I guess I have to comment on this article in yesterday’s China Daily:

Filial piety plays a part in promotions
Updated: 2007-04-09 06:43

Want a promotion? How about being nice to mom and dad?

Administrative skills alone are not enough for a step up the ladder, filial
piety has to be proved – that’s the message being sent to officials in a county
in Henan Province.

Under new measures for appraising officials in Changyuan County, assessment
teams will interview officials’ family members, friends, neighbors, colleagues
and subordinates as well as members of the public to gauge their character and
see whether they are caring toward their parents.

      My inner Confucian tells me that this sounds about right.  A person’s character, as demonstrated in how well he or she carries out social duties, is central to public service, in the Confucian view, so why not tie bureaucratic promotion to familial service?  The definition of Duty should be broader than just filial piety, however.  Here is what the article goes on to say:

As the country modernizes and family ties come under strain, many are calling
for the revival of traditional values such as filial piety and respect for the
elderly.

Chinese law stipulates the obligation of children to support their parents.

According to the Law on Safeguarding the Rights and Interests of the Elderly,
offspring are obliged to provide economic support, care and comfort for the
elderly. Those who shirk their responsibility or violate the rights of the
elderly face criminal charges.

 But what about the kids?  Seems to me that if we are going to follow Confucius’s admonition to "cherish the young," some measure of how well parents are caring for children should be factored into these assessments.

     Yet there are some problems with all of this.  Confucius might worry that people will respond to the external incentives for professional promotion, instead of fulfilling their duty through genuine commitment and reverence for others.  Duty, as Mencius tells us, is internal.  We should not do our duty in order to receive praise or payment; we should do it because we truly want to do it.  If your create elaborate bureaucratic procedures to encourage duty, you might also create the wrong motivations among people.  Duty is quite distinct from profit of any sort.  The trick would be to find those people who live up to their social responsibilities independent of their professional or political status.  Those are the ones you want in leadership positions.

     My skepticism is raised here somewhat because this week I am reading Chuang Tzu with my students.   He would take a dim view on all of this.  Not only would he question the necessity of duty in and of itself, but he would certainly warn that pursuing a humanly-created ideal of Duty or Humanity takes us away from Way.   Instead of living up to some external measure of right or wrong, we should be opening ourselves to the vastness and complexity and multiplicity of Way around us, and the manner in which our own "inevitable nature" exists and unfolds in Way.  In his sarcastic style, Chuang Tzu actually has Confucius describe in a rather un-Confucian way, the type of disengagement that brings liberation in Way:

They [those who apprehend Way] roam at ease beyond the tawdry dust of this world, wander without themselves, boundless and free through the selfless unfolding of things.  So why would they fuss and stew about the rituals and customs of this human world?  Just to put on a show for the rest of us? (95)

      Hard to see how the good folks in Changyuan county would make regulations out of that…