? The answer to this question can be found by examining the relevant passages in the Analects. There are four disciples who each ask Confucius a question about filial piety (2.5, 2.6, 2.7, and 2.8). Passages 2.7, cited earlier, is about why respect should be included in the conception of filial piety: parents should be valued in a manner befitting their dignity as human beings whose worth is, in Kant’s words, “above all price” (Kant 1998, 42). Passage 2.8 concerns how filial care and respect should be expressed in one’s countenance. Confucius observes,

What is difficult to manage is the expression on one’s face. As for the young taking on the burden when there is work to be done or letting the old enjoy the wine and the food when these are available, that hardly deserves to be called filial. (Lau 1992, 13)

Filial piety is not simply about providing parents with food, doing chores, or running errands for them; more importantly, it is about how one does those things. There is a difference between caring for parents respectfully and caring for them disrespectfully. Caring for them respectfully requires ritual (li 禮). Confucius explains: “When your parents are alive, comply with the rites in serving them; when they die, comply with the rites in burying them and in offering sacrifice to them” (Lau 1992, 13). To serve parents is to care for them; to serve them according to the rites (or rituals) is to care for them with respect; caring for parents with respect constitutes filial piety. Ritual, however, is only part of what it means to respect parents. To respect parents also means to comply with or defer to their wishes, preferences, or points of view. Confucius says,

In serving your parents you should try to dissuade them from doing wrong in the gentlest way. If you see your advice being ignored, you should not become disobedient but should remain reverent. You should not complain even if you are distressed. (Lau 1992, 33)

One of the meanings of respect defined by the OED is “due regard for the feelings, wishes, rights, or traditions of others, ” which is what Darwall calls “recognition respect,” as mentioned earlier. Darwall writes,

What we must attend to here is . . . what she holds good and would want from her point of view. We may rightly think that unhealthy habits are harmful for someone, but think as well that respect tells against exerting undue pressure to induce her to change. . . . A person’s own values and preferences give her reason to realize and promote them, and others reasons to permit her to do so. . . . (Darwall 2004, 14-15)

What Confucius refers to as respect (jing 敬) for parents in the above passage is due regard for their feelings and wishes, and therefore falls squarely under the heading of recognition respect. For Confucius, respect for parents has two senses: (1) to treat them in accordance with rituals (li 禮) or not in contravention of them; (2) to treat them in deference to their preferences or points of view. Confucius sums up these two senses of respect in a nutshell—“wuwei” (無違), meaning “never act against.” However, “never fail to comply” does not entail blind obedience, as evidenced by his advice that one should try to dissuade tactfully one’s parents from what one perceives as mistaken views or decisions. But if they insist on them, it is wrong for their children to withdraw care or even resort to abusive tactics to force them to change their minds.

Not only is filial piety important in its own right, it is also indispensable for the overarching virtue of ren. In the opening chapter of the Classic of Filial Piety Confucius declares that filial piety (xiao) is the origin of all virtues (Hu 1999, 49). His disciple Youzi 有子 also emphasizes the foundational nature of xiao by saying that filial piety and respect for elders constitute the origin of Goodness ren (Analects 1.2). If the notion of filial piety is inclusive of care and respect as its integral dimensions, it stands to reason that the idea of ren, as an extension of filial piety, should also be constituted by the same elements.

C. Ren as Integrative Concept

Confucius’ ren 仁 is one of the higher-order notions into which care and respect are integrated. For ease of reference, I label his understanding of ren as “the inclusive view of ren,” which is supported by many passages in the Analects. Some scholars, however, hold a different opinion. Following Mencius, they see ren as the virtue of care (benevolence or compassion) excluding respect and other virtues. This construal may be called “the exclusive view of ren.” In the Analects there is scanty textual evidence in support of the exclusive view of ren, although one particular passage, namely 12.22, is frequently quoted as such.

There is no denying that to the question about ren posed by the disciple Fan Chi 樊遲, Confucius’ reply is “to love ren 人” (airen 愛人) (Analects 12.22). Due to the ambiguity of the term ren in the classical context, however, it would be rash to automatically assume that airen in 12.22 means “to love everyone,” as the proponent of the exclusive view of ren tends to do. According to Yang Bojun 楊伯峻, ren in its classical usage has two senses: in the broad sense, it refers to human beings in general, whereas in the narrow sense it signifies officialdom (Yang 1980, 4). In fact, after Confucius answers his question about ren, Fan Chi 樊遲 immediately asks a second question about wisdom or knowledge (zhi 智), to which Confucius’ reply is “to know ren 人.” If Confucius’ answer to Fan’s first question about ren is unclear due to the aforementioned ambiguity of ren 人, his answer to the disciple’s second question about wisdom 智 can shed light on the first because Confucius does elaborate on it by saying that to know ren (zhiren 知人) means to promote the virtuous by placing them above those who are corrupt, and as a result the latter may reform themselves (12.22). Fan Chi, however, is not among Confucius’ best and brightest disciples who know ten things upon learning only one thing (Analects 5.9)—he fails to grasp Confucius’ elaboration, so he asks the disciple Zizhang 子張 for clarification. Zizhang demonstrates himself to be a competent explainer of Confucius’ ideas—he uses two historical examples (the sage kings Shun 舜 and Tang 湯) to explain what it means to know ren 人. It turns out that to know ren 人 is not to know people in general, but to know who is virtuous and therefore should be promoted to a higher governmental position, and who is corrupt and therefore should be demoted to a lower rank. If so, then Confucius is talking about the responsibility of a ruler or high ranking official for building a virtuous government. If this is correct, we are in a good position to disambiguate the term ren 人 in Confucius’ answer “airen” (愛人) to Fan’s first question concerning the meaning of ren. Ren means to love the virtuous, rather than to love everyone indiscriminately. Needless to say, in order to love the virtuous and promote them to leadership positions, one must know who is virtuous and who is not. Therefore, to love the virtuous 愛人 implies knowing the virtuous 知人. If the above analysis is correct, it shows that the exclusive view of ren is based on a misunderstanding of passage 12.22 in the Analects. In contrast, the inclusive view of ren enjoys extensive textual support from the Analects, and consequently rests on a secure exegetic basis. Consider passage 17.6 in which Confucius defines ren as the exercise of five virtues everywhere under heaven. They are respect, tolerance, trustworthiness, diligence, and caring (Analects 17.6). Elaborating on these virtues, he goes on to say,

If you are respectful, you will not be treated with disrespect. If you are tolerant, you will win all. If you are trustworthy, people will entrust you with responsibilities. If you are diligent, you will accomplish much. If you are caring, it suffices that others will work for you. (Analects 17.6)

This passage is what Slingerland calls “an instance of the overarching virtue of ren being presented as the harmony of lesser virtues” (2003, 202). Ren is not only inclusive of caring, but also of respect as well as other virtues such as trustworthiness and diligence. Therefore, ren is a higher-order notion into which care and respect are integrated.¹⁵ Passage 12.2 also supports the inclusive view of ren. Confucius tells his disciple Zhonggong 仲弓 that if he wants to be a ren person, he should conduct himself in the following manner:

When abroad behave as though you were receiving an important guest. When employing the services of the common people behave as though you were officiating at an important sacrifice. Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire. In this way you will be free from ill will whether in a state or in a noble family. (Lau, 1992, 109)

Behaving “as though you were receiving an important guest” implies respect; employing “the services of the common people as though you were officiating at an important sacrifice” implies caring. By “the common people,” Confucius primarily refers to peasants, who constitute the largest labor force in his time; they are often ordered to engage in road building and maintenance, or other public works projects. Such labor-intensive undertakings can be ruinous to their livelihood if they interfere with sowing or harvesting (Kupperman 2006, 72-73). Thus, government officials can be said to exhibit empathic concern (caring) for the peasants and their families if they employ their labor on public works projects only in the proper seasons. Similarly, passage 1.5 substantiates the inclusive view of ren even though the term “ren” is not explicitly mentioned. Confucius says,

To lead a state of a thousand chariots, be respectful and trustworthy in performing your public duties; be frugal in your expenditures; love those who work for you; employ the common people only at opportune times (Analects 1.5)

Although there is no explicit context to indicate that Confucius is answering a question about ren, it is easy to see the similarity between this passage and passage 17.6. On both occasions, Confucius treats respect and care, alongside other virtues, as integral members of a set of virtues he believes a good government official should possess. For Confucius, ren is the name of a set of virtues rather than the name of a single virtue. While there’s no denying that a point of agreement between Confucian ethics and contemporary care ethics is that they both take active other-regarding concern (care) as centrally important (Li 1994), not much attention has been accorded to the fact that Confucian ethics takes respect (jing 敬) as equally important as, if not more so than, care.

D. Junzi (君子) and Renyi (仁义) as Inclusive Notions

Besides Goodness (ren 仁), the virtuous person (junzi 君子) is also a notion into which care and respect are incorporated. Consider passage 5.16 where Confucius praises a famous statesman named Zi Chan (子產) who he sees as an embodiment of junzi:

[H]e had four of the characteristics of a virtuous person junzi: he was respectful in the manner he conducted himself; he was reverent in the service of his superior; in caring for the common people, he was generous and, in employing their services, he was just. (Lau 1992, 61, modified)

It is clear that for Confucius, care and respect are the integral parts not only of the notion of Goodness (ren), but also of the conception of the virtuous person (junzi).

While Confucius holds an inclusive view of Goodness (ren), i.e., ren as a higher-order notion inclusive of both care and respect, Mencius identifies ren with care alone, and his view therefore may be called “the exclusive view of ren.” Confucius sees ren as an umbrella designator for more than one virtue, whereas for Mencius it stands for a particular virtuous disposition—benevolent concern or caring. However, just because Mencius sees ren as a particular virtue does not mean the kind of ethics he promotes is not integrative. For Mencius, the idea of the virtuous person (junzi) is a higher-order, integrative notion. He understands junzi as someone who retains in his heart benevolence (ren) and ritual (li), and such a person therefore loves and respects others (Mencius 4B.28). Mencius remarks, “To feed someone but not love him is to treat him like a pig; to love him but not respect him is to keep him like a domestic animal” (Lau 1970, 190). To feed and love someone is to care for her. Nonetheless, that alone is not enough—human dignity requires respect. So the virtue of care needs to be complemented by respect. While for Mencius, benevolence (ren) itself is not a higher-order notion, ren and yi 義 combined into a compound notion is. Thus, even though care and respect are not incorporated into Goodness (ren), they are integrated into the virtuous person as well as care-respect (renyi 仁義). In fact, the virtuous person (junzi) is someone guided by renyi in the sense that the latter identifies and determines right and wrong as well as decides how to live (Ramsey 2016, 914).

Mencius frequently presents ren and yi as an integrative notion—care-respect renyi. This is a crucial point about which his and his predecessor Confucius’ views differ. Their divergence does not escape the notice of the prominent Neo-Confucian thinker Zhu Xi 朱熹 who quotes his predecessor Cheng Yi 程頤 as saying that Confucius talks only of one word—Goodness, but whenever Mencius speaks, he talks about care-respect renyi (Zhu 1984, 199). Even though renyi is comprised of two words, they function as one organic unity. In the opening chapter of the Mencius, there is an exchange between Mencius and a king. The king asks Mencius if he has any advice from which his state may profit. Mencius replies, “Why does Your Majesty have to say the word ‘profit’? Renyi is all Your Majesty needs” (Mencius 1A.1). In this passage, as in many others, Mencius presents ren and yi as an integrative idea, rather than two separate notions. Passage 4B.19 is another passage in which Mencius treats ren and yi as an integrative notion—care-respect renyi. He observes that the sage king Shun 舜 follows the path of renyi (you renyi xing 由仁義行) rather than puts renyi into practice (fei xing renyi 非行仁義). Among many translations of the Mencius, D. C. Lau’s is one of the few who treats the two words as representing a single, inclusive idea. He notices Mencius’ unique use of renyi as a single term, which he translated as “morality” (Lau 1970, 236n1), or “moral inclination.” However, his rendition is not always consistent. On some occasions, he reverts to treating renyi as two separated terms. Furthermore, the generic term “morality” fails to capture what makes Mencius’ moral philosophy unique—its inclusivity of care and respect.¹⁶

What is renyi, then? Why does Mencius treat them as an integrative notion? Passage 7A.37 can shed some light on these questions. As quoted earlier, Mencius insists that to feed people without showing them love is to treat them like pigs while to love them without showing them respect is to keep them like domestic animals or pets. It seems that for Mencius, ren and yi are individually necessary for morality but neither of them is sufficient. Only when they are integrated into one can they be jointly sufficient. To understand his idea of renyi we must understand what he means by ren and yi, respectively. More than once, Mencius explains that loving one’s parents is ren and respecting one’s elders is yi (Mencius 4A.27; 7A.15). He goes on to say that if one loves one’s parents and respects one’s elders, there is nothing else for one to do except to extend such love and respect to the whole society. So it seems reasonable to say that for Mencius, love and respect are sufficient for moral life. Elsewhere, Mencius expounds the same idea when he says,

Treat the aged of your own family in a manner befitting their venerable age and extend this treatment to the aged of other families; treat your own young in a manner befitting their tender age and extend this to the young of other families . . . . (Lau 1970, 56)

Mencius is probably faced with a two-fold problem in constructing his own moral theory. As mentioned earlier, unlike Confucius’ integrated notion of Goodness (ren) that includes both care and respect, Mencius’ concept of benevolence (ren) in and of itself is not integrated. It may be speculated that on the one hand, Mencius is not satisfied with Confucius’ notion of ren because in it the integral component of benevolence (love, compassion, or care) is not as conspicuous as he would like it to be. On the other hand, his own notion of ren as benevolence, while sufficiently prominent, is incomplete. So combining ren and yi into renyi would seem to be a good solution to the two-fold conceptual problem. For Confucius, ren designates a hybrid virtue inclusive of many particular virtues such as caring, respect, trustworthiness, loyalty, and so on, whereas for Mencius, ren is a monistic virtue of paramount importance. Their disagreement over ren, however, does not detract from the thesis I have been advancing in this essay. On the contrary, it seems to show that the two philosophers have each struggled in their own ways to work out a satisfactory solution to the political and moral challenges with which they are faced. There is a continuity between Confucius’ conceptions of filial piety, Goodness (ren), the virtuous person (junzi) and Mencius’ notions of the virtuous person (junzi) and care-respect (renyi)—the integrative thread of care and respect running through them all.

E. Ritual (Li 禮 ) as Integrative Notion in the Xunzi¹⁷

So far, my discussion has focused on the teachings of two most famous classical Confucian thinkers—Confucius and Mencius. It is now time to further strengthen my thesis by arguing that Xunzi 荀子 (313-238 BCE), a great philosopher in the Confucian tradition, also lends support to my inclusion thesis. Although Xunzi’s writings are not traditionally included in the Confucian canon, they undoubtedly make a significant contribution to the development of classical Confucianism. Are there any key notions in Xunzi’s writings that include both care and respect as their integral dimensions? I submit that ritual (li 禮) is such a notion. Just as care-respect (renyi 仁義) is the most important leitmotif in Mencius’ discussions, it is widely acknowledged that ritual is the central topic in Xunzi’s writings (Goldin 1999, 55). In “Discourse on Ritual” (Lijipian 禮記篇), Xunzi argues that the raison d’être of rituals is to regulate desire satisfactions (lizhe, yangye 禮ぬ, 養也) (Yang 2008, 261; Hutton 2014). Since yang 養 means “nurture” or “to provide for,” it stands to reason that li 禮 in this context means care. Elsewhere, he identifies respect (gongjing 恭敬) with ritual by saying explicitly that respect is ritual (gongjing, liye 恭敬, 禮也) (Yang 2008, 209). While ritual refers to a broad range of ritual rules and practices, it is the spirit of respect that gives unity to them.¹⁸ One might object that it is a synthesis on my part, but does Xunzi in his writings use a compound term like Mencius’ renyi? The answer is in the affirmative. In his treatise “The Way to Be a Lord” (Jundao 君道), Xunzi deploys the compound term “respectful-loving” (jingai 敬愛). He writes, “May I inquire about how to be a person’s son?” I say: Be respectful-loving [jingai 敬愛], and have utmost good form (Hutton 2014, 119, with the original Chinese characters added). In the treatise entitled “The Way to Be a Minister,” Xunzi remarks,

[T]he person of ren is sure to show respect for others. There is a proper way to show respect for others. . . . If they are worthy, one draws near to [qin 親] them and shows them respect [jing 敬]. If they are unworthy, one keeps them at a distance and shows them respect. There is to be respect for one and all, but the dispositions involved are of two kinds. (Hutton 2014, 139)

Xunzi not only uses a compound term to indicate the inclusive nature of love and respect, he also draws a distinction between respect-love (jingai 敬愛) and respect-fear (jingwei 敬畏), which I think is his unique contribution to Confucian inclusive ethics.¹⁹ It answers an important question for Confucian ethics as inclusive ethics whether we should love and respect the bad. Xunzi’s answer is that for the good, i.e., the virtuous, the appropriate attitude or response is the inclusive respect-love, not just love alone or respect alone, but both. For the bad, i.e., the unscrupulous, the right attitude or response is the integral respect-fear—we should treat them with common courtesy (as all human beings have dignity) but keep them at a distance because while they are unworthy of love, they can inflict great harm as they have no moral scruples.

The preceding has led me to conclude this section by saying that in the Xunzi we also find clear textual evidence in support of the thesis that classical Confucian ethics is an inclusive ethics in which the notions of care and respect are integrated.

V. Concluding Remarks

If ethics is to help influence human behavior and regulate human relationships in order to augment human welfare and happiness, the cultivation and promotion of the virtues of care and respect are indispensable. Given that we human beings universally desire to be cared for as well as respected, an integrative ethics into which both care and respect are incorporated is more advantageous than a moral theory that privileges respect over caring or vice versa. In this paper, I have distinguished between two approaches to unifying care and respect: (1) the reductive integration, which I have found problematic, and (2) the non-reductive or complementary integration, which is how care and respect are integrated in early Confucian ethics and which in my view is less problematic because in unifying the two, it also preserves the fundamental differences between care and respect, rather than reduces one to the other. I conclude that Confucian ethics is a morality in which the polarity of care and respect is preserved in unity that manifests itself in a number of higher-order notions—filial piety, Goodness, the virtuous person, care-respect, and ritual. Even though times have changed, and we have more technological implements at our disposal than the ancients, our desires for care and respect remain the same. Therefore, Confucian ethics as an inclusive morality still have an important role to play in moral life and its insights can still make a significant contribution to contemporary moral philosophizing.

Notes

¹ What utilitarian theorists refer to as “happiness” is “aggregate happiness”, that is, the total happiness for everyone affected by the action, rather than the happiness of a particular individual. Thus, using utilitarianism as a guide may complicate a simple act of kindness because the agent may not know who else will be affected by her action besides the individual she is helping. I am grateful to to Professor Ivanhoe for bringing up this point in his comments on a draft of this paper.

² It is sometimes called the principle of respect for persons, which is one of the formulations of Kant’s famous Categorical Imperative.

³ In the Analects, Book 17, Confucius laments that in certain human relationships, too little social distancing can lead to insolence, whereas too much social distancing may incur resentment. It is a controversial passage, which I don’t intend to discuss in this paper, but his main point seems generally applicable.

⁴ I wish to thank the reviewer for raising the question of whether my inclusive approach can unite other-regarding virtues and self-regarding virtues, given the importance of self-cultivation in early Confucian ethics. While the issue is not a focus of my paper, I would like to address it briefly here: I would argue that other regarding care and respect and self-regarding care and respect are related. Mencius famously said, “The benevolent person loves others. The person of propriety shows respect to others. Those who love others are loved by them. Those who respect others are respected by them” (Mencius 4B.28, my translation. Mencius also made similar remarks in 4A.8 and 4A.10). If we care about and respect others, they tend to care about and respect us. This will have positive impact on one’s self-respect, which in turn tends to promote self-care. Confucius said, “The virtuous cultivate themselves to be respectful . . . they cultivate themselves in order to make others safe and at ease . . . they cultivate themselves to make all safe and at ease” (Analects, 14.44, my translation). As we can see, the purpose of self-cultivation is other regarding—to care about and respect others and community. If one does so, one’s dignity and wellbeing will be enhanced because one will be honored and loved. Therefore, other regarding virtues and self-regarding virtues are mutually inclusive and reinforcing.

⁵ I am indebted to Professor Ivanhoe for suggesting this point.

⁶ The quote is not found in his publications; he may have said it in a private conversation.

⁷ I would like to thank the reviewer who asked the question about the psychological underpinnings of care and respect.

In my response, I draw on the Analects, and Stephen Darwall’s works on empathy, sympathy, respect, and care. According to Darwall, a human being has two aspects: dignity and welfare. When someone’s welfare is being threatened, it arouses sympathy in us, which often leads to care. For Darwall, respect is not motivated by sympathy, but by empathy. Confucius taught us not to impose on others what we ourselves do not want. This is to treat others as equal to us who have desires and preferences that may or may not be the same as ours. But how do we know if others have desires and preferences as we do? Because we have desires and preferences and we project them into others who are outwardly like us. Such a psychological projection is empathy, which underpins respect. It reminds us that we should be circumspect in dealing with our fellow autonomous beings, not pushing them around like a piece of furniture. Exclusively care-based ethics is incomplete because we are not beings with welfare alone; exclusively respect-based ethics is one-sided because we are not beings with dignity alone. In spite of the fact that care and respect have different underpinnings, empathy and sympathy are not mutually exclusive, but mutually complementary. We need both sympathy and empathy to care for and respect one another, and therefore they work in tandem in a single integrated system of Confucian ethics.

⁸ Let me use the following case to illustrate why care and (recognition) respect are both needed. After President Ronald Reagan was shot and wounded, his doctors and nurses cared for him because he could not take care of himself; his life depended on the help of his caretakers. At the same time, though, they still showed great respect for him because of his status as president. For example, they would address him as “Mr. President,” rather than “Ron” or “Ronnie.” They would not say to themselves, “Since this guy is in a vulnerable position, let’s drop the formalities.” Military personnel would still salute him according to the relevant protocols.

⁹ 子曰: “居上不宽, 为礼不敬, 临丧不哀, 吾何以观之哉?” 『论语』 3.26 (八佾篇). 朱子曰: “居上, 主于爱人, 故以宽为本; 为礼, 以敬为本; 临丧, 以哀为本. 既无其本, 则以何者而观其所行之得失哉?”

¹⁰ Despite their fundamental differences, respect and care are not mutually exclusive. When someone loses autonomy due to mental illness or dementia, recognition respect turns into care.

¹¹ In this essay, I use “inclusive” and “integrative” interchangeably. I also treat the terms of “love” and “care” as synonyms. These two terms are often used interchangeably in the literature of feminist philosophy. According to Virginia Held, some theorists don’t like the term “care” and have tried changing “the ethic of care” to “the ethic of love” (Held 2006, 9).

¹² Arthur Waley translates ren 仁 as “Goodness” because he sees it as a notion of great generality. Like Waley, Edward Slingerland also renders ren as “Goodness.” I adopt their translation as far as Confucius is concerned. When it comes to Mencius, however, even though he uses the same character 仁 as Confucius does, it no longer means the same. For Mencius it refers to sympathy, compassion or caring.

¹³ http://history.people.com.cn/n1/2016/0830/c372327-28677004.html (accessed September 1, 2020)

¹⁴ For an insightful and systematic discussion of filial piety, see Ivanhoe (2004, 189-202).

¹⁵ Virtues such as tolerance and trustworthiness may be called “attractive virtues” because trust and tolerance, like care, pull people closer. Diligence is not a moral virtue in the strict sense. Thus, it may be argued that of the five virtues under ren, three of them—care, trust, and tolerance—can pull people closer, whereas one virtue (respect) keeps people at a respectful distance. Both care and respect can be helped by diligence.

¹⁶ I am grateful to the reviewer who raised the question of why Mencius did not use ren and yi as a single inclusive concept when he presented his four duan 端 theory of human nature. My explanation is as follows: If Mencius had used renyi as a compound term denoting a single inclusive virtue, the number of virtues he was proposing would not be four, and therefore he would have had difficulty likening the four incipient virtues to the four limbs of a human being. He remarked, “Man has these four germs just as he has four limbs (Lau 1970, 83). He likened the four potential or nascent virtues to the four limbs of a human being in order to emphasize their innateness and universality. However, wild beasts like wolves and tigers all have four legs. Do they have four duan as well? I wonder if Mencius had thought through this implication.

¹⁷ Xunzi 荀子 defines respect (gongjing 恭敬) in terms of ritual (li 禮). See Yang (2008, 209).

¹⁸ I wish to thank the reviewer for suggesting to me that “ritual” in the Xunzi signifies the rules of conduct and the virtue of propriety.

¹⁹ Xunzi’s distinction between respect-love and respect-fear is unique because it seems that neither Confucius nor Mencius had made such a distinction. In the Analects 12.2, Confucius taught his disciples to treat everyone as a great guest (dabin 大賓) regardless of their worthiness or a lack thereof. Mencius did not offer us a smart way to deal with a wicked thug who would insult and bully a worthy person in an outrageous manner (Mencius 4B.28). All the worthy person should do, according to Mencius, is to reflect on his own conduct, i.e., whether he has acted kindly and respectfully toward the scoundrel. In contrast, Xunzi would advise us to treat the thug with courtesy, then run away from him as fast as we can. You don’t have to hang around with him or reflect on your own conduct; respect-fear is all you need.

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