Fragmented Pragmatism: On Sungmoon Kim’s Pragmatic Confucian Democracy

Abstract

Moving beyond the debate between Confucian democrats and Confucian meritocrats, Sungmoon Kim’s new book tries to make a normative case for what he refers to as “pragmatic Confucian democracy,” which establishes a mutually strengthening relationship between Confucianism and democracy in the context of East Asia. At its core, Kim’s overall argument is a simple yet significant one: it requires a paradigm shift to better understand the relationship between Confucianism and democracy in East Asia. In Kim’s view, neither Confucian democrats nor Confucian meritocrats really get democracy, which is manifested mostly clearly in their failure to justify the need to incorporate democratic components in their respective theories. In the case of Confucian democrats, reinterpretation and reconstruction of classical Confucianism are too theoretically precarious to support key democratic institutions like political participation. In the case of Confucian meritocrats, the inclusion of democratic elements in otherwise comprehensively perfectionist theories seems unnecessary and even self-defeating. As Kim impressively argues in his book, it is high time that we move beyond the internalist approach that draws support for democracy from within (classical) Confucianism and the externalist approach that juxtaposes democratic and nondemocratic elements with the hope of achieving theoretical coherence. To do that, we need to be pragmatic not only in terms of our underlying assumptions about modern East Asian societies but also in terms of recognizing how citizens may come to terms with democratic ideals and institutions. Pragmatic Confucian democracy, a product of the pragmatic turn in Confucian political theory, represents a fresh approach that takes both Confucianism and democracy truly seriously. There is much in the book that is highly persuasive. In this commentary, I focus on the first and more theoretical part of the book by pointing out what I see as a fundamental tension within Kim’s overall project. In my view, there are two senses of pragmatism, which lead to two narratives that are supposed to together strengthen the case for pragmatic Confucian democracy. I argue that there is a strong disconnect between the two narratives, which eventually undermines the strength of Kim’s argument. Specifically, I first demonstrate what I mean by the two senses of pragmatism and how they lead to two narratives that are key in Kim’s approach. Then, I divide my critique into two parts. In the first part, I examine the disconnect between the two narratives and how it presents serious challenges to Kim’s project. In the second part, I focus on pragmatic Confucian democracy. I argue that the model presents a relationship between Confucianism and democracy that oscillates between two interpretations, which make pragmatic Confucian democracy vulnerable to objections usually reserved for Confucian meritocrats and Confucian democrats. Despite my criticisms, I conclude by highlighting the significance of Kim’s book in breaking free from the paradigm that has for too long constrained theories of Confucian democracy.In my view, Kim’s pragmatism is reflected on two levels. First and on the level of theory building, one ought to be pragmatic about the sociocultural assumptions one may have about East Asian societies. According to Kim, serious engagement with democracy requires us to move beyond the monistic focus on Confucianism and recognize what Jeremy Waldron calls “the circumstances of modern politics,” which “are marked by entrenched value pluralism and pervasive moral disagreement in the absence of antecedent moral authority to resolve social conflict pre-politically.”1 Similarly, what inspired the later John Rawls to break from his early work is also the recognition that the diversity of reasonable comprehensive religious, philosophical, and moral doctrines found in modern democratic societies is “not a mere historical condition that may soon pass away; it is a permanent feature of the public culture of democracy.”2 Rawls refers to this phenomenon as “reasonable pluralism,” which is distinguished from pluralism as such because reasonable pluralism in modern democratic societies is the necessary outcome of human reason under burdens of judgment and enduring free institutions. Taking reasonable pluralism seriously means that a workable conception of justice “must allow for a diversity of general and comprehensive doctrines, and for the plurality of conflicting, and indeed incommensurable, conceptions of the meaning, value, and purpose of human life [i.e., conceptions of the good] affirmed by the citizens of democratic societies.”3 Although drawing from theories that primarily address Western and mature liberal democracies, Kim correctly assumes that the circumstances of modern politics are largely driven by the existence of reasonableness pluralism, which varies only in degree between societies.4 Relative to alternative political arrangements, democracy is “more effective in coordinating complex social interactions among citizens under the circumstances of politics,” despite its shortcomings.5 Kim identifies this as the “second-order value” of democracy, which is to be distinguished from the first-order value that often leads to democratic absolutism. Although Confucian democrats and Confucian meritocrats generally recognize the intrinsic and instrumental values of democracy, neither takes the circumstances of modern politics truly seriously, which makes them overlook the second-order value of democracy. Fully recognizing the circumstances of modern politics and the second-order value of democracy in addressing the former thus amounts to a reorientation of Confucian political theory to a pragmatic point of reference that gives the term “Confucian democracy” a new meaning.Second and on the level of justification, one ought to be pragmatic about how citizens in East Asian societies come to terms with democratic ideals and institutions. According to Kim, democracy’s second-order value in more effectively coordinating complex social interactions among citizens under the circumstances of modern politics points to a pragmatic model of democracy “whose political institutions and social practices, which together make democracy a way of life, are justified on pragmatic grounds under the circumstances of modern politics.”6 Specifically, Kim proposes a two-stage approach that juxtaposes the Schumpeterian model of democracy that emphasizes its instrumental value at the initial stage of democratization with the Deweyan model that emphasizes the intrinsic value of democracy at the later stage of democratic consolidation and maintenance. Pragmatic Confucian democracy, according to Kim, is first and foremost a form of democracy that “derives its value initially from its institutional and instrumental ability to effectively and legitimately coordinate complex social interactions among citizens with diverse moral and material interest,” and only then does it justify “values accrued in the course of living the democratic way of life, which make democracy intrinsically valuable.”7 In an East Asian context, a pragmatic Confucian democrat is essentially “a moderate political consequentialist,” in the sense that her political support for democracy is not primarily to realize moral ends held by classical Confucianism but to advocate a political structure under which coercive political power is exercised legitimately.8 During the early phase of democratic transition, many citizens will likely to be motivated by instrumental reasons to endorse democracy. As democracy gains its footing, citizens will need to go beyond the instrumental view of democracy and develop the capacity to appreciate its intrinsic value. This is achieved with the guidance of the “mutual accommodation thesis,” according to which “a newly introduced democratic way of life should dialectically interact with the local Confucian civic culture, thereby generating the Confucian democratic culture, a new civic culture distinct from both liberal civic culture and traditional undemocratic Confucian civic culture.”9 This mutually accommodating relationship “not only enables us to engage with various forms of local Confucianism that actually exist in modern East Asia with continuing social evolution, but more importantly in the present context, helps us make sense of the significance of Confucianism as a civic culture in the process of democratic consolidation and further maturation of the democracy afterward.”10 Pragmatic Confucian democracy thus realizes both the instrumental and the intrinsic value of democracy without compromising Confucian civic culture in East Asian societies.These two senses of pragmatism effectively create two connected narratives. On the one hand, being pragmatic about the circumstances of modern politics dictates that any meaningful attempt to build a theory of democracy must take pluralism seriously. On the other hand, being pragmatic about democratization in East Asia means that any successful theory of democracy must take into consideration both the instrumental and the intrinsic appeal of democracy. The two narratives are connected by a proper recognition of the second-order and institutionally consequentialist value of democracy. The structural setup is quite impressive at first glance. If pluralism is truly taken seriously, then the necessity for democracy becomes rather obvious from a pragmatic point of view, which then translates to a pragmatic strategy to initialize democratization by being open to instrumental justifications for democratic ideals and institutions. Once democracy becomes “the only game in town,” its intrinsic value can be fused with existing Confucian public culture to create a Confucian civic culture that nurtures and strengthens both democracy and Confucianism. However, as I argue in the next section, there are theoretical gaps between the two narratives that lead to problematic implications.According to Kim, what differentiates pragmatic Confucian democracy from alternative theories of Confucian democracy is that the former is only partially and civically perfectionist.11 Although Confucian democrats and Confucian meritocrats both wish to incorporate democratic elements, albeit to different extent, they are fully and monistically perfectionist in that both regard citizens’ individual moral growth as the ultimate goal of political Confucianism. In contrast, pragmatic Confucian democracy is “not directly committed to Confucian ethical perfectionism,” and it values Confucianism “primarily as the regime’s public/civic culture that citizens, who otherwise subscribe to diverse moral values and philosophical doctrines as private individuals, broadly share as an important resource of their shared meaning and effective social interactions.”12 Consequently, the ultimate goal of pragmatic Confucian democracy is a kind of democratic citizenship inspired by and sensitive to Confucianism. Kim refers to this special kind of Confucian perfectionism oriented toward democratic citizenship “Confucian democratic perfectionism,” which is a variant of the more general category of democratic perfectionism.13However, this (partially) perfectionist focus creates a sense of disconnect between the two narratives mentioned in the previous section. It will be recalled that the circumstances of modern politics are defined by entrenched value pluralism and pervasive moral disagreement without the presence of antecedent moral authority. If these circumstances are taken seriously, then it is reasonable to assume that any substantive approach that tackles modern politics by addressing value pluralism and deep moral disagreement from within a specific comprehensive doctrine is doomed from the start because any specific comprehensive doctrine is by itself only part of rather than the solution to the circumstances. This is also why Kim correctly criticizes Confucian democrats and Confucian meritocrats for being fully perfectionist at the outset of theory building and hence losing their justificatory force when their respective theories wish to incorporate democratic elements. Instead, Kim resorts to the second-order value of democracy as a pragmatic justification for the necessity of democracy. So far so good. But when the first narrative transitions to the second narrative, Kim’s democratic theory takes not only a second pragmatic turn but also a Confucian turn. Given the broad reach of Confucianism in East Asian societies, it is reasonable to assume that Confucianism can and should play a significant role in facilitating the process of democratization. Nevertheless, the whole point of the first narrative is to make clear that value pluralism and moral disagreement are the defining features of modern politics. In addition, empirical evidence affirms the impression that East Asian societies have become increasingly pluralistic and that East Asian citizens are more divided on fundamental social and political issues than ever before. With these considerations in mind, it is unclear if Confucianism is uniquely suited for creating and strengthening democratic citizenship in East Asia. Kim might object by arguing that “there is no way to decouple the Confucian (democratic) goods that it is committed to achieving from the procedures that are predisposed to produce them,” and that the best we can do is to remain partially perfectionist.14 First of all, this response still dodges the question of “why Confucianism?” Given the number of active Christians in South Korea, would it not be more reasonable to create a Confucian-Christian hybrid civic culture to better strengthen democratic citizenship? Furthermore, even if one submit that a neutral model of democracy is impossible from an antiperfectionist perspective, there is still the moderately perfectionist model that focuses on the overlap among a wide variety of comprehensive doctrines. Instead of turning to Confucianism in the second stage of democratization where citizens realize the intrinsic value of democracy, why not focus on moral values that citizens cannot reasonable reject regardless of their preferred comprehensive doctrine?15 Kim does not adequately address these concerns. Unlike Confucian democrats and Confucian meritocrats who take Confucianism for granted from the very beginning, Kim eventually does the same in the second narrative, which offsets the promise created by the first narrative where the necessity for democracy is defended rather convincingly.Another way to look at the same problem is through Kim’s treatment of the fact of pluralism. What Kim has in mind throughout the book is not radical pluralism but what the later Rawls calls “reasonable pluralism,” which refers to pluralism among reasonable comprehensive doctrines.16 Since the second-order value of democracy, which critically connects the two narratives, is justified consequentially by appealing to the efficacy of democracy in addressing the circumstances of modern politics, it logically follows that comprehensive doctrines that undermine such efficacy will be deemed unreasonable. But Kim goes further to assert that “in a Confucian democracy, the moral standard, according to which one’s conception of a right is judged to be reasonable or not, is primarily Confucianism that is only partially comprehensive.”17 We have already demonstrated that maintaining partial perfectionism and comprehensiveness does not necessarily steer pragmatic Confucian democracy away from the problem of justification shared by Confucian democrats and Confucian meritocrats. What is more surprising is Kim’s claim that “the ultimate aim of Confucian democracy, understood in the perfectionist sense, is to produce a Confucian democratic citizenship,” which hinge upon “Confucian democratic rights as well as laws and policies that promote particular Confucian goods or values within the constraints of democratic principles.”18 In other words, pragmatic Confucian democracy, which avoids the problem of necessitating democracy in the first narrative by appealing to a consequentialist view of democracy’s second-order value, falls back to a different kind of consequentialism that prioritizes the promotion of certain Confucian goods or values. Are non-Confucian comprehensive doctrines that do not support certain Confucian goods or values considered unreasonable? If the answer is yes, then it seems that Confucianism, however partially perfectionist it might be, ultimately regulates the reasonableness of pluralism.19 This might not be a problem for Confucian meritocrats who adopt a monistic point of view, but it poses significant risk for pragmatic Confucian democracy because the first narrative, which launches pragmatic Confucian democracy in the second narrative, wants to acknowledge value pluralism and moral disagreement without subscribing to any specific comprehensive doctrine. If the answer is no, then these non-Confucian comprehensive doctrines are reasonable only because of their contribution to the efficacy of democracy, which begs the question of why they cannot be subject to the mutual accommodation thesis and become (at least partially) the source of civic culture during the process of democratization.Pragmatic Confucian democracy runs into problems however it responds to the question. This dilemma, together with our previous analyses, further highlight the disconnect between the two narratives that puts the theory in an awkward position. On the one hand, if we take seriously the first narrative where the circumstances of modern politics necessitate democracy because of the latter’s second-order value, then the second narrative seems to compromise the promise of the first narrative. On the other hand, if we submit that in the second narrative the reasonableness of pluralism is regulated by Confucianism (albeit in a partially perfectionist sense), then pragmatic Confucian democracy is subject to similar objections against Confucian democrats and Confucian meritocrats because the necessity for democracy in the first narrative hinges upon how effectively and legitimately democracy coordinates complex social interactions among citizens who subscribe to diverse and reasonable comprehensive doctrines. Kim’s pragmatism fragments into two narratives that each serves its own purpose. But connecting them reveals a deeper disconnect that casts doubt upon the project. In the next section, I focus on the second narrative and argue that pragmatic Confucian democracy mixes Confucianism and democracy in two distinct ways that compete with each other. Whichever way wins will define the nature of pragmatic Confucian democracy, but both are subject to familiar objections against Confucian democrats and Confucian meritocrats that Kim fully acknowledges.In the previous section, I focused on demonstrating a sense of disconnect between the two narratives created by the two senses of pragmatism, and how the disconnect casts doubt upon Kim’s project. In this section, I focus on the theory of pragmatic Confucian democracy itself, which is developed in the second narrative. Depending on how the theory is interpreted, it can be understood as either an attempt to Confucianize democracy or an attempt to democratize Confucianism. I argue that where the theory actually stands is somewhere in between, and that the oscillation between the two sides makes pragmatic Confucian democracy vulnerable to Kim’s own objections against Confucian meritocrats and Confucian democrats.It will be recalled that pragmatic Confucian democracy juxtaposes the Schumpeterian model of democracy that emphasizes its instrumental value at the initial stage of democratization with the Deweyan model that emphasizes the intrinsic value of democracy at the later stage of democratic consolidation and maintenance. The pragmatism is most evident in the first and transitional stage where citizens come to terms with democracy in their own ways. At this stage, a pragmatic Confucian democrat is essentially “a moderate political consequentialist,” in the sense that her political support for democracy is “not primarily to best realize certain moral ends cherished by ancient Confucianism” but to advocate “an overarching and authoritative political institutional framework under which coercive political power is exercised legitimately, in the people’s name.”20 As democracy gains its footing, citizens will begin to appreciate the intrinsic value of democracy. At this later stage, Kim argues that the “mutual accommodation thesis” will guide democratic consolidation and maintenance where “a newly introduced democratic way of life should dialectically interact with the local Confucian civic culture, thereby generating the Confucian democratic culture, a new civic culture distinct from both liberal civic culture and traditional undemocratic Confucian civic culture.”21 Call this the Confucianization of democracy. If our analyses in the previous section are reasonable, then the transition from the instrumental to the intrinsic stage of democratization requires further justification. Specifically, if citizens are encouraged to come to terms with democracy in their own ways, it must mean that their reasons to endorse democracy can come from both instrumental and non-instrumental perspectives. As I argue elsewhere, it is more pragmatic to think that at least some citizens can support democracy by appealing to their own comprehensive doctrines, Confucianism included, in addition to instrumental reasons available to them as Kim suggests.22 If so, the Confucianization of democracy at the intrinsic stage becomes unnecessary and counterproductive. It is unnecessary because some citizens are already able to render democracy intelligible with the help of Confucian culture. It is counterproductive because trying to achieve the Confucian democratic culture actually risks alienating citizens who endorse reasonable non-Confucian comprehensive doctrines, which share the accommodating capacity of Confucianism.23 Despite Kim’s sophisticated attempt to distance himself from Confucian meritocrats by designing pragmatic Confucian democracy to reflect the pluralistic condition of modern politics, the question of “why Confucianism?,” which is often directed at Confucian meritocrats because of their monistic focus, applies to pragmatic Confucian democracy.The mutually accommodating relationship between Confucianism and democracy also goes the other way where “new Democratic institutions and social practices simultaneously influence the way that certain values and/or ideas have been understood and practiced traditionally.”24 Call this the democratization of Confucianism. Here Kim gives the example of gender equality. In the postdemocratic constitutional and societal context, Kim argues that the value of gender equality will be publicly recognized and that all sorts of gender inequalities present in classical Confucian doctrines will be rectified to promote the equal democratic citizenship.25 One might object that the democratization of Confucianism is equivalent to the dilution and even dissolution of Confucianism, since the authenticity of Confucianism includes its many outdated values that are at odds with democratic values. This is a less challenging objection because Kim already acknowledges that the kind of public Confucian culture is only partially perfectionist. What is more challenging is the objection that the democratization of Confucianism creates a type of public reasoning that is too reliant upon Confucian moral sentiments and too limited by the Confucian concern with a good personal, conjugal-familial, and social-political life.26 As a matter of fact, Kim’s previous book, Public Reason Confucianism, defends precisely this type of Confucianized version of Rawlsian public reason.27 According to Kim, the central goal of public reason Confucian constitutionalism is “to produce a coherent public identity of Confucian and democratic citizens by weaving two perfectionist commitments—liberal and Confucian—into a single coherent constitutionalism.”28 In order to achieve this goal, cultural negotiations will take place between Confucian values and practice, and liberal democratic values and rights. But this sort of cultural negotiation cannot be reserved exclusively for Confucianism and liberalism, since there is an undeniable plurality of other comprehensive doctrines, even if Confucianism is still the most influential one. Kim is fully aware of this fact when he says that “public reason Confucianism allows citizens to negotiate their comprehensive moral values with Confucian public reason, then with particular rights, duties, and liberties.”29 However, it is highly problematic to say that citizens who adopt reasonable non-Confucian doctrines will have to negotiate with Confucian public reason first, and only then can they negotiate with particular rights, duties, and liberties. The Confucian democratic rights and citizenship, which pragmatic Confucian democracy strives to produce, becomes almost a barrier that citizens must cross in order to qualify for equal political participation. This observation pushes pragmatic Confucian democracy dangerously close to participatory theories of Confucian democracy that Kim criticizes early in the book, where the main critique is that it is difficult for Confucian democrats to justify equal democratic participation by appealing to Confucianism alone.Pragmatic Confucian democracy now faces another dilemma. The mutually accommodating relationship between Confucianism and democracy goes both ways and is open to two interpretations. If the relationship ultimately leads to the Confucianization of democracy, then it is open to the objection usually reserved for Confucian meritocrats. If the relationship ultimately leads to the democratization of Confucianism, then it is open to the objection shared by Confucian democrats. Trying to walk a narrow path and oscillating in between, pragmatic Confucian democracy is vulnerable to both objections.The relationship between Confucianism and democracy has been widely debated among political theorists. But in many ways the discourse on Confucianism and democracy has stalled in that the attention has so far been mostly devoted to the theoretical compatibility between the two and the practical implications of models born out of the debate. A common mistake shared by many theories of Confucian democracy has to do with the tendency to put Confucianism categorically above or below democracy. On one end of the spectrum, Confucianism is understood to be the savior to democracy, which ought to be reformed according to the former. On the other end of the spectrum, Confucianism is understood to be the enemy of democracy, which ought to banish the former to or even beyond background culture. Kim’s book is a resounding rejection of this outdated view, which is laudable in itself. But Kim goes much further than a mere rejection by proposing a paradigm shift to take both Confucianism and democracy seriously. In this commentary, I identified two narratives based on two senses of pragmatism present in Kim’s theory. Although I find the relationship between the two narratives as well as pragmatic Confucian democracy developed in the second narrative somewhat problematic and leaving something to be desired, I am in full agreement with Kim regarding the first narrative where the circumstances of modern politics, with emphasis on reasonable pluralism and moral disagreement, are properly acknowledged. The direction forward for Confucian political theory ought to be a pragmatic one. We have Kim to thank for that.