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Interview

Tu Weiming

Tu Weiming is a philosophy professor at Harvard University and Chair of the Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies at Peking University. He is an ethicist and is one of the leading lights of New Confucianism. David Volodzko asked him about the relevance of Confucius today.

In her 1982 book Child Abuse and Neglect: Cross-Cultural Perspectives, the anthropologist Jill Korbin wrote that in classical China “children, according to the ethic of ‘filial piety,’ were considered the sole property of their parents. As such, they could be dealt with in whatever manner their parents chose, with little or no interference from outsiders. Severe beatings, infanticide, child slavery, the selling of young girls as prostitutes, child betrothal, and foot-binding were not uncommon.” Is it true that Confucian ideas of filial piety say children are the property of their parents? Doesn’t the Classic of Filial Piety teach that the basis of filial piety is love?

Korbin’s view is distorted, and I would say erroneous, for a number of reasons.

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