Confucianism and the right to individual freedom

To recast, Bockover holds that the notion of a right to individual freedom is arguably grounded in the Anglo‐American tradition, and stands in tension with Confucianism's conception of personhood. Indeed, in Confucianism, the person is understood as a role‐based agent who is required to act in accordance with rites; thus individual freedom, in the sense of a free choice of lifestyles, is not importantly considered in Confucianism. The concept of freedom, which affirms this understanding of individuality, is often constructed in the Western context as the right that one should have against the power of the state or the power of other individuals.

As such, it might not make sense for Confucian ethics to talk about the right to choose a particular lifestyle as the practice of freedom, because the person is primarily understood as a part that has a duty to contribute to the well‐being of the whole, rather than as an individual unit that has a claim right against his fellow persons. Bockover is correct in holding that Confucianism does not explicitly endorse such a concept of individual freedom. To evaluate Bockover's position with more scrutiny, for now assume that the notion of rights is also incompatible with Confucianism: does this mean that Confucianism denies any account of freedom?

I conjecture it does not. Not adopting the concept of a right to the individual freedom of choosing a better life, in terms of wealth, does not necessarily imply denying the objects that individual freedom is supposed to protect. Consider food security for example; in Confucianism, where the concept of duty adopts a central place, people have a general duty to protect and enhance the well‐being of others and of themselves. Also, it is the duty of the king to formulate proper economic policies such that his people live a decent life.

In the same vein, the ideas of consumerism and free trade that are connected to a right to freedom might also be protected by the Confucian duty of securing well‐being. To give an example: when Mencius noticed that Xu Xing, the leader of the school for agriculture, claimed that the world would be a better place if everyone would farm for himself, he replied negatively. He asked Chen Xiang, a follower of Xu, where Xu got his cooking pot. He got it from a vendor, answered his follower. Mencius then argued that people are born with different talents, and that it benefits the welfare of all when different people should be allowed to do what they are good at (Legge , Mencius 3A: 4). As such, people should be allowed to exchange goods so that the common welfare can be achieved at the highest levels.

Therefore, although Bockover is right in attacking individual freedom arguments, her argument in general is flawed; even though Confucianism does not embrace a right to freedom, free communication on which commercial activities rely can be protected under the principle of duty.

Confucianism, anonymity, and collapsed contexts

Wong's argument regarding anonymity concerns the role‐based tenets of Confucian ethics. What is here thought to be problematic is that in cyberspace communication one does not need to reveal his (genuine) identity; this may render it difficult or even impossible to conduct oneself in a proper manner. This issue relates to the problem of collapsed context: the identity of an interlocutor constructs the context in which communication takes place, and since role‐dependent action is determined by contextual features, proper conduct, again, becomes problematic.

First, as Wong notes, anonymity and collapse of context are challenges that cyber communication poses for ethics in general, not Confucianism in particular (Wong , 291). In addition, what Wong neglects is the fact that ultimately the most fundamental duty that Confucianism advocates is that of becoming a jun zi (morally cultivated person). Along these lines, there are several cardinal virtues to be practiced regardless of one's social role, such as kindness, thriftiness, uprightness, temperateness, and honesty (Legge , Analects 1:4; 1:10; 6:23; 12:7). It thus becomes clear that although Confucianism proposes a role‐based understanding of moral duty, Confucian ethics cannot be reflexively reduced to role‐dependent obligations.

As such, it is already important to point out that where Wong initially shows bias is in failing to see that Confucianism has the potential to accommodate and regulate anonymous communication. In online communication, a Confucian could treat others as potential family members—with genuine care and gentleman‐like virtues such as kindness, uprightness, and honesty. In particular, a Confucian could take the precaution of treating all his addressees as those of higher social status than himself. If this attitude is used in initiating a communication, one can adjust to specific rituals as the addressees’ identities are progressively revealed.

Now the question that remains to be addressed is whether anonymous communication would inevitably endanger role‐based communication, particularly the communication done in the Confucian family. First, it is not problematic for a Confucian father to hold a Skype meeting with his son. The Internet can be used for providing a space in which Confucian familial rites are carried out. Although values embedded in the Internet might suggest end‐to‐end communication, the Internet does not inevitably invalidate the default setting of communication structure in (a) particular culture(s). It is as difficult for an average Confucian to find a chance to talk to his emperor, as it is for an average citizen to chat with his president. In fact, people's use of social media reflects the culture in which they reside (Boyd ).

The problem of blurring of public and private space

Wong's argument regarding the public and private spheres is informative in some aspects, but his argument is only valid based on his particular interpretation of Confucianism. However, Confucian thoughts are not monolithic, but diverse. Different schools with different moral philosophies assign different roles to the family. Zhu Xi (1130–1200), for example, sees the family as an indispensable space in which people learn morality. However, Wang Yangming (1472–1529) regards family as the space just for practicing morality.

In general, both Wang Yangming and Zhu Xi believe in universal morality, or the heavenly pattern, and yet they radically differ in who they advocate achieving it. Zhu Xi focuses on morality as knowledge; people learn to be moral by investigating things. This mentality is arguably based on his specific cosmology; he holds that morality is embedded in the cosmological order and therefore can be learned by acquiring knowledge about the cosmos. Zhu Xi adopts and further develops a yin‐yang cosmology, which ascribes certain attributes, such as brightness, heaven, fatherhood, domination, and so on, to the idea of yang and darkness, earth, motherhood, obedience, and so on, to the idea of yin, and certain relationship between them afterward (Chen , 30–59). In this context, Zhu Xi proposes observing the order of the universe in term of yin‐yang interaction, in order to help one understand morality. In this context, familial interaction becomes important, as the family is a small universe that mirrors the cosmos (Chen , 69). For instance, because women represent yin and men represent yang, the wife should be obedient to her husband.

Yet Wang Yangming, one of the most influential neo‐Confucians, holds that morality cannot at all be learned outside of one's self‐cultivation; rather, he believes that the only feasible way to achieve morality is to restore the fang xin (the lost moral conscience), which is the attribute equally carried by all. Restoring one's moral conscience demands the effort of meditation‐like self‐reflection, in addition to carrying out one's typical roles. In Wang's view, it is natural for someone to behave in accordance with his familial roles if he successfully restores his moral conscience—not the other way around: when one's moral conscience is expressed in a parent–child relationship, it is filial piety; when expressed between siblings, it is fraternity; and so on (Chen , 23).

Regarding Wong's argument, first, the problem of blurring public and private space stands strongly only if we live mainly in cyberspace. However, it is highly unlikely that our whole lives will be digitalized. Even if this were to become the case, online communication does not immediately suggest the demise of the family or the public; instead, it suggests reshaping them. The online Confucian family might be more open to the public in terms of revealing some information, as different Confucian schools might ascribe different roles to the family—that is, seeing it not as the only source of morality, thus needing to be kept closed, but merely as a space where people can practice morality, which can be made comparably open to the public; that is, people's activities at home can work as a moral example for others.

I have evaluated the theses of Wong and Bockover above; I shall now move further to argue that Confucian ethics are not only compatible with using SNS, but could positively contribute to the reengineering of it through reconstruction and articulation of the concept of tian xia, the Confucian concept that bears significant moral meaning.

Moral and epistemological interpretation of tian xia

As Wong () argues, in Confucianism tian (heaven) is also a fundamental normative concept. In its high and encompassing stature, tian represents the ultimate moral authority that imparts to all moral judgments their normativity. The dao of tian, the law of heaven, is the highest moral principle that functions as a normative source on the basis of which human conduct can be justified (Wong ). Tian dao is seen as possessing two generic features: first, as the ultimate natural law, it is stable and unchangeable. As Xun Kuang (1995, 109) claims, tian dao is constant, it does not preserve itself for Yao's (a sage king in China) benevolence, or perish because of Xia's (king during the shang dynasty) brutality. Tian dao is thus a normative principle that is general in that it is not dependent on the contingency of circumstance.

Second, tian dao is represented in the human world by the concept of ren (humanity), which is specified in requirements that enable people to determine what they ought to do in their daily life. Ren is specified as li (rites, which are the application of ren and prescribe the right form of conduct in specific situations). The Confucian rites prescribe a variety of acts in daily life, including how one should act properly according to his/her social roles, and how one should cultivate him or herself. People who live in tian xia (under heaven) follow tian dao (the law of heaven). So construed, the concept of tian xia is then a notion that is both general and concrete, and represents our life‐world as it is structured around the concept of ren.

To be specific, in Confucianism a true gentleman ought to relate himself to the concept of the tian xia. Contrary to understanding someone's “being‐in‐space” as if he occupies part a geographical unit, Confucians perceive his presence in tian xia as an extension of his moral cultivation. As Wang Yangming (, 968–69) notably argues, a gentlemen sees everything under heaven in himself. Tian xia is a big family, and zhong guo (the central state) is just one family member. Anyone who refuses this exerts effort to distant people and is despicable. Why Wang Yangming held such a belief can be explained by his particular understanding of our moral nature.

Wang Yangming argues that there is indeed a heavenly pattern that is the source of morality; however, the heavenly pattern is not external but internal, because it is nothing but liang zhi (human conscience) equally shared by all. For Wang, liang zhi generally has several of the following features: (1) it is intrinsically good under all circumstances; (2) it has the cognitive capacity to judge between right and wrong; and (3) it is emotional, capable of feeling shame and honor, being sympathetic and motivating people toward particular actions.

Wang argues quite explicitly that liang zhi is beyond good and evil on the practical level (Chen , 214). For him, people judge something as good or bad based on biased views towards things. One might consider grass as bad in contrast to flowers, if he concerned only with the beauty of flowers (Chen , 73). Liang zhi is however beyond any biased views and therefore cannot be judged as good or bad on the practical level. As to the question of why liang zhi is intrinsically good, various interpretations are available and no agreement is reached. One plausible interpretation, as I shall argue, is that liang zhi helps to furnish the basic structure of action, which means valuing the objects as good and setting them as one's end. As such, liang zhi should necessarily be regarded as intrinsically good as it is the precondition for all human actions, whether these actions are for good or bad purposes.

For example, when Wang Yangming was questioned by his students why the bloom and fading of a flower are independent of its spectator, he responded that there is nothing like the flower in the world of the dead (Chen , 275). This claim is certainly absurd if we understand the flower simply as a physical object. One plausible interpretation is that Wang treats the flower as a thing (shi) rather than a mere object (wu). It is in the spectator's eyes that the object appears to be the flower with the specific color and form that bears beauty and elegance in his/her aesthetic experience. The difference between a mere object and a thing is that the thing is composed of at least three elements: the physical object, the human as the agent, and the particular value relationship between them. In such an experience, not only do we recognize and respond to the object, but we also confer value on it. To label something as a tulip might only mean a particular genus of plants in the botanic sense, but to call something a flower means something beautiful and thus good and desirable. So construed, liang zhi is possessed by all equally. Wang confirmed explicitly that liang zhi is possessed by the most average people with no differences (Chen , 107).

More importantly, liang zhi is not only cognitive but inherently emotional, involving emotions that motivate people. To this specific point, Wang generally inherits from Mencius's classic discussion of the four basic emotions of humanity, as terminals of morality: for Mencius, humans embrace four hearts—the heart of compassion, the heart of shame, the heart of courtesy and modesty, and the heart of right and wrong (Legge , Mencius 2A6). When liang zhi is practiced toward specific things, it triggers these emotions, for example, when an adult is witnessing a young boy who is about to fall into a well, his liang zhi generates a strong feeling of compassion. In this line, we understand the philosophical ground on which his tian xia view is constructed: since people all equally share the same moral conscience (the heavenly pattern), they are bai xin (people with conscience) who share something in common and live together under heaven.

As such, a Confucian is expected to carry out the role of interpreting, specifying, and cultivating dao; as a family member, one is expected to respect his parents, to educate his children, and so on; as an official, one is expected to serve the government well and ping tian xia, namely, bring harmony to all who live under tian xia (Legge , The Great Learning, 357). The whole process aims to rediscover one's liang zhi and to make it efficacious so as to actualize it in the world. So construed, the space of tian xia is the extension of the moral cultivation of the gentleman, forming the basic principle structuring moral space, and obligating people to respect all bai xin, regardless of the particular state that they inhabit, because members of the land under tian xia are moral equals due to their equally possessed conscience.

It should be noted here that what I have presented here is surely not the only plausible moral philosophy which undergirds the idea of tian xia. Since Wang Yangming is the most prominent neo‐Confucian who most intensively discussed the idea of tian xia, I mainly reconstruct his discussions here. I shall now turn to discuss what this normative concept of tian xia means for SNS.

Location reconsidered

When it comes to the design of SNS in particular, the tian xia view suggests a reconsideration of the role of locality. Traditionally, exposing one's location bears at least three important meanings: first, and geographically, it indicates scientific information about one's physical place; second, and individually, it helps to claim one's interests/pride by showing where he/she actually is; third, and socially, location is perceived, often on social media, as a categorization that sorts people geographically, and in so doing, suggests communication based on this categorization: people and news nearby are suggested to users, while distant people and events are comparably ignored.

The Tian xia worldview finds no problem with the first two ways of using one's location. However, the default setting of social networks only negatively perceives the role of locality, regarding it as dividing people and their interests, and this idea is seemingly in conflict with the tian xia worldview. In contrast, tian xia requires a more positive comprehension of locality, suggesting that the location information should be used for prompting the world‐ness rather than reinforcing the localness.

As such, when the value of world‐ness is considered in the design of social media, a more sophisticated consideration of location‐enabled services should be made. First, awareness of the world‐ness should be integrated in the settings of SNS. To give a simple example, SNS could be designed, by deploying an algorithm on locality, to notify users who only follow European tweeters that they have not followed any American or Asian tweeters, who tweet about similar topics. The positive consideration of the role of location can also be done in the background. When the app suggests the influential tweeters/news to users, a proper consideration of the representation of locality should be taken into account. Surely, to do so need not necessarily introduce paternalistic concerns, but the app could let users choose if they would like to have a broader contact or not.

Second, the new idea of locality, as world‐ness, can be embedded and prompted in the functionalities of social media. As presented, the tian xia worldview regards everyone living under heaven as bai xin, who are not citizens but people with conscience. As such, bai xin is a novel identity that is different from the individual as a wolf in the Hobbesian sense, or the Christian who adopts a comprehensive religion, or citizens who are affiliated with national sovereignty. They are self‐possessing people simply because they have a conscience which allows them to develop cardinal virtues.

Thus, tian xia explicitly poses a new task of social media, that is, to cultivate the identity of bai xin, a person with conscience. SNS should therefore not be regarded as merely tools for achieving whatever purposes, but should carry positive roles for cultivating such a new identity. Formerly, we believed that the wide distribution of social media would naturally lead to the emergence of world citizens, yet it has become clear that online communities can be fragmented (Jaeger ). More proactive effort should therefore be made in formulating new online identities. In this vein, the functionalities of social media platforms could be designed to facilitate a new sense of belonging that is not based on traditional grounds, such as religion, ethnicity, citizenship, and so on, but on human conscience, which is both rational and sentimental in its nature. This brings us to my next point, that is, to reconsider the human emotion which helps us to bond on SNS.

Emotion reconsidered

Christine Korsgaard (, 151–73) has discussed, in line with Aristotle, that emotion contributes to rational activity in various ways, including making the agent more susceptible to the influence of reason, forming good habits for rational activities, and enabling us to perceive what is good. What is important is that Korsgaard obviously sees emotion not just as passive and responsive, but normatively contributive; that is to say, emotion helps us to think and act rationally or even morally. Confucian scholar Ni Peimin () suggests a similar idea, but with many differences, in one of his much‐celebrated papers on Confucian dignity. He argues that the Confucian concept of four hearts, as concrete feelings, are not just descriptive but prescriptive in the sense that these feelings not only identify us as humans but orient us toward becoming better people. In this Confucian spirit, some feelings are normative in the sense that they are not just what we have, but they are also what we should have.

The Western liberal model of person as individual, which gives much weight to personal freedom, might have a certain influence on the way emotions are presented on SNS. One can practice his or her freedom by “liking” or “unliking” others’ posts, and in so doing build a sense of connection and belonging. “Liking” and “unliking” on SNS might engage both cognitive and emotional faculties and, particularly in the case of emotions, they might encompass feeling and attitude beyond the scope of these two labels. For example, to give a “thumbs up” might mean support rather than just “liking” in the narrow sense. However, these two attitudes, as concrete feelings, broadly express one's preferences, and facilitate freedom of choice, though they exclude many more sophisticated and humanistic emotions that connect people—for instance, being compassionate, touched, honored, and so on—which lie at the core of the emotional nature of human conscience in Confucianism. Feelings that are commonly attached to our conscience, in contrast to mere individual freedom, should also be designed into the framework of SNS, if possible.

This example helps to explain how the design of current social networks facilitates a specific kind of preference‐based human connection, while impoverishing the much more sophisticated emotions that spring from our conscience. Note that I am here not suggesting specific ready‐to‐use default options that should be used for expressing people's attitudes; rather, I am challenging the legitimacy of only having “liking” and “unliking” options being dogmatically and unreflectively deployed. Considering the normative demands of tian xia, this deployment of emotion on SNS should be carefully reconsidered.

Social learning reconsidered

Another thing that is worth mentioning is the social learning process on SNS. Burke, Marlow, and Lento (, 945–54) show that Facebook users tend to, or may be persuaded to, post more photos when they notice that their friends, or just acquaintances, are posting on SNS. The phenomenon, referred to as social learning, is evidence that people are not just autonomous individuals in the Kantian sense, but they perceive and construct themselves by integrating others into their selfness. This is more aligned with a Confucian model of humanity.

Indeed, one paradox of online posting is that people are not aware of the changing boundaries of public and private spheres. Facebook users might not be aware that their posts affect others so much because they still, to a large extent, assume that their influence is limited to the private sphere. Sometimes people even are shocked about their public information being posted online (Noble and Associates ). It would certainly be helpful if SNS would consider this concern, and make people more aware about what can be done with their posts.

What the tian xia view demands is not just that awareness of one's posts be raised, namely to make people think twice before posting anything. Tian xia fundamentally affirms the normative status of social learning in the first place; that is to say, one's activities online, both personal and public, have a tian xia dimension which should aim to be a moral exemplar for bai xin around the world.

If this is the case, the tian xia view would require SNS to give more specific suggestions to users, to make them more attentive to the positive and negative implications of their posts in online communities. A father who is about to post about a joyful time with his son might be notified right before he clicks the “share” button that there are a hundred fathers on his friends list. Perhaps this sounds a bit too demanding or too paternalistic. However, many people would agree that public figures, such as politicians and celebrities, should be more aware of their behavior. We become semi‐public figures when we are on SNS, and it is our choice to do so. When our private lives are viewed by hundreds, if not thousands of friends or followers, our families becomes spaces in which we practice our morality as exemplars for others.

Again, the actualization of this idea is both a philosophical and engineering question that requires much refined deliberation beyond which I cannot elaborate here. The thorny problem we are still facing is to balance consideration for individual freedom with considerations around responsibility. This is both a principle‐based and culturally sensitive issue that constantly catches our attention.