Filial piety
Filial piety is the virtue of exhibiting love and respect for one's parents, elders, and ancestors within the context of Confucian, Chinese Buddhist, and Daoist ethics. The Confucian Classic of Filial Piety, thought to be written around the late Warring States-Qin-Han period, has historically been the authoritative source on the Confucian tenet of filial piety. The book—a purported dialogue between Confucius and his student Zengzi—is about how to set up a good society using the principle of filial piety. Filial piety is central to Confucian role ethics.
In more general terms, filial piety means to be good to one's parents; to take care of one's parents; to engage in good conduct, not just towards parents but also outside the home so as to bring a good name to one's parents and ancestors; to show love, respect, and support; to display courtesy; to ensure male heirs; to uphold fraternity among brothers; to wisely advise one's parents, including dissuading them from moral unrighteousness; to display sorrow for their sickness and death; and to bury them and carry out sacrifices after their death.
Filial piety is considered a key virtue in Chinese and other East Asian cultures, and it is the main subject of many stories. One of the most famous collections of such stories is The Twenty-four Cases of Filial Piety. These stories depict how children exercised their filial piety customs in the past. While China has always had a diversity of religious beliefs, the custom of filial piety has been common to almost all of them; historian Hugh D.R. Baker calls respect for the family the one element common to almost all Chinese people.
Terminology
The western term filial piety was originally derived from studies of Western societies, based on Mediterranean cultures. However, filial piety among the ancient Romans, for example, was largely different from the Chinese in its logic and enactment. Filial piety is illustrated by the Chinese character . The character is a combination of the character above the character , i.e. an elder being carried by a son. This indicates that the older generation should be supported by the younger generation.In Korean Confucianism, the character is pronounced . In Vietnamese, the character 孝 is written in the Vietnamese alphabet as hiếu. In Japanese, the term is generally rendered in spoken and written language as adding the characters for parent and conduct to the Chinese character to make the word more specific.
In traditional texts
Definitions
Confucian teachings about filial piety can be found in numerous texts, including the Four Books, that is the Great Learning, the Doctrine of the Mean, Analects, and the book Mencius, as well as the works Classic of Filial Piety and the Book of Rites. In the Classic of Filial Piety, Confucius says that "filial piety is the root of virtue and the basis of philosophy" and modern philosopher Fung Yu-lan describes filial piety as "the ideological basis for traditional society".For Confucius, filial piety is not merely a ritual outside respect to one's parents, but an inward attitude as well. Filial piety consists of several aspects. Filial piety is an awareness of repaying the burden borne by one's parents. As such, filial piety is done to reciprocate the care one's parents have given. However, it is also practiced because of an obligation towards one's ancestors.
According to some modern scholars, is the root of, but other scholars state that, as well as and should be interpreted as the roots of. means favorable behavior to those whom we are close to. refers to respect to those considered worthy of respect, such as parents and superiors. is defined as behaving according to social norms and cultural values. Moreover, it is defined in the texts as deference, which is respectful submission, and reverence, meaning deep respect and awe. Filial piety was taught by Confucius as part of a broad ideal of self-cultivation toward being a perfect human being.
Modern philosopher Hu Shih argued that filial piety gained its central role in Confucian ideology only among later Confucianists. He proposed that Confucius originally taught the quality of in general, and did not yet emphasize as much. Only later Confucianists such as Tseng Tzu focused on as the single most important Confucianist quality.
Detailed descriptions
Confucian ethics does not regard filial piety as a choice, but rather as an unconditional obligation of the child. The relationship between parents and children is the most fundamental of the five cardinal relationships described by Confucius in his role ethics. Filial piety, together with fraternal love, underlies this system. It is the fundamental principle of Confucian morality: Filial piety was seen as the basis for an orderly society, together with loyalty of the ministers toward the ruler, and servitude of the wife toward the husband. In short, filial piety is central to Confucian role ethics and is the cardinal virtue that defines, limits, or even overrides all other virtues.According to the traditional texts, filial piety consists of physical care, love, service, respect, and obedience. Children should attempt not to bring disgrace upon their parents. Confucian texts such as Book of Rites give details on how filial piety should be practiced. Respect is envisioned by detailed manners such as the way children salute their parents, speak to them, or enter and leave the room in which their parents are, as well as seating arrangements and gifts. Care means making sure parents are comfortable in every single way: this involves food, accommodation, clothes, hygiene, and basically to have them "see and hear pleasurable things" and to have them live without worry. But the most important expressions of, and exercises in, filial piety were the burial and mourning rituals to be held in honor of one's parents.
Filial piety means to be good to one's parents; to take care of one's parents; to engage in good conduct not just towards parents but also outside the home so as to bring a good name to one's parents and ancestors; to perform the duties of one's job well ; to carry out sacrifices to the ancestors; to not be rebellious; to be polite and well-mannered; to show love, respect, and support; to be near home to serve one's parents; to display courtesy; to ensure male heirs; to uphold fraternity among brothers; to wisely advise one's parents, including dissuading them from moral unrighteousness; to display sorrow for their sickness and death; and to bury them and carry out sacrifices after their death. Furthermore, a filial child should promote the public name of its family, and it should cherish the affection of its parents.
Traditional texts essentially describe filial piety in terms of a son-father relationship, but in practice, it involves all parent-child relationships, as well as relationships with stepparents, grandparents, and ancestors.
Filial piety also involves the role of the parent to the child. The father has a duty to provide for the son, to teach him in traditions of ancestor worship, to find a spouse for him, and to leave a good heritage. A father is supposed to be "stern and dignified" to his children, whereas a mother is supposed to be "gentle and compassionate". The parents' virtues are to be practiced, regardless of the child's piety, and vice versa. Nevertheless, filial piety mostly identified the 's duty, and in this, it differed from the Roman concept of patria potestas, which defined mostly the father's authoritative power. Whereas in Roman culture, and later in the Judeo-Christian West, people in authority legitimized their influence by referring to a higher transcending power, in Chinese culture, authority was defined by the roles of the subordinates to their superior and vice versa. As roles and duties were depersonalized, supremacy became a matter of role and position, rather than person, as it was in the West.
Anthropologist Francis Hsu argued that a child's obedience from a Confucian perspective was regarded as unconditional, but anthropologist David K. Jordan and psychologist David Yau-fai Ho disagree. Jordan states that in classical Chinese thought, "remonstrance" was part of filial piety, meaning that a pious child needs to dissuade a parent from performing immoral actions. Ho points out in this regard that the Confucian classics do not advocate "foolish filial piety". However, Jordan adds that if the parent does not listen to the child's dissuasion, the child must still obey the parent, and Ho states that "rebellion or outright defiance" is never approved in Confucian ethics.
Filial piety not only extends to behavior of children toward their parents, but also involves gratitude toward the human body they received from their parents, as the body is seen as an extension of one's parents. This involves prohibitions on damaging or hurting the body, and this doctrine has affected how the Confucianists regarded the shaving of the head by Buddhist monks, but also has created a taboo on suicide, regarded as "unfilial behavior".
Relation with society at large
Filial piety is regarded as a principle that ordered society, without which chaos would prevail. It is described as "an inevitable fact of nature", as opposed to mere convention, and it is seen to follow naturally out of the father-son relationship. In the Chinese tradition of patriarchy, roles are upheld to maintain the harmony of the whole. According to the Neo-Confucian philosopher Cheng Hao, relationships and their corresponding roles "belong to the eternal principle of the cosmos from which there is no escape between heaven and earth".The idea of filial piety became popular in China because of the many functions it had and many roles it undertook, as the traditional Confucian scholars such as Mencius regarded the family as a fundamental unit that formed the root of the nation. Though the virtue of was about respect by children toward their parents, it was meant to regulate how the young generation behaved toward elders in the extended family and in society in general. Furthermore, devotion to one's parents was often associated with one's devotion to the state, described as the "parallel conception of society" or the "Model of Two". The Classic of Filial Piety states that an obedient and filial son will grow up to become a loyal official —filial piety was therefore seen as a truth that shaped the citizens of the state, and the loyalty of the minister to his emperor was regarded as the extension of filial piety. Filial piety was regarded as being a dutiful person in general.
Nevertheless, the two were not equated. Mencius teaches that ministers should overthrow an immoral tyrant, should he harm the state; the loyalty to the king was considered conditional, not as unconditional as in filial piety towards one parents.