The Vulnerability of Integrity in Early Confucian Thought by Michael D. K. Ing

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Vulnerability of Integrity in Early Confucian Thought by Michael D. K. Ing Thomas Michael (bio) Michael D. K. Ing. The Vulnerability of Integrity in Early Confucian Thought. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.x, 293 pp. Hardcover $99.00, isbn 978-0-19-067911-8. Chinese philosophy is currently a type of limbo discipline: peripheralized at best in philosophy departments, it also hardly meshes with the modern language and other contemporary concerns of Asian studies. Its relationship with sinology is strained, which can be surprising because their ends only appear to be shared. In the end, Chinese philosophy is typically relegated to religion studies departments, where it often leads an alienated existence. The main reason for this limbo status of Chinese philosophy is not due to some inherent weakness at its core; rather, it is because it stands as one of the newest of all modern fields of academic research and study. Often recognized as having been born in 1930s with the work of Feng Youlan, it is gradually being lifted to the status of an established discipline, but still has a long way to go. Michael Ing's The Vulnerability of Integrity is a shining example of how far Chinese philosophy has come over the past many decades. His work opens with a meditation on how the subject matter of Chinese philosophy can find a justifiable position within contemporary philosophical study and concludes, "The discourses of religious ethics and early Confucianism are capable of conversation" (p. 15). The specific area of concern through which he brings early Confucian writings into dialogue with a range of contemporary philosophers (including Michael Walzer, Erinn Gilson, and C.A.J. Coady) is vulnerability together with a series of related values that include "moral development, social formation (and the realization of relationships), trust, and maturity" (p. 247). The dominant readings of early Confucian literature, from both traditional and modern scholars, is grounded in what is known as "the harmony thesis," which holds that "value conflicts are only apparent or epistemic. Ultimately speaking, values do not conflict. Yet only sages can reason through difficult situations … The [Confucian] sage harmonizes a plurality of relatable, but [End Page 268] not reducible, values in doing the right thing" (p. 55). In this way, the integrity of the best of moral agents including sages are invulnerable to feelings of guilt, remorse, regret, and tragedy caused by value conflicts. Based on his deep familiarity with early Confucian writings, Ing's work offers an alternative reading in which he analyzes numerous instances of value conflicts, some of which are irreducible, that render moral agents, including sages, vulnerable to regret. Chapters 1 and 2 present the harmony thesis directly. Chapter 1 analyzes narratives and other discussions from the early Confucian writings that give corroboration to the harmony thesis by showing the ways in which the Confucian sage, primarily but not exclusively Confucius himself, navigates seeming value conflicts through the sagely exercise of 權 quan ("moral deliberation"). Chapter 2 analyzes an array of modern philosophical studies that argue for the possibility and value of moral invulnerability, and it concludes with a critique of invulnerability. The remaining chapters are devoted to the exploration of the vulnerability of the moral agent's integrity, and they demonstrate the best of what contemporary Chinese philosophy is capable of. Ing argues that the harmony thesis applies to many early Confucian writings but not to all, and in many of them sages and other moral agents are shown not only to experience vulnerability in their confrontations with value conflicts, but also to conscientiously cultivate it together with all the risks that entails. Among Ing's many claims about an early Confucian understanding of vulnerability, the following is both representative and cogent: it "is a basic attitude of interest where one cares about things … a particularly Confucian account of vulnerability sees self-cultivation as a process of learning to transform this state of caring about things to actions and attitudes of properly caring for things … This Confucian account of vulnerability advocates developing optimal degrees of vulnerability by means of ritual practice. As such, instead of seeking to eliminate vulnerability or treat it as a threat to human flourishing, we...