Alas, we are the product of our heredity and history, and from Day 1 of recorded history clans/tribes/groups/societies have some sort of belief system that surrounds a God or gods, and from those recorded beginnings (prior to written, we see in cave painting images of bull and bear worship cults), we see the progression of moral teachings. Only in recent history do we have evidence of ‘non-religious’ folks, and I think it would be disingenuous for these folks to disregard their own heredity and history, which includes the development of morality by religions (including the philosophies/religions of those Greek guys in togas).

Doesn’t matter if you’re sick, on vacation, poor, rich, Confucian, Christian, atheist, etc.

Perhaps my remote Idaho community is a throwback to another age, but the belief in responsibility towards others is operative here, amongst Pagan, non-religious, and Christian alike.

And I am glad not to live under the brainless NJ law that thinks no theft has occurred if no attempt has been made to find the owner. Think about it: I find an expensive car that I know is not mine, and I take it home with me—that’s theft in my book. Or, the guy didn’t tell you he was married, so it’s not adultery?

And to claim that you have to be religious (or irreligious) to be moral is just being snotty.

I’ve lived in Chinese communities (as well as other Asian communities) for most of my life, and it boggles my mind to imagine Chinese parents willingly losing face because of the wants (or childish demands) of their son. Barebones Confucianism ‘demands’ son abide by parent abide by ruler; teaching is then in reverse, ruler is teacher to parents who are teacher to children. A failure of one is a failure of all. In general, I find that in Chinese families the children ‘revolve’ around the parent’s wants, whereas in the West, the parents ‘revolve’ around the child’s wants.

I think the point is that in the West (modern secular governments) we create laws, then that is the standard that we all adhere to, the ‘logic’ behind the testimony of a wife against her husband is that ‘the law’ understands that the testimony by its very nature can be suspect. This is very different than say honor killing, where laws are ignored because ‘honor/blood’ is the standard.

Do you consider Thor immoral?

ref: 103

i think you have taken sam’s contention out of context and muscled it into supporting something it clearly doesn’t support. if you read the discussion in order (94, 100, 101, 105) the statement might be clearer.

first off, let me apologise if my initial comment (94) was overly snarky – i didn’t mean it that way, and i am genuinely glad to see someone discussing something other than the western canon here. also, apologies for disjointed commenting – i had to leave work and attend to something and was necessarily offline.

to continue from my 101:

my main reason for being unconvinced that the Confucian position is as you have it, is of course the one i failed to mention:), namely that if Confucius had really intended the example you give to pertain universally, then he would necesarily have been advocating the collapse of Confucian societal organisation, which very much dependended on adherence to promulgated laws and maintenance of an explicit vertical hierarchy. resolving all value conflicts in favour of the second smallest unit of society (the family) would have had disastrous effects for the excercise of power within that hierarchy.

where does this leave us with respect to passage 8.18 from the analects? as you no doubt know, chinese theory is generally anecdotal and ‘organic’, rather than rigidly organised or structural, and is less concerned with resolution of internal contradictions than we like. Confucius may have meant that particular passage to carry that specific, excessive emphasis (in context), and been prepared to suffer the threat of universal literal interpretation, secure that his intended audience was sophisticated enough to finesse the problem.

furthermore, Confucius was exceptionally concerned with the power of example, and taught that rulers (in which he inluded heads of family, by analogy) were only capable of leadership through personal rectitude, a belief that directly supports my interpretation. Confucianism as a system is almost entirely devoted to the importance of personal moral rectitude (from which all else flows) at the expense of all else. all these concerns both support and influence my interpretation, as you can see in my comment 101.

Lastly, his great opportunity to test and refine his theories of societal organisation arose when he was appointed magistrate of Chung-tu, and subsequently ‘justice minister’of the state of Lu, in which positions he is believed to have been exemplary. i find it hard to believe that someone whose life was spent in such a fashion would have willy-nilly advocated the contravention of community and state obligations, and i can only imagine that your reading is a hasty one.

on the other hand, you might simply be right. :)

Bingo! That is my same argument for the current conflict between civilizations, those who hold to honor/blood/family/clan vs those who hold to law. In Western societies law is paramount, so that in conflicts, law resolves issues, whereas in most non-Western societies, laws are respected until they infringe upon one’s sense of honor, then blood/family/clan trump law.

the reasons for this are as follows:

a)in the ‘camera case’, no theft has occurred, nor is there the chance or need for parent or child to testify against each other. the child is irrelevant to the decision making process here, serving mainly as prop.

b) the conflict is therefore between the parents and the owner of the property, and by proxy, between the parents ansd the state (as enforcer of the relations between parent and owner).

c) the child only comes into it when used as a justification for the behaviour of the parent (in the claim that the parent MUST act the way they do in service of the child). the child is passive (not as in your reference, active) and so i don’t think your reference holds.

d)in the straight-forward conflict between the family and the state, the state wins under confucius (with special exemptions).

e) in the secondary case (made by the parents) of the claimed conflict between the child’s needs and the owner’s needs, i think that the confucian retort would be as i claimed it to be. the family cannot demonstrate the child has a need of that type, and given that a moral conflict arises as a result of the parent’s actions, the best the family could provide the child with is an ‘upright’ example.

essentially, in the reference you quote, the matter at hand is whether or not to testify, while in the ‘camera case’ the matter at hand is whether or not to be moral. i would think that the moment the child is brought into the ‘camera case’ the confucian interpretation would require the return of the camera, since the need for the camera is minor, while the need for moral instruction is major. had it been a food item, the prognosis might have been different.

btw – does anyone else doubt that a 9-year-old is so taken with this particular camera?

Speaking to Confucius, the Duke She said: “In my village there was a man called Body Upright. When his father stole a sheep, he testified against him.”
“In my village,” said Confucius, “to be upright was something else altogether. Fathers harbored sons and sons harbored fathers – and between them they were upright.”

This is generally understood to mean that a son should not turn in a father if he has stolen something, and a father should not turn in a son.