Compos Mentis

The crazy adventures of Moh Tzu and Meng K'e

I've recently been reading The Mencius, and I have to begin this by saying that it is a fantastic book. I love The Analects as well. Chinese philosophy is a wonderful place to find new ideas, or at least a new perspective on old views. It's especially great for people who have to read a lot of very logical textbooks because it still has great intellectual content, but simply arranged in a different fashion to western philosophy or intellectual thought. Anyway, to the subject at hand...
Mencius was a Confucian, and as an apologist for that school, one of his biggest rivals was Mo Ti. The difference I want to recognize here is the ethical difference of universal love. The Confucian school said that universal love was essentially impractical, and that the best we could do is give love order by loving best the ones we know best, and then outwards in various degrees. Mo Ti said that this was absolutely ridiculous. Love should not be graduated out. We should love and aid everyone equally, and to not do that would be to show favoritism to some and, therefore, hate towards everyone else.
Now, as a Christian and a compassionate human being, ethical questions have always been of upmost importance to me. I want to be able to do the right thing, so I thought about what these two philosophers meant. I realized rather quickly that both sides have merit. Mo Ti analyzes correctly that we show favoritism when we don't love everyone equally. Mencius is right when he realizes that we cannot practically live in such a way: idealism really never lasts very long as a philosophy for mass consumption. Then I considered the ramifications of them both being right. Does this mean that Ethics is always so paradoxical and open to imperpretation? Or does it mean that any system of Ethics is right, because doing right is so complicated that you'll always get just enough right to get by?
Well, as I considered an answer to those questions, I decided that the answer was: Yes, kind of. Ethics is never a complete science because we cannot ever have a complete description of what to do in every situation. The system of rules we have are not complete, and let's face it, they mean different things at different times. Sometimes we have to realize that something we consider morally wrong on a personal or even group level cannot be outlawed in a general way because that would be moving even farther from doing what is right. I also thought that anyone who tries to do what is right, no matter what his system is, will get something right.
But that cannot be enough. I realized the weakness of thinking in systems: the systems. As I just said, any system of rules we come up with is weak (or could be interpreted wrongly) at some point, some situation. The trick is to have a universal idea or connection to what is right, and then, at that point, if the rules don't work, break 'em. Don't be so overly solicitous to those you know (a la Mencius) that you neglect charities or start hating outsiders. Don't be so overly concerned about humanity as a whole if your neighbor is contemplating suicide or even if your roomate forgets a blanket that you don't give him a spare because it would be favoritism. The idea here is to be aware of your situation. It's no good to be just loving to your friends (for is that not what even the tax collectors do?) but the quest for universal harmony shouldn't bring you to neglect your duties as a neighbor, a son, or a student. Moderation in all things.
The second point is to not get so wrapped up in the system that you forget to do good things. It really is very simple: love one another, and don't treat others how you wouldn't want to be treated. But there are many things that can keep one from accomplishing this, so this is the time to consider getting out some serpent's wisdom.

posted by Emmett @ 13:07