Sabbatical Application -- Philosophy

TITLE OF PROJECT: Punishment and Moral Education in Classical Confucian and Western Ethics

ABSTRACT:

Does punishment have a useful role to play in teaching people to be moral? During my sabbatical I will compare and analyze classical Confucian and classical Western philosophical responses to that question. At first glance, there appears to be profound disagreement: classical Western philosophers like Plato and Aristotle seem to answer a clear “yes” while Confucius and his followers appear to say “no.” But philosophical positions are seldom that simple, and even if they are that simple the arguments supporting them are not. I intend to discover the nuances of the authors’ positions, find the philosophical arguments for those positions, analyze the arguments’ strengths and weaknesses, and see how much common ground the Confucians share with philosophers in the Platonic and Aristotelian traditions. My plan is to write a scholarly paper on my findings, begin longer-term research on the topic, and revise my Introductory Ethics course to include more Confucian and comparative philosophy.

NARRATIVE:

A. Significance of this Work

The general question I wish to address in my sabbatical project is, “How does punishment’s role in classical Confucian ethics compare and contrast with its role in the classical Western ethical systems of Plato and Aristotle, particularly in the area of moral education?”[1] In some classical Confucian texts (e.g. Confucius n.d./1998), there appears to be a claim that punishment is at best ineffective in moral education, while both Plato (e.g. n.d./1987 and n.d./1998) and Aristotle (n.d./1980) argue that punishment has an important and positive role to play in the teaching of morality; I intend to explore and analyze the extent and philosophical significance of this apparent disagreement. Here are some more specific questions that I intend to consider, although I realize I won’t have time to answer more than a few of them thoroughly in the course of a year:

  1. Plato argues that punishment cures a person of injustice and that being unjust is worse for a person than suffering injustice. How strong are his arguments for these bold claims?
  2. Aristotle says that punishment can help young people to form good habits. Does his theory have resources for articulating a useful role for punishment in moral education of adults?
  3. Confucius and some of his early followers claim that punishment does not help people internalize ethical norms: it simply motivates them to avoid detection. Does this claim apply equally to children and adults? To all types of punishment (rather than just to the system of legal punishment in ancient China)?
  4. Confucius argues that a sage king (a perfectly virtuous ruler) will have no need for laws or punishment because people will simply follow his example. In the absence of an ideal ruler, does Confucius (or do his followers) consider punishment a necessary evil?
  5. Do later texts in the Platonic, Aristotelian, and Confucian traditions give further support for the positions described in 1-4 above?
  6. Is there any empirical evidence to support the claims of Plato, Aristotle, or Confucius about the (in)effectiveness of punishment in moral education?

The significance of this project derives from (1) the importance of comparative philosophy, (2) the emerging interdisciplinary interest in moral education, and (3) the lack of literature thus far on this aspect of comparative moral education; all of which will be addressed more fully below.

Regarding (1), philosophers in the past few decades have recognized to an increasing extent the importance of understanding other philosophical traditions, both for the traditions’ inherent philosophical significance and for gaining more understanding of one’s own tradition (see Angle 2007), as demonstrated by the emergence of four organizations focusing on Chinese and/or comparative philosophy that sponsor sessions at meetings of the American Philosophical Association (the major national association in the discipline) and at least three major English-language scholarly journals devoted to comparison of Asian and Western philosophy.

Regarding (2), the topic of moral education recently has become very fertile ground for interdisciplinary collaboration among philosophical ethicists, psychologists, and educators. The Association for Moral Education attracts a large, international membership from academics in the social sciences, philosophy, and education, as well as from K-12 teachers and administrators. Since the early 1990s, character education programs drawing on philosophical virtue ethics (e.g. Lickona 1992; Kilpatrick 1993) have received much attention from professional educators.

Finally, regarding (3), the lack of literature[2] on the aspect of comparative moral education that I find most fascinating provides me with a great opportunity to make a significant contribution to the work being done both in comparative philosophy and in moral education.

B. Basic Description

After reviewing the classical Western and Confucian sources from which I’ve derived my questions for investigation, I’ll spend the most of Fall 2009 familiarizing myself with the secondary sources (primarily in the Confucian tradition) that seem most likely to be helpful in developing answers to those questions. By early December I expect to come to (at least) working hypotheses and be ready to outline philosophical arguments for them, and by the end of January I’ll narrow the scope of investigation for the purposes of my conference paper and develop a more detailed outline of my arguments in response to the question(s) on which I’ll be focusing. The writing of the paper itself will take place between early February and mid-April. Finally, between mid-April and the end of May I’ll revisit my fall research with an eye to further writing and course revision, and develop paper/chapter outlines and an appropriately-revised syllabus for Introductory Ethics that includes more Confucian and comparative philosophy.

C. Previous Work

The proposed project represents a largely new direction for my research. While my main area of specialization within philosophy is ethics and I have been doing some interdisciplinary research in moral education in the past year and a half or so, I had not done any advanced research in Confucian or comparative philosophy before this past summer. Then in July and August of 2008 I was blessed with the opportunity to participate in a six-week seminar on Confucianism and contemporary (Western) virtue ethics, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). The seminar provided a terrific introduction to the classical Confucian philosophical texts and a unique opportunity for initial comparisons with the more familiar Western virtue-based ethical theories. It also afforded a great opportunity to develop ideas for my research project through ongoing conversation with the seminar’s directors and 14 other participants. While the NEH seminar gave me the necessary familiarity with primary sources in classical Confucian ethics, I still lack expertise in secondary sources such as commentaries and contemporary developments, and gaining facility with those will comprise a substantial part of my project. Fortunately, seminar co-director Stephen Angle has pointed me to several promising sources that relate well to my topic; these appear in the bibliography below.

As I mentioned in the previous paragraph, my primary area of specialization within philosophy is ethics, so I come to the project with substantial background in the Western ethical traditions with which I’ll be comparing the Confucian tradition. I regularly use both primary and secondary literature in Platonic and Aristotelian ethics in both my teaching and my research.

Finally, I mentioned above that recently I have been performing interdisciplinary research in the area of moral education. More specifically, I’ve been working with Tonia Bock of the UST Psychology Department and a few student researchers to investigate the effect of taking courses in philosophical ethics on students’ perceptions of their own moral qualities and behaviors. While the proposed sabbatical project in comparative moral education is quite different—it is theoretical rather than empirical—my previous research in the area of moral education has given me some background in the main concepts and theories in this field.

D. Specific Professional Goals

My professional goals for the project are, in chronological order: (1) to gain facility with secondary and contemporary sources in Confucian ethics, (2) to prepare an excellent scholarly paper on a to-be-finalized subset of the questions I’ll be exploring (listed in section A above) for presentation at a professional conference of philosophers with expertise in Confucianism and Western virtue ethics and for later publication, and (3) to develop plans for ongoing research on the topic and for inclusion of Confucian ethics in my teaching, particularly of Introductory Ethics. Since (2) is the most concrete and specific of the three, I’ll focus on primarily on that goal and then elaborate just a bit on the other two.

As a result of my participation in the NEH seminar described in section C, I have been invited to present a paper on the topic of punishment and moral education at a professional conference on Confucianism and contemporary virtue ethics to be held in Beijing in the summer of 2010. (In fact, the seminar directors—who, along with several Chinese philosophers, are on the conference organizing committee—are in the process of raising funds to help cover travel expenses for me and several of the other seminar participants so that we can present our research. So it seems clear that I’m not merely invited but expected to come to the conference with a paper worthy of an audience of international scholars.) After receiving feedback from the other conference participants, I intend to submit a version of the paper as an article and/or include it as part of a longer-term book project.

Regarding goal (1), and as mentioned in earlier sections, I’ll need to gain more background in the Confucian ethical tradition before developing my own scholarly work and teaching interests in comparative ethics. So I see (1) as a means to both (2) and (3).

Regarding goal (3), it is clear to me that I won’t be able to address more than a few of the questions/topics listed in section A in a sufficiently thorough way as part of my work on the paper for the Beijing conference—perhaps I’ll even find that I have more than enough to say about just one of those questions. So I plan to develop an initial strategy for tackling the rest of the questions over the next several years via a book or additional articles. Also, I am already finding many similarities between Confucian and Aristotelian approaches to ethics that I think would be of interest to my students, so by the end of the sabbatical year I intend to have a plan for modification of my Introductory Ethics course to include more Confucian ethics.

E. Off-campus Locations

While my research does not itself require off-campus work, it may be worth noting that I intend to apply for several external fellowships to help fund a yearlong sabbatical and that some of these fellowships would require residence at other institutions. (If unable to secure an external fellowship, I may have to cut back to a one-semester sabbatical.)

[1]For my purposes, “punishment” will be used broadly to refer to any type of punishment or negative sanction: physical or nonphysical, legal or extralegal. “Moral education” simply means “teaching others—children or adults—to be moral”: to become good people and/or to act rightly.

[2] I’ve discussed my research plans in some depth with Confucianism and comparative philosophy expert Stephen Angle, who confirmed that to the best of his (considerable) knowledge nothing has been published on my topic.