Title:
A Social Constructionist Account of Rén (仁) in the Analects.
Abstract:
According to the Analects, it is only possible to become rén as part of a social community. McLeod takes this idea even further: rén is primarily a property of communities and only derivatively a property of individuals. Being a rén community is defined in terms of the performance of certain shared cooperative activities and dispositions. An individual is rén only in virtue of appropriately playing a social role in a rén community, and ceases to be rén outside of that particular community. I contend that it is a false dichotomy to say that either (i) rén is primarily a property of individuals because it is an internal quality or disposition or (ii) rén is primarily a property of communities. An individual’s being rén can be constitutively dependent upon community without it being primarily a property of community, on analogy with other socially constructed properties like being a woman or being Asian. This does not make being rén any less real or important. Because of the way that being rén depends upon community, it also marks an interesting feature of the early Confucian conception of moral virtue: not only does one need community to be rén, being rén is irreducibly tied to one’s social role.
Bio:
Dr. Jenn Wang is an associate professor in philosophy at Simon Fraser University. Her research centers on topics in the metaphysics of modality, fundamentality, and classical Chinese philosophy.
