Xunzi’s Ritual Model and Modern Moral Education

Abstract

While the early Confucians were largely content to maintain the rituals of ancient kings as the core of moral education in their time, it is not obvious that contemporary humans could, or should, draw from the particulars of such a tradition. Indeed, even if one takes ritual seriously as a tool for cultivation, there remains a question of how to design moral education programs incorporating ritual. This essay examines impediments faced by a ritualized approach to moral education, how they might be overcome, and how a ritual method could be developed in modernity. I contend that a Confucian notion of ritual, particularly as elaborated in the Xunzi, is both compatible with modern moral education and capable of making a distinct contribution to moral education in terms of how rituals can be used to structure and inculcate a shared climate of respect and humaneness both inand outside the classroom. Specifically, the ritual education method includes emphases on inculcating moral fluency via symbolic practices and distinctions, training and appropriately associating promoral dispositions, enhancing moral imagination, and developing awareness of other minds. The model is thus a multifaceted approach to moral education through (meta)cognitive development. THE STATE OF MORAL EDUCATION Few will dispute the importance of inculcating morality (or at least prosocial tendencies), so it is no surprise that, as educational institutions evolve, so too do moral education initiatives. For example, over the past several decades United States schools have increasingly invested in moral and character education programs, generally focusing on inculcating skills and dispositions that can assist in resolving common conflicts among youth, ranging from sharing to drug abuse.1 The U.S. Institute of Education Sciences depicts this education as the influence that families, schools, and other social institutions have on the positive character development of children and adults, where character is understood as “the moral and ethical qualities of persons as well as the demonstration of those qualities in their emotional responses, reasoning, and behavior.”2 The programs employ a variety of methods, encompass diverse settings, and may be pervasive throughout a community or localized to particular classroom or extracurricular experiences. While it is unclear whether there is a consistent underlying theory or vision for what these moral education programs (should) look like,3 many have made at least marginal progress. Peer mediation, for example, is an increasingly popular program due to initial successes in promoting the (arguably moral) practice of conflict resolution and an overall reduction in reported conflicts over time.4 Students train to 1 While this essay draws mainly, though not exclusively, from U.S.-based research, moral education is an international concern. Accordingly, I suspect that the messages conveyed herein will appeal to a broader audience. 2 “What Works Clearinghouse Evidence Review Protocol for Character Education Interventions”, https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/ Docs/ReferenceResources/CharEd_protocol.pdf, accessed 6 January 2020. 3 Thomas Lickona, “Eleven Principles of Effective Character Education”, Journal of Moral Education 25, no. 1 (1996) has attempted to develop an outline for principles that character education programs should look to, although it is unclear whether all or most programs currently in use actually subscribe to these principles as guidelines for development. James S. Leming, “Tell Me a Story: An evaluation of a literature-based character education programme”, Journal of Moral Education 29, no. 4 (2000), 413–14, however, has suggested that many such programs lack even underlying theoretical bases, let alone unified designs. 4 Stephen K. Bell et al., “The effectiveness of peer mediation in a low-SES rural elementary school”, Psychology in the Schools 37, no. 6 (2000). DR AF T This is a Postprint Draft! Please do not Cite. Always refer to the version Published in European Journal for Philosophy of Religion, Vol. 13, No. 2 D O I: 10 .2 42 0 4/ EJ PR .2 0 21 .3 30 7 Pl ea se d o n o t C it e. C it ab le V er si o n h as become “mediators” who help fellow students work through various personal and interpersonal conflicts. Additionally, several multi-year studies of more general, comprehensive moral education programs provide empirical support for the claim that such programs have a variety of positive effects on students. A study conducted across twenty primary schools in Hawai’i found that a program emphasizing character development resulted in a seventy percent reduction in suspensions, a fifteen percent reduction in absenteeism, and improved performance on literacy and mathematics tests.5 Another study, conducted over a period of twenty years at a Utah high school that folded character-building practices into academic lessons, also reported great success in terms of character development and academic progress by participants.6 Such outcomes imply that moral education benefits both individual students and the school environment at large. There is, then, motivation for the continued adoption of moral education programs: they can reduce antisocial and problematic behaviors, increase conflict resolution skills, and yield improved quality of coursework. Less clear is how the moral education process should proceed and what it should entail. This is an end to which ritual, particularly as conceptualized in the Confucian tradition, can contribute as an educational resource. WHAT IS (CONFUCIAN) RITUAL? In the Confucian tradition,7 “ritual” refers not only to special, more dramatic performances (e.g., sacrifices), but also to mundane practices that one might classify as etiquette (e.g., greetings and modes of address, general comportment in public, etc.).8 Additionally, and dissimilar from its apparent use by many contemporary theorists, Confucian ritual is also depicted in non-performative terms as social divisions that mark out distinctions of right and wrong, noble and base, and superior and subordinate.9 In so doing, ritual formally establishes relationships between members of the community and the behaviors concomitant to said relationships. It is also noteworthy that the Confucian notion of ritual is specifically a norm of performance. While, from an anthropological perspective, one might construe a community’s rituals as the way people behave in general, as opposed to (pro-)moral behavior in particular, for the Confucians this would be a mistake: people can certainly fail to perform according to ritual, potentially resulting in moral failure. It is best, then, to construe the Confucian notion of ritual as not only particular practices, but as a collection of prescriptions. Specifically, given the association of ritual with inculcating 5 Frank Snyder et al., “Impact of a social-emotional and character development program on school-level indicators of academic achievement, absenteeism, and disciplinary outcomes: A matched-pair, cluster randomized, controlled trial”, Journal of research on educational effectiveness 3, no. 1 (2010). 6 David D. Williams et al., “Character Education in a Public High School: A multi-year inquiry into Unified Studies”, Journal of Moral Education 32, no. 1 (2003). 7 Though I write of the Confucian tradition broadly, I understand that the myriad pre-Qin and neo-Confucian texts differ on a number of subjects, including ritual. I do think, however, that there are at least aspects of ritual that are treated consistently across the early and later Confucian canons that are sufficient to compose a core conception of ritual that, and this is the notion with which I operate. Where appropriate, I attempt to identify distinct strands of Confucian thought and how they give rise to particular features of ritual or a ritual education model. 8 See also Herbert Fingarette, “Human Community as Holy Rite: An Interpretation of Confucius’ Analects”, The Harvard Theological Review 59, no. 1 (1966). It is important to clarify, though, that ritual is not merely etiquette. For one, as I will argue, ritual possesses affective and moral components that, arguably, are detached from (or at least inessential to) etiquette. Moreover, ritual is not reducible to the details of performance; it can be amended to better serve its moral purpose, whereas it is not clear that such is the case for etiquette. 9 E.g. Xunzi 10/43/1–3; 12/57/23–26. I use the ICS numbering throughout this essay. All translations are my own except where otherwise indicated.