How Strong is Your Love for Your Parents? Childlike Mindset and the Confucian View of Filial Piety

由愛至孝－孩提之童的愛與儒家孝道的再思考

蔡亮(CAI Liang)

《饒宗頤國學院院刊》 7期 (2020/07) Pp. 225-254

摘要

In the West, it is debatable whether children, adult or dependent, have filial obligations to their parents. By contrast, filial piety serves as one of the essential virtues in the Confucian tradition, which had not only dominated pre-modern East Asian societies but is recently promoted by 21st century Chinese government. Loving one's parents, in turn, is said to be the most fundamental and strongest human emotion praised by Confucians. This paper is not to provide justifications for treating filial piety as a virtue. But using a temporal framework, it offers a more complicated reading of the affection for parents presented in the Analects and the Mencius. While young children have strong emotional attachment to parents, adults' love to their parents is sporadic and inconsistent. To address the deficit of emotions in adults' interaction with their parents, Confucians use young children's mindset - strong affection to parents - to both justify and motivate filial actions. This paper criticizes the view that simply equalizes consanguineous affection to xiao (filial piety). It contends that xiao, as a virtue, cannot be automatically generated by original family affection. Instead, filial-oriented rituals, as Confucians advocate, is supposed to foster an affectionate relation between parent and child.

關鍵字

Filial piety ； Confucius ； the Analects ； the Mencius ； affection for parents

並列摘要

在西方哲學研究中，子女是否對父母有盡孝道的責任一直是一個有爭議的問題。與此形成對比的是，在儒家傳統中，孝被認為是最基本的倫理道德，而孝道一直作為最重要的社會價值主導著二十世紀以前的傳統東亞社會。很多學者由此認為對父母的愛是儒家所推崇的人類最基本、最强烈的感情。本文的宗旨不在於討論孝道是否應該成為一種合法化的倫理道德。本文採用一個時間的框架，旨在對《論語》、《孟子》中對父母之愛的討論作複雜的細讀。雖然孩提之童對父母有著强烈的情感依附，成年人對父母愛卻有著間斷性和不持續性的特點。成年人對父母的感情不足以成為孝道的行動的自然動機。針對這個觀察，孔子和孟子强調孩提之童對父母的愛，用孩童對父母强烈的情感依附來合法化孝道，並希望以此為孝行提供足夠的行為動機。本文提出，對父母之愛並不能自然而然的生成作為倫理道德的孝道。至於儒家提倡以孝行為中心的各種禮儀，則旨在於行為中培養和加强對父母的愛。

並列關鍵字

孝 ； 孔子 ； 《論語》 ； 《孟子》 ； 血緣之愛