The Role Dilemma in Early Confucianism

Recently, Sean Cordell has raised a problem for Aristotelians who seriously consider social roles: When the demands of the role conflict with the demands of morality, which norms ought one follow? However, this problem, which I call the role dilemma, is not specific to Aristotelians. Classical Confucians face a similar problem. How do Confucians resolve conflicts between the demands of humaneness (ren 仁) and the demands of social roles and the social norms (li 礼) that govern these roles? Confucians who favor humaneness, maintaining that other demands are defeasible, offer an externalism about roles. This response is similar to the Aristotelian argument that the demands of human excellence trump other demands. Consequently, Confucian externalism collapses into a virtue ethic. Confucians who favor the demands of li offer an internalism about roles. However, internalism is undesirable because it implies relativism and condones oppressive social institutions. The Confucian role ethicist must offer a tenable solution that steers clear of the pitfalls of both externalism and internalism. Although I do not advance a solution here, I believe a tenable alternative exists. The goals of this paper, instead, are to demonstrate that classical Confucians face the role dilemma and to initiate a discussion about the theoretical apparatus required of Confucian role ethics in order to distinguish it from other ethical theories. I conclude with some programmatic remarks about additional questions and problems that ought to be addressed.     

Principlism,Pragmatism, or Reconstructionist Confucianism? —Some Comments on Ni Peimin’s English Translation of the Analects

This essay provides a few critical points of view on Ni Peimin’s recent English translation of the Analects. It shows that his translations of ren into “human-heartedness” and of li into “ritual propriety” may indicate a willingness to recast these Confucian concepts in the modern ideology of western subjectivism or individualism, whereas Confucianism is not in the direction of such ideologies. Moreover, while Ni seems to offer a “no-rule” view of Confucian virtue ethics, he cannot deny the existence of moral rules and principles in the Confucian system. It is insufficient for him to emphasize the importance of Confucian “instructions” or “methods” as he does without explicating their relations to Confucian rules. Additionally, Ni’s gongfu Confucianism provides a necessary and healthy step back from the contemporary principlism that has been dominant and popular in contemporary politics, ethics, and applied ethics, but Ni goes too far in denying the importance of the moral rules and principles that are implicit or explicit in the Confucian ritual practices and upheld in Confucius’s Analects.     

Sens du travail et rapports vie de travail - vie hors travail chez trois catégories de télétravailleurs et chez les travailleurs classiques

Telework, namely so remote work, is composed of three basic forms: home based-telework, alternated telework and mobile telework. These three basic forms of telework and the traditional form of work are compared to identify their respective impact on work centrality, work social representation, and on relations between work life and out of work life. The mobile teleworkers present a high work centrality and the alternated teleworkers, a high family centrality. Concerning the representation, only mobile teleworkers and home based teleworkers cannot think the work without the basic knowledge of constraint. For the exchanges between work of life and out of work life, traditional workers separate their domains of life even though alternated teleworkers and home based-teleworkers combinate it. Mobile teleworkers develop exchanges between some domains of life.This study proves that it is not necessary to reason globally but to consider the specificity of each telework forms introduced or to implant in a organization.     

Être mère dans la famille recomposée : défis de la conciliation des rôles de belle-mère et de mère biologique

This study examines issues related to occupying both the role of stepmother and biological mother in a stepfamily. A sample of twelve participants was interviewed. The central theme of the interviews concerned the psychological state of the women as they tried to reconcile their biological maternity with their role as a stepmother. A qualitative analysis of the interviews enabled us to propose three themes emerging from their experience: a) a comparison of their different parental roles in the stepfamily; b) the issues related to managing stepfamily dynamics; c) the challenges linked to the development of a family identity.     

先秦音乐与儒家的礼乐理想

中国古代音乐的基本理论在先秦时期已初具系统。从音律上看,先秦音乐与现代音乐或西方古代音乐不存在本质上的不同,但在音阶的选用上,人们把“五声”视为最理想的音阶,所追求的音乐意念是“和”。先秦儒家在继承周代礼乐制度的基础上提出了“礼以别宜、乐以敦和”的礼乐理想作为治国平天下的基本途径,不仅使礼乐之间的互补关系得到进一步发展,还使“乐”的含义发生了深刻的转化。所谓乐,不仅指声音的和谐,更重要的是内心的愉悦,即“无声之乐”。它所强调的是个人对差别性社会规范即礼的发自内心的认同,并从生活践履中获得和乐的内在体验。     

Opening the closed heart: affect-focused clinical work with the victims of early trauma

This paper begins with the understanding that early trauma leads to powerful dissociative defenses which injure the capacity to feel. It further explores ways to restore this capacity through body-centred attention to affect-in-the-moment in the psychoanalytic situation. Using the author’s personal experience while in analysis as well as a case of severe early trauma, he demonstrates the consciousness-killing effect of primitive defenses and shows how body-sensitive techniques hold the promise of restoring the patient’s sense of aliveness and hence, opening the unconscious to those affect-images that are the building blocks of the human imagination. A final section focuses on the neglect of feeling in Jungian psychology and suggests that the “creation of consciousness” which Jung described as his personal myth, is quintessentially a process of emotional transformation – of bringing unconscious suffering into consciousness – as feelings.     

Motivation autodéterminée, perceptions de conflit et d'instrumentalité et assiduité envers la pratique d'une activité physique : une étude prospective sur six mois

Exercising regularly represents a challenging public health issue. The purpose of this study was to extend prior research based on self-determination theory by considering perceptions of conflict-instrumentality with regard to physical activity. A 6-month prospective study was conducted among 62 adults. In January, their self-determined motivation toward exercise and work was assessed by questionnaire, as well as their perceptions associated to the role of exerciser. Their presence was then controlled until the end of the season. The analyses revealed a negative relationship between self-determined motivation and role conflicts, and between this variable and observed assiduity. Those results are discussed with regard to their practical implications for exercise adherence.     

王弼《易》注用《庄》论

《庄子》一书对王弼《周易注》的影响体现在王弼的注解方法、"理"概念及其它一些概念和运用上。受《庄子》的启发,王弼"言一象一意"的三层结构既能体察卦象和爻辞之中的深意,也能突破象敷的限制,阐发其中的义理。王弼的统宗会元之理和同理异职之理丰富了"理"概念的内涵,也对以后的宋明理学产生了巨大的影响。其它一些散见的对《庄子》的引用或化用为《周易注》添加玄学色彩之余,也让《庄子》与《周易》之间的联系变得更为紧密。