All Ancient Chinese Thought Tended to Be This-Worldly, Human-Centred, and Overwhelmingly Optimistic - Essay Example

Name: Course #: Essay title: Chinese Focus on this World: A Practical Worldview Introduction Western thought has been dominated by generations with otherworldly matters, what happens to the soul after death, where people go when they die, and who people might meet when they go into the "next world." Other religions that are not Western in origin, such as Buddhism, also focus on the world beyond this world. So the preoccupation with the next world is not entirely Western. In fact, the Chinese are also concerned to some extent with the world beyond, which is why they place a great deal of emphasis on honoring their ancestors. Even so, the teachings of Confucius have emphasized the benefits to be obtained from focusing on this world and in ensuring that the whole community is in harmony. It stands to reason that the Chinese cannot consider themselves successful when there is a lack of harmony in their community or their country. Harmony is highly important. Although optimism is also a streak in Chinese thought, such optimism prevails, it would seem, only in a society where personal and community effort can yield results, for the concept of ren, which is also central to Confucian thought, suggests that if a person puts in effort, in time he would achieve the level of being a "gentleman." Harmony Confucianism favours harmony in society and requires that subjects obey their ruler, that wives obey their husbands and children obey their parents. It is a patriarchal system that may not find much favour among Westerners today, but because Asians have grown up with these values, they may, to a large extent, tend to accept this worldview. For example, while the West thrives on the adversarial system, debating, challenging authority, Chinese tend to believe that when there is harmony the whole society can prosper. This is of course a generalization but the roots of Confucianism help to explain the preoccupation with harmony and why so many Chinese seemingly acquiesce to being "controlled." A society, therefore, that manages to remain harmonious comes across for many Chinese as one in which many possibilities can be achieved. Lack of harmony is seen as disruptive both for the nation and for individual achievement. To go back in time, when Confucius and his followers made an effort to clarify Chinese thought during the Spring and Autumn period (770-476 BC) peace and harmony was paramount on their minds. Confucius did not concern himself with issues of the afterlife but focused on matters of pertinence to humanity. As Yao (200) notes, Confucius was interested in humans and his principles were geared towards helping humans be the best they could be in terms of social relationships, which Confucius and his followers saw as being the basic necessity for a stable society, one in which peace and prosperity prevailed for the benefit of individuals, the family, and the state (Yao 2000, p26). But Confucianism did not remain static throughout the years. Adaptation to the changing needs of society Indeed, Confucius and his followers were also concerned about issues of rulership and leadership in their day. Thus, they wanted a world in which people cared about one another, a world in which family members cared for one another, and in which the ruler cared about the subjects and vice versa. They did not remain passive, then. As Yao (2000) writes, the Confucianists were not supported by imperial largesse. Rather they operated more or less independently and "its schools presented a direct challenge to the establishment....it functioned, to a considerable extent, as a watchdog for ruling activities, endeavouring to apply its principles to shaing and reshaping political structure" (Yao 2000, p5). In one of the books that Confucian scholars were expected to read, The Classic of Rites, "Confucius contrasted the fallen condition of "moderate prosperity", where coercive rulers barely contained the effects of people's pursuit of their own self-interest with the utopian vision of "great unity" (datong), in which rulers and ruled worked together to achieve a shared concept of the common good" (Delury 2008, p36). Thus, the condition of the people, whether good or bad, was of incredible importance to Confucius and he believed that people in society had a stake in helping one another. And this leads to the Confucian concept of ren, which is the attainment of the level of personal moral mastery. But this notion of personal mastery was not a selfish one. Rather, it was more of developing a generous spirit, and being considerate enough to care about others even when one sought to achieve personal mastery and standing in the world. As Cheung (2004) reports: "As for ren - you yourself desire rank and standing, then help others to get rank and standing. You want to turn your own merits to account; then help theirs to account - in fact, the ability to take what is close to oneself as a guide - that is the sort of thing that lies in the direction of ren" (Analects 6:28; cited in Cheung 2004, p. 316). But connected to this need for harmony is the focus on the family, which is real and presents a clear need for fulfillment in the present in the sense of satisfying needs for nutrition, love, and caring. Families also help one another in times of trouble and so nurturing relationships tied to the family is also seen as crucial. But the picture of the family that emerges in Confucianism is not always a pleasant one, when viewed from the modern perspective. Li (propriety) was another core concept of Confucianism that ensured that people would observe their place in society, whether as wives towards husbands or as children towards their parents. Wei-ming Tu, writing in (Nuyen 1999), notes that even though the Three Bonds restricted people's lives they were balanced by "the Mencian Five Relationships. He argues that there is enough flexibility in Confucianism to allow individuals to construct lives that are rich and meaningful within the confines of propriety and filial piety" (Nuyen 1999, p.147). Even though from today's perspective, the emphasis on roles in Confucianism seems so negative it was to foster harmony which involves providing a balance between opposing forces. In this respect, Confucius and Confucianists saw the world of humanity as being similar to that of the natural world in terms of the need for harmony. Now, the feelings of love and affection can be assumed to be abundant in the family. They arise naturally from biological inclinations binding fathers and children, and romantic and/or sexual inclinations binding husbands and wife. Yet, a family cannot thrive on love and affection alone. There have to be also the feelings of respect and reverence, enough to ensure a necessary amount of obedience. Given a natural abundance of love and affection, something has to act as a counter-balance. It is for this reason that respect and reverence are emphasised. (Nuyen 1999, p147) It must be noticed that Confucianism sustained Chinese society for centuries and must have contributed to the position of respect that the Chinese enjoyed in the ancient world. Even though Confucianism met many challenges over the years, it was not an inflexible doctrine, and that may have accounted for the optimism inherent in Confucian thought. Just as it was held that a person who applied himself to study and made the necessary effort might one day attain to ren, it seems that through the process of adaptation, Confucianism could look forward more and more to a society that improved itself over time. Each generation of Confucian scholars modified, elaborated, and added to the Classics, all without losing sight of the goal of harmony in society. Reason for Optimism The primary for reason in Confucian thought may be the concept of de (virtue) which is perceived in Confucian thought as the "inherent power or tendency, in particular its natural effect on other people and things" (Ivanhoe 2000, x). In the case of the emperor royal virtue made it possible for him to accomplish great deeds and the pursuit of such great deeds meant even more de and an endorsement from the ancestral spirits. The demands that this placed on the ruler was many and varied, including the need to observe many detailed rituals. During the 11th century, BCE, however, the ideas of ming (fate) and de (virtue) began to transform with a new sense of ming emerging that touched on the ruler's sense of legitimacy to rule. "In such contexts, ming no longer had any strong connotation of "fate"; it came to mean the Mandate (of Heaven), something a ruler could eiether earn or forfeit" (Ivanhoe 2000, ix). This meant that no longer would the subjects be left saddled with a terrible ruler forever. Rather, it was the view that a ruler who hurt the people or did not do the right thing by them or one who did not pay attention to his royal duties lost his de while those that were careful in handing their duties kept or even developed more de. In any case, the underlying factor was "the idea that the king must put the good of the people before the satisfaction of his personal desires" (Ivanhoe 2000, ix). Knowing that their fate is not fixed and that there is room for change when things get terribly bad on account of bad rulership, the Confucian ethos promotes a sense of optimism for the future not in an otherworldly sense as it is with Christians but in the here and now. Conclusion Although moral virtue is considered an important part of Confucianism Christians who made an attempt to convert Chinese did not succeed on the scale that they might have liked. This seems to have been because of fundamental differences in the way Chinese, by way of Confucianism, conceived of the world. Unlike Christians who put God at the centre of their existence, "Confucians have no specific beings as their gods. Confucius himself has never talked about gods, ghosts, or even afterlife. Because of this, whether we should take Confucianism as a religion is a controversial issue. Many scholars hold the view that Confucius did not establish a new religion for a lack of god. All his efforts were channeled into finding an ethical system that could improve the Chinese society of his time. His main concern was social life and the principles that should govern it for society, family, and personal life" (Dong 2007, p.112). Another difference that sustains Confucian optimism is that whereas Christians believe that humans are sinful by nature, Confucians believe that humans are fundamentally good and that "Confucians believe that man is naturally good. We are born with benevolence, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom. While Confucius only implied the natural goodness of man, another great philosopher, Mencius, stated clearly that human beings posses innate knowledge of the good as well as the innate ability to be good" (Dong 2007, p.112). In conclusion, Confucius and his followers put their energies into making this world and the society within which they lived and hoped to live for future generations, a better one, a society that would continue to improve through a legacy of peace and mutual obligation. Bibliography Cheung, Leo K.C. (2004). The Unification of Dao and Ren in the Analects. Journal of Chinese Philosophy, 31.3, 313-327. Delury, John. (2008, Apr/May). "Harmonious" in China. Policy Review, 148, 35-44. Dong, Rui. 2007. A Comparison between the Christian and Confucian Major Doctrines: a Survey. Canadian Social Science, 3.6, 112. Ivanhoe, P.J. 2000. Confucian Moral Self Cultivation. Indianapolis: Hackett. Nuyen, A.T. (1999). Review of Confucianism and the Family, Asian Philosophy, 9.2, 147. Yao, Xinzhong. (2000). An Introduction to Confucianism. New York: Cambridge University Press. Yet Another Asian Value. (1998, Aug 1). The Economist, 348 (8079), 36. My Fascination With China Jonathan Fenby. History Today. London: Nov 2007. Vol. 57, Iss. 11; pg. 70, 2 pgs  »  Jump to indexing (document details) Full Text (1443  words) Copyright History Today Ltd. Nov 2007 [Headnote] Author and journalist Jonathan Fenby explains what started him on an endless journey of exploration into China's past. FOR FIVE YEARS at the end of the 1990s I lived on the edge of China, editing the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong, during the period when the great world city that had risen from what Lord Palmerston had characterized as a 'barren rock' was returned to the sovereignty of the People's Republic. Professional visits to the mainland took me to Beijing and Shanghai, and across the border to Guangzhou (the former Canton). With my wife, I travelled up the Yangzi just before the flooding caused by the Three Gorges Dam, and into China's Far West along the old Silk Road to the great trading city of Kashgar. I soon became fascinated by China - the relationship between the authoritarian Communist political system and the booming market-led economy, the soaring skyscrapers rising from marshland in the Pudong district of Shanghai and the Yellow Hat Buddhist monastery in the great grazing lands of the northwest, with its array of monumental statues made of yak butter. Just before I left Hong Kong to return to London, came a suggestion that I might like to write a biography of the Chinese Nationalist leader, Chiang Kai-shek. A mad idea, I responded. I knew nothing about him. There must be scores of scholars better equipped than I to do such a book. But the idea germinated. I went to the excellent library of Hong Kong's China Club, and ensconced myself in the deep armchairs. I read up on Chiang and became steadily caught up in the extraordinary history of China between the fall of the empire in 1912 and the Communist victory of 1949 - and the figures who peopled the landscape. To begin with there were Chiang, the saltseller's son who rose from nothing to become China's Generalissimo, and the Nationalist Father of the Republic and founder of the Kuomintang party (KMT) Sun Yat-sen, who relinquished power as soon as he had gained it and waged a series of quixotic attempts to get it back. Then there were the succession of extravagant warlords who divided the country between them from 1916 to 1927, the Communists under Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and others, the Japanese who took over Manchuria in 1931 and invaded the rest of China in 1937, the American Second World War adviser 'Vinegar Joe' Stilwell and the generals who fought the civil war from 1945 to 1949. Nor should we forget Chiang's family-in-law, the Soong dynasty. This included three American-educated sisters - the glamorous Madame Chiang, her sister Qingling, a left-winger who eloped to marry Sun Yat-sen, and Ailing, the shrewd eldest sister who arranged her youngest sister's marriage to the future Generalissimo and focused on making a fortune, including high-flying insider dealing; and the Soong men including the patriarch Charlie Soong who converted to Christianity and built a fortune on a Bible publishing business, his portly son T. V. Soong, who became prime minister, finance minister and a major businessman, reputed at one point to be the richest person on earth; and Ailing's husband H.H. Kong, said to be a descendant of Confucius, who rotated with his brother-in-law in the top government posts and thought the answer to inflation was to print more money. Add in the Green Gang Godfather 'Big Ears' Du, the elegant, lethal Nationalist secret police chief Dai Li, 'China's Himmler', and the tycoons of Shanghai, and I was hooked. As I read more about the conditions of the vast number of peasants and urban poor living on the very margin, I glimpsed a panorama of a nation on the edge. The combination of individuals and a mass issue of survival provided a dramatic canvas rarely replicated. On top of which, there were wonderful contemporary accounts from the Shanghai press and from diaries and other records. A visit with my wife to Chiang's home village in Zhejiang province in eastern China clinched my infatuation with his story. Zhejiang is one of the hottest spots in China's booming growth, and the drive down from the port of Ningpo took us past a succession of towns dominated by factories that turn out everything from shirts and ties to playing cards - by the million. Then we came to Xikou, a charming, heavily restored village of white-painted buildings. Here, in 1887, in a modest house by the river where the locals set cormorants to catch fish, a band round their necks to prevent them from swallowing their catch, the man who would lead the KMT army out of the south to conquer most of China was born. In the Chiang family's ancestral hall were pictures of the Generalissimo and his clan. Up on the high ridge behind the village, through the tea plantations, was his second home, with sweeping views and a waterfall below. On the way up the slope was the temple where he kept as a prisoner a former Manchurian warlord who had kidnapped him in 1936 in a vain attempt to get the Nationalists to form an anti-Japanese alliance with the Communists. That night, back in a hotel in Shanghai, I began to write about Chiang. Generalissimo: Chiang Kaishek and the China He Lost was published in 2003. Three years later I was asked to edit and contribute to The Seventy Marvels of China, which turned out to be a wonderful journey through China ancient and modern from the earliest bronze civilization and the development of silk to the Great Wall and the Forbidden City, and on to the booming Shanghai and Beijing of today. Two more books on China, to be published next year, have continued the authorial exploration I began seven years ago when - as a working journalist - I knew a fair amount about China today but little about its past It has led down different paths and periods but has endlessly reinforced itself. By this I mean that the past and closer history kept coming together. The 'harmonious society' currently preached by President Hu Jintao contains strong elements of Confucianism, as did Chiang Kaishek's philosophy, which has been described as 'Confucian Fascism'. Mao Zedong admired the First Emperor, who imposed a harsh legalistic regime on the nascent power of China in the third century BC. And during the Cultural Revolution, Mao's wife Jiang Qing identified herself with China's only woman emperor, Wu Zetian, who reigned in the late seventh century AD. When Deng Xiaoping said the Chinese needed to get richer, he was echoing the prescription of a late nineteenth-century modernizer, Li Hongzhang. The Seventy Wonders of China led me to explore China's achievements, stretching back through the millennia, that have made it a unique civilization. This in turn has taken me further into the history of the country, so that I also have two more forthcoming books: Dragon Throne, on the imperial dynasties, and the Penguin History of Modern China, running up to the present day. Writing these showed me how some themes flow through thousands of years of the nation's history, right from the First Emperor to the Communist Party Congress this autumn - notably a top-down system of authority, combined with the problem of asserting central control of such a huge and multi-faceted country. From 1850 to the 1980s, China had the most protracted bad time of any nation on earth - civil wars, mass destruction, invasion, repression and huge natural disasters. Now, for all the shortcomings of the present regime, the world's most heavily populated nation has entered a new phase in its existence. But, despite its modernity, it is a phase which cannot be disassociated from the past. Editing an analytical service on present-day China as I now do, I find a knowledge of history essential in trying to understand what is going on in this country that manages to be both front-stage and opaque. As a saying attributed to Confucius has it, the person who does not understand the past cannot foresee the future. That has been the attraction of trying to join up the dots in the history of perhaps the world's most interesting country, past and present. Jonathan Fenby [Sidebar] Chiang Kai-shek and his wife in the early 1930s. [Sidebar] Sun Yat-sen visits the tombs of the Ming emperors; 1923. [Author Affiliation] Seventy Wonders of China is published by Thames & Hudson, price £24.95. Dragon Throne (to be published by Quercus) and The Penguin History of Modern China by Jonathan Fenby are due out early next year. Jonathan Fenby is taking part in a panel discussion on 'China and the World', chaired by Jon Snow, at the British Museum on November 14th. Indexing (document details) Subjects: History,  Political systems,  Confucianism Locations: China Author(s): Jonathan Fenby Author Affiliation: Seventy Wonders of China is published by Thames & Hudson, price £24.95. Dragon Throne (to be published by Quercus) and The Penguin History of Modern China by Jonathan Fenby are due out early next year. Jonathan Fenby is taking part in a panel discussion on 'China and the World', chaired by Jon Snow, at the British Museum on November 14th. Document types: Commentary Document features: Photographs Section: POINT OF DEPARTURE Publication title: History Today. London: Nov 2007. Vol. 57, Iss. 11;  pg. 70, 2 pgs Source type: Periodical ISSN: 00182753 ProQuest document ID: 1380464251 Text Word Count 1443 Document URL: http://proquest.umi.com.ezproxy.scu.edu.au/pqdweb?did=1380464251&sid=2&Fmt=3&clientId=20824&RQT=309&VName=PQD Making career choice: A study of Chinese managers Amy Lai Yu Wong. Human Relations. New York: Aug 2007. Vol. 60, Iss. 8; pg. 1211, 23 pgs Abstract (Summary) Compared with the extensive research on managerial careers in the West, little has emerged from China and South-East Asia. This exploratory study used Schein's concept of Career Anchors to investigate how 117 Taiwanese managers made their initial career choice and the values which shaped their subsequent careers. The findings indicate how cultural specificity and political dynamics impacted on the managers' career experience. The Taiwanese subjects valued independence, a balanced lifestyle and entrepreneurial opportunities. The findings further indicate how career pathways can be of an individual's own making, embracing life in its broadest aspects and not exclusively forged within organizations. The study sheds light on the field of vocational choice and adjustment within the Chinese context. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]  »  Jump to indexing (document details) Full Text (8947  words) Copyright Springer Science & Business Media Aug 2007 [Headnote] ABSTRACT Compared with the extensive research on managerial careers in the West, little has emerged from China and South-East Asia. This exploratory study used Schein's concept of Career Anchors to investigate how 117 Taiwanese managers made their initial career choice and the values which shaped their subsequent careers. The findings indicate how cultural specificity and political dynamics impacted on the managers' career experience. The Taiwanese subjects valued independence, a balanced lifestyle and entrepreneurial opportunities. The findings further indicate how career pathways can be of an individual's own making, embracing life in its broadest aspects and not exclusively forged within organizations. The study sheds light on the field of vocational choice and adjustment within the Chinese context. KEYWORDS Career Anchors * career management * Chinese culture * Chinese managers * Confucian values * family expectations Introduction The study of careers as a field in its own right can be traced back to the Chicago School of Sociology in the 1920s and 1930s with its wide definition of career to include not only work but also the broader sequence of life experience. Since then, careers as a field of study has come to attract the attention of scholars and practitioners from a range of disciplines: not only sociology but also principally psychology, economics and political science. Most of these studies have been western-centred and mainly North American at that; very little theory development has come out of China and South-East Asia. There is a paucity of empirical studies in that region of the factors which influence individuals in their initial choice of career and of the values which subsequently underpin their career direction and movement. This article begins with a brief review of developments in thinking about career. It moves on to explain why Schein's (1978) Career Anchors concept was used as a central plank in the current study, before the study itself is described and discussed. The results of the study of 117 Taiwanese managers show first, how the subjects made their career choice within constraints imposed by a command economy and second, that the subjects exemplified a notion of career whereby income often came from more than one source with work, domestic and social life all fitting together to form a satisfying mesh. This concept of career echoes the Chicago School of Sociology's concept of careers which viewed career as embracing the entirety of life activities extending beyond the confines of paid employment (Hughes, 1938; Shaw, 1930, 1931, 1938). Development of thinking about career The term 'career' does not lend itself to simple definition and, indeed, many definitions and interpretations of career have been proposed by scholars and practitioners working in the field (Adamson et al., 1996; Arthur et al., 1991, 1999; Hall, 1996, 2002; Herriot Sc Pemberton, 1996; King et al., 2005; Mirvis Sc Hall, 1994; Peiperl et al., 2000). The earliest interest in career from scholars goes back to the Chicago School in the 1920s, in that here is seen the first recognition of 'career' as the individual's total life experience. From its inception, the Chicago School of Sociology displayed a strong commitment to empiricism, looking to the surrounding city to study forms of social life at close range. It regarded careers as extending beyond the confines of paid employment and, in contrast to prescribed paths within an organization, saw them as constructed by the individual (Hughes, 1938; Shaw, 1930, 1931, 1938). Since then, the study of careers has produced a plethora of themes such as the objective-subjective nature of careers, the interplay of organizations (structure) and individuals (agency) and status passages; but the notion of career as something which is essentially played out within an organization has dominated the field. More recently, writers have come to see careers as less organizationally driven and taking on a more fluid and boundaryless character (Mirvis OC Hall, 1994), a development which is a reflection of the contemporary organizational environment becoming more uncertain and volatile, with terms such as downsizing, restructuring and de-layering now part of the everyday organizational vocabulary. Indeed, the mid-century stable and secure corporate career as portrayed by Whyte (1956), while not yet dead, seems to be in sharp decline as the idea of careers for life becomes less and less tenable. Herriot (1992) has argued that thinking and practice in career management is moving away from a psychological contract based on a long-term relationship to one which implies a series of mutually beneficial transactions dependent on both organizational and individual needs. Thus, there is a shift in responsibility for the management of careers away from the organization and towards the individual. The 'good' career in future will not necessarily be upward in direction: it could have a variety of vertical and lateral moves including moves across functions and sectors, and a range of work and non-work activities. Hence, careers can be made up not only of work, but also of family and community activities. Hall (2002) has suggested, through his concept of the person-driven protean career that individuals now have more self-control and free choice to choose their careers and life patterns; they can be a free agent to choose whatever they wish to choose. But Hall cautions that choice has to be exercised within constraints; the individual tries to exercise 'self-control and free choice' (Hall, 2002) in his or her own career but there is a much tighter connection between work, learning and career development than existed 25 years ago. He also notes that individuals are less and less tied to a particular organization or occupation with stronger connections to networks of various kinds, outside of work. Similarly, King et al. (2005: 981-2) have argued that 'careers are bounded by prior career history, occupational identity, and institutional constraints imposed by "gatekeepers" to job opportunities . . . opportunities are not "boundaryless", even for individuals who are highly skilled and mobile between organizations.' Schein (1978) sees the choice of careers and life movement as based on the accumulation of individuals' work and life experience which comes to be expressed in their career values. These career values are the reflection of individuals' needs and perceptions about their identity and motivation. He uses the term 'Career Anchors' as a means of conceptualizing the values which guide the choice of career and constrain career trajectories. The following section gives a brief account of the concept. Schein and the Career Anchors concept With the exception of Schein's (1978) work on Career Anchors, the literature is almost silent on the question of the drives and values which both underpin career choices and which sustain individuals throughout their careers. Career Anchors according to Schein, are critical in helping the individual make key career decisions: helping to answer the questions 'what do I really want?' and 'what would I not give up if forced to make a choice?' The concept was born of a longitudinal study of 44 Sloan School MBA alumni at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in which he focused on his subjects' career choices, reasons for joining and leaving an organization and reasons for seeking additional training or education. Schein (1978) defines Career Anchors as patterns of self-perceived talents, motives and values which guide, constrain, stabilize and integrate the individual's career. The Anchors are generated from the accumulation of life and career experience and are critical in helping the individual make career decisions. They are long-term in nature, and, while their relative priority might shift somewhat, essentially they maintain their steady state irrespective of the chances and changes that occur over the course of a career. Schein developed a 40-item questionnaire (the Career Orientations Inventory, COI) to help individuals to identify their Career Anchors. He originally (1978) designated five Career Anchors: Technical and Functional Competence (TF), General Managerial Competence (GM), Autonomy/Independence (AU), Security/ Stability (SE) and Entrepreneurial Creativity (EC). Later in an extended study (1985), he identified three more anchors: Pure Challenge (CH), Service/ Dedication to a Cause (SV) and Life Style (LS). Why use Career Anchors to study and why study the careers of Taiwanese managers? Schein's Career Anchors concept can be criticized as being derived from a small and highly educated sample of young managers with a wealth of occupational choices, who would have no difficulty in developing careers consistent with their values. However, in addressing the question of what drives and what gives direction to career over the long term, the concept nevertheless has considerable potential in furthering our understanding of careers in a world in which careers are increasingly characterized by uncertainty and where responsibility for managing careers is shifting away from the organization and towards the individual. Hence, individuals have to take on the responsibility to manage their own careers as well as identifying their career values. According to Schein, Career Anchors are self-perceived talents, motives and values which are developed from a range of life and career experiences and are critical in helping the individual make career decisions. In order to conceptualize the values related to careers, the concept of Career Anchors can be used as a means to identify individuals' career values which empower them to confront career choices and decisions. It is an attempt to bring together into a single integrating concept a person's career values, identity and motivation. The Anchors, for Schein, are the key drivers and 'navigators' of career direction and progression. Hence, his Career Anchors concept appears particularly relevant to the context in which careers are played out in a fast changing world. Since this concept is applicable to every individual who strives to develop their career over their life span, the author saw it as offering a useful tool to identify the career values of the subjects in the present study. Career research using Career Anchors (as indeed careers research generally) has principally been an activity carried out by western researchers on western subjects (Igbaria et al., 1995, 1999; Marshall Sc Bonner, 2003; Mignonac Sc Herrbach, 2003; Sarchielli Sc Toderi, 2005; Yarnall, 2000) with few studies focused on non- westerners. Indeed, the author can find no extant research in which ethnically Chinese managers have been studied using the Career Anchor concept. Wang (1998), in a study of Taiwanese college students' career choices, observes that there is limited exploration into the meaning of careers from the indigenous Chinese perspective. Kao et al. (1997), in a study of career paths in the manufacturing industry in Taiwan, note that none of their references relate exclusively to Taiwanese-based research. Lee and Wong (2004) and Tan and Quek (2001) used Career Anchors in two studies in Singapore but their subjects were not managers. This points to a need for research focused specifically on the values which guide Chinese managers' career trajectories. Answers to these questions can offer an insight into how far there is something unique about Chinese managers' career experience and how far that experience can be explained in terms of western career theories. Background to the research: Taiwan and its recent history Social, economic and political dynamics In 1949, at the end of the Chinese civil war when Chiang Kai-Shek, leader of the nationalists or Kuomingtang (KMT) fled to Taiwan from the mainland, his followers brought with them much of the indigenous Chinese culture such as the Confucian values of hard work, thrift and pragmatism (Child, 1994; Locke«, 1988). The government maintained a tight grip on both political and economic life in Taiwan up to quite recently, making it a virtual one party state and a command economy. The government routinely allocated senior posts to party members as well as carrying considerable weight in the making of senior appointments within the private sector. Confucian values and the idea of social well-being came to be widely adopted as guiding principles for the Taiwanese in the conduct of their daily lives. From 1973 to 1985, Taiwan launched various modernization projects including massive development of its infrastructure and technology besides providing financial incentives for the development of small and medium size businesses (Kuo, 1983; Lee, 1993). The government has also micro-intervened in further education to determine the courses and the number of places on offer at the country's higher education institutions as an essential part of a broader programme of national manpower planning designed to ensure that labour supply is managed to meet the demands of industry. Confucian values now and then Some researchers (Bond & Hofstede, 1989; Westwood, 1992) have postulated a link between Confucian values and economic development in the mainly ethnically Chinese East-Asian countries which share a common heritage in Confucianism. Kahn (1979) calls this the Post-Confucian Hypothesis. With one million mainland Chinese with their own traditions settling in Taiwan after 1949, it is reasonable to argue that the Confucian values underpinning those traditions helped to promote thrift, hard work, education and a spirit of cooperation which, together with a particular combination of economic, political and market reforms over the past 30-40 years, have given the Taiwanese economy a significant competitive advantage. A central feature of Confucian values, which is said to exert a powerful influence on the Chinese family, is filial piety which invests in parents' absolute authority (Brindley, 1989, 1990; Ho, 1996; Hwang, 1982; Yang, 1996; Yang Sc Bond, 1990) to the point of giving them the right to bring up their children exactly according to their dictates. Chinese parents have high expectations of their children's education, seeing it as an avenue to getting a good job and thus gracing the family and its ancestors (Ho, 1996; Wong & Slater, 2002; Wu, 1996). Also, the Chinese, traditionally like to run their own business, which they see as evidence of career success with parents showing a strong desire to pass on their businesses to their children (Kuo, 1983; Whitely, 1992; Wong, 2005; Wong Sc Slater, 2002). This vibrant entrepreneurial spirit has spawned a strong small business sector in Taiwan, the existence of which has been used in part explanation of the success of the economy in recent years. What makes the context of this study unique is its background: the interplay between a specific philosophy and tradition (Confucianism) and a centrally planned economy intent on modernization and rapid growth (Taiwan). But it is only proper to point out that whilst the context of the study is unique, the processes which it explores are not. Similar processes can be observed for example, in the former communist command economies of Eastern Europe. East Germany is a case in point. Here, the dominant tradition was Prussian with its emphasis on organization, cooperation and discipline (Herer Sc Sadowski, 1996). Research questions To sum up so far, Career Anchors are a means of conceptualizing individuals' values related to career which empower them to make career choices. Hence, Career Anchors seemed to be an appropriate choice of concept in studying the values determining the subject's career choice. But, in the context of Taiwan as discussed above, it was also seen as necessary to examine the relative importance of a range of factors influencing the development of the subjects' career values. This enquiry led to the formulation of two research questions which are elaborated below: Research question 1: Taiwan, as a context within which careers are played out, has two key features which make it unique: an economy which, under centralized direction has brought about a transformation of the island into a state-of-the art industrial powerhouse, superimposed on a society with a traditional value system derived from Confucianism pervading every aspect of family and social life. The question which therefore intrigued the author was how the subjects' career values which subsequently helped them to make career choices might have been influenced by their living environment given the reality of living in a modern dynamic but highly centralized economy co-existing alongside a legacy of Confucian values. Hence, Research Question One (RQl) was proposed as follows: RQ1: Which factors within the Taiwanese environment were significant in determining the subjects' career choices? Research question 2: Career values, as an integration of individual motives, talents and experience can be represented by Career Anchors, as explained above. Individuals each have their own Career Anchors which serve to direct them towards their ultimate career goal over their life span. Taking into account the uniqueness of the Taiwanese context, the author was interested to explore the subjects' pattern of Career Anchors. Hence, Research Question Two (RQ2) was proposed as follows: RQ2: What was the relative importance of Career Anchors among the subjects? Method The study adopted an exploratory approach based on multiple case studies with a combination of both semi-structured interviews and a questionnaire survey to investigate the subjects' career values and experience. Using multiple case studies can help to develop new concepts grounded in case analysis (Wright, 2004). It can also provide confidence, confirmation and assurance that the data being identified from each case reflect the phenomena being studied (Stake, 2006). It is a method to strengthen the findings from research in terms of validity and reliability (Miles &c Huberman, 1994). The combined use of interviews and a questionnaire survey aims to provide triangulation and to build on the strengths of both methods. Such a multi-method approach can yield convergence of results and so enhance validity. Equally, it can provide divergent results which may nonetheless enrich the findings and conclusions of the study. Thus, the subjects interviewed were invited to express their thoughts, feelings, experience, values and emotions about their lives and careers. To complement the interview, they were asked to complete Schein's Career Orientations Inventory (COI) and a biographical data sheet in order systematically to obtain quantified data. Sampling The sample specification of this study was guided by the research focus in identifying the subjects on the basis of the following criteria: they had to be local born ethnic Chinese or at least living in Taiwan for not less than 20 years, and had to have a track record in business management in Taiwan and be aged at least 30 years. The rationale for these criteria was to ensure that relevant and comparable data, for example, family up-bringing, job progression in a similar environment to their current managerial positions could be extracted. Through three influential local sources (senior academics) in Taipei and Tainan, appropriate subjects were located in anticipation of the field research. Taipei is the capital city and has been developing rapidly over the past 30-40 years with a strong economic infrastructure. Tainan was once an industrial city but its business has gradually shifted to being a commercial centre with a strong service base. So, both cities provide vibrant job markets and opportunities for individuals to enjoy high career mobility; they therefore offered good potential for finding managers who would meet the sample criteria. It has been noted that the 'true Chinese' is not easy to identify (Cheung et al., 1992) because of the diversity of experience, social economic structures and political ideologies in China and South-East Asia where most Chinese live. Taiwan has been a Japanese colony within living memory and during the Cold War, came under American protection. Thus, the Taiwan Chinese have been infiltrated by a number of extraneous cultures. Nevertheless, Chinese traditions are still very much alive within the everyday life of the Taiwanese (Brindley, 1989, 1990; Wong, 2005; Wong & Slater, 2002; Yang, 1992, 1996). Data collection One hundred and thirty standard invitation letters were sent with Schein's Career Orientations Inventory (COI) (to yield data about career values), a biographical data sheet (to extract data relating to their career choice and job progression) as well as a request to the subjects inviting them to participate in a semi-structured interview programme. Within a month, the self-administered survey secured 117 subjects (45 from Taipei and 72 from Tainan) who completed the COI and the biographical data sheet. So, the eventual response rate for the sample survey turned out to be high (90%) and sufficient to support a high level of statistical significance. For the interview programme, 47 subjects agreed to take part. After initial screening, two potential subjects from Taipei were eliminated as they were just 30 years old and only had supervisory experience of about a year or so. Hence, the interview programme settled down with 45 interviewees of whom 30 came from Taipei and 15 from Tainan (interview sample). These interviewees also formed part of the 117 (main sample), a number which represented a reasonable compromise between the need on the one hand to have sufficient data and, on the other hand, constraints of time and money. Miles and Huberman (1994: 30) noted that 'qualitative studies call for continuous refocusing and redrawing of study parameters during fieldwork . . .' They further indicated that the number of cases in the use of multiple case studies depends very much on the complexity of and the richness of the data required. With high complexity, a study with more than 15 cases or so can become unwieldy. Hence, this study was primarily intended to get as 'rich' data as possible rather than conform rigidly to arbitrary rules of guidance about sample size. The semi-structured interviews were carried out mainly in the subjects' own offices with a few in quiet coffee shops at their suggestion, and lasted between one and one and a half hours. They aimed to explore the subjects' choice of studies at university and their choice of career. Typical of the interview questions were: why did you choose this subject to study? How do you feel about having chosen this subject? How do you feel about having chosen this career? The interview questions were open-ended making it easy to generate diverse and abundant data. During the interview proper when the subjects expressed their ideas, experience, sentiments, feelings and emotions, the researcher controlled the question order according to a checklist and decided on the extent to which she would invite them to expand or provide further detail. In order to ensure that no single piece of datum went missing, the conversations were tape-recorded (with the agreement of the participants), notes were taken and clarification of their responses was occasionally invited such as by asking for examples. Given the spontaneity of the semi-structured interview, both parties can build a rapport to yield unanticipated information. Methods of data analysis The Career Orientations Inventory (COI) was scored according to the standard scoring instructions for the instrument and the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) was employed to analyse the mean score for each Career Anchor for the main sample. Content analysis was used to analyse the data yielded from both the biographical data sheets and the interview programme. The aim was to enhance the effectiveness of categorization of the data as well as increasing confidence in the findings (Miles & Huberman, 1994; Stake, 2006). In carrying out content analysis, the first step is to use coding and labelling to categorize the relevant data systematically. By comparing and contrasting the relevant data from each case, the data with similarities were assembled and sorted into categories. Some data were reduced if they were not relevant. Cross-referencing between cases and between COI data and biographical data was carried out in order to generate links between relevant data to establish the patterns and phenomena. In the present study, the codes and labels were determined based on the short forms of the eight Career Anchors from the COI. Also, an independent expert was invited to code and label all the data independently. He then compared his results with the researcher in order to confirm the reliability of the measures of the data. Analysis and findings The analysis given below represents a merger of all sources of data collected, with extracts from the tape recordings of the interviews presented wherever appropriate. The analysis of biographical data sheets revealed that the subjects were either managers in employment (82) or entrepreneurs who were either self-employed or in business partnerships (35). For easy reference, the term 'manager' is used subsequently in this article to refer to all subjects unless it is necessary to specify their occupation as either manager or entrepreneur. However, it emerged from the interviews that some managers were also in business partnerships in addition to their salaried job. Table 1 analyses the subjects by occupation, age and gender. Returning to the two research questions: RQ1: Which factors within the Taiwanese environment were significant in determining the subjects' career choices? The biographical data sheet asked the managers to list as many as possible of the factors that had significantly influenced their career choice. Analysis of the data revealed that the managers saw a range of factors at work here, but two factors were predominant: 'Government social and economic policy' and 'Family expectations' (Table 2). Another factor, 'Hot discipline perceived as leading to better career prospects' could be counted into 'Government social and economic policy' as the managers' notion of 'better career' was a reflection of government policy of channelling students into science and technology degree courses in order to meet the needs of the national economic programme. If we count it thus, the frequency response for 'Family expectations' is 51 and for 'Government social and economic policy', 100. The interview data supported the biographical data. All 45 managers who took part in the interview programme referred to the way in which government, through its national manpower policies, determined the type and number of courses available in colleges and universities in order to further its economic goals. For example, one interviewee was asked 'Why did you choose to study engineering?' He said that it seemed that there was not much choice as most of the universities offered a large number of places for degrees in engineering with few, if any alternatives. (Indeed, of the 117 managers in the main sample as indicated from the biographical data sheets, 86 graduated in science and technology. Only one [a female manager], took an arts degree [Table 3].) The interviewee was then asked, 'How do you feel now about having chosen engineering?' He said that it gave him much satisfaction in that it offered a better opportunity to get a job and to get on the first rung of the career ladder. Now he is a manager of a large local engineering firm. In practice, this means that in Taiwan, opportunities in further education have been highly skewed by the economic reforms which have paid overwhelming attention to science and technology. So, insofar as the first degree subject determines and constrains choice of career, government intervention in higher education can be said to have played a dominant role. Enlarge 200% Enlarge 400% Table I Subjects by occupation, age and gender Regarding 'Family expectations', the interviewees indicated that the views of parents were highly influential in the sense of encouraging them to take advantage of the higher education opportunities on offer. By responding positively to this encouragement, the managers demonstrated the obedience expected to parents. Thus, 'filial piety' one of the Chinese cultural characteristics deriving from Confucianism was also influential as a factor. Enlarge 200% Enlarge 400% Table 2 Factors influencing choice of first degree as well as future career Table 3 Choice of first degree subject Looking at the managers' actual career choices (Table 4) as indicated from the biographical data sheets and the interview programme, there is justification for the claim that the most significant factor in determining those choices was the government national policy of channelling students into science and technology degree courses to meet the needs of the national economic programme. In order not to induce bias in the findings, none of the interviewees was asked directly about how important it was for them to live up to family expectations in making their career choice and only four volunteered that the 'desire to please parents' had been a specific reason for their choice of first job. Yet many of them referred during the interviews to the pride that their family of origin had taken in their career 'success' and how important this knowledge was to them in ensuring that this success was maintained. To conclude, meeting parents' expectations was an important consideration for the subjects in terms of their decision to enter higher education and equip themselves for a managerial or professional career: but not in terms of determining actual career choice. Here, the part played by government was more important in that the government had predetermined the pattern of career opportunities available. RQ2: What was the relative importance of Career Anchors among the subjects? Analysis of the data provided by the COI completed by the 117 subjects in the main sample indicated that the highest mean score was LS (20.92), followed by EC (20.58), AU (20.44), SV (19.84), CH (19.41), TF (19.14) and the lowest score GM (16.43) (Table 5). The LS, EC and AU Career Anchors respectively occupy the top three highest scores with TF, SE and GM respectively occupying positions sixth, seventh and eighth. Supported by the interview data, the subjects' career values in the present study thus appeared to be centred very much on achieving a balance between their work and non-work lives, doing things in their own way, at their own pace and against their own standards: and ideally, expressing these autonomy needs by running a business of their own. Indeed, several interviewees made the point that being true to themselves was more important in their value hierarchy than identifying with the values of a particular profession, craft or organization. While EC did not occupy the highest score order, the pre-eminence of the combination of LS, EC and AU nevertheless can be said to indicate that the subjects were strongly drawn towards Career Anchors which are closely associated with the entrepreneurial career. Enlarge 200% Enlarge 400% Table 4 Choice of career fields Enlarge 200% Enlarge 400% Table 5 Descriptive statistics: Average means of the eight Career Anchors Discussion Determinants of career choice Analysis of the data emerging from the biographical data sheets and the interview programme indicated that the two most significant factors determining the subjects' career choice: 'Government and economic policy' and 'Family expectations' acted in concert rather than provoking tensions between themselves. The government's interventionist role in pursuing modernization allied to national manpower planning programmes which extended into the fields of higher and further education, has made it extremely difficult for students in Taiwan to pursue studies other than in science, technology and business (see Table 3). Parents and students appear largely to have acquiesced in this and who can blame them? So here, we have a government, holding out the promise of a respected, well-paid and secure career which could be realized simply by following a prescribed route through the educational system. Hence, there is justification for claiming that not only political realities but also cultural traditions are both influential factors in career choice for the Taiwanese. The question was posed earlier in this article of how far the subjects' choice of career can be explained in terms of any western career theory. The short answer is that there appears to be no ready fit. The factors given by the managers behind their choice of first job, reveal a range of factors. For example, 15 responses (Table 2) were in terms of personal interest which might lend themselves to explanation in terms of Person-Environment (P/E) Fit theory (Holland, 1973). But other factors such as 'Examination results' and 'Test the water' hardly fit into any particular theory other than Schein's, which posits these kinds of experience for the development of Career Anchors. It also seemed that the managers were unaware of any 'Dream' in the Levinson et al. (1978) sense with the individuals' life span development going through a series of epigenetic stages. Rather, they made sense of their initial and subsequent career choices according to market employability, family expectations and personal preferences which reflected their career values: seeing work as simply one piece of a rich mosaic of life experience encompassing other equally important pieces such as friends, charitable activities and leisure. Therefore, the interpretive approach pioneered by the Chicago School might be more useful to researchers attempting to make sense of the career experience of this sample of subjects than career theories based on for example, models of occupational choice or life span development. Nevertheless, the findings lend some support to explanations of career choice based on determinism. Both government and family channelled the subjects into 'desirable' careers: desirable from the government's standpoint in furthering the achievement of national economic goals: and from the family standpoint in terms of securing a well-paid job. This element of determinism raises the question of how far the use of the Career Anchors concept can be justified in the present study given that it assumes that individuals have the freedom to pursue their values. In response, it can be said that whilst constraints emanating from government and family certainly gave the subjects limited options as regards their university studies, thereafter the options before them began progressively to broaden in terms of occupation, employer and later on for many of them, the option between whether to remain in salaried employment, become an entrepreneur or indeed to combine the two roles. A number of the interview subjects indicated that with the accumulation of life and career experience post-university, they were only too eager to forge new directions in their career which were more consistent with their career values. The most preferred career value The results from the COI revealed that three Career Anchors: LS, EC and AU obtained the three highest scores. It has been suggested above that the managers valued having a balanced life and ideally, expressing their autonomy needs by running a business of their own. They thus appear to attach highest importance to entrepreneurial values rather than to values associated with moving up the corporate ladder in a big business environment. Why should this be? One major explanation might lie in the peculiarities of Taiwan's recent political and economic history: the stranglehold which the government exercised over senior appointments in both the public and (indirectly) the private sector thus creating promotional blockages in large organizations for the politically not well connected. This stranglehold is now relaxing but over the past half century, it is likely that it gave a clear message to young and ambitious managers that to gain experience initially within a large organization and then to capitalize on that experience by leaving and setting up on their own business, was the most promising avenue for career advancement. There is an old Chinese saying 'gong zi bu chu tou\ the literal meaning of which is 'you cannot get ahead if you work for somebody'. Being your own boss is a particularly prized ambition for many Chinese who regard working for someone else as a distinctly second-best option. So, having your own business means career success. And, given various economic incentives offered by the government, the growth of small entrepreneurial business in Taiwan has been significant. Entrepreneurial business also offers potentially high rewards which can be passed on to the next generation of the family, important in a society in which the family is regarded as a key building block. Careers and their context Career values are shaped by a range of factors in the cultural, social, political and economic environment (Schein, 1978, 1996, 2006). Erdogmus (2004) in a study of the career orientations of a sample of 138 Turkish professionals (engineers, experts and scientists) addresses this point in suggesting how economic, social and cultural factors peculiar to the Turkish context (such as its blend of 'eastern' and 'western' values and its volatile economic and political conditions) influenced his subjects' career development opportunities, which in turn influenced the pattern of their Career Anchors. Custodio (2000) in another study which illustrates the importance of context, notes how the scarcity of professional job opportunities generally in the Philippines has led many Filipinos to become academics because it represents the only choice available. Custodio also notes the role of other factors deriving from the Filipino social structure such as tight family bonding and the prestige that comes from being your own boss. So, in interpreting the COI data from the present study, we have to recall that the environmental factors which constitute the context of the study were unique: different from those encountered by Erdogmus, Custodio and indeed Schein. If we take Schein's 1978 study and set it alongside the present study, we have to note that they stand over 30 years and 8000 miles apart as well as exhibiting major differences in terms of the character, size of samples and the differences in the respective business contexts. Schein's subjects came from a prestigious American business school and it is not unreasonable to assume that, against the background of late 20th-century corporate America, the eyes of most of them were firmly fixed on a career inside a major blue chip corporation seeing the most promising route to a successful career as first gaining technical/functional competence (TF) and then perhaps using their professional mastery as a passport into general management (GM). The Taiwanese sample, by contrast, came from an environment in which political realities tightly constrained career choice and subsequent progression: but where attractive government incentives were on offer to small businesses within a culture where there is no shortage of models of success via the entrepreneurial route. Multiple Career Anchors Schein (1996, 2006) has further suggested that the development of Career Anchors can be seen as the accumulation of the individuals' work and life experience which individuals constantly weigh and justify in order to make career choices. These choices eventually solidify, as it were, to form a Career Anchor pattern. He has also noted that recently, more and more individuals are trying to integrate work, social and family life. One way of doing this is to be your own boss as this enables time to be managed more flexibly to achieve a satisfactory integration. Hence, Life Style (LS) and Entrepreneurial Creativity (EC) are becoming relatively more important nowadays. This perhaps accounts for the high scores given by the Taiwanese subjects to LS and EC. From categorization, 38 subjects were found to have more than one Career Anchor (Multi-Career Anchor) tying for highest score. Schein (1996) suggested that due to profound changes in the occupational environment since his 1978 study, the accumulation of individuals' life experience may generate a broader set of needs which in turn can give rise to more than one Career Anchor vying for pre-eminence; individuals may thus be motivated to take on jobs which provide outlets for a range of talents, motives and values. Yarnall (1998), in a study of UK employees working in a service organization, noted that some of them had more than one pre-eminent Career Anchor. Ramakrishna and Potosky (2003) in a study of information system professionals in the United States came to a similar finding. In cases such as these, only through the interview can one tease out what the subject would not give up if forced to make a choice. For example, one of the interviewees in the present study was a very busy senior civil engineer. During the interview, I asked him what he valued most in his career. It was only after lengthy reflection and thinking aloud that he replied that having a balanced life (LS) was more important to him than being a master of his profession. (His Technical/Functional [TF] and Life Style [LS] tied for top score.) Although the biographical data sheets showed that 82 subjects classified themselves as managers and 35 as entrepreneurs, the distinction is not clear-cut in that the interview programme revealed that 24 of the 45 subjects taking part had business interests as part-time entrepreneurs outside their employed status: a fact which makes for difficulties in drawing a clear distinction between managers and entrepreneurs and which also suggests that the number of entrepreneurs within the main sample is understated if we rely on analysis of the biographical data sheets alone. The Career Anchors scores in the main sample indicated that EC (20.58) was the second highest: slightly lower than LS (20.92). However, given that for both managers and entrepreneurs, LS, EC and AU yielded the three highest mean scores, together with the possibility that the data understate the entrepreneurial component of the main sample (taking into account the likelihood that many of the managers in employment had secondary business ventures), what does seem to emerge from the data is a strong indication that the subjects were motivated to make all the components of their lives work together as an integrated whole. What they wanted was to create a business and enjoy the independence and flexibility that it would offer: the very stuff of the entrepreneurial career. Future studies The findings of the present study give various messages to researchers, practitioners and organizations. The high scores given to the LS, EC and AU Career Anchors in the present study strongly suggest that for the great majority of the subjects, the conventional corporate career was lowly prized in the specific context of Taiwan. To researchers, this raises the question of how far career theory of western origins with its (at least until recently) heavy focus on the bureaucratic organization career is, of use in interpreting the career experience of managers in Taiwan. Rather, Taiwan seems to present fertile ground for research into careers in societies where entrepreneurial values are firmly embedded and where career identity in terms of organizational membership is weak. It is worth noting again the high scores which the Taiwanese subjects gave to the LS Career Anchors: an indication that for them, a career is more than about performing paid work; it embraces a far wider range of components including family and social life, pastimes and interests, and voluntary work. Schein (1996) remarked on the increasing significance of LS for many Americans: but it remains to be investigated how far this trend in the USA is driven by similar factors to those which are at work in Taiwan. Implicit in the concept of the boundaryless career proposed by Mirvis and Hall (1994) is the argument that career identity is not organizationally determined but rather constructed through cumulative work experiences and career achievement. This concept seems very apt in furthering our understanding of the nature of careers in Taiwan given the data from this study in which many of the managers had made the move from employee to entrepreneur with others contriving to be both managers and entrepreneurs simultaneously. This raises the question, of interest to HR practitioners, of how far Taiwanese-based organizations, regardless of whether they are locally or internationally owned, should invest in long-term staff training and development programmes in that such investment could prove to be a waste of resources. Limiting investment in people to firm and job-specific training would seem to be much more cost-beneficial. It also raises the question of how to sustain a strong and stable management culture where turnover of managers is high and organizational identity weak. Recent advice to UK employers by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development might have relevance for employers in Taiwan. Organizations can consider implementing flexible work patterns: for example, job sharing and annualized hours, so employees can justify their time if they wish to have dual career identities - being an employee and an entrepreneur. Also, organizations can give high priority to people management and employment policies to engage and empower the workforce, including work discretion and autonomy, high employee involvement and flexible working arrangements (CIPD, 2007). A further contribution of the present study is to indicate the possibilities in comparative studies centred on different Chinese communities for understanding career from the Chinese perspective. This will be no straightforward task however. Child and Stewart (1997) have commented on the wide regional differences with a range of cultural dimensions in Mainland China alone. Cheung et al. (1992) have also noted that because of the diversity of experience, social economic structures and political ideologies in China and South-East Asia where most Chinese live, the Chinese in these places may have widely different values. And insofar as values determine choice (which is implicit in the Career Anchors concept), we might reasonably expect research to reveal differences in patterns of Career Anchors across communities, mirroring this diversity. Furthermore, within the Chinese cultural tradition, there is a deep respect for age; males are regarded as more important than females and occupations carry differential levels of respect which do not exactly accord with western values. Examination of these elements within the Chinese cultural tradition, using the Career Anchors concepts as a lens could shed further light on the making of Chinese managers across the vast Chinese diaspora. The findings from the present study reflect the peculiar context of one ethnically Chinese community, namely Taiwan. As such, the findings cannot be used to generalize across every single Chinese community in Eastern Asia and beyond. Only through comparative studies using matched subject samples can we even begin to understand how far we can sensibly talk about ' Chinese career choice and career values'. Acknowledgements I am grateful to Edgar Schein at MIT for his encouragement and for allowing me to use the COI to conduct the study as well as giving valuable advice on understanding the Career Anchors concept. 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Career Development International Journal, 1998, 3(2) [Internet]. [Author Affiliation] Amy Lai Yu Wong is an Assistant Professor at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, where she teaches Managing Organizations and People, Strategic HRM and International HRM. Her research interests stem out of organization and human resource management. Currently, Amy has been doing research on comparative studies of managerial values and career choice in the USA, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and China; the impact of Chinese traditional culture on HRM in China as well as using a reflective approach to study how Chinese high-flyers develop their career paths within competitive market economies. She has presented papers at various conferences including the Asia-Pacific Researchers in Organization Studies (APROS), 11th International Colloquium, Melbourne, Australia (2005) and the Asia Academy of Management Annual Conference, Tokyo, Japan (2006). She has also published articles in the International Journal of Human Resource Management. In addition to her research interests, she has consulted with a number of international companies who have business interests in China. [E-mail: msawong@inet.polyu.edu.hk] Indexing (document details) Subjects: Studies,  Occupational choice,  Culture,  Managers,  Confucianism Classification Codes 9130 Experiment/theoretical treatment,  1220 Social trends & culture,  9179 Asia & the Pacific Locations: Taiwan Author(s): Amy Lai Yu Wong Author Affiliation: Amy Lai Yu Wong is an Assistant Professor at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, where she teaches Managing Organizations and People, Strategic HRM and International HRM. Her research interests stem out of organization and human resource management. Currently, Amy has been doing research on comparative studies of managerial values and career choice in the USA, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and China; the impact of Chinese traditional culture on HRM in China as well as using a reflective approach to study how Chinese high-flyers develop their career paths within competitive market economies. She has presented papers at various conferences including the Asia-Pacific Researchers in Organization Studies (APROS), 11th International Colloquium, Melbourne, Australia (2005) and the Asia Academy of Management Annual Conference, Tokyo, Japan (2006). She has also published articles in the International Journal of Human Resource Management. In addition to her research interests, she has consulted with a number of international companies who have business interests in China. [E-mail: msawong@inet.polyu.edu.hk] Document types: Feature Document features: Tables,  References Publication title: Human Relations. New York: Aug 2007. Vol. 60, Iss. 8;  pg. 1211, 23 pgs Source type: Periodical ISSN: 00187267 ProQuest document ID: 1333798481 Text Word Count 8947 Document URL: http://proquest.umi.com.ezproxy.scu.edu.au/pqdweb?did=1333798481&sid=2&Fmt Relation, Virtue, and Relational Virtue: Three Concepts of Caring Shirong Luo. Hypatia. Bloomington: Summer 2007. Vol. 22, Iss. 3; pg. 92, 19 pgs Abstract (Summary) This essay breaks new ground in defending the view that contemporary care-based ethics and early Confucian ethics share some important common ground. Luo also introduces the notion of relational virtue in an attempt to bridge a conceptual gap between relational caring ethics and agent-based virtue ethics, and to make the connections between the ethics of care and Confucian ethics philosophically clearer and more defensible. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]  »  Jump to indexing (document details) Full Text (8751  words) Copyright Indiana University Press Summer 2007 [Headnote] This essay breaks new ground in defending the view that contemporary care-based ethics and early Confucian ethics share some important common ground. Luo also introduces the notion of relational virtue in an attempt to bridge a conceptual gap between relational caring ethics and agent-based virtue ethics, and to make the connections between the ethics of care and Confucian ethics philosophically clearer and more defensible. Philosophers such as Chenyang Li have argued that the contemporary feminist ethics of care and early Confucian ethics are in agreement in some crucially important aspects (1994, 71). I agree with Li's assessment and would like to show that the affinities between the two theories are not confined to those that have been pointed out. Specifically, I shall maintain that the role of empathy is crucial in both approaches. I also want to argue that Confucian ethics significantly overlaps with the agent-based virtue ethics Michael Slote proposed and defended (2001). This should come as no surprise, because Slote developed his theory from eighteenth-century British moral sentimentalism and caring ethics. If caring is a virtue, then all is well because we can say that there is a common thread running through all three virtue theories. However, the feminist care ethicist and the virtue ethicist are in a stalemate over whether 'caring' refers to a virtue or the relationship between the carer and the cared-for. According to Nel Noddings, there are two senses of caring: one refers to a virtue, the other to the relationship. Noddings (2000) insists that caring primarily refers to the relationship, whereas Slote (2000) sees caring as a virtue. Their different understandings of the concept of caring constitute a significant disagreement, due not only to the fundamental status of caring in both theories but also to some serious implications for comparative studies between Confucian ethics and Western ethics. The controversy has called into question claims about the commonalities between Confucian morality and care-based approaches such as those of Noddings and Slote. Defenders of the view that there is significant common ground perhaps need to clarify what they mean when they say the Confucian concept of jen is similar to the notion of caring. There are a number of ways to do this. One is to declare that jen refers to the relationship, and therefore Confucian ethics is akin to the ethics of care. Another is to insist that jen is a virtue, which places Confucian morality in the same camp with agent-based virtue ethics. Neither approach is satisfactory because each overlooks the underlying issue, namely, the supposed dichotomy between the two senses of caring. I intend to take another approach. I believe there should be a third sense of caring, which to me is more plausible and comprehensive than either caring as a relation or caring as a virtue. According to the earliest Chinese inscriptions, which had a profound influence on early Confucianism, the concept of de (moral virtue) is of a relational nature (Ivanhoe 2000, ix-x). In light of this, I think caring as a moral virtue is relational, and the assumed dichotomy between the two senses of caring should therefore be abandoned. Caring as a relational moral virtue holds promise as a solution to the impasse between the virtue ethicist and the care ethicist. I begin my discussion by highlighting key features of the ethic of care and comparing them with those of early Confucian morality. Then I make the case that early Confucian ethics possesses some crucial features of agent-based virtue ethics. Finally, I explicate the relational nature of moral virtue, propose a third sense of caring, and define the caring relationship in terms of relational moral virtues. My aims are to call on philosophers on both sides of the debate to rethink the two mutually exclusive meanings of caring and to make philosophically more clear and more defensible the position that early Confucian ethics significantly resembles care-based ethical approaches. NATURAL CARING AND ETHICAL CARING The ethic of care advocates a greater concern for the near and dear than for strangers. Noddings distinguishes between two kinds of caring: "caring for" and "caring about." Caring for, according to her, takes place on the occasions in which one person, the carer, cares directly and in person for another, the cared-for (2002a, 21). We care for people who belong to our "inner, intimate circle" of family members, relatives, friends, acquaintances, and so on, but only care about strangers or people with whom we do not have direct, face-to-face encounters. Caring for, on the one hand, has a personal touch and is motivated by natural affection, and therefore is done willingly and cheerfully. "Clearly, in the deep human sense . . . I cannot claim to care for my relative if my caretaking is perfunctory or grudging" (9). On the other hand, caring about is, for the most part, actuated by drawing upon ethical caring. According to Noddings, when it comes to helping a needy stranger, although we may recognize the natural internal imperative "I must," there is little cheerfulness or willingness to begin with, so we have to appeal to an "ethical ideal" by asking ourselves how we would behave if this stranger were someone we loved. "In doing this," says Nod-dings, "we draw upon an ethical ideal-a set of memories of caring and being cared for that we regard as manifestations of our best selves and relations. We summon what we need to maintain the original 'I must' " (13). For Noddings, caring for or natural caring takes precedence over caring about or ethical caring. There is a sense in which caring about is only instrumental to caring for. The purpose of caring about strangers is to create conditions in which caring for proximate others can flourish. "The preferred state is natural caring; ethical caring is invoked to restore it" (14). Furthermore, she thinks that natural caring not only takes precedence over ethical caring in order of importance but also chronologically and epistemologically, caring for is prior to caring about. "We learn first what it means to be cared for. Then, gradually, we learn both to care for and, by extension, to care about others. . . . If we have been well cared for and have learned to care for a few intimate others, we move into the public world with fellow feelings for others" (22). EMPATHY AND ENGROSSMENT Another salient feature of the ethic of care is its emphasis on the importance of engrossment (sympathy or receptive empathy) in caring.1 Noddings is perhaps among the first to integrate the notion of empathy into contemporary Western moral discourse. In her influential book Caring, she observes, Caring involves . . . a "feeling with" the other. We might want to call this relationship "empathy," but we should think about what we mean by this term. The Oxford Universal Dictionary defines empathy as "The power of projecting one's personality into, and so fully understanding, the object of contemplation." This is, perhaps, a peculiarly rational, western, masculine way of looking at "feeling with." The notion of "feeling with" that I have outlined does not involve projection but reception. I have called it "engrossment." "I do not put myself in the other's shoes," so to speak, by analyzing his reality as objective data and then asking, "How would I feel in such a situation?" On the contrary, I set aside my temptation to analyze and to plan. I do not project; I receive the other into myself, and I see and feel with the other. I become duality. (1984 / 2003, 30) If we compare the above quotation with Noddings's new book Starting at Home (2002b), we can see that her conception of empathy has evolved to include a cognitive dimension. Instead of insisting, "I do not project," she now thinks that empathy "is more receptive than projective, it is not primarily intellectual, although it has an intellectual dimension" (13). She maintains that in caring encounters, person A receives person B and feels what B is feeling even though A is quite sure intellectually that she would not herself feel that way in the given situation. Nevertheless, she still opposes the masculine, projective sense of empathy because in her view when a person projects herself into another person and attributes her own feelings to the other, the process is one of control, of universalization (14). She believes that much of the common Western folk ethic is grounded in such a projective, masculine idea: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" or "Put myself in the other's shoes." She points out that caring is, as a matter of fact, not controlled entirely by the carer; it is a mode of shared control. According to Noddings, one main difference between her theory and virtue ethics is that she stresses the perspective and contribution of the cared-for. She even insists that in some special sense the cared-for is more important and basic than the carer (14). THREE POINTS OF AGREEMENT So far, we have highlighted some of the most salient features of Noddings's ethic of care. Now let us see whether or to what extent her theory and early Confucian ethics resemble each other. I believe there are three aspects with regard to which the two theories are in agreement. Before we discuss those commonalities, a few preliminary remarks are in order. Chenyang Li identifies three shared threads among early Confucian ethics and the ethics of care. First, jen, the central concept of Confucian ethics, and care, the central concept of the ethics of care, are viewed by the respective ethicists as the highest moral ideals. Second, neither theory emphasizes general principles. Third, both theories advocate partial rather than impartial concern for others (1994). I agree with Li that Confucian ethics, like the ethic of care, stresses the importance of partial caring. Early Confucians, however, did not believe that people in general should fall outside the purview of moral concern. Additionally, the concept of empathy figures prominently in both theories-an important commonality that scholars rarely note. As for the claim about caring as the shared ethical ideal, we should not take it as unproblematic, due to the controversy mentioned earlier. I will argue, however, that such a claim may become more defensible if caring is understood as a relational moral virtue. The first of the three parallels between early Confucian ethics and the ethic of care is that partiality rather than impartiality characterizes both theories; that is, people in our intimate circle should be given more attention than people with whom we do not have direct, face-to-face encounter. The early Confucian moralist Mencius uses three terms, ai, jen, and qin, to capture three grades of con-cern: "A gentleman is sparing [ai] with things but shows no benevolence towards them; he shows benevolence [jen] towards the people but is not [emotionally] attached [qin] to them. He is attached to his parents but is merely benevolent towards the people; he is benevolent towards the people but is merely sparing with things" (Lau 1970, 192). For Mencius, the objects of other-regarding concern were divided into three categories: (1) one's parents (perhaps also one's spouses, siblings, children, relatives, and friends); (2) people in general; (3) and domestic animals and inanimate possessions. He appears to have believed that one's family should be given a greater concern (qin) than other people. Both the ethic of caring and Confucian morality, however, insist that people outside one's intimate circle should not be left out in the cold. I take this as the second commonality shared by two theories. For Noddings, motivational energy in caring about people in general comes from summoning one's ethical ideal, that is, "a set of memories of caring and being cared for that we regard as manifestations of our best selves and relations." Ethical caring is, in an important sense, an extension of natural caring. Confucians such as Youzi, one of Confucius's disciples, believe that filial piety and brotherly respect constitute the root of jen (Lau 1979, 59). Mencius saw compassion for people in general as the outcome of extending affection for family members. Mencius's notion of extending kindness (tui en) means that one takes care of the elderly and the young in one's own family first, and then extends such care to the elderly and the young in other families (Legge 1970, 143). The third parallel is that both the ethic of caring and Confucian ethics emphasize the role of empathy in ethical life. Those who have compared early Confucian ethics with the ethic of care rarely note this commonality. In what follows, I will discuss in detail Confucius's notion of shu and Mencius's idea of ceyin zhi xin, both of which may be understood as forms of empathy. EMPATHY AND SHU The Chinese word shu consists of two parts: ru (be like, be similar to, or resemble) and xin (the heart) (Cua 2003, 882). We may argue that at the time when the human heart was viewed as the seat of emotions and feelings, shu may have represented the idea that human beings are all connected through shared emotions. According to Confucius, shu means not imposing on others what you yourself do not desire (Lau 1979, 135). If we are all connected by common humanity, it is possible for one person to see herself (or her desires and aversions) as an analogue to other people's affective states; it is possible for one to put oneself in the place of the other and imagine how the other person would feel. What has been said of shu makes it plausible to see it as (a form of) empathy, a psychological mechanism of affective communication extensively discussed in the contemporary literature. Specifically, shu appears to resemble what psychologist Martin Hoffman calls "perspective-taking" (also known as "putting oneself in the place of the other"), which he classifies as an advanced mode of empathic arousal (2000, 52). The importance of shu in Confucius's ethical thought is clearly highlighted by what he said on two occasions. Confucius was asked once if there were a single word that could guide one's entire life. He answered that shu was such a word (Lau 1979, 135). On another occasion, Confucius remarked that "one thread" ran through his teachings (74). He did not, however, elaborate what he meant by "one thread." As a result, there have been different interpretations concerning the meaning of his remark. Many think the "one thread" running through all of Confucius's moral teachings consists of shu and zhong (doing one's best or loyalty). I shall not discuss the issue further here, but I wish to indicate that the current consensus is that shu is (at least) a crucial part of the "one thread" that binds his doctrines together. I think it suffices to show the importance of shu in Confucius's theory. EMPATHY AND CEYIN ZHI XIN Having briefly explained Confucius's notion of shu, I now turn to the Mencian concept of ceyin zhi xin. The Chinese phrase literally means "the heart that feels the pain of the other." Xin refers to the heart; ce and yin denote pain; and zhi serves as a possessive adjective which indicates that the feelings of ce and yin belong to xin. So ceyin zhi xin seems to represent the idea that one person's heart can respond isomorphically to the distress or suffering of the other. The method of contextual comparison is often utilized to determine whether x in one language is y in another. Here we want to determine whether ceyin zhi xin is a reactive or receptive form of empathy. To explore the question, let's juxtapose two examples, one of which is given by Mencius, and the other by David Hume, who was one of the pioneers in the theory of empathy. The reactive nature of ceyin zhi xin is clearly shown in one of Mencius's extensively quoted examples. He invites us to imagine suddenly seeing a baby about to fall into a well-a situation in which he claims (most) people would feel alarm and distress (Legge 1970, 202). In other words, their ceyin zhi xin would be activated when they realize the baby is about to get hurt. Since the observers themselves are not in danger, their feelings of alarm and distress must be a reaction to the child's situation rather than their own. In addition, since the baby is probably unaware of her own precarious situation, she herself is not at this moment panic-stricken but rather blithely crawling toward the gaping mouth of peril. Thus the observers are anticipating the terror, panic, or pain the child will experience should she tumble into the well. An uncanny parallel exists here between Mencius's illustration of ceyin zhi xin and an example Hume used to illustrate the workings of sympathy (or reactive empathy). We often feel by communication the pains and pleasures of others, which are not in being, and which we only anticipate by the force of imagination. For supposing I saw a person perfectly unknown to me, who, while asleep in the fields, was in danger of being trod under foot by horses, I shou'd immediately run to his assistance; and in this I shou'd be actuated by the same principle of sympathy, which makes me concern'd for the present sorrows of a stranger. (2000, 248) In Mencius's example, the baby is in danger of falling into a well; in Hume's example, the sleeping stranger is in danger of being trampled to death by the horses. In both cases, the alarm and distress the observers feel are not the responses to what the baby and the sleeping stranger are actually experiencing but to what they would or might experience. If we strip off extrinsic details, these two examples are essentially the same. They are both used to explain the same psychological mechanism, which Mencius refers to as "ceyin zhi xin" and Hume calls "sympathy."2 Although ceyin zhi xin is other-regarding or prosocial, it is only duan (the beginning) of jen. Moral cultivation is needed for ceyin zhi xin to develop into a full-fledged moral virtue of jen. For Mencius, ceyin zhi xin, along with three other essential attributes, constituted the core of human nature. His optimistic conception of human nature was the foundation of his ethical theory, and it seems clear that ceyin zhi xin, which he also referred to as bu ren jen zhi xin (the heart that cannot bear to see the suffering of others), played a crucial role in his moral theory. Noddings prefers the term engrossment to empathy because she believes that engrossment captures the receptive and attentive nature of the kind of empathy she deems suitable for her theory. Her conception of empathy is closer to ceyin zhi xin than shu. Nevertheless, the shared emphasis on the role of empathy in moral life constitutes yet another common ground for Confucian ethics and the ethic of care. Noddings thinks empathy viewed as "putting oneself in the other's shoes" or "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is a peculiarly Western, rational, and masculine way of looking at "feeling with." She wants to repudiate such a construal and replace it with a more receptive one. Her characterization is partially mistaken, though, for shu too is an active and projective form of empathy meaning "putting oneself in the other's place" or "not imposing on others what you yourself do not desire"(Ivanhoe and Van Norden 2003, 42). Such a construal of empathy may be "masculine" and "rational" but is by no means limited to Western thought. WHAT IS JEN? Early Confucians emphasized the centrality of jen, which they regarded as the most important moral virtue. As I indicated earlier, for Confucians, benevolence or compassion is partial rather than impartial. Noddings sees caring as the most important concept of her theory, and in her view, natural caring (caring for the inner, intimate circle) is more important than ethical caring (caring about people in outer circles). This shared emphasis on partial caring or benevolence constitutes a significant common ground for the two theories. However, for Noddings, caring is not so much a moral virtue as it is a desirable relation. When she began theorizing about caring in the late 1970s, Noddings notes that she was unaware of the two meanings of caring, "one referring to a virtue, one to a special attribute of relations. . . . Both concepts are useful, but care theory itself makes its special contribution through the relational sense" (2000). In her "Preface to the Second Edition" of Caring, she reiterates her position on the issue, "Perhaps the greatest contribution of care theory as it is developed here is its emphasis on the caring relation. Relations, not individuals, are ontologically basic, and I use 'caring' to describe a certain kind of relation or encounter" (1984/2003, xiii). Noddings makes it clear that her theory is not agent-based virtue ethics, because she regards the caring relationship as primary in moral evaluation-actions are morally praiseworthy only insofar as they establish, maintain, or enhance caring relationships, whereas agent-based virtue ethics is characterized by its insistence on the foundational status of inner qualities of the agent (Slote 2001, 5).3 By contrast, early Confucian ethics seems to be paradigmatically agent-based. I say this for two reasons. First, the central Confucian concept jen refers to a virtue rather than a relationship. Second, jen is more basic than other Confucian ethical concepts. There are many unambiguous instances in the Analects where Confucius used the word jen to refer to a virtuous character. For example, "The man of wisdom is never in two minds; the man of benevolence [jen] never worries; the man of courage is never afraid" (Lau 1979, 100). Obviously, all these epithets, "man of wisdom" (zhi zhe), "man of benevolence" (jen zhe), and "man of courage" (yong zhe), are descriptive terms referring to people of certain qualities. In his introductory essay to the Analects, Lau observed, "Behind Confucius' pursuit of the ideal moral character lies the unspoken, and therefore, unquestioned, assumption that the only purpose a man can have and also the only worthwhile thing a man can do is to become as good a man as possible. This is something that has to be pursued for its own sake and with complete indifference to success or failure" (1979, 12). Lau also noted, Benevolence (jen) is the most important moral quality a man can possess. . . . That it is the moral quality a gentleman must possess is clear from the following saying. "If the gentleman forsakes benevolence, in what way can he make a name for himself? The gentleman never deserts benevolence, not even for as long as it takes to eat a meal. If he hurries and stumbles, one may be sure that it is in benevolence that he does so." (14-15) Lau held that Confucius used the word jen to refer to a moral quality of a person rather than an interpersonal relationship. Jen as the ideal moral character is to be pursued for its own sake rather than as a means to a desirable human relation. Raymond Dawson notes that jen (humaneness) was the all-inclusive virtue for early Confucians. He remarks that the pictograph for the word jen consists of "man" plus "two" and the word summarizes how a human being should ideally behave towards other human beings, i.e., it embraces all the social virtues. . . . Although it does refer to the individual's attainment of ideal human qualities, it is important not to think of it as merely indicating the psychology of the human being. . . . It rather refers to the practical manifestations of being humane. (1993, xxi) Although early Confucians believed that achieving a harmonious social relationship was a worthy goal, they do not appear to have been committed to the view that the moral worth of jen is contingent upon the establishment, maintenance, or enhancement of such a relation. Mencius theorized: Suppose a man treats one in an outrageous manner. Faced with this, a gentleman will say to himself, "I must be lacking in benevolence and courtesy, or how could such a thing happen to me?" When, looking into himself, he finds that he has been benevolent and courteous, and yet this outrageous treatment continues, then the gentleman will say to himself, "I must have failed to do my best to him." When, on looking into himself, he finds that he has done his best and yet this outrageous treatment continues, then the gentleman will say, "This man does not know what he is doing. Such a person is no different from an animal. One cannot expect an animal to know any better." (Lau 1970, 134) In the situation Mencius described in this passage, no interpersonal rapport is established. Person A attempts to be kind to person B but B does not reciprocate. For Mencius, the first thing A should do in this situation is to ask himself the following questions: Am I really a benevolent person? Have I treated the other with genuine kindness? Mencius's assumption appears to be that in most cases B's unresponsiveness or incivility could be an indication of A's lack of de (moral virtue). But upon self-examination, A is now confident that he is genuinely benevolent and has done his utmost. What this example seems to tell us is one of the key tenets of Mencius's ethical thought, namely that the goodness of one's benevolence is not compromised by the nonexistence of a caring relationship or reciprocity, even though the jen person wishes or even expects the other person to reciprocate or acknowledge his kindness. Mencius's emphasis on jen's moral worth, independent of the outcome of exercising the virtue, distinguishes him in particular and Confucians in general from non-agent-based theorists such as Noddings. As I indicated earlier, a second reason for saying that early Confucian ethics exemplified the idea of agent basing is that the central concept jen is more basic than other early Confucian ethical notions such as ritual (li) and righteousness (yi). A number of passages in early Confucian literature warrant this assessment. For instance, Confucius affirmed jen's primacy over li by a rhetorical question: "What can a man do with the rites [li] who is not benevolent [jen]? What can a man do with music who is not benevolent [jen]?"(Lau 1979, 67). Confucius believed that there was a way to eradicate immorality: "If one sets one's heart on humaneness (jen), one will be without evil" (Dawson 1993, 13). He saw jen as the most fundamental "cure" for evil and human wickedness. Jen, not li or yi, represents the highest moral perfection. The relationship between jen and yi is harder to ascertain because it seems that Confucius never made explicit comments on it. Nevertheless, we may establish such a relationship by deducing inferences from his scattered remarks. In passage 2.24, Confucius observed, "Faced with what is right, to leave it undone shows a lack of courage" (Lau 1979, 66). If one perceives what is right but does not do it because it is risky, one lacks courage. Here "courage" (yong) is understood as a disposition to do what is perceived or known to be right; it does not mean courage in a broad sense but rather in a narrow sense, namely moral courage. Doing the right thing sometimes requires great moral courage. For instance, it takes courage to rescue a baby in a burning building. There are many circumstances under which moral courage is called for. But what does moral courage have to do with jen? As we may recall, Confucius's dictum about the relationship between jen and yong is this: while he who has yong does not necessarily have jen, he who has jen must possess yong (Lau, 124. In this context, Confucius was using yong to refer to moral courage. We are justified to infer from passages 14.4 and 2.24 in The Analects that a jen person must be a person having yi (66, 124). Why? Because the jen person must possess moral courage; a morally courageous person does not leave what is right undone; a jen person therefore is one who consistently does what is right. A person who consistently does what is right is a righteous person. Hence, a jen person must be a righteous (yi) person. If this reasoning is correct, the relationship between jen and yi has to be that jen determines both yi as the rightness of an action and yi as the righteousness of the agent. Thus jen is more basic than yi. So far, I have been making the case that early Confucian ethics is a form of agent-based virtue ethics. The main reasons I have presented are that the word "jen" in early Confucian literature is primarily used to refer to a virtuous character trait of the agent, and that the concept of jen occupies a more fundamental position than other Confucian ethical notions such as li or yi. I agree, however, with those scholars such as Chenyang Li who defend the view that early Confucian ethics overlaps with the ethic of care in a number of important aspects. In addition to those common grounds, I have shown that the notion of empathy figures prominently in both theories, which is a crucial point of agreement rarely noted by commentators. As I mentioned earlier, the most important common ground seems to be that jen, which is central to early Confucian ethics, essentially coincides with the concept of caring in the ethic of care. However, the opposing views on the nature of caring have raised doubts about the central claim concerning the affinity between the two theories. If we believe, as many of us do, that early Confucian morality is a species of virtue ethics, it would seem to be a category mistake to insist on the similarities between the caring ethics and Confucian ethics, because according to Noddings's own assessment, the caring ethics is a relational rather than a virtue ethics. A solution is needed to resolve this issue, and I believe that early Confucian ethics can offer a way out. In what follows, I will try to make a case that moral virtue is relational by tapping into the ancient Chinese concept of de (virtue). I will argue that the relationship between the carer and the cared-for can be understood as being constituted by two relational moral virtues-caring and gratitude. If this is correct, then there is no reason to insist on the mutual exclusivity between caring as a virtue and caring as a relationship. Thus, caring as a relational virtue seems to hold promise as a solution to the current standoff between the agent-based virtue ethics and the feminist ethics of care. More important, it helps clarify and strengthen the position of those who think the two ethics share some common ground. RELATIONAL VIRTUE As discussed earlier, contemporary care-based ethics (Noddings's ethics of care and Slote's agent-based virtue ethics) agree with early Confucian ethics that empathy plays a crucial role in ethical actions. Empathy is defined as an affective response more appropriate to another's situation than one's own (Hoffman 2000, 4). Clearly, according to this definition, empathy is relational. The social dimension of empathy overlaps with that of the virtue of caring, although the latter is more than an affective response. Caring as a virtue includes affective, cognitive, and behavioral dimensions. In the Western philosophical tradition, Aristotle was perhaps the first philosopher to systematically discuss the nature of virtue (..et.). He thought that there were three kinds of qualities of the soul: passions, faculties, and states of character. Since we are not praised or blamed for our passions, nor for our faculties, he concluded that virtue is a state of character. "The virtue or excellence of man will be such a moral state as make a man good and able to perform his proper function well" (Aristotle 1987, 52). And the function of man is an activity of soul in accordance with reason (24). From this definition Aristotle gave, it is quite difficult to see a relational dimension of virtue, yet his is the main source of our contemporary understanding of virtue (Hursthouse 1999, 1). In contrast, the ancient Chinese concept of virtue (de) clearly has a social dimension. The earliest evidence concerning the meaning of the Chinese character de dates back to 1200 bce, the latter part of a period known as the Shang dynasty. The word was engraved on animal bones and shells used for divination, and ceremonial vessels and bronze instruments. In these early inscriptions, de seems to refer to a kind of power or charisma that accrued to and resided within an individual who had acted favorably toward a spirit or another person (Ivan-hoe 2000, ix-x). Thus, the early Chinese concept of virtue, in spite of being a power residing within the individual, cannot be understood without reference to another person or entity. Another Chinese character de (to get or to receive) overlaps significantly with the word de (virtue) in phonics, graphics, and semantics. This overlap seems to indicate that one who has de (virtue) de (gets) or one who is virtuous has some hold on another person (Ivanhoe 2000, ix-x). David Nivison thinks that the primary meaning of de is generosity-gratitude, that is, being generous/being recognized as generous. He points out that there has always been in China (and in Japan) a strong social-psychological compulsion to respond (bao) positively to a gift or favor, sacrifice, or show of deference. De includes gift giving, kindness, forbearance, humility and respect toward others, listening to advice, self-sacrifice, and so on (Nivison 2003, 234). This seems to suggest that to a substantial degree de is coextensive with the Confucian concept of jen, which, according to Confucius, includes respectfulness (gong), tolerance (kuan), trustworthiness (xin), quickness (min), and generosity (hui) (Lau 1979, 144). This point is further borne out by the fact that jen is often said to encompass all socially desirable attributes (Shun 1997, 140). Therefore, it seems plausible to say that the two terms, de and jen, are largely exchangeable. Not surprisingly, the analysis of jen reveals the relational dimension of this all-encompassing virtue. The graph of jen (care or kindness) points in the direction for it to be understood as a relational virtue. It consists of "human being" and "two." One might think that the graph should be taken to symbolize the relationship between the carer and the cared-for. My response to this interpretation is that the usage of the term in most Confucian classics goes against it. As I have shown earlier, in most contexts in which the term "jen" appeared, it unambiguously referred to a virtue or an admirable quality of a person. Jen is a personal quality although its genesis, manifestation, and development require social context. The virtue of jen is a quality of the agent, but such a quality could not arise if there were only one person in the world (Yang 1960, 329). In this sense, it depends on society. However, the presence of more than one person is not sufficient to give rise to jen. It could hardly exist in the Hobbesian state of nature. In a civilized society, one misanthrope plus one misanthrope equals no jen. I have explicated the relational nature of de and jen. Now, the question is how the concept of relational moral virtue may help resolve the standoff between the ethic of caring and the virtue ethics? It may do so by (1) addressing the concerns the caring ethicist raises, and (2) defining the caring relationship. First, it may be used to address the concerns raised by the caring ethicist. One such concern is that when caring is viewed as a virtue of the carer, she (the carer) may pay too much attention to the development of her own virtue but too little to the cared-for. In Educating Moral People, Noddings complains, "Certainly, people who care in given situations exercise virtues, but if they begin to concentrate on their own character or virtue, the cared-for may feel put off. The cared-for is not longer the focus of attention. Rather, a virtue-being patient, or generous, or cheerful-has become the focus, and the relation of caring itself becomes at risk" (2002b, 14). Two things here need to be noted. First, Noddings's construal of virtue goes beyond the purview of morality because her examples of virtue, patience, and cheerfulness are not moral virtues in the strict sense, although generosity is. When a person lives in isolation, patience does not cease to be desirable, and it can be acquired in solitude. The same may be said about cheerfulness. However, moral virtues depend on community. They would cease to be valuable if I were the only member of a set called society. Second, her concept of virtue happens to be of Aristotelian kind, which seems to lack a social dimension, as we have indicated earlier. Thus, it comes as no surprise that she has concerns about virtue cultivation. However, if moral virtues are relational, they cannot be cultivated by focusing on one's own character. If I want to cultivate my de, I must exercise it. But the exercise of virtue is always directed toward others. Caring as a relational virtue requires some other person(s) as its "intentional object," to use Franz Brentano's terminology (Brentano 1995, 89). Thus, Nod-dings's worry seems unnecessary as far as moral virtues are concerned. Another complaint the care ethicist has is that traditional moral philosophy (to which virtue ethics belongs) fails to appreciate the contribution made by the cared-for to the caring relation. It has overlooked the contributions of the cared-for because these contributions cannot always be described in term of moral agency or adherence to principle. Indeed, some philosophers object to my emphasis on the contribution of the cared-for, as cared-for, because it seems to give moral credit to the infant's wriggles and smiles, the patient's sign of relief, and student's eager pursuit of her own projects (Noddings 1984/2003, xiv). Although Noddings's emphasis on the contribution of the cared-for complements and broadens the virtue ethicist's perspective in new and important ways, the question is: what is the nature of the contribution of the cared-for? In addition to what she says above, her following remarks appear to adumbrate an answer, By recognizing the carer's efforts, by responding in some positive way, the cared-for makes a distinctive contribution to the relation and establishes it as caring. In this way, infants contribute to the parent-child relation, patients to the physician-patient relation, and students to the teacher-student relation. (1984/2003, xiii-xiv) From the care perspective, a huge thank-you goes to the responsive children, the students glowing with new learning, the feeble elderly who can do little more than smile a thanks for effort at care. We know just how great these contributions are when they are withdrawn. (2002a, 19) It is not difficult to recognize what Noddings regards as the distinctive contributions made by the cared-for are essentially various manifestations of gratitude (the feeling of being grateful or thankful). I agree that the cared-for's appreciation of the kindness shown to her is necessary to the establishment or maintenance of the caring relationship. But her positive response (or appreciation) itself is a manifestation of her de. Assuming that the carer has the monopoly on moral virtues is incorrect. The cared-for can be virtuous as well. The sort of virtue one exercises depends on one's power, capacity, or resources. The caring mother likes to see her baby smile responsively because that is what a baby is capable of. The underlying assumption seems to be that the mother who has exercised her de expects it to be appreciated. Such an expectation may be universally shared by all who do good to other people. Perhaps the ancient Chinese are right to believe that there is a close relation between de (virtue) and de (to receive). When Noddings says that the contributions made by the cared-for cannot always be described in terms of moral agency, what she has in mind may be the case of a responsive baby. I would agree with her if moral agency means agential capacity to give rise to actions as a result of conscious deliberation. But sometimes, especially in an emergency, we act without deliberation. Sometimes we act as if by instinct. To be sure, it is implausible to say that the infant is exercising the virtue of gratitude when she smiles responsively at her mother, but it is not farfetched to say that the infant's positive response is an expression of her nascent goodness. Early Confucians, especially Mencius, saw de as a natural endowment that every human being are born with. He called the nascent de "duan" (sprout) and believed that certain conditions are necessary in order for those sprouts to develop into full-fledged moral virtues. So, when a baby smiles at her mother, it can be seen as a manifestation of her "sprout" of de, induced by her mother's de. As for the elderly, there is no question that "the feeble elderly who can do little more than smile a thanks for effort at care" (2000) are expressing their gratitude, as befit their condition. The expression of gratitude comes in a variety of forms and shapes, such as a thank-you note, a smile, a gift, or lifelong love and respect. So it is quite plausible to see the contribution made by the cared-for as a manifestation of her de, as befit her condition as a cared-for. So, students, patients, and children do have their de and when they express it, they are making a contribution to the establishment of the caring relationship. Early Confucians had much to say about xiao (filial piety), which is the de of children.4 They believed that mourning for one's deceased parent is a manifestation of gratitude. Confucius maintained that the length of mourning for a deceased parent should be equal in length to the period during which the helpless infant receives the most parental care. He expressed his disapprobation of Zai Wo, one of his disciples, for suggesting that the three-year mourning be truncated to one year. "This shows his (Zai Wo's) lack of jen. It is not till a child is three years old that it is allowed to leave the arms of its parents. And the three years' mourning is universally observed throughout the Empire. Was he not given three years' loving care by his parents?" (Legge 1971, 328). Evidently, three years' mourning numerically corresponds to the three years of direct, face-to-face loving care and symbolically conveys the idea that parental loving care should be requited in full. Confucius's justification of the practice, for the most part, is consistent with the meaning of de. Loving parents naturally expect their children to be appreciative and grateful. Generally speaking, gratitude is what is expected of the cared-for. When caring is not appreciated, the stream of care stagnates. We all know how ingratitude can have a chilling effect on caring behavior. Hume once said that of all crimes that human creatures are capable of committing, the most horrid and unnatural is ingratitude, especially when it is committed against parents (2000, 300). Why is ingratitude the "most unnatural"? Because what is natural is to repay kindness with kindness (Lau 1979, 129). A dislike of ingratitude seems to be a universal sentiment. Even mothers whose love for their children seems instinctual and unconditional prefer babies who tend to respond positively, as one of Noddings's examples demonstrates (1984/2003, 71). Noddings is certainly right in calling attention to the role that the cared-for plays in creating and sustaining the caring relationship, but such a relationship can be adequately accounted for using the idea of relational virtue. Both the carer and the cared-for can be praiseworthy for manifesting their de. The caring relationship obtains if and only if both the carer and cared-for exhibit their respective de. So, such a relation may be defined as the manifestations of two relational virtues: caring and gratitude. Either of them alone is only a necessary condition. Mencius's example, cited earlier, shows that when gratitude is lacking, there is no caring relationship. The relationship thus defined may help resolve the controversy between the caring ethicist and the virtue ethicist if we see it essentially as different emphases being placed on different moral virtues. On the one hand, Slote questions the plausibility of basing moral evaluation on the goodness of the caring relation. He argues that if moral worth comes from the caring relation, then the cared-for should be just as virtuous as the carer. But that seems implausible because, after all, it is the carer rather than the cared-for who puts forth the moral effort (2000). Noddings, on the other hand, thinks that acknowledgment of the contribution of recipients of care may be the very heart of care theory. She insists that the contributions made by the responsive patient, student, and infant are real, and her care theory tries to capture and describe these contributions (2000). Clearly they both agree that the carer should get full moral credit for heroic efforts at care. Their disagreement seems to be about whether the cared-for should get moral points. However, under close scrutiny, that is not what they disagree about, because Noddings would not give moral credit to an unresponsive cared-for and Slote would agree to give moral approbation to a responsive cared-for. So, the whole debate hinges on whether the cared-for is responsive or appreciative to the kindness shown to her. Both Noddings and Slote seem to overlook the fact that the cared-for can be virtuous. Noddings stresses the contribution and responsiveness of the cared-for but fails to realize that such reactions can be described as various manifestations of the cared-for's de. Although Slote is right in focusing on the virtue of the carer (after all, it is the carer who exercises her de first), he assumes that the cared-for is not virtuous simply because she is not making the efforts at care, without taking into consideration of the fact that the cared-for's de is different from but also closely related to the carer's de. I believe that the structure of the caring relationship with relational virtues as its components is inclusive of both Slote's and Noddings's ideas, and it should be compatible with either of them. Giving the cared-for moral credit because of her appreciativeness and giving her credit on the grounds of the caring relationship are essentially the same thing since whenever the cared-for manifests her de, which presupposes caring, there will be a caring relationship. So, on this point, the agent-based caring ethics and the feminist relation-based caring ethics converge. If this is correct, then the notion of relational virtue also helps vindicate the claims with regard to the common grounds between early Confucian ethics and caring-based ethics to which both the ethic of care and the agent-based virtue ethics belong. [Footnote] NOTES 1. The dictionary definition of empathy reflects only one side of the story. The contemporary idea of empathy comes from two sources: the idea of sympathy, which has a long history, and the notion of empathy, whose history is shorter. According to Barnes and Thagard (1997), although the concept of sympathy can be traced back to Aristotle, the term empathy is quite recent. In the late nineteenth century, the German term Ein-fühlung was used in an aesthetic doctrine. It referred to a mode of inner imitation and its appeared in English translation in 1910. Classical moral sentimentalists Hume (2000) and Smith (2002) regarded sympathy as having both receptive and projective forms. Hoffman, a leading researcher in empathy research, synthesizes the ideas of sympathy and empathy (2000). Projection is needed because sometimes it is not possible to know what the cared-for needs by asking them directly. Babies, for example, are unable to express their needs verbally. For Noddings, the relationship between a mother and her baby is a paradigm case for the caring relationship she has in mind. But even mothers cannot know what their babies need without projection and inference. In cases such as gift giving it may not be appropriate to ask the prospective gift recipient what he or she would like to receive. When we work for a superior, we have a general sense of what is expected of us, but it may be inappropriate sometimes to ask him or her to specify his or her exact expectations. In all these cases, we have to imagine what the other party needs, which requires putting oneself in another person's shoes. 2. There are other examples in the Mencius as well. From a widely quoted passage, we learn that King Xuan of Qi spared a sacrificial ox because he could not bear its frightened appearance (Lau 1970, 54-55). Such an example is a subset of Hume's general sympathy; for Hume, we humans not only respond isomorphically to the suffering or misery of others but we also respond in kind to others' happiness (2000). However, our capacity to react to the suffering of others figures prominently in moral psychology. That is probably why Mencius singles out ceyin zhi xin or bu jen jen zhi xin as an essentially human endowment. Nevertheless, I believe Mencius was fully aware that the human heart is capable of responding to the joys of others. In his dialogue with the King of Qi, Mencius says, "Suppose you were having a musical performance here, and when the people heard the sound of your bells and drums and the notes of your pipes and flutes they all looked pleased" (Lau 1970, 61). 3. The agent-based virtue ethics Slote advocates treats the moral status of actions as entirely derivative from independent and fundamental aretaic ethical characterizations of motives. Very roughly, the rightness or wrongness of an action is determined by the motive it expresses (2001, 5). 4. For discussions of filial piety and its significance in early Confucian ethics, see Ivanhoe 2000, 2002, 2005. [Reference]  »  View reference page with links REFERENCES Aristotle. 1987. The Nicomachean ethics. Trans. J. E. C. Welldon. Amherst, Mass.: Prometheus Books. Barnes, Allison, and Paul Thagard. 1997. Empathy and analogy. Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review 36: 705-20. Brentano, Franz. 1995. Psychology from an empirical standpoint. New York: Routledge. Cua, Antonio S. 2003. Encyclopedia of Chinese philosophy. New York: Routledge. Dawson, Raymond. 1993. Confucius: The analects. New York: Oxford University Press. Hoffman, Martin L. 2000. Empathy and moral development: Implications for caring and justice. New York: Cambridge University Press. Hume, David. 2000. A treatise of human nature. Ed. David F. Norton and Mary J. Norton. New York: Oxford University Press. Hursthouse, Rosalind. 1999. On virtue ethics. New York: Oxford University Press. Ivanhoe, Philip J. 2000. Confucian moral self cultivation. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. _____. 2002. Ethics in the Confucian tradition. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. _____. 2005. Filial piety as a virtue. 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Urbana, Ill.: Philosophy of Education Society. http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/EPS/PES-yearbook/1999/noddings.asp. _____. 2002a. Educating moral people: A caring alternative to character education. New York: Teachers College Press. _____. 2002b. Starting at home: Caring and social policy. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Shun, Kwong-loi. 1997. Ideas of the good in Chinese philosophy. In A companion to world philosophies, ed. Eliot Deutsch and Ron Bontekoe. Oxford: Blackwell. Slote, Michael. 2000. Caring versus the philosophers. In Proceedings of the 1999 annual meeting of the Philosophy of Education Society, ed. Randall Curren. Urbana, Ill.: Philosophy of Education Society. http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/EPS/PES-yearbook/1999/ slote.asp. _____. 2001. Morals from motives. New York: Oxford University Press. Smith, Adam. 2002. The theory of moral sentiments. Ed. Knud Haakonssen. New York: Cambridge University Press. Yang, Bojun. 1960. Mengzi Yizhu (A translation of Mengzi with exegetical notes). Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju (Chinese Book Bureau). References References (25) Indexing (document details) Subjects: Ethics,  Senses,  Morality,  Confucianism Author(s): Shirong Luo Document types: Feature Document features: References Publication title: Hypatia. Bloomington: Summer 2007. Vol. 22, Iss. 3;  pg. 92, 19 pgs Source type: Periodical ISSN: 08875367 ProQuest document ID: 1291607061 Text Word Count 8751 Document URL: http://proquest.umi.com.ezproxy.scu.edu.au/pqdweb?did=1291607061&sid=2&Fmt=3&clientId=20824&RQT=309&VName=PQD Read More