Title: Dilemma, Justice and Confucius on “Kin Concealment of Offence”
Lecturer: WANG Qingjie (Professor, Department of Philosophy, Chinese University of Hong Kong)
Chairperson: XU Jilin (Professor, Department of History, East China Normal University)
Date: 3 pm, May 22nd, 2017 (Monday)
Venue: Room 5303, Building of School of Humanities, Minhang Campus, ECNU
Sponsor: Si-mian Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities, ECNU
Abstract of the Lecture:
“Kin Concealment of Offences” (亲亲相隐) is a well-known dilemma in the Confucian ethics and justice. I shall first clarify briefly both ancient and modern discussions on this topic in the history of Chinese thought, and then I suggest a reading of the word “yin” (隐) not only as “concealment” (隐藏), but also as “a deep feeling of pain” (隐痛) in Confucius’s Analects. Based on this new reading, I would like to argue that in the case of “the kin concealment between father and son”，the Confucian concept of justice or uprightness(直) lies not only in the concealment, but more importantly, in-between the conduct of concealment (隐藏) and the deep moral feeling of pain(隐痛). This very feeling of the deep pain shows a typical moral dilemma in Confucian ethics and this dilemma reveals the complexity of Confucian Ethics. It indicates that Confucian Ethics does not simply aim at, as many once thought, action rules or a practical “manual” of our moral, social and political activities in everyday life. Rather, by recognizing its own finitude nature and limitation in real life, it focuses more on moral character building and education. Its effect on our real life is indirect, long-term, and exemplarily formative rather than direct, short-run and categorically normative.
Brief Introduction of the Lecturer:
WANG Qingjie, Professor in Department of Philosophy at Chinese University of Hong Kong. Specialized in Contemporary European Philosophies, East-West Comparative Philosophy, and Moral Philosophy, etc. Current major publications include Moral Affection and the Confucian Exemplary Ethics of Virtue (2016); Heidegger and the Beginning of Philosophy (2015), Heidegger: Translation, Understanding and Interpretation (ed. forthcoming), Introduction to Metaphysics (trans. 2015); Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics (trans. 2011), etc. He was co-translator of Heidegger’s Being and Time (1987) and co-editor of the Chinese version of Heidegger’s Major Works (30 vol.) (2014-), etc.