Confucian ritualization
how and why?
pp. 143-158
in: David Solomon, Ruiping Fan, Pingcheung Lo (eds), Ritual and the moral life, Berlin, Springer, 2012Abstract
This chapter will argue that Confucian rituals are necessary for virtue cultivation, acquisition and manifestation, and this function of the rituals cannot be replaced by the Confucian moral principles. In modern Chinese society, the Confucian rituals have been attacked by the official ideology as "feudalist" backward activities to be entirely abandoned. Contemporary Neo-Confucian scholars, in attempting to defend the Confucian civilization, put their emphasis on general Confucian moral principles in separation from the function of the Confucian rituals. In doing so they have abstracted these principles from the real Confucian moral convictions embedded in the ritual practices and detracted from the substance of the Confucian culture and morality. In modern Western liberal culture, self-determined activities have been emphasized to seek the self-chosen conception of the good life. Moral education becomes difficult, if not impossible, to deploy in such society because the true nature of any human morality cannot be properly cultivated and realized without appreciating rituals, a series of familial and societal practices traditionally established and commonly performed by human individuals.