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Added by: Deryn Mair ThomasAbstract:
The early Confucians recognize that the exchanges and experiences of quotidian life profoundly shape moral attitudes, moral self-understanding, and our prospects for robust moral community. Confucian etiquette aims to provide a form of moral training that can render learners equal to the moral work of ordinary life, inculcating appropriate cognitive-emotional dispositions, as well as honing social perception and bodily expression. In both their astute attention to prosaic behavior and the techniques they suggest for managing it, I argue, the Confucians afford a model useful for appropriation in contemporary efforts to address small but potent moral harms such as microinequities
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Added by: Deryn Mair ThomasAbstract:
Mundane and often subtle forms of bias generate harms that can be fruitfully understood as akin to the harms evident in rudeness. Although subclinical expressions of bias are not mere rudeness, like rudeness they often manifest through the breach of mannerly norms for social cooperation and collaboration. At a basic level, the perceived harm of mundane forms of bias often has much to do with feeling oneself unjustly or arbitrarily cut out of a group, a group that cooperates and collaborates but does not do so with me. Appealing to the subtle but familiar choreography of mannered social interaction, I argue, makes it easier to recognize how exclusion can be accomplished through slight but symbolically significant gestures and styles of interaction, where bias manifests not in announced hostility but in an absence of the cooperation and collaboration upon which we rely socially.
Comment: This paper explores a manifestation of bias in the form of rudeness (or breaches of good manners) that are specifically attached to social identity. The author targets academic philosophy and the mundane and subtle forms of rudeness that cause, in particular, women to be excluded (and feel excluded) from the discipline, but also makes a more general claim about how the disregard for conventional good manners may make addressing and combatting a wide varity of biases more difficult in many different social contexts. The ideas discussed in the paper bear broad relevance to the philosophical study of bias and exclusion, contemporary feminism, civility and etiquette, and themes in the philosophy of social justice. However, the paper could also be used in discussion about professional and workplace ethics, since it also indirectly considers some normative questions about what kinds of etiquette we should extend to those with whom we cooperate and collaborate.
Comment: This paper explores the bearing of etiquette on moral sensibility, action, and character, through the philosophy of Confucianism and its concept of 'li 禮'. The author draws attention to the fact that early Confucianism placed an uncharacteristic emphasis on the development of good etiquette as a core component of the development of a moral character. She highlights this feature of Confucian ethics, in part, because it runs counter to much of traditional ethical theory in western philosohpy - where manners and etiquette, as mere social norms, are treated as 'notoriously fallible,' imperfect and often arbitrary: not principles on which we would think to base guidelines for moral development. Olberding, however, argues in their favor: that these rules 'arise in sensitivity to human need', and that robust adherence to them cultivates not only our actions but our character when it comes to interacting with other. The argument is especially straightforward and clear, and does not require any advanced or previous exposure to Confucian ethics, making it accessible to a wide range of ability levels. It would make an interesting addition to any introductory course in ethics, but could also be used to augment a more advanced discussion about contemporary ethical debates. (There are notable connections to the work of other contemporary philosophers discussing sociality and need, including Kimberley Brownlee, Soran Reader, and Anca Gheaus.)