Harmonious Technology: A Confucian Ethics of Technology 9780367263522, 9780367263492, 9780429292842

Table of contents :
Cover
Endorsement
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
List of Figures
Notes on the Contributors
Acknowledgement
Introduction: Why Confucian Ethics of Technology?
1. Confucian Ritual Technicity and Philosophy of Technology
2. Dao, Harmony, and Personhood: Toward a Confucian Ethics of Technology
3. Technological Mediation in and for Confucianism-Based Cultures
4. Self-Cultivation of the Confucian Engineer: What Engineering Ethics Education Can Learn from Confucian Moral Theory
5. Artificial Intelligence, Personal Decisions, Consent, and the Confucian Idea of Oneness
6. Confucian Personhood and the Scientific Spirit: Ren as the Foundation of Confucian Ethics of Technology
Epilogue: The Future of Confucian Ethics of Technology
Index

Citation preview

“Harmonious Technology is a must-read for anyone interested in the philosophy and ethics of technology. While the effects of technology are global, the frameworks to understand and evaluate them are still local, dominated as they are by western approaches. In six fascinating chapters and the epilogue, the authors convincingly and profoundly demonstrate how a ‘multicultural turn’ can substantially enrich the ethics of technology. Without any doubt, this book is a solid foundation for much exciting work to come.” —Peter-Paul Verbeek, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy of Technology and Co-Director of the DesignLab, University of Twente, and author of What Things Do (2005) and Moralizing Technology (2011) “Refreshing, stimulative, and timely, Harmonious Technology makes an important contribution to developing a Confucian philosophy of technology. I highly recommend this book to everyone who is interested in this propitious field of study.” —Chenyang Li, Professor of Philosophy, School of Humanities, Nanyang Technological University, and author of The Confucian Philosophy of Harmony (2013) “Although there have been an increasing number of English language studies devoted to reassessing Confucianism in general terms and presenting it as a challenge to Western ethics, this is the first to tackle a range of issues in the ethics of technology from a Confucian perspective broadly construed. It represents the important work of a new generation of internationally engaged Chinese philosophers of technology.” —Carl Mitcham, Professor Emeritus of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, Colorado School of Mines; International Professor of Philosophy of Technology, Renmin University of China; author of Thinking through Technology (1994) and Steps Toward a Philosophy of Engineering (2020) “[...]For those long engaged in such multicultural approaches to philosophy of ethics and technology, this volume represents a most welcome and significant contribution, one signaling a new level of engagement across these diverse traditions: it is simply delicious reading to be savored and learned deeply from. For those somewhat newer to these territories, the volume will be especially valuable as a primer in Confucian thought [...]. I simply cannot recommend it strongly enough.” —Charles M. Ess, Professor Emeritus, Department of Media and Communication, University of Oslo; author of Digital Media Ethics, 3rd Edition (2020)

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HARMONIOUS TECHNOLOGY

Technology has become a major subject of philosophical ethical reflection in recent years, as the novelty and disruptiveness of technology confront us with new possibilities and unprecedented outcomes as well as fundamental changes to our “normal” ways of living that demand deep reflection of technology. However, philosophical and ethical analysis of technology has until recently drawn primarily from the Western philosophical and ethical traditions, and philosophers and scholars of technology discuss the potential contribution of non-Western approaches only sparingly. Given the global nature of technology, however, there is an urgent need for multiculturalism in philosophy and ethics of technology that include non-Western perspectives in our thinking about technology. While there is an increased attention to non-Western philosophy in the field, there are few systematic attempts to articulate different approaches to the ethics of technology based on other philosophical and ethical traditions. The present edited volume picks up the task of diversifying the ethics of technology by exploring the possibility of Confucian ethics of technology. In the six chapters of this volume, the authors examine various ideas, concepts, and theories in Confucianism and apply them to the ethical challenges of technology; in the epilogue, the editors review the key ideas articulated throughout the volume to identify possible ways forward for Confucian ethics of technology. Harmonious Technology revives Confucianism for philosophical and ethical analysis of technology and presents Confucian ethics of technology as another approach to the ethics of technology. It will be essential for philosophers and ethicists of technology, who are urged to consider beyond the Western paradigms. More broadly, the volume will be of interest to students and scholars in the fields of philosophy, science and technology studies, innovation studies, political science, and social studies. Pak-Hang Wong is Research Associate at the Research Group for Ethics in IT in the Department of Informatics, Universität Hamburg, Germany. Tom Xiaowei Wang is Associate Professor of Philosophy of Science and Technology in the School of Philosophy, Renmin University of China.

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HARMONIOUS TECHNOLOGY A Confucian ethics of technology

Edited by Pak-Hang Wong and Tom Xiaowei Wang

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First published 2021 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 selection and editorial matter, Pak-Hang Wong and Tom Xiaowei Wang; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Pak-Hang Wong and Tom Xiaowei Wang to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 978-0-367-26349-2 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-26352-2 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-29284-2 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo Std by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.

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CONTENTS

List of Figures ix Notes on the Contributors x Acknowledgementxii Introduction: Why Confucian Ethics of Technology? Pak-Hang Wong, Tom Xiaowei Wang 1 Confucian Ritual Technicity and Philosophy of Technology Tom Xiaowei Wang

1 10

2 Dao, Harmony, and Personhood: Toward a Confucian Ethics of Technology Pak-Hang Wong

29

3 Technological Mediation in and for Confucianism-Based Cultures Ching Hung

50

4 Self-Cultivation of the Confucian Engineer: What Engineering Ethics Education can Learn from Confucian Moral Theory Qin Zhu 5 Artificial Intelligence, Personal Decisions, Consent, and the Confucian Idea of Oneness Pak-Hang Wong

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66

79

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viii  Contents

6 Confucian Personhood and the Scientific Spirit: Ren as the Foundation of Confucian Ethics of Technology Fei Teng

95

Epilogue: The Future of Confucian Ethics of Technology Tom Xiaowei Wang, Pak-Hang Wong

110

Index

115

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FIGURE

1.1

Photo of Yokeback Armchair in the Metropolitan Museum of Art by Beatrice Pinto. Available in the public domain via https://www.metmuseum.org/ art/collection/search/3949318

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CONTRIBUTORS

Ching Hung is Adjunct Assistant Professor at National University of Kaohsiung

and Feng Chia University, Taiwan. He received his PhD from the University of Twente, the Netherlands in 2019, and his dissertation “Design for Green” won the Excellence Award of STS Dissertation 2020 from the Taiwan STS Association. He has published in Taiwanese Journal for Studies of Science, Technology and Medicine, Frontier of Philosophy in China, and contributed to several university textbooks. He is also a columnist for various Taiwanese newspapers and magazines, writing about ethical and political issues concerning technological influence on human behaviors. Fei Teng is Lecturer in the School of Philosophy, Renmin University of China.

She obtained her PhD from Utrecht University, the Netherlands. Her research interests include environmental ethics, ethics of science and technology, and Confucianism. She is the author of Moral Responsibilities to Future Generations: A Comparative Study on Human Rights Theory and Confucianism (2018) and other journal articles in the relevant fields. Tom Xiaowei Wang obtained his BA, MA in China Agricultural University,

and PhD in Utrecht University, the Netherlands. He is Associate Professor of Philosophy of Science and Technology in the School of Philosophy, Renmin University of China. His major research interests include philosophy of technology, moral theory, and STS. He currently serves as the Director of Youth Committee of Chinese Society of Philosophy of Science and Technology. Wang is in the editorial board for the Journal of Responsible Research and Innovation and has published in Zygon, Environmental Ethics, Frontiers of Philosophy in China, and other academic journals.

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Contributors xi

Pak-Hang Wong is Research Associate at the Research Group for Ethics in IT

in the Department of Informatics, Universität Hamburg, Germany. His research explores the social, ethical, and political issues of artificial intelligence, robotics, and other emerging technologies. Wong received his doctorate in Philosophy from the University of Twente, the Netherlands in 2012 and then held academic positions in Oxford and Hong Kong prior to his current position. He is the co-editor of Well-Being in Contemporary Society (2015, Springer) and has published in Philosophy & Technology, Zygon, Science and Engineering Ethics, and other academic journals. Qin Zhu is Assistant Professor of Ethics and Engineering Education in the Division of Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences at the Colorado School of Mines, USA, where he co-directs the Daniels Fund Program in Professional Ethics Education that provides support for faculty to integrate ethics into applied science and engineering curricula. He is currently the Editor for International Perspectives at the National Academy of Engineering’s Online Ethics Center for Engineering and Science, Associate Editor for the Journal of Engineering Studies, and Program Chair of American Society for Engineering Education’s Division of Engineering Ethics. His major research interests include the cultural foundations of engineering ethics, global engineering education, and the ethics of computing technologies and robotics.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The present volume has been (too) long in the making, as the two editors of this volume, Pak-Hang Wong (PW) and Tom Xiaowei Wang (TW), met and discussed the ideas of Confucian philosophy and ethics of technology in Amsterdam back in 2010 when PW was writing his doctoral thesis at the University Twente and TW was completing his PhD at Utrecht University. Along the way, they met and got to know Qin Zhu, Ching Hung, and Fei Teng in different occasions, and they all share an interest in exploring the relevance of Chinese philosophy (and, in particular, Confucian philosophy) for philosophical and ethical analysis of technology. In this respect, we are so pleased to be able to invite Qin Zhu, Ching Hung, and Fei Teng to work together on this volume and materially realize Confucian ethics of technology in the form of an edited volume. There are far too many people to thank personally and properly, but we are grateful for all the support and encouragement we received for our work on the volume. PW would like to express his gratitude to Prof. Charles Ess, Prof. Rafael Capurro, Prof. Soraj Hongladarom, Prof. Mark Coeckelbergh, and Dr. Johnny H. Søraker for their friendship and the many conversations on various topics in philosophy and ethics of technology over the years. PW’s colleagues in the Research Group for Ethics and IT, Prof. Judith Simon, Prof. Ingrid Schneider, Dr. Gernot Rieder, Laura Fichtner, Mattis Jacobs, Catharina Rudschies, Anja Peckmann, should be mentioned explicitly for enduring his endless talk about the applicability and relevance of Chinese philosophy. Finally, PW also wants to thank Sophia for her love and understanding. For TW, his deep gratitude goes to Prof. Carl Mitcham for his enthusiasm in and encouragement for the endeavor to explore Confucian philosophy and the ethics of technology. TW also want to thank Prof. Li Chenyang, who has been open and supportive of the prospect of this “unusual” project in Confucian philosophy, and Prof. Marcus Düwell, who encouraged him to study the interplay between the use of modern

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Acknowledgments xiii

technology and the Confucian tradition as his supervisor at Utrecht University. Both PW and TW are also grateful for Prof. Peter-Paul Verbeek for his kind endorsement of the volume. PW and TW have presented some of the ideas in their contribution and of the volume more generally in different places, in particular at HSMC Workshop on Ethics and Public Policy organized by the Department of Social Science, Hang Seng Management College (now, Hang Seng University of Hong Kong) in 2016; The 15th Forum of Philosophical Analysis organized by Prof Cheng Suimei at Institute of Philosophy, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences in 2017; and, in 2019, the Workshop on Comparative Philosophy of Technology organized by the School of Philosophy, Renmin University of China (where Fei Teng also presented her contribution) and the Workshop on Frontier of Ethics of Technology organized by Prof. Wang Guoyu at the Center for Biomedical Ethics, School of Philosophy, Fudan University. We want to thank our audience for comments and feedback; and, our thank goes especially to Prof. Duan Weiwen, Prof. Liu Yongmou, Prof. Wang Guoyu, Prof. Cheng Sumei, Dr. Benedict S. B. Chan, and Dr. Rami Chan for their valuable insights and advice on this project of Confucian ethics of technology. In addition, TW would also like to acknowledge the support for his work on this volume from the National Social Science Foundation of China through funding the research project Internet Value Study (18CZX016). Chapter 2 is reprinted by permission from Springer Nature Customer Service Centre GmbH: Springer of a previously published article of Wong, P.-H., “Dao, Harmony, and Personhood: Towards a Confucian Ethics of Technology” in Philosophy & Technology, 25, 67–86, 2012.

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INTRODUCTION Why Confucian Ethics of Technology? Pak-Hang Wong, Tom Xiaowei Wang

Introduction Technology has become one of the main subjects of philosophical and ethical reflection in recent years. There is an increased visibility of philosophy and ethics of technology in both scholarly and public venues, and there we can find scholars debating questions about, among others, the nature of technology, the relations among technology, human, and society as well as the impacts of technology on individuals and society. There are certainly multiple ways to account for the rising popularity of philosophy and ethics of technology, but we believe the philosophical interest in technology can be explained in part by referring to its novelty and disruptiveness. More specifically, technology provides us with new capabilities. Just think about autocorrection and the automatic grammar checker in the word processor we use for completing this Introduction. They enable us to write with less concern for spelling, grammar, and punctuation, thereby offering us a more fluid experience in writing. However, the new capabilities afforded by technology may also introduce unprecedented outcomes: what if the word processor automatically changes some of our words into racist slurs? And, what if the automatic grammar checker enforces a specific style of writing and communication, thereby devaluing other styles? Are we, the authors and users of the word processor, responsible for the racist slurs and/or for sustaining a specific writing and communication style, thereby supporting some forms of linguistic dogmatism? In other words, the novelty of technology confronts us with new possibilities and novel consequences that cry out for philosophical and ethical reflection. Moreover, technology often disrupts our usual ways to conduct everyday life and the ways society functions because of the new possibilities and novel consequences. For the disruptiveness of technology, we can simply consult the Internet, social media, robotics, and many other new and emerging technologies

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2  Introduction

as examples, and then we should recognize the radical transformations brought about by technology. In the more extreme forms, Luciano Floridi (2015) and his colleagues have proposed that with the prevalence of digital technologies the distinction between our lives online and offline is no longer useful, and that we need to see our lives as onlife, which is a seamless merging of both. Likewise, Braden R. Allenby and Daniel Sarewitz (2011) have argued that our technology now allows us to transform not only human beings but also the Earth system we live in and depend on, thereby moving ourselves into a new epoch of Anthropocene, an epoch in which human exerts direct impacts on the Earth system. These fundamental changes in our lives and in our world have undoubtedly forced us to rethink who (what) we are and how we can (should) run our society. The latest technology-related incidents only heighten the public concern about the social, ethical, and political issues of technology, and magnify the need for normative analysis of technology. Fatal accidents involving self-driving vehicles (see, e.g., Bhuiyan 2018), dire threats to democracy as a result of social media, profiling algorithms, and target advertising (see, e.g., Confessore 2018), the harm being done by biased and discriminatory algorithms (see, e.g., O’Neil 2016; Angwin, Mattu, & Kirchner 2016), and many more examples have reminded us to be mindful of the risks of technology and be critical toward its development and implementation. Indeed, these incidents highlight the importance to anticipate the social, ethical, and political consequences of technology in the early stage of development and steer technology away from the problematic consequences (Brey 2012). We are, of course, not claiming that technology is all bad. As Floridi and his colleagues (2018) point out in their analysis of the role of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies for a good society, technology can be used to our benefit and create opportunities for individuals and society, it can also be overused and misused and create risks for us, but also technology can be underused and create missed opportunities. So, we need to consider the possible good and harm of technology because failure to realize the benefits of technology is as much a problem as the failure to prevent possible harm it; and, we contend that philosophy and ethics of technology are necessary to guide our normative thinking about technology. The discussion so far has explained why philosophers are turning attention to technology, but it says nothing of the limited philosophical perspectives in philosophy and ethics of technology despite the growing interest from philosophers and ethicists. In particular, the philosophical and normative analysis of technology proceeds predominately with theoretical frameworks in the Anglo-American and European traditions, which presume particular normative standpoints and understandings of what is of value.1 The lack of non-Western traditions in philosophy and ethics of technology is perhaps understandable, given the questions of modern science and technology appear to originate from the West.2 Indeed, the field of philosophy of technology is said to be originated from the West as well.3 However, as philosophy of technology has taken numerous turns and improved

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Introduction 3

upon itself (see, e.g., Brey 2010; Franssen Vermas, Kroes, & Meijers 2016), we believe that it is time for the field to take yet another turn, i.e., the multicultural turn. The multicultural turn aims to diversify philosophy and ethics of technology by including other traditions into the discussion, thereby enriching the theoretical resources for thinking about technology. Fortunately, there are already some works that move philosophy and ethics of technology to this direction (see, e.g., Teschner & Tomasi 2016; Lennerfors & Murata 2017; Mitcham, Li, Newberry, & Zhang 2018; Wang 2020). In this edited volume, we shall continue to advance the multicultural turn by exploring what Confucian philosophy and ethics can contribute to the normative thinking about technology. Before we introduce the chapters in the present volume, however, we should first reiterate the importance to diversify philosophy and ethics of technology.

Diversifying philosophy and ethics of technology In Taking Back Philosophy: A Multicultural Manifesto, Bryan W. Van Norden (2017) argues that philosophy is in urgent need to diversify because we are in a multicultural world, and the narrow perspective of the Western traditions is insufficient for a genuine understanding of the multicultural world. Moreover, there are other cultures and traditions in the multicultural world, and their ideas, concepts, and thoughts can help to advance philosophy. Van Norden identifies three reasons for diversifying philosophy. Firstly, he points out that the world order is not anymore dominated by the West, as other countries (and, in Van Norden’s case, China) have risen—or, are slowly rising—to the world stage in terms of economic and geopolitical power. As such, there is the need to understand non-Western philosophy if we are to comprehend the new world order, where the non-Western countries play a (more) significant role. Secondly, Van Norden suggests that there is much (Western) philosophy can learn from and draw on non-Western philosophy. Non-Western philosophy offers ideas, concepts, and theories, which may not have existed or simply neglected and forgotten in (Western) philosophy, thereby supplying philosophers with new (or forgotten) resources to rethink their projects and to ask different kinds of questions. Finally, he describes academic philosophy’s diversity problem, i.e., the gender and racial imbalance in academic philosophy, and proposes that diversifying philosophy helps opening up academic philosophy and therefore is part of the solution. We agree with Van Norden’s plea for multiculturalism in philosophy. We believe philosophy and ethics of technology are in even more critical need of diversity. As China becomes one of the major technological powers, and with several Chinese technology firms coming into prominence internationally, an understanding of Chinese philosophy becomes essential to comprehend China’s view of technology. Indeed, the Chinese approaches to technology governance often frame policy and regulation in Confucian terms and invoke the traditional Chinese worldview. For example, the China’s Ministry of Science and Technology released in June 2019 the Governance Principles for a New Generation

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4  Introduction

of Artificial Intelligence: Develop Responsible Artificial Intelligence, and the first of all principles is “Harmony and friendliness”, which states that “AI development should begin from the objective of enhancing the common well-being of humanity; it should conform to human values, ethics, and morality, promote human-machine harmony, and serve the progress of human civilization […]” (Laskai & Webster 2019). Similar reference to harmony can also be seen in the Harmonious Artificial Intelligence Principles (Zheng 2018) and the Beijing AI Principles (BAAI 2019). Hence, a good understanding of Chinese philosophy is required for engaging with the Chinese approaches to technology governance fruitfully. Technology development often involves multiple groups of technologists in different parts of the world, and the technological products they make are similarly bought and then used by people from around the world. Given the different values and interests of people, multiculturalism in philosophy and ethics of technology is necessary for evaluating the social, ethical, and political impacts of technology in a global context. To see why the multiculturalism in philosophy and ethics of technology is necessary in the global context, it is instructive to review the relation between philosophy and ethics of technology and technology development and implementation. Philosophical and ethical analysis of technology is very often more than an intellectual exercise, i.e., it is intended to inform the development and implementation of technology. Consider, for example, the idea of responsible innovation, i.e., “a transparent, interactive process by which societal actors and innovators become mutually responsive to each other with a view to the (ethical) acceptability, sustainability and societal desirability of the innovation process and its marketable products (in order to allow a proper embedding of scientific and technological advances in our society)”. (von Schomberg 2012, p. 50) Responsible innovation aims to guide technology development with the values we (the society) hold dear. As such, responsible innovation necessitates discussion and debate over what values are important and what values ought to guide technology development. More explicitly, philosophers and scholars of technology have proposed the “design turn”, and they are involved in tinkering with the values embedded in socio-technical systems and technological artifacts during the design and production process. In the design turn, they look to embed values in technology through design (see, e.g., van den Hoven 2008; Verbeek 2011; Simon 2017; Friedman & Hendry 2019). Responsible innovation and the design turn, therefore, directly link philosophical and ethical analysis to technology development and implementation and to the related policy and regulation. One of the dangers of responsible innovation and the design turn is, of course, the mismatch of values between technologists (and philosophers who provide them with those values through philosophical and ethical analysis) and the users,

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Introduction 5

which can become a form of paternalism by technology (Wong 2013). This danger is even more acute in the cross-cultural context when the values from a specific culture are imposed, through technological products, on those who do not share the values. In effect, the imposition of values through embedding values in technology can be regarded as a form of technological imperialism. Here, the same concern of technological imperialism applies to global technology governance as well. If philosophy and ethics of technology are to inform the values for technology development and implementation, and thus the standards for them; and, if the standards are grounded only on a set of limited values that is not shared universally, given standards are by definition excluding, those who do not (or are not willing to) accept the dominant values and the standards based on those values will be excluded from developing and implementing the technology. In this case, we have a form of technological imperialism by standardization (Wong 2016). Against this background, we believe, as Van Norden does for philosophy, that philosophy and ethics of technology ought to take the multicultural turn. As we have mentioned earlier, there are already works in this direction. However, we have yet to see a more systematic account of the potential contribution of Confucian philosophy and ethics to the normative thinking about technology. The present volume aims to pick up this task and explore the possibility of Confucian ethics of technology. Yet, there is an oft-repeated argument that Confucianism, with its rigid, hierarchical structure, stifles the freedom to explore and people’s interest in new things, thereby being an obstacle to scientific knowledge and technology development. Confucianism and science (and technology), however, are not necessarily incompatible. Indeed, there is a sustained effort from Confucian scholars to recover the mutual complementarity of Confucianism and science. Insofar as the present volume aims to show that Confucian philosophy and ethics are relevant to technology development and implementation, this volume can also be seen as an attempt to bring back together Confucianism and technology.

Structure of the volume The present volume contains an introduction, six chapters, and an epilogue. In the Introduction, we have identified the need to diversify philosophy and ethics of technology and suggest the exploration of the contribution of Confucian philosophy and ethics to our normative thinking about technology is part of the multicultural turn. The six chapters in the volume are then organized around two main questions: I. What resources are available in Confucian philosophy and ethics for our normative thinking about technology (i.e., Chapters 1 and 2)? II. How can Confucian philosophy and ethics be applied to ethical analysis of technology and technology-related issues (i.e., Chapters 3–6)? Tom Xiaowei Wang starts the volume with Chapter 1, Confucian Ritual Technicity and Philosophy of Technology. In this chapter, Wang aims to revive a neglected and forgotten dimension in our encounters with technology that he

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6  Introduction

calls “ritual technicity”. Drawing on both the notion of “civilizational given” in Heidegger’s phenomenology and the postphenomenological approach to analyzing concrete technologies, he examines how Confucian cosmology, as a civilizational given, works as a macro-horizon through which (technological) artifacts appear to us. Through a detailed analysis of taishi chairs, Wang demonstrates what is unique about Confucian philosophy is the Confucian cosmology’s emphasis on the unity of beings, which brings forth the transcendental/ritual dimension of artifacts that transcends their practicality and opens up the possibility of yigu xingwu (以故兴物), i.e., “to summon specific ritual feelings by deploying artifacts in the demanded manner”. Confucian cosmology, therefore, enables ritualizing (or ethicizing) oneself with artifacts. Wang holds that the ritual dimension of technology is especially helpful to counter the view that technology can be reduced to its practicality. For Wang, Confucian philosophy’s focus on rituals offers an additional way to examine technology. Chapter 2, Dao, Harmony, and Personhood: Toward a Confucian Ethics of Technology, is a reprint of an earlier article by Pak-Hang Wong, which serves to review Confucian ethics for philosophers and ethicists of technology who are unfamiliar with the tradition. Wong elaborates on three basic normative concepts in Confucian ethics, i.e., dao, harmony, and personhood, and discusses how they can serve as the building blocks of a Confucian ethics of technology. More specifically, he points out that Confucian ethics of technology concerns equally with the good and the right instead of prioritizing the right over the good (as it is often the case for modern Western ethics and political philosophy). Wong also argues that a Confucian ethics (of technology) ought to view ethics as a continuous process of negotiation and adjustment but not a one-off judgment of right (good) or wrong (bad). Finally, He urges to pay more attention to social roles and everyday practices that are affected by technology as they are crucial to individual self-cultivation. In Chapter 3, Technological Mediation in and for Confucianism-Based Cultures, Ching Hung examines the applicability and relevance of the idea of technological mediation in Confucian-based cultures, e.g., China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. In this way, Hung makes an important connection between Confucianism and a major approach in philosophy and ethics of technology, i.e., the theory of technological mediation. By probing into the theoretical and practical dimensions of both philosophies, Hung argues that the main focus of technological mediation for Confucianism will be about the extension of human-human relations to human-technology relations. He also observes that collective technological mediation will be more readily accepted in Confucianbased cultures. So, learning from Confucianism, which emphasizes people as members of the community rather than autonomous individuals, the theory of technological mediation may avoid an excessive focus on individuals, thereby making collectively mediating technologies plausible. Chapter 4, Self-Cultivation of the Confucian Engineer: What Engineering Ethics Education Can Learn from Confucian Moral Theory, is written by Qin Zhu. He

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Introduction 7

explores how Confucian moral theory can provide a different approach to engineering ethics education. Zhu argues that a Confucian approach to engineering ethics education places more emphasis on the ontological aspect of professional education (or, the theory of being that concerns questions such as who engineering students are becoming in the learning process), and thus views professional education as a lifelong character-building and moral refinement process. Zhu also introduces the Confucian theory of self-cultivation and discusses its relevance for engineering ethics education and the professional formation of engineers. Based on Confucian moral theory, he highlights the moral significance of everyday, minor and seemingly “amoral” decisions for engineering ethics education. Pak-Hang Wong continues to explore the applicability of Confucian philosophy to the normative thinking about technology in Chapter 5, Artificial Intelligence, Personal Decisions, Consent, and the Confucian Idea of Oneness. He proposes that the pervasiveness of AI systems has brought forth a new background condition he calls “the interconnectedness condition”, in which every individual is tightly and seamlessly connected. Wong argues that, in the interconnectedness condition, everyday decision-making and consent-giving are transformed from self-regarding acts to other-regarding acts, and that the changing moral character introduces a new moral responsibility to account for others’ values and interests in making personal decisions and giving consent. Wong admits, however, that this new responsibility can be difficult for Western ethics and political philosophy to understand and accept. So, he turns to the Confucian idea of oneness to elaborate on the new responsibility in the interconnectedness condition. In Chapter 6, Confucian Personhood and the Scientific Spirit: Ren as the Foundation of Confucian Ethics of Technology, Fei Teng revisits the challenge to (re)integrate Confucianism with science and defends the New Confucian understanding of the scientific spirit, which is built on the innate virtue of ren (仁). She starts by elaborating on the virtue-based account of personhood in New Confucianism, and then discusses, through the works of New Confucian Tang Jungyi, how this account of personhood provides a normative ground for the development of science and technology. For Teng, and for the New Confucians, scientific practices can be viewed as an externalization of ren and as a moral practice, and thus scientific research and technology development should be guided by (Confucian) virtues. In this way, Teng offers an interesting counterpart to the idea of responsible innovation for defending the importance of ethics in scientific research and technology development. Finally, in the Epilogue, The Future of Confucian Ethics of Technology, Wang and Wong review the key ideas articulated in the volume to identify possible ways forward for Confucian ethics of technology. Together with the other chapters in the volume, we aim to revive Confucianism for philosophical and ethical analysis of technology and present the Confucian ethics of technology as another approach to the ethics of technology.

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8  Introduction

Notes 1 Notable exceptions include Shannon Vallor (2016), who draws from Confucianism and Buddhism in her works, and Michel Puech (2016), who draws from Daoism, Buddhism, and Neo-Confucianism. Also, Mark Coeckelberg (2020) includes some discussion on transcultural philosophy in his recent textbook on philosophy of technology. There are also philosophers and ethicists in the field of Intercultural Information Ethics (or, more recently, Intercultural Digital Ethics) who aim to introduce non-Western traditions into the discussion of information/digital ethics, e.g., Capurro (2010), Hongladarom (2016), Ess (2020a, 2020b). 2 The terms “the West” and “non-West” as well as other related terms should be understood as the shortcut we use for referring to a specific family of cultures in Europe and North America that exhibits family resemblance, i.e., “the West”, and to those cultures that are excluded from this family of cultures, i.e., “non-West”. We are fully aware of the differences within different traditions in “the West” and in “non-West”, but nonetheless the terms remain useful to emphasize the dominance of the European and North American cultures. 3 Ernest Kapp first used the term “philosophy of technology” in 1877, and the philosophical and normative analysis of technology is subsequently picked up by philosophers and thinkers in Germany, France, the United States, and other Western countries. We shall not provide an overview of the history of philosophy of technology in this Introduction, for excellent introductions to the field, see Mitcham (1994), Verbeek (2005), Coeckelberg (2020).

References Allenby, B. R., & Sarewitz, D. (2011). The techno-human condition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Angwin, J., Mattu, S., & Kirchner, L. (2016, May 23). Machine bias. ProPublica. Available Online at: https://www.propublica.org/article/machine-bias-risk-assessments-in-criminal-sentencing Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence [BAAI]. (2019). Beijing AI principles. Available Online at: https://www.baai.ac.cn/news/beijing-ai-principles-en.html Bhuiyan, J. (2018, May 19). A self-driving Uber car has killed a pedestrian in Arizona. Vox. Available Online at: https://www.vox.com/2018/3/19/17139604/uberself-driving-autonomous-accident-pedestrian-arizona Brey, P. A. E. (2010). Philosophy of technology after the empirical turn. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology, 14(1), 36–48. Brey, P. A. E. (2012). Anticipatory ethics for emerging technologies. NanoEthics, 6(1), 1–13. Capurro, R. (2010). The Dao of the Information Society in China and the task of intercultural information ethics. Keynote address presented at The International Conference on China’s Information Ethics, Renmin University of China, Beijing. Available Online at: http:// www.capurro.de/china_infoethics2010.html. Coeckelbergh, M. (2020). Introduction to philosophy of technology. New York: Oxford University Press. Confessore, N. (2018,April 4). Cambridge Analytica and Facebook:The scandal and the fallout so far. The New York Times. Available Online at: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/ us/politics/cambridge-analytica-scandal-fallout.html Ess, C. M. (2020a). Digital media ethics (3rd ed.). Cambridge: Polity. Ess, C. M. (2020b). Interpretative pros hen pluralism: From computer-mediated colonization to a pluralistic intercultural digital ethics. Philosophy & Technology. https://doi. org/10.1007/s13347-020-00412-9 Floridi, L. (2015). The onlife manifesto: Being human in a hyperconnected era. Cham: Springer.

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Floridi, L., Cowls, J., Beltrametti, M., Chatila, R., Chazerand, P., Dignum, V. … Vayena, E. (2018). AI4People—An ethical framework for a good AI society: Opportunities, risks, principles, and recommendations. Minds & Machines, 28, 689–707. Franssen, M.,Vermas, P. E., Kroes, P., & Meijers, A. W. M. (2016). Philosophy of technology after the empirical turn. Cham: Springer. Friedman, B., & Hendry, D. (2019). Value sensitive design: Shaping technology with moral imagination. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Hongladarom, S. (2016). A Buddhist theory of privacy. Singapore: Springer. Laskai, L., & Webster, G. (2019, June 17). Translation: Chinese expert group offers ‘Governance Principles’ for ‘Responsible AI’. New America. Available Online at: https://www.newamerica.org/cybersecurity-initiative/digichina/blog/translationchinese-expert-group-offers-governance-principles-responsible-ai/ Lennerfors, T. T., & Murata, K. (2017). Tetsugaku companion to Japanese ethics and technology. Cham: Springer. Mitcham, C. (1994). Thinking through technology: The path between engineering and philosophy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Mitcham, C., Li, B., Newberry, B., & Zhang, B. (2018). Philosophy of engineering, East and West. Cham: Springer. O’Neil, C. (2016). Weapons of math destruction: How big data increases inequality and threatens democracy. London: Allen Lane. Puech, M. (2016). The ethics of ordinary technology. London: Routledge. Simon, J. (2017). Value-sensitive design and responsible research and innovation. In S. O. Hansson (Ed.), The ethics of technology methods and approaches (pp. 219–235). London: Rowman & Littlefield. Teschner, G., & Tomasi, A. (2016). Turning toward technology: A glimpse into the Asian paradigm. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers. Vallor, S. (2016). Technology and the virtues: A philosophical guide to a future worth wanting. New York: Oxford University Press. Van den Hoven, J. (2008). Moral methodology and information technology. In K. E. Himma & H. T. Tavani (Eds.), Handbook of information and computer ethics (pp. 49–67). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Van Norden, B. W. (2017). Taking back philosophy: A multicultural manifesto. New York: Columbia University. Press. Verbeek, P.-P. (2005). What things do: Philosophical reflections on technology, agency, and design. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press. Verbeek, P.-P. (2011). Moralizing technology: Understanding and designing the morality of things. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Von Schomberg, R. (2012). Prospects for technology assessment in a framework of responsible research and innovation. In M. Dusseldorp & R. Beecroft (Eds.), Technikfolgen abschätzen lehren: Bildungspotenziale transdisziplinärer methoden (pp. 39–61). Wiesbaden: VS Verlag. Wang, Q. (2020). Chinese philosophy of technology: Classical readings and contemporary work. Singapore: Springer. Wong, P.-H. (2013).Technology, recommendation and design: On being a ‘Paternalistic’ philosopher. Science and Engineering Ethics, 19, 27–42. Wong, P.-H. (2016). Responsible innovation for decent nonliberal peoples: A dilemma? Journal of Responsible Innovation, 3(2), 154–168. Zheng, Y. (2018). Harmonious artificial intelligence principles. Available Online at: http:// bii.ia.ac.cn/hai/

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1 CONFUCIAN RITUAL TECHNICITY AND PHILOSOPHY OF TECHNOLOGY Tom Xiaowei Wang

1.1 Background Few will doubt that modern life is fully technologically mediated, and that acquiring some knowledge of technology has become the precondition to survive and thrive in contemporary society. There is a growing effort dedicated to philosophy of technology for understanding the nature of technology and its impacts on every walks of people’s life. However, the scholarly discussion has until very recently been dominated by Anglo-European perspectives and almost no other tradition is (re)presented in the discussion. As China has established herself into a major technological power in the world, e.g., with prominent technology firms such as Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent (BAT) competing with other technology companies in the world market, and to the extent that technology development and use is informed by local traditions, understanding Chinese traditions seems to become crucial for comprehending technology and its impacts across the globe. Against the background of the (post)phenomenological approach to philosophy of technology, this chapter aims to introduce the idea of Confucian ritual technicity to think with technology, thereby defending the relevance of Confucianism in philosophy of technology. A majority of work in philosophy of technology is concerned with the ethical implications of technology and intend to address the value conflicts introduced by novel and disruptive technologies, e.g., how genome editing technology may challenge human dignity. It is helpful to note that ethical analysis of technology often does not address the nature of technology, but to explore—taking technology as a neutral tool—how its use and implementation interact with widely acknowledged human values (Barbour 1993; Beyleveld & Brownsword 1998;

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Reynolds 2011). Although this approach is useful to provide policy, ethical, and legal guidelines to real-life technological practices, it does not look into the essence of technology, leaving the black box unopened, and subsequently fails to provide us with a deeper insight into the ethical entanglement of technology.1 To address the ethical conundrums we find in technology, we need the help from philosophy of technology to clarifying and deepening of our understanding of the relations between technology and authentic human life. In this respect, Martin Heidegger (1977) made the first attempt to discuss the technology as a mode of Being, i.e., to treat beings, including human beings, as mere standing reserve ready to be challenged. Despite referring to various concrete artifacts, such as bridge, temple, and jug, Heidegger was not actually interested in studying individual artifacts per se—the effort characterized by him as ontic—he was fully engaged in discussing the ontology of technology, namely the essence of technology as a way of existence. It is fair to say Heidegger was interested in discussing the ontological condition of technology instead of concrete technologies. The empirical turn in philosophy of technology, which shifts the focus from the preconditions of technology to concrete technologies and technological artifacts, aims to fill the void of classical philosophy of technology (Crease & Achterhuis 2001). Don Ihde (2009) pioneers the empirical turn by developing a postphenomenology approach that combines phenomenological investigation with a pragmatistic analysis of experience. In postphenomenology, experience is understood as an embodied knowledge developed along with the interplay between organisms and their environment. As such, Ihde intends to overcome the subjectivism in the classical phenomenology with his approach of postphenomenology. Ihde’s philosophy and the postphenomenological approach to philosophy of technology have been gaining worldwide popularity. Postphenomenology pins down the conception of experience, addressing how technological activities affect our agency, and how human agency, as situated in the tempo-spatial horizon, shapes our understanding and creative use of various tools. To comprehend the mutual constitution of human and tools is a journey to the ultimate existential reality of the lifeworld. With postphenomenology, Ihde (1990) is able to sort human–technology– world relations into four categories, namely embodied relations, background relations, hermeneutic relations, and alterity relations2: wearing a pair of glasses makes individuals embody them as an extension (or, a compensation) of their eyesight; a heater works in the background, without being noticed, mediates our experience in and of the world; a thermometer, by displaying numeric figures, hermeneutically relates us to the reality; and, in withdrawing money from a cash machine, individuals directly engage with the machine and experience how it works, as the machine becomes a partner of interaction. The key of postphenomenology, and what Ihde labels as relational ontology, is that (technological) agency is co-constituted by the artifacts, their users, and the environmental embeddings where they are situated. Postphenomenology views artifacts not merely as inert, functional objects but as actors that mediate our worldly experience. Peter-Paul

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Verbeek (2010, 2011) picks up Ihde’s mediation theory and discusses further the moral significance of technology in his philosophy of design with an aim to moralizing technology. Recently, postphenomenology has also received much attention in China, and the question is how and whether philosophical resources in China can deepen the postphenomenological approach.

1.2  Phenomenology or postphenomenology? Classical phenomenology mostly deals with human experience as an epistemology (Zahavi 2003), whereas Heidegger shifts the focus to praxis, and in doing so, he studies how we live in the mode of technological Being. For Heidegger (1977), we view a river merely as a force for the water mill vis-à-vis a floating spirit due to the fact that we were thrown into a particular mode of Being, namely Gestell (enframing). We respond to Gestell by representing every being as a standing reserve to be ordered wishfully. Heidegger resolves to the idea of the thingness of things for a solution. Thingness, i.e., what makes a thing a thing, is a multi-dimensional horizon through which the fourfold -heaven, earth, mortals, and divinities -gathers and reveals itself (Mitchell 2015). Despite being notoriously vague in his explanation of the fourfold, Heidegger is much successful in foregrounding the crisis introduced by the technologization of the lifeworld. For him, the technological activities, as a mode of Being, impoverish our comprehensive existence. Heidegger’s critique examines technological practice at the level of ontology, rendering philosophy of technology a subject of first philosophy. However, beyond the critique, there is not much that can be told from Heidegger’s philosophy of technology. To address technology as an ontological vis-à-vis ontic matter reveals certain reality but, at the same time, conceals the complex influences of various technological artifacts. For instance, Heidegger’s critique of technology requires him to treat modern agricultural technologies as worse as gas chambers, for they both treat beings—earth or human lives—as a mere standing reserve to be used, and this is deeply troubling for many. Arguing Heidegger’s critique as nostalgic, extremely general, and abstract, which discusses the “transcendental” preconditions of technology instead of any concrete technologies, Ihde and Verbeek both accuse Heidegger of lacking philosophical resource to study technologically mediated reality that consists diverse concrete technological artifacts. Although postphenomenologists, in particular, Ihde and Verbeek, have argued the very difference between phenomenology and postphenomenology lies in that the latter does not think in the wholesale sense that technology reduces our reality, thereby alienating us from authentic life, postphenomenologists have not provided an equivalent ontology to refute Heidegger’s thesis (Ihde 1995). The relational ontology of postphenomenology aims to be merely descriptive, describing how our experience of the world is mediated and/or co-constituted by technology; and, furthermore, as Verbeek has endeavored, illustrating the

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ethical implications of these experience. Here, the lesson of postphenomenology is twofold: (i) it informs us of the knowledge that makes various artifacts different, (ii) it shows how technology, as individual artifacts, mediates our experience with the world. I believe phenomenology and postphenomenology should not be read as mutually exclusive. Heidegger’s existential ontology needs not to reject relational ontology and vice versa. We can retain Heidegger’s ontological insight about modern technology in general, while at the same time take postphenomenology as a method to analyze how concrete technological artifacts constitute our experience of the lifeworld. In particular, the notion of “civilizational given” proposed by Ihde over his reading of Heidegger may work as the ground for combing these two approaches (Ihde 1979, pp. 106–107). Heidegger holds that no being is given, but appears differently in different fields, namely the sphere that makes sense of a particular type of revealing. Technology vis-à-vis craftsmanship is one variant among the others that transforms the “civilizational given” to a new mode of Being that reveals beings as standing reserve. The “civilizational given” seemingly consists of both the customs (or traditions) of a particular stage of human history and the metaphysics behinds them. Heidegger refers to the “civilizational given” for coping with crisis introduced by modern technology. By discussing the idea of Techne as Poiesis (bringing forth) of the civilizational given, Heidegger introduces a notion of the thingness of things, and argues further that it is the fourfold, i.e., heaven, earth, mortals, and divinities, that characterizes thingness (Davis 2014). In this way, Heidegger attempts to identify some horizons that help Dasein to transcend the Gestell, so as to retain our existential freedom. Ihde adopts the cultural aspect of the civilizational given and applies the notion to investigate why the same kind of artifacts has taken up various forms in his multistability thesis. In his experimental phenomenology, culture works as a macro-horizon that shapes how things appear to us in various forms. With this in mind, we might be able to reconsider technology by reconstructing the macro-horizon through which they appear to us. Several scholars have discussed the multistabilities of technology in different cultures (Bockover 2003; Wang 2016; Wong 2013). Inspired by both Heidegger and Ihde, my question is about the role of the “civilizational given” in giving rise to the different revealing of technological artifacts. From the Heideggerian perspective, it means exploring how this notion helps to free us from the dominance of technological enframing, whereas from Ihde’s viewpoint, we can ask how the “civilizational given” enables us to make sense of specific technological artifacts. Here, I argue that traditional Confucianism embraces a ritual dimension of technology that has long been missing in the contemporary society, and to restore ritual technicity of artifacts might help us to lead a more comprehensive life. Ritual, as a part of and the origin of culture, provides us with a dialectical view on technological artifacts, which both appreciates and transcends the practicality of technological artifacts, and, as a result, embraces two general types of human–technology relations, i.e., to use and to perform.

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1.3  On Confucian ritual technicity Heidegger emphasizes pre-modern uses of artifacts much in his analysis, through which he introduces the notion of thingness, namely the gathering of the fourfold (heaven, earth, mortals, and divinities). Despite his obscurity, what is clear is Heidegger’s appreciation of the ritual dimension of technology as an element of the “civilizational given”. For Heidegger, a casket is not merely a box for the corpse, but it is rather a gathering of life and death and of hope and despair. The coffin presents itself not in a void but in the backdrop of a funeral that is inherently ritualistic. However, Heidegger has not articulated a view of ritual as the “civilizational given”. Ihde (1986) shows that technology is situated in the macro-horizon of culture, and yet he also has not specified how rituals play a role in the macro-horizon. Here, I shall add a ritual dimension to human–technology relations. A ritualized relationship transcends human experience from the limits of practicality to sacred truth. The idea of ritualized relationship may sound bizarre to a modern, secularized individual, and yet the rituality of (technological) artifacts has long been celebrated in the Confucian tradition. I hold that certain aspects of reality are intangible without engaging ritualized artifacts. Indeed, anthropologists have proposed that Homo sapiens had made more stone tools than they could possibly use, and the superfluous tools might be made for ritual purposes.

1.3.1  The case of Confucian archery I shall start with the case of archery to illustrate the ritual dimension of artifacts. Ihde (1986) discusses at length the case of archery in explaining his concept of multistabilities. He points out that the English longbow differs from the Mongolian horsebow due to the different wood materials, body skills, and cultural context. The case of archery aims to demonstrate the use of technology makes sense only against a particular background, in particular a cultural context, as the macro-horizon shapes, through a Gestalt switch, how the technological artifact appears to us. Archery in Confucianism is another interesting variant. It does not only serve in hunting but it is also considered as one of the seven cardinal skills to be performed by all nourished junzi (Chen 2002; Song 2006). In Confucian archery, the target symbolizes the right goal to be fulfilled. To shoot the target according to various embodied rites represents a junzi achieving his ends according to the demands of humanity: one’s standing firm and shooting straight symbolize the junzi’s adherence of the right way and not being distracted by their wanton desires. Here, it is clear that Confucian archery bears not only a practical function for hunting, but also a symbolical function for performing moral consummation. It becomes a technological variation that transcends practicality. Indeed, Confucian archery only makes sense in its cultural context. (Early-)Confucians believe that one could not embody morality by simply embracing an abstract

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moral epistemology. To fully realized humanity, Confucians believe that one needs to engage their mind and body with materiality and the functions of specific artifacts in both practical and ritual manner. In short, the ritual dimension of artifacts is deeply rooted in the Confucian cosmology, which works as a “civilizational given” for concealing and revealing.

1.3.2  Confucian cosmological personhood Confucianism differentiates three types of human–thing relations, namely I (a) see, (b) use, and (c) perform things: to see is to investigate, to use is to serve, and to perform is to embody. The three relations are different but mutually constitutive. To articulate the nature of the three relations, we need to first examine the concept of Confucian cosmological personhood. This concept, as a macro-horizon, shapes how artifacts appear to Confucians.3 Confucian concept of person differs significantly from that of the Western philosophical traditions. Taking Kant as an example, Kant holds that it is the persons’ free rational agency that makes them unique. Human beings are different from other beings, plants, and animals, for instance, in the way that they are not fully determined by natural laws and instincts. Human beings are free in their agency, as their reason legislates their own will. Persons are both law-givers and followers. As such, they are autonomous agents who act upon their own rational will against their natural desires. Kant ascribes great value to personal autonomy, claiming that anything that meets only our natural needs has a finite price, whereas the condition that constitutes us as ends in ourselves, namely, autonomy, is unconditionally valuable. As such, persons, as the source of normativity, are ontologically different from other beings, and technology is thus seen merely as a tool to be used for practical purposes. Technology contributes nothing to the agency, as our rational nature is grounded in the metaphysics (Kant 1998). In contrast to the view of atomic and autonomous person, Confucianism focuses on the idea of cosmological personhood, which embraces human being’s differences with other beings, such as mountains, animals, plants, without maintaining an ontological dualism (Wang 2018). Confucians consider human beings to be different from other beings as they possess unique conscience that allows them to understand and actualize cosmological unity, i.e., the ultimate existential reality of human (Henderson 2011). Here, the cosmology should not be understood in astronomical terms but as an existential realm where human, heaven, and earth are mutually constitutive to one another. The Confucian cosmos is a result of qi (气) dynamic. The li-qi (理气) relationship is the most debated topic in the Neo-Confucianism. Li literally means the heavenly pattern, while qi is often understood as the material or the practice of li. Li guides qi, while qi actualizes (or concretizes) li. There are scholars who prefer a more radical ontology, regarding qi as the very basis of their cosmogony (Chen 2011; Lee 2001; Liu 2015). For instance, the prominent Neo-Confucian philosopher Liu Jishan proposes a unique cosmogony and creatively correlates qi with the four basic categories of

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impulses/feelings. When the dynamic qi initiates itself, this stage can be identified as happiness. It represents the faculty of creating or originating and corresponds to the season of spring. When it comes to the objective/intersubjective, this is called humanity; when it comes to the subjective, this is the heart of compassion. Like spring bringing beings into life, the heart of compassion is devoted to making a person feel genuinely happy about others’ presence and to motivate them to help those whose lives are in trouble. When the qi dynamic is successfully put into practice, it results in joy. It represents the cultivation of the heavenly pattern, and corresponds to the season of summer. As an intersubjective force, it manifests itself in ritual; as a subjective presence, it shows itself as the heart of modesty. Like summer, which lets every being grow without conflict and therefore cultivates growth, rituals and modesty teach people how to live together, and this sort of communal life brings us a sense of joy. When qi restricts itself, it is called solemnity. It represents advantageousness or fruitfulness and corresponds to the season of autumn. It means righteousness for the intersubjective experience, and a feeling of shame for the subjective. As things become fruitful during autumn, righteousness and shame grow as people mature, making them solemn. Lastly, when qi pauses, it is called sadness. It represents firmness and corresponds to winter. It entails intersubjective wisdom and a sense of right and wrong within the domain of the subjective. Just as winter is cold and requires perseverance, wisdom and a sense of right and wrong make people cool-headed and stable, and the contemplation that comes along with wisdom is perceived as sadness. Heaven, with its highness and all-encompassingness, represents dao, i.e., the constant law that rules; earth, with its firmness and groundingness, nourishes and supports human life; and, human beings, as unique beings of conscience, live under heaven through its four seasons (spring, summer, autumn, and winter) and on earth through four phrases of organic life (birth, aging, sickness, and death), and practice the four grand virtues of originating (yuan 元), penetration (heng 亨), being advantageous (li 利), and becoming correct and firm (zhen 贞). Heaven, earth, and human correspond to each other, embracing also a mutually constitutive relation. With heaven, the groundingness of earth appears; and, earth contrasts the highness of heaven. Both heaven and earth serve as an existential space where human lives through. Human beings become a person as they stand between heaven and earth, and because of their unique position, heaven and earth become meaningful. As they make a constant effort to interpret their existence as constituted by the heavenly pattern and materiality. With their effort, heaven, earth, and human exist together as a (sacred) unity. Being situated and constitutive in this unity, persons home themselves. Confucian cosmological personhood is characterized by living with the four grand virtues corresponding to the four seasons and four phrases of earthly life. I hold that the Confucian view on the correspondence among heaven, earth, and human should not be read as a scientific project but as an existential one, and therefore the Confucian cosmology should not be dismissed as unscientific

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and superstitious. It does not aim to provide a physical model of the universe and explain what things are. Rather, it attempts to deliver an existential thesis through which we make sense of ourselves as related to others in a cosmological unity and so embedded. We clearly do not experience seasons as changing numbers on a modern calendar, but we are embedded in the seasons and live them through traditional activities. In the Chinese (Lunar) calendar, seasons and days are viewed as (un)favorable for marriage, funeral, travel, etc. These activities are arranged and prescribed on the basis of resonation between the nature and our conscience. For instance, spring brings forth life and vitality, and as we experience the season of spring as creative and hopeful, it is therefore conducive to celebrate marriage. With the cosmological personhood in mind, Confucian sages educate people to approach the existential reality through carefully studying, i.e., to see and investigate, the law of nature (gewu 格物), paying existential attention to the things they use, as our conscience ontologically corresponds to these things (Chen 2018; Luo 2012; Shen 2012). Confucian sages encourage people to relate mundane activities, including the use of technological artifacts, to the cultivation of cosmological personhood. As such, Confucian literati have developed a variety of technics, such as music, calligraphy, and chess-playing, to nourish themselves. For example, music, which imitates the sound of nature, is crucial for moral cultivation, as tones and sound are moralized objects corresponding to our conscience; and, in calligraphy, the force we apply to brushes and the tempo-spatial arrangement of brush strokes are seen as a way to achieve inner peace. Similarly, furniture and architecture are displayed and used by Confucian junzi to achieve and express Confucian virtues. So construed, daily activities are not merely used as an expression of our agency, but they constitute our agency, i.e., the performance of these activities makes who we are. Along this line, Confucianism has even developed a concept of yigu xingwu (以故兴物), meaning to summon specific ritual feelings by deploying artifacts in the demanded manner (Yao 2014). It is believed that by tempo-spatially arranging artifacts, the materiality and functions of things will resonate with our conscience, thereby eliciting strong transcendental feelings of cosmological unity crucial to our authentic existence. Note that the idea of yigu xingwu is radically different from the idea of simply using artifacts for ritual purposes. The robotic monks deployed in Japan is a paradigmatic example of the latter kind (Rambelli 2018). The robotic monks do not contribute to the formulation of rituals, and they are merely used in the well-established rituals with clearly defined roles. Moreover, their symbolic meaning is exclusively appointed by human intention without introducing any re-designed/re-tailored physical structure. What I am interested in is the more nuanced ritual embeddedness in (technological) artifacts. I shall take taishi chairs, i.e., an important piece of furniture for Chinese literati, to offer a more detailed elaboration of the conceptual structure of yi gu xingwu.

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1.3.3  The case of taishi chair Taishi chair (see Figure 1.1) became prominent in Song dynasty (960–1279). It is crafted not for just sitting/resting but for performing a ritual of solemnness that aims to attain cosmological personhood. Taishi chair evolves from the Song to Qing dynasty with many variations. In the Song dynasty, it took the form of a well-crafted folding chair, while the round-backed armchair took up the role in the Ming dynasty. It was later reshaped in the Qing dynasty with a vertical straight back as well as hard enamel and vertical arms. The yellow pear wood was replaced by the more expensive red sandalwood. The chair, as a piece of daily furniture, clearly embraces rituality (Chen 1983; Gao 2004; Hu 1996). Here, I identify three types of ritual representations in taishi chairs.

Photo of Yokeback Armchair in the Metropolitan Museum of Art by Beatrice Pinto. Available in the public domain via https://www.metmuseum.org/ art/collection/search/39493

FIGURE 1.1 

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Esthetics. The esthetics of the ritualized artifacts is constituted by their form (their shapes, colors, etc.) and materiality (strength and texture of their materials), and the form and materiality are both considered as embodied. Wood, for its vitality in the Chinese cosmology, is used for the living person, while stone, as cold and inert, is for the deceased. Colors also correlate to the seasons, orientations, and virtues, and are inherently a ceremonial matter. Circles represent heaven, the unity of the family, while squares represent earth, the integrity of junzi. The shape, color, texture, and size of taishi chairs are all ritualized on the basis of Confucian cosmology, with an aim to create a micro-cosmos in and through using/performing everyday tools, mirroring the grand cosmos. Yet, it is not too difficult to grasp the rituals in and through these artifacts, as they build on our immediate existential experience. We feel awe to gigantic buildings, or soothed when covered by velvet blankets. These daily activities facilitate the development of Confucian cosmological personhood. In the case of taishi chairs, the design renders them very uncomfortable to sit in. The shape of taishi chairs restricts the sitters’ freedom to sit at ease: their back has to stay straight, with their hands resting horizontally on the chair arms. The seat and chair arms are made from hardwood, delivering no comfortable sitting experience. However, the result is intended. The straight back of taishi chairs symbolizes the integrity of junzi, who are expected to follow the straight path. The top of the chairs’ back often takes the shape of an official’s hat, which represents the social status of the owners. In addition, the four horizontal bars connecting the four legs of taishi chairs symbolize the hierarchy of society with their different height. The person who sits in a taishi chair is supposed to be a junzi, and the way the person sits in the chair also performs the virtues directly to himself and others. The esthetic of taishi chairs, therefore, presents to the spectators plenty of ritual loads. When seeing a taishi chair, a person’s attention will be drawn into a journey to cosmological meanings. Those who are confronted with taishi chairs almost immediately grasp their solemnness by imagining their own body interacting with the chairs. This experience is certainly not merely practical but also partly esthetic, which transcends human from sitting as resting to sitting as a ritual for celebrating cosmological personhood, i.e., junzi and sagehood. Function. The virtue-forming character of functional tools has long been noted by Chinese thinkers. Zhuangzi recalls a conversation between a young man and an old man on irrigating the old man’s vegetable garden. The old man uses a jar to water his field, and the young man suggests him to use a water pump instead. However, the old man rejects the suggestion and says, “I have heard from my teacher that, where there are ingenious contrivances, there are sure to be subtle doings; and that, where there are subtle doings, there is sure to be a scheming mind. But, when there is a scheming mind in the breast, its pure simplicity is impaired. When this pure simplicity is impaired, the spirit becomes unsettled, and the unsettled spirit is not

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the proper residence of the Dao. It is not that I do not know (the contrivance which you mention), but I should be ashamed to use it”. (Zhuangzi, Outer Chapters, Heaven and Earth 11, in Legge 1891) Zhuangzi’s view is that the very reason behind the function of the (technological) artifacts is to manipulate things to an extent that human beings can make most of them. Despite being a Daoist fable, this mentality aligns well with Confucianism. For example, when Yan Hui asks about governing a state, Confucius responds, “Follow the calendar of the Xia, travel in the carriages of the Shang, and clothe yourself in the ceremonial caps of the Zhou. As for music, listen only to the Shao and Wu. Prohibit the tunes of Zheng, and keep glib people at a distance—for the tunes of Zheng are licentious, and glib people are dangerous”. (The Analects 15.11, in Slingerland 2003, pp. 178–179) Confucius associates licentious melodies with glib people, and suggests that those who appreciate tunes of Zheng will become glib and insincere. The calendar, transport, clothes, and music are technics that (co-)constitute human agency and shape conscience through our bodily interaction with them. I contend that rituality and practicality are not mutually exclusive. Animal carcass, as sacrificial meat, is an artifact cooked and presented in a specific way, and its ritual significance predicates on its edibility. In effect, only edible flesh is eligible to be sacrificial meat. After the ceremony, the sacrificial meat is often distributed to the prayers as food. Here, the point of the ritual is to worship the divinity by offering them what is crucial and precious to human life. Ritual participants have to consume the meat in a prescribed manner to complete the ritual. As such, the practicality of artifacts is the precondition for their rituality. Similarly, artifacts might not be able to fulfill their practical function when their rituality is not appreciated. For instance, a house is not a home until specific rituals have been performed.4 A house is viewed as a home that protects, unites, and nourishes its dwellers; without completing the required rituals, a house is merely a pile of bricks and concrete slab. Rituality, in this sense, can be viewed as the precondition of the artifacts’ practicality. Accordingly, rituality and practicality are mutually constitutive. I hold that the practical function of artifacts should also have the affordance to invite and persuade their users to engage with artifacts in rituals. Taishi chairs invite their users to sit in with an uncomfortable but solemn gesture, imbuing them with a sense of piousness. The gesture also fits specific types of activities, such as a formal meeting with honorable guests, while unfits for others, such as having a nap. Besides resting, taishi chairs also serve to form virtuous characters: people who often sit straight, as a result of the constraints imposed by the chair, will eventually embody the sitting gesture even when in the public. They will

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be viewed as virtuous insofar as the body is considered as the site of expressing one’s inner virtues. Moreover, to sit properly in taishi chairs, a person has to develop muscle memory and ritual mentality to be able to sit in the chair for long. The chair, instead of merely being used, also demands our collaboration, and through the interaction between the chair and the user, one develops a transcendental experience in sitting, i.e., to perform the sitting as how we are homed in the cosmos. Here, to sit is not just to rest, but to unchain oneself from any external force that keeps one constantly being occupied, thereby retaining one’s existential freedom to contemplate the very existence of beings and leading to a cosmological experience of all things are in one (sacred) unity. Sitting, therefore, symbolizes one finding their authentic status in the cosmos. Prescription. Cultures and traditions also prescribe how technology is to be used. First, (technological) artifacts are arranged tempo-spatially together with other things. Taishi chairs are normally placed in pairs, expected to be used in a particular period of daytime, allocated in the center of the living room, at the two sides of a tea table and in front of a long, narrow table (Baxinzhuo 八仙桌). Chinese differentiates between wu (屋 public space) and shi (室 private space). Wu is the public space for public discussion, whereas shi is the private space for rest and study. To be public, Baxinzhuo is placed at the focal area of wu, and the accent wall behind Baxinzhuo is usually decorated with paintings and/or calligraphy plagues that express family mottos. The temporal-spatial arrangement of taishi chairs demands both devoted emotion and ritual skills to actually use them. One should treat the chairs, including their arrangement with awe and honor. A person’s facial expression and body gestures should perform and embody the attitude while managing to sit properly. Here, the chairs are clearly not perceived as an inanimate object, but a thing related existentially to other things in the room in accordance with the correlative cosmology. Hence, to sit in taishi chairs is always simultaneously a practical and ritual activity that enables a Confucian way of living. In short, the esthetic, attitudinal, and bodily interactions between human beings and artifacts constitute our agency. It can be understood as a form of nourishment/cultivation. A person who uses a taishi chair should live as a junzi in an effortless manner. Taishi chairs are not only used but also performed. Rituals can only be performed with full devotion. To perform is not merely to use, as performing does not presume a subject–object/human–tool distinction nor an instrumental mentality; performing demands the performers to be fully devoted to the activities, negating their self-awareness and transcending the divide between I and that, so as to give themselves fully to the ecstatic experience of the transcendental. One performs rituals not for any further purposes above the rituals themselves. Like dancing, a genuine dance performance is performed not for the spectators but with them to summon a comprehensive esthetic experience, rituals are not performed for the blessing or impunity from divinities, as rituals themselves are blessings and salvation. In this section, I have discussed the rituality of technological artifacts through the case of taishi chair case. The remaining

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question is whether the ritual dimension of artifacts might sill bear on and resonate with our contemporary life.

1.4  Ritual technicity and its modern relevance Intuitively, we can consider a technical artifact to be either practical or ritual, for it to be both seems to be absurd. Mongolian archery is practical but not ritual, and Confucian archery is ritualistic. Today, even taishi chairs have lost their cosmological horizon, leaving us nothing but the beauty of their form. Nevertheless, in everyday life, we still often treat technology and technological artifacts with both practical and ritual awareness. When we are marveled by brain–computer interface or genome editing technology, we are called to ponder upon our fundamental ways of our existence: what is the ultimate meaning of life; how do, and should, we relate our current self to the possible self and other beings; and how do, and should, we situate our life in the cosmos. Technology, especially novel and disruptive technology, reconfigures the familiarity of everyday life, and to use them often introduces both practical and ritual experience. Indeed, the ritual and practical dimension of artifacts are tightly entangled, as Edmund Leach has argued for a continuity mode of daily activities, as he puts it: “Actions fall into place on a continuous scale. At one extreme, we have actions which are entirely profane, entirely functional, technique pure and simple; at the other, we have actions which are entirely sacred, strictly aesthetic, technically non-functional. Between these two extremes we have the great majority of social actions which partake partly of the one sphere and partly of the other. From this point of view, technique and ritual, profane and sacred, do not denote types of action but aspects of almost of any kind of action”. (Leach 2000, p. 154) I believe this anthropological observation is indeed accurate. Daily activities are mostly practical and ritualistic. Yet, the ritual dimension of artifacts is often forgotten, or ruled out in philosophy of technology, largely because we tend to depict human life primarily as scientific. Scientific (instrumental) rationality ensues a form of subjectivity that pits human against their environments, and perceives human as disembodied, disinterest observers. The interest of science is to discover the laws of nature so as to use them to tame the world for human interests. For scientific rationality, the world is merely an inert, disenchanted object, ready to be used by human beings. Modernity is characterized by this grand narrative of human–world relationship (Whimster & Lash 2014), and together with consumerism, i.e., to consume is merely to satisfy immediate desires, modern technology impoverishes the comprehensive human existence. Insofar as human beings see themselves as the ultimate value-conferrers, who treat other beings merely as means for their ends, they are being practical. Here,

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using something practically does not only mean using it for meeting any needs but for meeting needs that lack a transcendental dimension. Scholars have long noted the problem introduced by the dominance of scientific rationality. Émile Durkheim (2001), in his study of sociology and religion, suggests that the profane life characterized by practical activities breeds a strong sense of individuality that could tear the community apart. Here, two hypotheses may help to account for Durkheim’s observation. First and empirical, practical activities are mostly concerned with the acquisition and distribution of scarce resources, which gives rise to fierce competition among individuals. Moreover, practical activities often strengthen human’s self-awareness of their individual needs, and thus encourage them to acquire more. These two tendencies are further dramatized by the use of technology, as technology is an efficient tool for accumulating resources and power. Second and ontological, as I have pointed out, that practicality prioritizes individuals as value-conferrers that matter. Accordingly, the selfish individual remains at the center of life stage, and the communal life recedes to the background. To prevent the collapse of the community, Durkheim refers to ritual activities as a remedy. Religions, festivals, and ceremonies are non-practical activities that transcend human as individuals into members of the heavenly kingdom via a divinity. Individuals can consider themselves as related to the divinity, living their life through it, and contemplating their death (as the afterlife) in accordance with it. As such, human beings are able to interpret their existence as communal. Along this line, I hold that artifacts are both practical and ritualistic even today, and it is important for the contemporary life to reinvigorate the ritual dimension of (technological) artifacts for the good life. I shall now turn to critically reconsider technology from this perspective.

1.5  Technology reconsidered Based on the idea of ritual technicality, we ought to question not merely how technology is used, or how our use of technology endangers freedom, restricts/enhances certain choices, but to critically reflect on how we perform technology. First, we should consider how technology facilitates our ritual imagination. Here, three questions need to be addressed. First and descriptive, we need to carefully describe how specific kinds of technology encourage a discourse of ritual imagination that transcends their practicality. Genome editing technology, for instance, facilitates a discourse in which the very foundation of humanity is challenged. The image/esthetics of genome editing technology points to a utopia where human beings become immortal. Here, the preconditions of the practical function of genome editing technology are: first, we see human beings as mortal creatures that are biologically limited; second, being mortal is bad, as mortality (including illness and natural death) is undesirable; third, the cure for mortality is through technological advancement. This

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narrative about human and their destiny is inherently religious, and yet the human beings who are equipped with genome editing technology, and would become immortal, will certainly reshape the image of human of the old myth. In this respect, the practical function of genome editing technology affords ritual imagination. When the Chinese scientists made the first genome-edited babies, it calls for a phenomenological framework to describe how genome editing technology is performed by various agents, e.g., He Jiankui, his peer scientists, and the public, and to explore what the “civilizational given” that make the particular ritual dimension meaningful. By imagining one’s own body interacting with this technology, and by socially performing this embodied attitude to the public, genome editing technology is a ritualized activity that requires detailed phenomenological analysis. In a similar vein, we also need to explore how the ritual imagination of technology shapes their practical dimension. Technologists do not necessarily have a clear practical function in mind when they design technology. We sometimes gradually bring forth technology when performing its prototypes in the “civilizational given”. If we imagine genome editing technology as a cure to death, we will most likely use it for human enhancement. The way we celebrate technological achievements also provide us with a cognitive framework that shapes the form of technology. To reiterate, performing instead of merely using technology means several things. First, performing things predicated on using it; second, performance is social; and, finally, performance often serves as a signifier that points to the meaning beyond practicality. In contrast to using genome editing technology, performing genome editing technology is always provocative, as it introduces a deeper meaning that goes beyond using it. It points to immortality, which problematizes the foundation of humanity that views human beings as mortal creatures. Here, Confucians might reject genome editing technology insofar as human immortality being incompatible to the Confucian cosmology. Moreover, we need to consider how we perceive individual use of technology as a public matter. Rituals are inherently a social activity, as they are always performed by performers and their audience. When taishi chairs are used, they are always performed in ways that orient oneself to the others, and so the room where the chairs are placed is thus regarded as a public space. The same can be applied to other technology as well. Social platforms and various services on them are made possible because of the massive amount of shared (personal) data provided and generated by individuals. When we are using these platforms, we are always using them and, at the same time, performing them to the public. In the beginning, we expect to use them for networking, but by performing them, we tend to downplay our privacy, giving away more and more (personal) information to the public, thereby making individual acts a public matter, and we celebrate it as well. Social media becomes a ritual activity that points to a new understanding of human.

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As such, we need to be more attentive to the social nature of performing technology. We need to be aware of what we are performing, who our audience is, what our performance means to them, and how others’ performance affects us. Ritual performance aims to form the cohesion of the community by introducing transcendental meaning to practical function. For instance, with social media platforms, it seems a global community is also under way. Here, I am not referring to various social groups formed on social media platforms based on similar interests, but to the community of social media platform, i.e., a group of individuals who celebrate social media platforms’ activities, performing as social media users. In this respect, we need to examine how the ritual/performative dimension of human–technology interaction brings people together to form a community. Here, my approach differs from the sociological analysis, which focuses on the functional feature of social media platforms, the ritual/performative dimension foregrounds how individuals identify themselves as social media users, and how they perform this role in various occasions. Finally, we need to examine how our use of technology, as we perform it, relates us to authentic existence. As I demonstrated in the case of taishi chair, Confucian cosmological personhood emphasizes the agency-constitutive role of performance. By sitting in the chair, with the specific bodily interaction between the user and the chair, a person’s heart–mind can be cultivated. In other words, the chair matters not only for meeting practical needs, but also for fulfilling the ritual purpose of becoming a real junzi and achieving the cosmological personhood. Along this line, we can ask how bodily interaction with (technological) artifacts contributes to our transcendental self-understanding and self-imaging. Here, two approaches can be further developed. First, as in Confucianism, we can explore how performing technology in an embodied manner affects our well-defined self-imaging. This is a retrospective approach that deals with virtues and vices of technology in relation to moral cultivation. The other approach is to articulate how the embodied experience of technology can transcend a well-established understanding of lifeworld and introduce a novel interpretation of human existence. Peter-Paul Verbeek has also addressed the mediating roles of technology and argued for embedding moral values in technological artifacts. However, this is not what I intend here. To embed the value of safety in the speed bump does change our behaviors, but it does not necessarily transform our moral agency. Driving over a speed bump at high speed is uncomfortable, but drivers are likely to return to their old behaviors when the speed bump is removed. The value being embedded is well-intended but artificial. By contrast, music and calligraphy cultivate individuals in a different manner. The practical purposes of music and calligraphy are to learn to sing and write respectively, and yet the ritual experience of music and calligraphy brings forth non-practical but performative outcomes, as they discipline individuals not by reducing their freedom, but by bringing the esthetic/ritual experience of order, tranquility, and a

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sense of belonging. The same can be applied to the use of technological artifacts as well: Global positioning system (GPS) is developed for navigation, but with the deep integration of GPS in everyday life, people have developed embodied experience of their particular existential space in which everything is ready to be picked up. GPS may then introduce a device paradigm and transform individuals into mere consumers, and it is the agency-constitutive role that is relevant for the Confucian reflection of technology.

1.6 Conclusion There is much left to be elaborated on, but this chapter aims to develop an alternative perspective for philosophical analysis of technology, i.e., the Confucian philosophy of technology. The idea of ritual technicality should help to highlight the performative dimension of human–technology relations that has so far been underexplored. We do not only use but also perform technology, and by performing technology, our existential agency is subjected to certain dynamics. We project a certain image to technology, prescribing how, when, and to what extent we use technology not merely for its practical function, but also in accordance with the ritual imagination. Technology in pre-modern Confucian society possesses ritual technicity, which situates the technology in a cosmological backdrop. Modern mentality, however, tends to reduce technological practice to mere practicality, whereas the ritual/performative dimension of technology is barely discussed and made explicit. To become aware of this, and to systematically explore how the ritual dimension unwittingly affects our technological practice, is an urgent task for philosophers of technology. The Confucian resources I referred to are indeed peculiar to a specific cultural tradition, but the ritual/performative dimension of technology should remain a useful concept and applicable across different cultures. For instance, Christian cultures can make use of their own traditions to approach the ritual technicity unique to them, and to examine how their ritual narratives help in broadening their horizon for the philosophical analysis of technology.

Notes 1 Alternatively, while the analytic philosophy of technology aims to open the black box by probing into the engineering of artifacts (Kroes 2012), the analytic approach’s excessive focus on technical details yields few results for broadening our understanding of technology. 2 Also, see Hung’s “Technological Mediation in and for Confucianism-based Cultures” in this volume. 3 Here, I shall remind of the diversity within the Confucian tradition.There are numerous schools of Confucianism flourished in various period of time. What I attempt in this section is to provide one, among many others, interpretation of Confucianism that is relevant for discussion in the philosophy of technology. 4 In China, for example, when upper beams of the house are raised, a set of ancient rituals will be performed for blessing, and when the house is completed, other rituals will be practiced for house-warming purposes.

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References Barbour, I. G. (1993). Ethics in an age of technology. New York: HarperOne. Beyleveld, D., & Brownsword, R. (1998). Human dignity, human rights, and human genetics. The Modern Law Review, 61(5), 661–680. Bockover, M. I. (2003). Confucian values and the internet: A potential conflict. Journal of Chinese Philosophy, 30(2), 159–175. Chen, C. (2002). The rise and decline of the rites of shooting and the development of its culture. Journal of Nanjing University of Science and Technology (Social Science), 15(1), 20–23. Chen, L. (2011). Neo-Confucianism in Song and Ming dynasty. Beijing: SDX Joint Publishing Company. Chen, L. (2018). On the path and characteristics of Wang Yangming’s Xiusheng Gongfu Theory. Morality and Civilization, 5, 46–55. Chen, Z. (1983). A study of taishi chairs. Cultural Relics, 8, 84–88. Crease, R. P., & Achterhuis, H. (2001). American philosophy of technology: The empirical turn. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Davis, B. W. (2014). Martin Heidegger: Key concepts. New York: Routledge. Durkheim, E. (2001). The elementary forms of religious life. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gao, F. (2004). The design history of China. Nanning: Guangxi Fine Arts Publishing. Heidegger, M. (1977). The question concerning technology. In D. F. Krell (Ed.), Basic writings (pp. 307–43). New York: Harper & Row. Henderson, J. B. (2011). The development and decline of Chinese cosmology. Taipei, Taiwan: Windstone Press. Hu, D. (1996). Ancient chairs and stools. Palace Museum Journal, 3, 23–33. Ihde, D. (1979). Technics and praxis: A philosophy of technology. Dordrecht: Reidel. Ihde, D. (1986). Experimental phenomenology: An introduction. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Ihde, D. (1990). Technology and the lifeworld: From garden to earth. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Ihde, D. (1995). Postphenomenology: Essays in the postmodern context. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Ihde, D. (2009). Postphenomenology and technoscience: The Peking University lectures. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Kant, I. (1998). Groundwork of the metaphysics of morals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kroes, P. (2012). Technical artefacts: Creations of mind and matter: A philosophy of engineering design. Dordrecht: Springer. Leach, E. (2000). The essential Edmund Leach: Anthropology and society. New Haven: Yale University Press. Lee, M. (2001). Liu Zongzhou’s criticism against Zhu Xi’s theory of Li and Qi. Chinese Studies, 19(2), 1–32. Legge, J. (Trans.) (1891). The Writings of Chuang Tzu. Available Online at: https://ctext.org/ zhuangzi Liu, S. (2015). The three epochs of Confucian philosophy. Hong Kong: Chinese University Hong Kong Press. Luo, A. (2012). “Gewu Zhizhi” or “Zhizhi Gewu”. History of Chinese Philosophy, 3, 72–77. Mitchell, A. J. (2015). The fourfold: Reading the late Heidegger. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Rambelli, F. (2018). Dharma devices, non-hermeneutical libraries, and robot-monks: Prayer machines in Japanese Buddhism. Journal of Asian Humanities at Kyushu University, 3, 57–75. Reynolds, G. (2011). Ethics in information technology (4th ed.). Mason, OH: Cengage Learning.

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Shen, H. (2012). A new approach to Zhu Xi’s theory of investigation and knowledge: In perspective of virtue epistemology. Monthly Review of Philosophy and Culture, 39(2), 69–102. Slingerland, E. (Trans.) (2003). Confucius analects: With selections from traditional commentaries. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company. Song, Z. (2006). A study of late Shang Dynasty’s archery ritual from the inscription on oracle bones and bronze objects recently unearthed. Journal of National Museum of China, 1, 10–18. Verbeek, P. P. (2010). What things do: Philosophical reflections on technology, agency, and design. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press. Verbeek, P. P. (2011). Moralizing technology: Understanding and designing the morality of things. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Wang, T. (2016). Designing Confucian conscience into social networks. Zygon, 51(2), 239–256. Wang, X. (2018). Confucian cosmological life and its eco-philosophical implications. Environmental Ethics, 40(1), 41–56. Whimster, S., & Lash, S. (2014). Max Weber, rationality and modernity. London: Routledge. Wong, P.-H. (2013). Confucian social media: An oxymoron? Dao, 12, 283–296. Yao,Y. (2014). An investigation of “Yi Gu Xing Wu” with reference to the Guodian Chu Slips’ Xing Zi Ming Chu. History of Chinese Philosophy, 3, 23–29. Zahavi, D. (2003). Husserl’s phenomenology. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

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2 DAO, HARMONY, AND PERSONHOOD Toward a Confucian Ethics of Technology Pak-Hang Wong

2.1 Introduction Until recently, non-Western philosophical traditions are either absent or marginalized in philosophy of technology. Philosophers, notably those who are interested in inter-/cross-cultural issues and those who are in the field of bioethics and environmental philosophy, have sought to introduce non-Western philosophical traditions into the debates. However, there are few systematic attempts to construct and articulate general accounts of ethics and technology based on other non-Western philosophical traditions.1 This situation is understandable, for the questions of modern sciences and technologies appear to originate from the West; at the same time, the situation as such is undesirable. Joel J. Kupperman (2010a) has pointed out, the lone focus on Western philosophical traditions has an inevitable narrowing effect. The overall aim of this chapter, therefore, is to introduce a different account of ethics and technology based on the Confucian tradition. In doing so, it is hoped that this chapter can form the basis of the Confucian ethics of technology. Immediately, there are two major challenges for this task. First, the Confucian tradition covers an enormous field of study including its metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics, which is impractical, if not impossible, to include in the present chapter. Second, there are numerous conflicting interpretations of Confucianism from its early inception to the present. It is, therefore, more appropriate to speak of many Confucianisms than the Confucian tradition. To answer the first challenge, I shall restrict my discussion only to three notions that, I think, are most relevant for an account of ethics and technology in a Confucian perspective, i.e.,

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dao (道), harmony (he 和), and personhood. To answer the second challenge, I shall elaborate the least controversial interpretation of Confucianism by identifying the basics that are shared or, at least, can be shared, by various interpretations.2

2.2  Dao: the foundation of Confucianism The term “dao” is often linked to Daoism, i.e., a major rival to Confucianism, but, as a matter of fact, it is one of the most important notions in Chinese thought. At the same time, dao is also one of the most elusive notions. It is so because the notion has been the focus of debates within and between various Chinese philosophical traditions, resulting in a variety of understandings of the term. 3 Yet, for its importance in Chinese thought, an account of dao is necessary in order to have a proper understanding of it. Since this chapter focuses on Confucianism, I will look specifically at the notion of dao in Confucianism. Confucians believe that the universe is organized and governed by a specific principle, which they called dao. While Confucians use the term “dao” to refer to the organizing and governing principle of the universe, the term is also being used in other ways. In a summary of the meaning of the term “dao”, Bryan Van Norden pointed out that “[Dao] has several related senses. (1) The original sense was ‘way’, in the sense of ‘path’ or ‘road’. It came to mean (2) ‘way’, in the sense of ‘the right way to do something’, or ‘the order that comes from doing things in the right way’, (3) a linguistic account of a way to do something, or ‘to give a linguistic account’, (4) a metaphysical entity responsible for the way things act”. (Van Norden 2000, p. 24) As the summary shows, dao has different connotations, i.e., it is, at the same time, metaphysical, epistemological, and ethico-political. In its metaphysical connotation, i.e., (4), dao is most often associated with Heaven (tian 天).4 In Confucian thought, Heaven refers to the universe, and/or when in conjunction with Earth (di 地) to the nature and the material world. Confucians believe Heaven is the source of all meaning and value. Heaven is said to have its own dao, i.e., the dao of Heaven or the Heavenly dao (tiandao 天道), which is the principle that organizes and governs the universe and/or the material world. Although the exact meaning of Heaven is disputed in Confucianism, there are two common understandings of it. In the spiritual, religious understanding of Heaven, it is understood as the Supreme Being, who is responsible for organizing and governing the material and human world(s) (Huang 2007; Ivanhoe 2007). And, in the naturalistic understanding of Heaven, it is conceptualized as the nature akin to the Natural Law tradition in modern European philosophy (Liu 2007). Either way, Heaven is conceived as the ultimate source of normativity. It should be pointed out that the normative role of Heaven in Confucian thought is not merely negative but also positive and proactive, and that the

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worldview powered by Heaven is not deterministic. For Confucians, Heaven does not only sanction and rectify the wrongdoings; it also nourishes things. For human beings, Heaven bestows them with the potential to become attuned to Heaven. Everything has its own dao, which is an instantiation of the Heavenly dao. These daos specify how things ought to be (or ought to be done). Somewhat paradoxically, however, while the dao of Heaven specifies the goal and ideal of human beings, and in spite of the significance of Destiny (ming 命) in Confucian thought, it does not predetermine people’s course of action. For instance, it is stated in The Analects 15.29 that “[h]uman beings can broaden the Way—it is not the Way that broadens human beings” (in Slingerland 2003, p. 185). It is so because only through human beings the meaning and value embodied in Heaven can be realized. In other words, the Heavenly dao does not dictate human and social affairs; and, human beings, as followers of dao, remain firmly at the center of the universe. Following from the discussion above, the epistemological connotation of dao should be clear. Since dao (of Heaven) refers to the principle that organizes and governs the universe and/or the material world, it is epistemologically significant insofar as it specifies the good and the right ways to do things, i.e., (2). I will not discuss the details of the epistemological connotation of dao in this chapter, as it is not directly relevant to the current purpose. Still, it is worth noting that there is no sharp distinction between theoretical knowledge and practical knowledge in early Chinese thought; or, that the importance of theoretical knowledge is often downplayed. Chad Hansen has supported this view from a philosophical-linguistic perspective. He points out that the view of language in early China is not truth-apt but action-guiding. Language uses are evaluated in terms of right-wrong (shi-fei 是非) not truth-false. This non-representational view of language has disfavored the pursuit of theoretical knowledge, which aims primarily at the Truth (Hansen 1992, pp. 14–25, 51–52, & 85–86). Furthermore, as Hansen and other commentators have pointed out, the primary concerns of Confucians—and, in general, (ancient) Chinese thinkers—are practical in nature.5 As a result, the epistemology of Confucianism differs notably from the other philosophical traditions. Finally, the ethico-political connotation of dao should also be clear, too. As previously noted, Heaven is the ultimate source of normativity, which includes epistemic normativity as well as moral and political normativity. Since Confucians believe that every dao is an instantiation of the Heavenly dao, the organizing and governing principles for human and social affairs, i.e., the dao of Humanity or the Human dao (rendao 人道), is thus too an instantiation of the Heavenly dao. The Human dao refers to the way human beings should live.6 Here, it is important to point out the uniqueness of the Human dao as an answer to how people should live: the Human dao chiefly focuses on people’s acquisition of virtues (de 德) but not on establishing universalizable norms and moral principles, as Confucians believe that virtuous persons know already how to live.7 This focus on the acquisition of virtues can be explained, in part, by the relationship between human beings

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and Heaven in Confucian thought. While the Human dao gains its authority from the Heavenly dao, it is a mistake to see them as two separate principles. In Confucian thought, Heaven and Humanity are characterized by the oneness of them, i.e., the Oneness of Heave and Humanity (tianren heyi 天人合一), as the Confucian classics The Doctrine of Mean and Mencius stated: “What Heaven (tian, Nature) imparts to man is called human nature. To follow our nature is called the Way (dao). Cultivating the Way is called education. The Way cannot be separated from us for a moment. What can be separated from us is not the Way…”. (The Doctrine of Mean 1, in Chan 1969, p. 98) “To fully apply one’s heart is to understand one’s nature. If one understands one’s nature, then one understands Heaven. To preserve one’s mind and nourish one’s nature is the means to serve Heaven”. (Mencius 7A1, in Van Norden 2001, p. 149) Accordingly, people can cultivate their nature to achieve their goal and ideal because Heaven has bestowed them with the potential to do so. People should cultivate their nature because it is to realize dao. The emphasis, therefore, is on self-cultivation. The oneness of the Heavenly dao and the Human dao is too illustrated by Confucius’ method of learning the dao, i.e., “[to] study what is below in order to comprehend what is above” (The Analects 14.35, in Slingerland 2003, p. 168). Confucius’ method brings forward two points concerning dao. First, it again affirms the oneness of the Heavenly dao and the Human dao, i.e., the former is known through the latter. Second, it also affirms the priority of the practical in Confucianism. As dao manifests itself in human and social affairs, Confucians believe that it is only pertinent to investigate the worldly affairs, i.e., the Human dao, rather than the unworldly, abstract dao of Heaven. To sum up, dao is the metaphysical, epistemological, and ethico-political foundation of Confucianism. While, for some, the metaphysical view and the epistemological view associated with dao have become obsolete and doubtful because of their alleged incompatibility with a scientific worldview, the ethico-political dimension of dao remains significant for the majority of contemporary Confucians. Hence, dao is significant for the current discussion as it underlies the Confucian ethics. Based on dao, as I will illustrate, a Confucian ethics of technology, which is unlike those that are based on typical Western ethical theories, offers an alternative way to look at moral issues pertained to technology.

2.3  Harmony in Confucianism The emphasis on the Oneness of Heaven and Humanity in Confucian thought has exemplified the importance of harmony in Confucianism. Confucians believe

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the ideal relationship between human beings and Heaven is not confrontational but harmonious, i.e., human beings are not against Heaven, neither is Heaven opposed to human beings. Depending on the view of Heaven, various interpretations of the harmonious relationship between human beings and Heaven can be elaborated. For example, it is argued that human beings and Heaven are of the same nature ontologically. Or, in the spiritual, religious understanding of Heaven, the oneness between human beings and Heaven is to achieve by following the will of Heaven.8 As an ideal relationship, harmony does not only hold between human beings and Heaven; it is an ideal relationship for within an individual and between individuals at the level of family, society, and the world. In Confucianism, special attention is given to interpersonal harmony, as Confucians believe not only that it exerts enormous influence on intrapersonal harmony, but also that it is a prerequisite for intrapersonal harmony.9 As Chengyang Li has pointed out, in Confucian thought, the harmony-disharmony distinction has the role similar to distinctions of right-wrong, goodbad, and success-failure (Li 2006, p. 588). In this respect, harmony can be conceived as a normative standard of Confucianism.10 Its role in defining the view of the good life in Confucianism, therefore, should not be overlooked. In order to see what harmony demands, however, it is necessary first to explicate the meaning of the notion. In an analysis of the notion, Kam-por Yu has succinctly summarized four key features of harmony in Confucian thought. According to Yu 1. Harmony is not complete agreement. 2. Harmony is not unprincipled compromise. 3. Harmony is balancing one thing with another one. 4. Harmony is the mutual complementation of acceptance and rejection (Kampor Yu 2010, pp. 21–25). To clarify the notion of harmony in Confucianism, each of the four features requires further explanation. The first and second features remind of the need to distinguish sameness (tong 同) from harmony. Harmony and sameness are explicitly set apart in Confucianism. For instance, in The Analects 13.23, it is stated that: “The gentleman [i.e., junzi] harmonizes (he), and does not merely agree (tong). The petty person agrees, but he does not harmonize” (in Slingerland 2003, p. 149). At the heart of the difference is the idea of creative dynamics, which Confucians believe to be essential to human flourishing. Aiming only at complete agreement leads to mutual reinforcement, but it does not promote creative exchanges. In other words, it only maintains the status quo, and it does not contribute to advancement or growth. Harmony differs from a complete agreement because it is mutually beneficial to the involved parties, which is made possible by their creative dynamics. Hence, unlike sameness, which precludes difference and diversity, harmony presupposes them.

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Similarly, harmony is not unprincipled compromise, as compromise per se is not conducive to mutual enrichment. For Confucians, unprincipled compromise is even detrimental to harmony.11 Since Confucians believe that people and things have their roles and functions, unprincipled compromise is, in effect, a form of suppression and/or repression of their proper roles and functions, which is going to result in disharmony. Hence, a relationship sustained by an unprincipled compromise cannot be considered as genuinely harmonious. In other words, a genuine harmonious relationship must be backed by reasons.12 The third and fourth features explain how harmony is to be achieved. As Yu has pointed out, three types of analogy are often used in the Confucian classics to explain the notion of harmony, i.e., the cooking analogy, the music analogy, and the health analogy (Yu 2010, pp. 18–20). What is in common in those analogies is that their success depends on coordination between those elements involved, where the coordination calls for the elements (i) to perform their own roles and functions, (ii) to relate to other elements in an appropriate way, and (iii) to not to over-power, or even dominate, other elements. Harmony, thus, requires balancing the things so that they complement and support each other. Those analogies also recapitulate the point that harmony, unlike sameness, is conducive to mutual enrichment because the outcome is always larger than the sum of its parts. The notion of mutual complementation of acceptance and rejection may appear to be puzzling at first. It refers to the idea that harmony “is achieved only if we are able to appropriate what is acceptable in what is objectionable and denounce what is objectionable in what is acceptable” (Yu 2010, p. 23). This notion stems from the recognition and acceptance of the complexity in real life and from the doubt of an absolute, decontextualized goodness or rightness. For Confucians, what is good or bad, and what is right or wrong, can only be determined in a concrete situation, in which particularities become salient. Harmony is achieved by taking into account various possibilities in that situation. In other words, harmony involves contextualized and holistic thinking. In practice, as Li (2006) has pointed out, concrete situations are seldom fixed; so, harmony can only be ensured by continuous negotiation and adjustment. In this respect, it is more appropriate to conceptualize harmony as a process, i.e., harmonization, than a relational property or a state of affairs.

2.4  On Confucian personhood A study of Confucianism, for the purpose of illuminating its account of ethics, is incomplete without considering the Confucian notion of personhood. In the modern Western view of personhood, which is preoccupied by a search for basic standards for the ascription of personhood, whether or not a being is a person is often determined only by the possession of certain characteristics of individuals. This view tends to define “person” in terms of inner characteristics; and, a person is typically conceived as an independent, rational, and self-determining being.13

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Following Michael Walzer (1994, Chapter 1), we can call this view of personhood a thin notion of personhood because it is a minimalist definition of person, which is devoid of social, cultural, and historical links and meanings. In contrast to this view, we can call the Confucian notion of personhood a thick notion of personhood because, as I shall illustrate, it goes beyond the minimalist definition and is inherently social, cultural, and historical. At risk of oversimplification, from the Confucian perspective, the notion of personhood provides answers to ethico-political issues at every level. It is so because the Confucian notion of personhood is ethical by definition. As Erika Yu and Fan Ruiping have nicely characterized, the Confucian person is relational, developmental, and virtue-based (Yu & Fan 2007, pp. 175–176). In order to see how the Confucian notion of personhood answers the ethico-political issues, different aspects of the Confucian person, i.e., relational, developmental, and virtue-based, must be elaborated in more detail.14 Few commentators would dispute the claim that the Confucian person is relational. Confucians think that human beings are inherently social and interdependent. David Wong pointed out that Confucianism presupposes a “social conception of the persons”, which refers to the view that human beings are “biological organisms and become persons by entering into relationships with others of our kind”. He also pointed out that Confucians posit human beings to be interdependent by nature, as human beings “need the help of others to develop as agents” (Wong 2004, pp. 420–421).15 In other words, Confucians think that human beings are inescapably born into a web of social relationships, and that they can only mature within the web of social relationships. This is exactly why harmonization, which involves a continuous negotiation and adjustment of interpersonal relationships for the sake of mutual enrichment, is seen as an ideal in Confucianism. Of course, there are similar relational views of personhood in other philosophical traditions, what distinguishes the Confucian notion of personhood from them is the weight it places on familial relationships and on social roles. Confucians take familial relationships to be of utmost importance. They argue that family is the very first social context where human beings learn to relate to and interact with others appropriately. They also argue that natural familial affections found in the parent-child relation form the basis of “love” toward others. For Confucians, therefore, family plays a principal role in shaping one’s personhood. Moreover, the importance of familial relationships in Confucianism is further illustrated by their effort to model all socio-political relationships upon the familial relationships. Also important to the Confucian notion of person is the social roles one occupies. In Confucianism, to be a person is to stand in some relations to others appropriately; and, to stand in some relations to others appropriately means that one assumes and fulfills the responsibilities the relations require. Consider, e.g., the five basic types of human relations (wulun 五伦) in Confucianism: parent-child, sibling, husband-wife, ruler-minister, and friendship; according to

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Confucians, each pair of human relations embodies a set of proper conduct and attitude, e.g., whether one is properly a parent is determined by his or her acceptance and fulfillment of the responsibilities to his or her child via following the set of proper conduct and attitude; and, the same holds for other human relations too. In short, to be a Confucian person is to stand in some relations to others, and those relations are to be understood prescriptively. So, a Confucian person cannot be defined independent of others; it has to be defined in terms of the social roles a person occupies.16 To call the Confucian person developmental is to see the Confucian personhood as an on-going process. Confucians regard personhood to be neither static nor given. It is not static because persons cannot be identified with any sets of characteristics of individuals. It is not given because, in Confucian thought, while every human being is endowed with the potential to be a person, whether or not human beings become persons depends on their preservation and cultivation of the potential bestowed on them. In other words, human beings are not born persons, and they learn and practice to be persons. In this respect, the Confucian notion of personhood is aptly labeled by Roger Ames and David Hall as “person-making” (Hall & Ames 1987). Since human beings are endowed with the potential to be persons, they only need to preserve and cultivate the potential in order to become persons. Hence, “person-making” is essentially about self-cultivation. In Confucianism, given the relational nature of personhood, self-cultivation is about learning and practice of relating to and interacting with others appropriately. While one can learn and practice to be a person, one can too degrade into non-person due to failure to assume and fulfill the required responsibilities. For example, a parent who fails to provide sufficient love, care, and guidance to his or her child is merely a beast from the Confucian perspective. Since there is the possibility for a person to degrade into non-person, being a person is literally an on-going process. In effect, the paradigmatic person ( junzi 君子) in Confucianism is a person who is always able to respond to different relationships and in various concrete situations with propriety. Finally, it should be obvious why the Confucian notion of personhood is virtue-based. Confucians think that personhood is defined in terms of virtue(s). For instance, in The Doctrine of Mean 20, it is stated that: “Humanity (ren) is [the distinguishing characteristic of ] man” (in Chan 1969, p. 104). Ren, often translated as “humanity”, “benevolence”, or “goodness”, is seen as the ultimate virtue in Confucianism (Wong 2008). Here, it is important not to mistake the quote to claim that having the virtue in itself suffices for personhood. Recall the developmental nature of the Confucian person: to be a person, it is not enough to have the virtue, what is necessary is the realization of the virtue within the web of social relationships. Since Confucians think that the realization of ren requires one to live a specific way of life informed by the social roles one occupies, the Confucian notion of personhood has to be seen as a thick notion.

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2.5  Confucian ethics: the basics17 To sum up the discussion so far, I have elaborated three central notions in Confucianism, i.e., dao, harmony, and personhood. In contrast to typical Western ethical theories, those notions proffer an alternative account of ethics. In this section, using the notions I have so far elaborated, I will outline an account of Confucian ethics, which, I hope, can form the basis for further discussion. Before outlining this account of Confucian ethics, however, it is helpful to begin by looking at one major divergence between typical Western ethical theories and Confucian ethics, i.e., the relation between the right and the good. Typical Western ethical theories assume a separation of the right and the good, as well as a prioritization of either one over the other.18 Unlike those theories, neither the distinction nor the prioritization of the right and the good is important in Confucian ethics.19 I have already illustrated that dao is the ultimate source of normativity in Confucianism; it is constitutive of both the right and the good. For instance, as the goal and ideal of human beings in Confucianism is the oneness of Heaven and Humanity, which is to be attained through the realization of dao, the realization of dao has epitomized human flourishing, i.e., the good. At the same time, dao has also delimited the right ways of its realization, too. As Erin Cline has illustrated it with the following passage in The Analects 4.5, “Wealth and honors are things that all people desire, but unless they are acquired by following the Way [dao] they are not worth having. Poverty and disgrace are things that all people hate, and yet unless they are avoided by following the Way [dao] they are not worth avoiding” (Cline 2009, p. 113). What this passage conveys is that even if something is good, when pursuing it in a way that goes against dao, a person should not do so. Here, note that the normative standard is not the right per se but dao. Referring to this and other passages in The Analects, Cline has argued that dao is prior to both the right and the good in Confucian ethics. Whether her claim that dao is prior to the right and the good is true or not, I think, she has rightly emphasized that the right and the good are intermingled in Confucian ethics. The claim that the distinction and the prioritization are unimportant in Confucian ethics can be illustrated by the notion of harmony too. In the discussion of harmony, I have pointed out that continuous negotiation and adjustment for harmony is the right thing to do. At the same time, however, it should be clear that a harmonious relationship, be it interpersonal or intrapersonal, is essential to human flourishing as well. Harmony, in other words, is also a good too. Moreover, in continuous negotiation and adjustment for the harmonious relations, a person has to balance his or her self-interest, i.e., the good, with other’s interest, i.e., the right; and, in the process of balancing, neither self-interests nor other’s interests take priority absolutely. As I shall show later, Confucian ethics, being a form of ethics resembles moral particularism, is dubious of prioritization in absolute terms. Let us now turn to Confucian ethics in more detail. Given the importance of self-cultivation and virtues in Confucian ethics, many commentators believe

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that Confucian ethics is best understood as a form of virtue ethics.20 Yet, in what sense can one characterize Confucian ethics as a form of virtue ethics? Justin Tiwald has identified two definitions of contemporary virtue ethics of which Confucian ethics may fittingly be labeled as virtue ethics. He pointed out, on one hand, that in one definition of virtue ethics, “[i]t presupposes that virtue (or perhaps approximate notions like flourishing) is more basic than rules of action and the maximization of good states of affairs, […] the explanatory primacy of virtue [is] definitive of virtue ethics” (Tiwald 2010, p. 56). On the other hand, he noted that virtue ethics can be defined as the view that “in engaging in higher-order moral reflection, the first or primary task should be to understand things like the nature, psychological structure and ways of cultivating good character, rather than the principles of right action or their relationship to various goods. [E]thics, when done rightly, attends to character first” (Tiwald 2010, p. 60). Tiwald’s characterization of Confucian ethics with these two definitions is illuminating, and he has supported his claim by numerous recent works. Yet, as Karyn Lai (2006) has noted cautiously, the rendition of Confucian ethics entirely as contemporary virtue ethics may risk losing insight of Confucian ethics (Lai 2006, p. 116). And, the problem is especially acutely in Tiwald’s first definition. Confucianism, as I have elaborated, has placed special attention on social role and the need for learning and practice, which “the explanatory primacy of virtue” fails to capture in its entirety.21 In Confucian ethics, a person’s social roles are morally significant because they specify his or her responsibilities in the web of relationships. Corresponding to each of the social roles, there is a set of proper conduct and attitude. It is only through following that set of proper conduct and attitude, he or she can realize dao, i.e., that his or her choices and behaviors are considered right and good. In this respect, social roles are both normative and motivational. They determine what we ought to do and provide us the reason for doing it. Given the importance of social roles and the corresponding sets of proper conduct and attitude, the learning of them is essential to Confucians. Here, to know what one ought to do is to know what social roles he or she occupies and, relatedly, the sets of proper conduct and attitude associated with the social roles. Yet, it has to be pointed out that learning about one’s social roles necessarily involves practice. The connection between learning and practice is exemplified by the Confucian notion of rectifying names (zhengming 正名), i.e., to rectify oneself to fit the title. For example, a parent ought to act what a parent is supposed to act, and any failures and deficiencies on his or her part must be rectified to fit what the name calls for; otherwise, he or she is not a parent. Hence, learning always involves practice, because by learning about the social roles and the sets of proper conduct and attitude, one is required to act out what he or she has learned. There is another route to demonstrate the importance of practice for Confucians. In the discussion of the Confucian notion of personhood, I have noted that being a person is an on-going process, which a person needs to guard

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him or herself from degrading into a non-person. Being a person, in effect, is practicing personhood. Yet, the purpose of practicing personhood is not only negative but positive too. Practicing personhood, i.e., appropriately relating to and interacting with the others in various concrete situations, enables a person to cultivate his or her moral sensitivity to the others and to the morally significant factors in the situation, which then allows him or her to comprehend relationships and situations more accurately and, thus, to respond with propriety more effortlessly (Lai 2006, pp. 117–118 & 121–122). The emphasis on practice, arguably, is the result of Confucian ethics’ focus on the paradigmatic person in its discussions of ethico-political issues. According to Antonio Cua, “In Confucian ethics, there is no straightforward application of moral and ritual rules. There are neither ‘rules of relevance’ nor ‘rules of inference’ for concrete moral performance… [The Confucian paradigmatic person ( Junzi)] is a paradigmatic guide for ordinary moral agents by virtue of his ability to cope with the changing circumstance within the Confucian moral point of view”. (Cua 1971, pp. 41–55; Quoted in Lai 2009, p. 81) There is no straightforward application of moral and ritual rules because Confucians recognize and accept the complexity in real life. Accordingly, there are rarely situations that are (nearly) identical so as to warrant a straightforward application of moral and ritual rules without the need to grant exceptions. At the same time, concrete situations are deemed too complex to be accounted for by any absolute standard(s). More important, perhaps, is the ideal of harmony in Confucianism. As I have illustrated, harmonization requires one to balance different factors in a concrete situation, it also requires one to take into account various pros and cons and to arrive at an “in-between” position of the mutual complementation of acceptance and rejection. For Confucians, therefore, ethical thinking and deliberation must incorporate the particulars in concrete situations.22 In this respect, Confucian ethics can be seen as a mild form of moral particularism, as it rejects the plausibility of moral principles and their application in concrete situations. As Lai pointed out, the rejection of moral principles and the focus on the paradigmatic person lead to the questions about know-how, e.g., “how to deliberate with reasons?”, “how does one learn to be a paradigmatic person or a ‘competent moral judge’?” (Lai 2009, p. 81). In short, Confucian ethics regards ethical thinking and deliberation as a skill. And, ethical thinking and deliberation, being conceptualized as a skill, have reinforced the importance of practice in Confucian ethics. Tiwald’s second definition of Confucian ethics as virtue ethics, I contend, is less problematic. It is true to characterize Confucian ethics as an ethics that “attends to character first”. More specifically, the aim of Confucian ethics can be thought of as self-modification and self-transformation, e.g., to become a

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paradigmatic person. In Confucianism, this self-modification and self-transformation are to be achieved via self-cultivation. As Kupperman (2010b) has pointed out, in contrast to typical Western ethical theories, which exclude the private sphere from ethical thinking and deliberation, Confucian ethics does not distinguish the private sphere and the public sphere as clearly. It is so not only because there are difficulties in dividing the private and the public in Confucianism, as one’s personhood is essentially co-authored by him or herself and the others within his or her web of relationships; it is also because Confucians believe that one’s conduct and attitude in private life will be carried onto his or her public life. This is so because Confucians believe that the kind of person one developed into over a period of time will manifest, albeit to varying extent, in both his or her private life and public life. As such, the ways one lives—his or her lifestyles—matter, particularly if one is interested in self-modification and self-transformation (Kupperman 2010b, pp. 17–22). This is why Confucians have stressed the importance of rites (li 礼), which, to put it in simplified terms, refers to the set of proper conduct and attitude associated with a social role. In following rites, a person internalizes the set of proper conduct and attitude; thus, modifying him or herself to realize dao, and, simultaneously, he or she is self-transforming in the direction of the paradigmatic person. In short, the scope of Confucian ethics is broader than typical Western ethical theories: it looks at the possibility of amelioration of oneself; and, it looks at the private sphere by studying the lifestyles that may be conducive to one’s self-modification and self-transformation.

2.6  Concluding remarks: toward a Confucian ethics of technology In the previous sections, I have introduced three major notions in Confucianism, and outlined an account of Confucian ethics. The purpose of this exercise is to summarize the potential resources for developing a Confucian ethics of technology. To end this chapter, I will outline a preliminary account of ethics of technology in a Confucian perspective using the resources I have summarized. My purpose of offering the preliminary account is to demonstrate, in what ways, Confucian ethics can contribute to the issues in ethics and technology. However, as the aim of this chapter is largely introductory and exploratory, it is not my intention to offer a fully developed account in this chapter, and I shall only highlight four major considerations that should be characteristic of a Confucian ethics of technology: 1. The Priority of Dao. In Confucian ethics, there is neither a sharp distinction between the right and the good nor a prioritization of one over the other. The realization of dao is conceived as the ultimate goal and ideal of human beings. In this respect, an ethics of technology in a Confucian perspective will investigate issues pertaining to what are the morally right things to do as

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well as what are the good things—either morally or prudentially—to do; or, more generally, what is good to be. Over the past years, there is already a turn toward well-being and the good life in philosophy and ethics of technology (e.g., Brey 2007; Higgs, Light, & Strong 2000). What distinguishes a Confucian ethics of technology from this turn toward well-being and the good life is that it does not isolate the good from the right and vice versa, for both of them are under the umbrella of dao. Here, the Confucian ethics of technology can, at least, serve as a corrective to the focus on either the right or the good. The challenge for a Confucian ethics of technology is to bring in prudential considerations, i.e., the good, or, to incorporate moral considerations, i.e., the right and the just, in thinking about issues in ethics and technology. While the notion of dao may invite suspicion because of its connotation with a mystical notion of Heaven, it needs not to be so. As Tu Weiming, a leading contemporary Confucian, has pointed out, dao symbolizes the very possibility of “learning to be human [by] a broadening and deepening process that acknowledges the interconnectedness of all the modalities of existence defining the human condition. Through an ever-expanding network of relationships encompassing the family, community, nation, world, and beyond, the Confucian seeks to realize humanity in its all-embracing fullness” (Tu 1993, p. 141). It implies, in other words, only a recognition and acceptance of imperfection of human beings and the possibility of self-modification and self-transformation for being a full person through learning and practice. In short, dao provides a direction to the ethics of technology that investigates human flourishing via technology. As such, the Confucian ethics of technology properly belongs to a form of “flourishing ethics” (Bynum 2006). 2. Harmony as an Ideal. There are two distinct directions Confucians may go with harmony as an ideal. The first direction concerns with applying Confucian ethics on issues in ethics and technology, and the second direction concerns with formulating issues in ethics and technology from a Confucian perspective. In regard to applying Confucian ethics, for some, relinquishing the distinction and prioritization of the right and the good leads to a problem in ethical thinking and deliberation, i.e., what one ought to do when the right and the good come into conflict. In response to this problem, harmony (or harmonization) steps in as the normative standard. Harmony calls for mutual enrichment for the parties involved; the problem, therefore, is not merely about right-or-wrong, or good-or-bad, but about optimization in and of concrete situations. It means that neither the right nor the good takes priority in absolute terms. Instead, a contextualized and holistic consideration of all-things considered is what it aims for. Following the previous consideration, the ideal of harmony takes over as the normative standard in ethical analyses. More importantly, in a Confucian ethics of technology, the ideal of harmony, as a process of harmonization, calls for a continuous negotiation and adjustment of

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relationships between human beings, society, and technology. As such, it does not seek a final answer to issues in ethics and technology, but to identify the possibility of harmony and disharmony in the relationships, and to preserve or to amend it. Since it does not aim at the final answers, it will formulate the issues in ethics and technology differently. As Kupperman (2010a) notes, typical Western ethical theories tend to focus narrowly on norms and moral principles for determining what is right and just. In contrast to this, a Confucian ethics of technology will be formulated in terms of know-how, focusing on learning and practicing harmonization in the technological world. This proposal may appear vague and ambiguous; but, I think, it is justifiably so. Since Confucians see ethics as a continuous process of self-modification and self-transformation, unlike most of the current research on ethics and technology, they will not formulate their inquiry in the form of a specific issue in ethics and technology.23 How, then, should Confucians proceed in ethics and technology? Perhaps, they can learn from Borgmann’s notion of focal things and practices (Borgmann 1984, pp. 196–226). Borgmann has argued for the importance of focal things and practices, such as running and family dinners, for (re-)engaging ourselves with the meaningful lifeworld; and, in part, his analysis aims at identifying the qualities of things and practices that qualify them as focal. Here, Borgmann’s focus on focal things and practices resonates with Confucian emphasis on know-how and harmonization-as-a-skill. In a spirit similar to Borgmann, then Confucians can examine various things and practices,24 and study if they promote our ability of harmonization. 3. The Significance of Social Role. In Confucian ethics, special attention is given to social roles; and social roles are conceived as both normative and motivational. A Confucian ethics of technology, therefore, should also pay special attention to the social roles individuals occupy in society. To be sure, the significance of professional roles has already been studied in engineering ethics and other professional ethics, but the notion of social role in a Confucian ethics of technology has to be conceived much broader. It should include familial roles, communal roles, etc. Confucians believe that social roles are constitutive of personhood; so, particular weight will be given to the social roles in ethical thinking and deliberation. This implies that an ethics of technology needs to scrutinize more carefully the nature of specific social roles and the responsibilities associated with them. In other words, it promotes a turn toward a role-based ethics in ethics of technology.25 In a recent study, Philip Brey has urged philosophers of technology to look more closely at technology-society relations, and to examine how technology interacts with various social structures, institutions and processes, cultural practices and beliefs, etc. (Brey 2010, p. 46). In a similar vein, a Confucian ethics of technology should urge researchers to examine how technology has influenced and/or transformed the nature of specific social roles and the responsibilities associated with

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them. However, such an endeavor is not merely historical or sociological, i.e., to discover what has changed in light of technology; it is normative, too. Recall the Confucianism’s emphasis on social roles: it maintains every social role is specified by a set of responsibilities. Its ethics of technology, therefore, should begin from those social roles and the set of responsibilities. Since technologies can either enhance or deter people’s fulfillment of their role responsibilities, and they can also change nature of the social roles, Confucians may evaluate them in terms of their impacts on social roles. For instance, from a Confucian perspective, the issues related to online friendship is not to be formulated in terms of the preconditions for friendship in the online world (e.g., Briggle 2008; Cocking & Matthews 2001). Rather, it is to be examined via the role responsibilities associated with being a friend.26 It, in turn, demands researchers to start from the role responsibilities of being a friend. There are a number of interesting studies of the Confucian notion of friendship available, but they have yet to be applied to issues related to online friendship.27 4. The Significance of Practice and Lifestyle. Finally, the emphasis on social role and role responsibilities is closely connected to the emphasis of practice in Confucian ethics. In order to perform a social role properly, Confucians have stressed that a person must learn and practice it. Translating it into a Confucian ethics of technology, it promotes an investigation of the kinds of actual and/or potential practices engendered by technology and a study of whether those practices are conducive or detrimental to our performance of the social roles. Looking at practices, it also marks the possibility of modification and transformation of oneself through the uses of technologies. Self-modification and self-transformation, however, are not only restricted to the public sphere; indeed, it happens more often in the private sphere. Hence, it is important to look into the ways one lives in light of technologies, i.e., the lifestyle. This is very similar to what Peter-Paul Verbeek calls “accompanying technology”, i.e., “to accompany the development, use, and social embedding of technology” (Verbeek 2010, p. 52). For Verbeek, accompanying technology primarily amounts to an ethics of design for the designers of technology (Verbeek 2006, 2008, 2009). For Confucians, accompanying technology will primarily involve users thinking and incorporating technologies creatively into their daily life. In short, it promotes a turn toward the ameliorative aspects of technology. Admittedly, the account of Confucian ethics of technology is far from complete, and the examples are far from conclusive. But, I have made no pretense that they are either complete or conclusive. To reiterate the purpose of the current chapter, it aims to initiate an uncharted field of philosophy of technology and ethics of technology by exploring another philosophical tradition, i.e., Confucianism, identifying the connections it has with other theories, and suggesting possible ways in which it can contribute to the issues in ethics and technology.

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Notes 1 For examples in intercultural information ethics (also known as “global information ethics”), see, e.g., Ess (2006, 2007a, 2007b, 2008, 2009), Ess & Hongladarom (2007), Ess & Thorseth (2010), Capurro (2008, 2010); in bioethics, see Fan (1999); and in environmental ethics, see Lai (2003). The aforementioned studies are all useful attempts to introduce Chinese philosophical traditions into the debates related to philosophy of technology and ethics of technology. However, none of them have provided a general account of ethics of technology from a Chinese philosophical perspective. Similarly, Bockover (2003) has analyzed the impact of Internet on Confucian values, but her account is primarily negative and does not offer a positive account of Confucian ethics for internet. The most comprehensive attempt to formulate a Confucian ethics of technology can be found in Wang (2002), but the current paper differs from hers in that it aims at constructing and articulating a Confucian ethics of technology and its philosophical inventories, which in turns allow others—who are not familiar with the tradition—to engage with them. Recently, Allen (2010) has offered an illuminating analysis of Daoist notion of technology, but since the current chapter focuses only on Confucianism, I shall set aside Allen’s analysis in this paper. 2 Many have already pointed out that Chinese philosophy differs from both the Anglo-American analytic tradition(s) and/or the European continental tradition(s) in its methodologies, fundamental assumptions, and basic concepts. The differences present a real challenge to do comparative philosophy. In her paper, Liu (2009) has summarized various approaches that aim to overcome this challenge. Here, I will adopt what Liu has labeled the analytic approach to Chinese philosophy. Such an approach is characterized by its focus “on the conceptual analysis of philosophical ideas, the clear formulation of argumentation, the investigation of philosophical problems and their solutions, and the posing of hypothetical thought experiments to test one’s intuition. [It usually] begins with the original text, but goes further to construct a philosophical system for the original Chinese philosopher who did not do so in his writing” (Liu 2009, pp. 8–9). See also, Wong (2009). 3 This point is aptly captured by the title of A. C. Graham’s book, i.e., Disputers of the Tao: Philosophical Argument in Ancient China (Graham 1989). 4 Translation of tian as “Heaven” in The Analects is not uncontroversial. For instance, Ames and Rosemont have argued that “Heaven” has an unnecessary and undesirable connotation to the transcendental realm in Judeo-Christian tradition, which is not apparent in the Confucian tradition; and, the moral(-political) connotation in the concept of tian, which is missing in the concept of “Heaven”. Accordingly, they think that it will be misleading to translating tian as “Heaven” (Ames & Rosemont 1998, 46ff).While I am aware of the problems associated with this translation and the potential merits of retaining the term “tian”, I still choose to translate the term because of lacking a better terminology to convey the multifarious meanings of “tian”. Although Ames and Rosemont’s approach of not translating the term may allow the concept to be understood anew, it will require a full exposition of the various meanings associated with the term, which is beyond the scope of this chapter. It is hoped that readers are reminded that “tian” and “Heaven” are not perfect synonyms; and, the term “Heaven” is better understood as a technical term for Confucianism in English. 5 Cf. Huang (2005, pp. 514–517) and Wong (2009). 6 The Human dao also has a political dimension, i.e., it is the way the ruler should rule the people and society. Although the separation of ethics and politics in Confucianism can only be done artificially, I shall maintain this separation and ignore the political dimension in order to avoid further complications. 7 It is here that the political connotation of dao (and/or the Human dao) becomes significant. In Confucian thought, the paradigmatic person (junzi 君子) is required not only to perfect oneself, but also to help other people’s self-cultivation. It is, therefore, the responsibility of the paradigmatic person to foster the good life of others, which includes, but not limited to, offering a view of the good life he or she deems appropriate.

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8 For an overview of various interpretations of the oneness between Heaven and Humanity, see K. Wang (2007). 9 This is evidenced by the Confucian dictum in The Great Learning, i.e., “to cultivate the person”, “to regulate the family”, “to order well the States”, “to illustrate illustrious virtue throughout the empire” (in Legge 1861, pp. 221–222). And, it is stated in The Great Learning VII.1 that, “[…] ‘The cultivation of the person […]’ may be thus illustrated: – If a man be under the influence of passion he will be incorrect in his conduct. He will be the same, if he is under the influence of terror, or under the influence of fond regard, or under that of sorrow and distress” (in Legge 1861, p. 232). In the original text, the literal meaning of “to cultivate the person” is to cultivate the body (shen 身), and it is to be achieved through rectifying one’s mind. Without going into the details of interpretation, it is clear from the passage that the interpersonal relationships, e.g., in family, states, and the empire, are dependent on intrapersonal states, i.e., person (or body). See, e.g., Wang (2010) for a discussion of the importance of (harmonious) body in Confucian ethics. 10 In effect, Li has gone further to argue that harmony is the normative standard of Confucianism (Li 2006, p. 589). 11 Cf. Li (2006). As Li rightly pointed out, in Confucian thought, the notion of harmony (or harmonization) presupposed difference. Hence, merely aiming at the elimination of difference, unprincipled compromise is, in effect, opposed to harmony. 12 Cf.Yu (2010, p. 22). 13 For a discussion of the modern, Western notion of personhood, see Bockover (2010, pp. 307–308),Yu & Fan (2007, p. 175). 14 Before proceeding to the discussion of the Confucian notion of personhood, one serious misconception of the Confucian self, which is often associated with the Confucian notion of personhood, has to be resisted. It is often claimed that Confucianism prioritizes the community/collective over the self/individuals. This claim amounts to a distortion of Confucianism, i.e., to say that Confucians prioritize the community/collective requires a sharp distinction between the community/collective and the self/individuals, but, as many commentators have already pointed out, there is no sharp distinction as such in Confucianism. See, e.g., Wong (2004, p. 420), Lai (2006). 15 Wong labeled the interdependent nature of personhood “the developmental sense of relationality” (Wong 2004, p. 421). His use of “developmental” differs significantly from the use of “developmental” in the paper by Yu & Fan (2007), where they use the term to characterize the Confucian notion of personhood has to be understood as a process. In this section, I am using the term in the sense suggested by them. 16 Cf. Nuyen (2009). 17 In this section, I will only focus on Confucian normative ethics. In a paper, Liu (2007) has offered an interesting analysis of Confucian meta-ethics in terms of moral realism.While Liu’s analysis is not uncontroversial, I think Liu is right to conceptualize Confucian ethics as a type of moral realism. Yet, because the details of Confucian meta-ethics will have little impact on the current discussion, I shall leave aside the questions concerning Confucian meta-ethics. 18 The separation of the right and the good in typical Western ethical theories is, I think, best captured by Charles Taylor’s claim that “contemporary moral philosophy […] has tended to focus on what is right to do rather than on what is good to be, on defining the content of obligation rather than the nature of the good life” (Taylor 1989, p. 3). Still, to describe the Western ethical theories as a whole commit to the separation is obviously an oversimplification. I contend that the differences I have identified in this section should be taken cautiously, and that there are plenty of exceptions in typical Western ethical theories. However, I still see the differences, at least, being heuristically useful and correct broadly construed. 19 Cf. Cline (2009). I contend that, indeed, some researchers have argued that the good is prior to the right in Confucianism. But, as it should be clear later, a prioritization of the good can only be done artificially. I believe the prioritization of the good is proposed mainly for a heuristic reason to contrast Confucianism with (Rawlsian) liberalism, which holds that the right is prior to the good.

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20 For an overview of Confucian ethics and virtue ethics, see Tiwald (2010). See also, Lai (2006, pp. 114–116). 21 Lai identifies seven features in which Confucian ethics departs from the contemporary virtue ethics, they are respectively, “[i] attention to roles and their corresponding obligations, [ii] consideration of what is right, [iii] connection between character and moral motivation, [iv] an ethic that is both act- and agent-centred, [v] the primacy of practice, [vi] a method of argumentation that prefers arbitration to adjudication and [vii] reasoned judgment based on what is the right or fitting thing to do” (Lai 2006, p. 116). Here, I shall focus on (i), (v), and (vii) for their immediate relevance for my account of Confucian ethics of technology. 22 In The Analects, Confucius was recorded to have offered different answers to the same question, e.g., “Zilu inquired, ‘On learning something, should one act upon it?’The Master said, ‘While your father and elder brothers are still alive, how could you, on learning something, act upon it?’Then Ranyou asked the same question.The Master replied, ‘On learning something, act upon it’. Gongxi Hua said, ‘When Zilu asked the question, you observed that his father and elder brothers are still alive, but when Ranyou asked the same question, you told him to act on what he learns. I am confused—could you explain this to me?’ The Master replied, ‘Ranyou is diffident, and so I urged him on. But Zilu has the energy of two, and so I sought to rein him in’” (Ames & Rosemont 1998, pp. 146–147; quoted in Lai 2009, p. 79). 23 This is not to say that the Confucian ethics of technology cannot be applied to the current issues in ethics and technology. 24 In accordance with Confucian ethics, the primary emphasis should be on practices; but, since we are talking about technologically mediated practices, things (or technologies) cannot be isolated. 25 Perhaps, in a Confucian ethics of technology, there is also the possibility to look at the social roles technologies occupy. Notice that in proposing the analysis of the social roles played by technologies, it does not imply an instrumentalist view of technology, i.e., just as being a friend is a role and has a set of responsibilities, it does not entail being a friend is merely instrumental, and the same can be true of technology, too. 26 Cf.Vallor (2012).Vallor has analyzed online friendship from the perspective of virtue ethics. There are many similarities in her analysis to the Confucian perspective mentioned here. But, as I have pointed out, virtue ethics has primarily focused on the individual’s qualities (or characters), whereas in Confucian ethics, the emphasis is on the social role and the responsibilities. In short, the example offered here differs from Vallor’s in that it starts with a normative and motivational account of friendship, but not the personal qualities (or characters). 27 See, e.g., Lai (1996), Hall & Ames (1998, pp. 257–269), Mullis (2010).

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Briggle, A. (2008). Real friends: How the internet can foster friendship. Ethics and Information Technology, 10(1), 71–79. Bynum, T. W. (2006). Flourishing ethics. Ethics and Information Technology, 8(4), 157–173. Capurro, R. (2008). Intercultural information ethics. In K. E. Himma & H. T. Tavani (Eds.), Handbook of information and computer ethics (pp. 639–665). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Capurro, R. (2010). The dao of the information society in China and the task of intercultural information ethics. Keynote address presented at The International Conference on China’s Information Ethics, Renmin University of China, Beijing. Available Online at: http:// www.capurro.de/china_infoethics2010.html. Chan, W. (Trans.) (1969). A source book in Chinese philosophy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Cline, E. M. (2009).The way, the right, and the good. Journal of Religious Ethics, 37(1), 107–129. Cocking, D., & Matthews, S. (2001). Unreal friends. Ethics and Information Technology, 2(4), 223–231. Ess, C. (2006). Ethical pluralism and global information ethics. Ethics and Information Technology, 8(4), 215–226. Ess, C. (2007a). Cybernetic pluralism in an emerging global information and computer ethics. International Review of Information Ethics, 7, 94–123. Ess, C. (2007b). Universal information ethics? Ethical pluralism and social justice. In E. Rooksby & J. Weckert (Eds.), Information technology and social justice (pp. 69–92). Hershey, PA: Idea Group Reference. Ess, C. (2008). Culture and global networks: Hope for a global ethics? In J. van den Hoven & J. Weckert (Eds.), Information technology and moral philosophy (pp. 195–225). Cambridge, NY: Cambridge University Press. Ess, C. (2009). Digital media ethics. Cambridge: Polity. Ess, C., & Hongladarom, S. (2007). Information technology ethics: Cultural perspectives. Hershey, PA: Idea Group Reference. Ess, C., & Thorseth, M. (2010). Global information and computer ethics. In L. Floridi (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of information and computer ethics (pp. 163–180). Cambridge, NY: Cambridge University Press. Fan, R. (1999). Confucian bioethics. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Graham, A. C. (1989). Disputers of the Tao: Philosophical argument in ancient China. La Salle, IL: Open Court. Hall, D. L., & Ames, R. T. (1987). Thinking through Confucius. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Hall, D. L., & Ames, R. T. (1998). Thinking from the Han: Self, truth and transcendence in Chinese and Western culture. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Hansen, C. (1992). A Daoist theory of Chinese thought: A philosophical interpretation. New York: Oxford University Press. Higgs, E., Light, A., & Strong, D. (2000). Technology and the good life? Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Huang,Y. (2005). Some fundamental issues in Confucian ethics: A selective review of encyclopedia of Chinese philosophy. Journal of Chinese Philosophy, 32(3), 509–528. Huang,Y. (2007). Confucian theology: Three models. Religion Compass, 1(4), 455–478. Ivanhoe, P. J. (2007). Heaven as a source for ethical warrant in early Confucianism. Dao, 6, 211–220. Kupperman, J. J. (2010a). Why ethical philosophy needs to be comparative. Philosophy, 85, 185–200. Kupperman, J. J. (2010b). Confucian civility. Dao, 9, 11–23.

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3 TECHNOLOGICAL MEDIATION IN AND FOR CONFUCIANISM-BASED CULTURES Ching Hung

3.1 Introduction The theory of technological mediation is a philosophical approach to understanding and investigating the role of technology in and for our daily life, which is developed against the background of the classical philosophy of technology and, at the same time, aims to go beyond the Heideggerian pessimistic view on technology. Inspired by the case studies in the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS), technological mediation theory avoids conceptualizing technology as a whole, i.e., in terms of Technology-with-a-capital-T, thereby reducing technology to its conditions of possibility. Instead, technological mediation theory regards the relations between technologies and humans as the “unit of analysis” and examines the question of “what things do” rather than “what technology is” (Hung 2014a; Verbeek 2005). Theory of technological mediation has become increasingly influential in the last decades, and there are numerous studies to deepen and strengthen the theory (see, e.g., Boer, Hoek, & Kudina 2018; Dorrestijn 2011, 2012; Dorrestijn & Verbeek 2013; Hung 2019; Jelsma 2006; Kudina & Verbeek 2019; Spahn 2015; Swierstra & Waelbers 2012; Verbeek 2011; Waelbers 2011), or to examine it critically within a broader philosophical tradition (see, e.g., Boshuijzen-van Burken 2016; Brey 2014; Feenberg 2013; Johnson & Noorman 2014; Mitcham 2014; Rao, Jongerden, Lemmens, & Ruivenkamp 2015). Because of its focus on human-technology interactions, the theory of technological mediation is also highly relevant to technology design, and thereby it has attracted attention from beyond the field of philosophy of technology (see, e.g., Weiss, Propen, & Reid 2014; Geisler & Rogers 2000; Hekkert, Tromp, & Verbeek 2011; Pandey 2018). However, if one takes a closer look at the discussion

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and debate in this growing body of research, it is not difficult to see that most of them are situated in the context of Western philosophical traditions. The theory of technological mediation, in fact, has gradually left its birthplace in the course of its development. Several Chinese research articles aiming to introduce the theory were published in recent years (see, e.g., Hung 2013, 2014b; Wang 2014; Cheng & Jia 2014; Yan & Yang 2011; Zhang & Wang 2012; Zhu 2010). In addition, a Japanese translation of its representative work, i.e., Moralizing Technology (Verbeek 2011), was published in 2015 and was followed by a simplified Chinese translation in 2016. Since most East Asian cultures are Confucianism-based, it is high time to bring the theory into the context of Confucianism. What are the (dis-)connections between such a philosophical understanding of technology and Confucianism? How, then, can they benefit each other? Moreover, what will be a Confucian ethics of technology when it is informed by the technological mediation theory? To answer these questions, I shall start with a brief introduction to the theory of technological mediation by summarizing its major content and moral implications.1 Then, I will go on along two tracks: one is to see how the theory can help Confucianism by introducing the former into the latter, and the second is to show how technological mediation theory can be strengthened if it takes Confucianism as a part of its core. Finally, I will argue that, with a slight revision in its practical consideration, technological mediation theory could release its potentials in East Asia.

3.2  Theory of technological mediation and its moral implication To understand the theory of technological mediation, we need to go back to its two predecessors: Don Ihde and Bruno Latour. To grasp the meaning of technology in the lifeworld, Ihde (1990) has discerned four relations that humans may have with technologies; two of them later become a crucial part of the theory of technological mediation. The first is the “embodiment relation”, which can be illustrated by the example of Heidegger’s hammer. When a person uses a hammer to nail a nail into a wall, what he is experiencing is not the hammer itself, but the reality—the nail and the wall—“beyond” the hammer. If the hammer suddenly breaks down, the person’s attention will then shift from the reality to the hammer itself. In other words, a well-functioning hammer is “transparent” to its user, just like a part of the user’s body. Such a relation between humans and technologies, therefore, is an embodiment, which helps humans to connect themselves to the world. It can be expressed as “(human–technology)—world”. Other examples of the embodiment relation are a person with glasses and a blind person with a walking stick. The glasses are not only physically transparent; they are also transparent to the wearer’s attention; and, so is a walking stick to the blind person, i.e., it is an “extension” of the holder’s arm for touching things, and thereby gives him a way to know the world.

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The second relation is the “hermeneutic relation”. Some technologies provide users access to reality through “presenting” the world. A thermometer, for instance, gives information about how hot or cold it is outside, by which we can easily know how it would feel without actually leaving the house. In other words, a thermometer “translates” the world in terms of temperature and reveals a specific aspect of the world. The same is true of a clock, we sense “time”, especially a tiny amount of time, when a clock is ticking. Such a hermeneutic relation can be expressed as “human—(technology–world)”. The world is not known to us directly, and what we know as reality is made by an association of technology and the world. Ihde’s analysis of both the embodiment relation and the hermeneutic relation shows us that technologies can give shape to what people know about the world.2 Another influence that technology can have on the human connection to the world is illustrated by Latour (1991, 1992; Akrich & Latour 1992). He argues that technology can be seen as a “script” through which what users do can be prescribed and expected; it is a “material” utterance that guides, directs, or even orders users. Here, the solution to the problem of key missing is a famous illustration. A hotel manager is annoyed by the customers: they always forget to leave room keys to the reception when going out, which increases the chance of losing the keys. Oral reminders do not work well; neither do written notices. The problem is finally solved when the manager chains a piece of heavy metal to every key with a key ring. The key, attached to the piece of heavy metal, becomes difficult for the hotel guests to put it into their pocket and too inconvenient to carry it with them. The script asks the users to play the role of “customers-who-will-not-lose-the-key-by-notcarrying-it-with-them-when-leaving-the-hotel”. It says something similar to what oral reminders and written notices say, even if it does so in a silent way: “Please leave your room key to the reception and thank you for your cooperation!” Most importantly, the key-metal combination works very well even if there is no reminder and notice. Latour’s example shows that technology can influence what humans do in the world without sending a clear message or demonstrating its purpose. Technology impacts human existence in two ways. First, it influences human perception by translating the world that is presented to human beings. Second, it shapes human action by offering a script that prescribes what humans can and should do. To conceptualize these two phenomena, Peter-Paul Verbeek (2005) uses the term “mediation” to describe what technology does: a connection between humans and the world is enabled by technology—what the world is for humans and what humans do in the world are technologically mediated. In other words, technology mediates human experience as well as praxis. It mediates, not merely intermediates: although technology indeed stands in between humans and the world, the two sides are not pre-given. Instead, they are made possible by technology, i.e., both are the results of human-technology relations. Technological mediation theory, therefore, concerns how a specific technology mediates, what relation(s) its users have with it, and what outcome(s) the relation(s) can or will result.

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As technology has impacts on human behaviors, it inevitably has moral relevance. For example, the technology of obstetric ultrasound shows to parents a black-and-white image of their fetus, and by doing so, it may create a moral choice about abortion if the parents find (potential) defects in their unborn child. It also charges parents with the moral responsibility of taking care of themselves in order to take care of the fetus (Duden 1993; Verbeek 2008). Similarly, the warning sound and sign that urge drivers to wear seatbelts make the drivers a law-abiding citizen. They become worthy of praise because of their law-abiding, thus moral, behavior. Morality, therefore, does not belong exclusively to the realm of humans. As Latour has asked concerning the case of seatbelt-wearing: “Where is the morality? In me, a human driver, dominated by the mindless power of an artifact? Or in the artifact forcing me, a mindless human, to obey the law that I freely accepted when I get my driver’s license?” (Latour 1992, p. 152). Such a hybrid character of morality indicates that moral behavior often emerges from the interaction between humans and technology. It implies, moreover, that technology can be designed to promote or improve people’s moral behavior. Technological mediation theory, therefore, does not only discover the moral relevance of technology but also opens up the possibility and opportunity of moralizing people through moralizing technology (Verbeek 2006, 2011). Since technological mediation is unavoidable,3 failing to take care of the moral effects of technology on human behavior is irresponsible. The proposal of moralizing technology, therefore, tasks us with two practices, i.e., to analyze the moral mediation of technology and to design technological mediation for helping people to answer the question of “how to act”—a question that is central to ethics. Accordingly, from the perspective of technological mediation theory, ethics of technology is not only about preventing technology from being evil, but also about understanding and designing the morality of artifacts.

3.3  Technological mediation into Confucianism As the theory of technological mediation concerns how humans have been and still are being shaped by technology and what roles technology can play for and in morality, its central interest overlaps with the theme of Confucianism, even though the latter rarely pays attention to technology. The connection of the theory of technological mediation to Confucianism can be found in two aspects: the first aspect is the theory itself, and the second aspect is in its moral implications. As pointed out earlier, the idea of technological mediation does not regard humans as the subjects that are pre-given and isolated. Instead, they are always in some relations with technology, and inevitably shaped and reshaped by it. Such a view of human beings, which is deeply influenced by Ihde and Latour, is a “relational” understanding of the existence of human beings. Although Verbeek does not go as far as Latour to deny the distinction between the subject and the object, he agrees that the two sides cannot be separated easily—talking about the former always requires considering the latter. This relational image of human subjects

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clearly is not a Kantian one, but very close to the idea of “person” conceived by Confucianism. While in the modern, “Western” view, what people do and how people think should better be the product of rationality (and their rationality can only be ensured by each person’s independence),4 Confucianism admits that being in a group with social relations is a precondition for being a person and thereby allows others to come into play in forming, influencing, and altering one’s decisions and actions. The focus on relations rather than solely on human beings creates the potential that Confucianism and the theory of technological mediation can benefit each other. Such a relational perspective is especially significant when it comes to the issues of ethics. While the idea of technological mediation has moral implications, Confucianism pinpoints morality as its central theme. In Confucianism, a person can and should be guided by others—usually the seniors, as shown in the five basic types of human relationships in Confucianism (wulun 五倫)— to behave morally. In other words, people’s moral thinking and action are not merely the product of their rationality, but rather the result of their interaction with others. As Confucianism takes a relational stance, it is, in principle, open to artifacts as a kind of “others” in helping people to behave morally. It should also do so because technology, as discussed in Section 3.2, has moral relevance in giving shape to people’s moral decisions and actions. Hence, Confucianism, on the one hand, cannot overlook the fact that some immoral or unethical behaviors might be the consequences of poorly designed artifacts; and, on the other hand, it has to consider how to take advantage of technology for improving people’s morality. In other words, this is not only about preventing technology from violating Confucian moral standards, but also about designing artifacts that can guide users’ behaviors in accordance with Confucian moral standards. One simple example is about car driving. If drivers like to drive fast when there is no specified speed limit, a Confucian culture may try to alter such a propensity through some sort of “moral education”. We may tell the drivers that driving fast could get themselves injured if car accidents happen, and such a “doing harm to self ” will violate a fundamental moral value—filial piety (xiao 孝). As clearly stated in the first chapter of the Chinese Classic of Family Reverence (Xiaojing 孝經), i.e., an essential reading for young students in most Confucianism-based cultures, “Your physical person with its hair and skin are received from your parents. Vigilance in not allowing anything to do injury to your person is where family reverence begins”. (Rosemont & Ames 2008, p. 105)5 Unsurprisingly, this principle is often invoked to discourage people from doing dangerous and harmful things, including driving fast. It has little to do with Kantian rationality, and it is a prescriptive morality given by the relationship between parents and children,6 charging everyone with the responsibility of realizing it. However, for various reasons, moral education sometimes does not

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work. When the relationship between humans cannot motivate people to drive safely, turning to the relations between humans and technology may help. For example, cars can be designed to embody the value of filial piety by limiting the top speed rather than leaving the decision of driving fast or slow to drivers themselves. When driving such a car, drivers are unable to accelerate to a speed that could put themselves in danger. A weaker but still effective strategy is to set up speedbumps on roads, by which drivers receive a “material” reminder: “Slow down. Otherwise you may get hurt!” Speedbumps do not make driving fast impossible, but rather decrease the likelihood of such behavior—they discourage driving fast. Be it the case of speed-limited cars or that of speedbumps, the behavior of not driving fast is the result of human-technology relations. To be a moral person such as “dutiful children” (xiaozi 孝子), therefore, can be realized not only by situating oneself deeply into human-human relationships but also through interacting with technology. Moreover, the promotion of self-cultivation (xiusheng 修身) in Confucianism can also be broadened with the theory of technological mediation. For Confucian people, how to be a moral person—being ethical or virtuous—is a lifelong task and objective, from which advanced goals, such as keeping a family in order (qijia 齊家), governing a nation (zhiguo 治國), and pacifying the world (pingtianxia 平 天下), can possibly be reached. As the Confucian person matures from and in human-human relations, self-cultivation is more about building and developing relationships with others rather than distancing oneself from them or deliberating independently. In other words, self-cultivation requires practice, interaction, and appropriation, by which one learns from others but at the same time without being dominated by them. Such an idea of self-cultivation is parallel to the notion of “subject constitution” in technological mediation technology. By referring to Michel Foucault’s analysis of power, Steven Dorrestijn (2011, 2012) has argued that when technology is inevitably a form of power, the question of how to constitute oneself as a moral subject becomes crucial and urgent. A person’s moral subjectivity is not purely the product of human rationality but emerging from the power relations between the person and their surroundings— humans and non-humans are all included. The existence of power does not mean freedom is unavailable, however.7 For Foucault, freedom does not lie in the absence of power but emerges in developing relations with power. To constitute one’s moral subject, therefore, is to develop relations with power. Such relations are dynamic rather than static, requiring continuous adjustment and modification.8 With regard to technology as power, the notion of subject constitution can and should be practiced by using and designing technologies that could help us to be moral. The ethics of technology, therefore, is hardly about finding and justifying moral codes to constrain the development of technology. Rather, it has much to do with the practice of subject constitution through technology. While self-cultivation in Confucianism focuses on the development of relationships with others, subject constitution in technological mediation theory aims at the relations one may have with artifacts. Both are about creating and

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growing moral subjectivity, although they appeal to different “helpers”—one is humans, the other is things. The parallel implies that, once opening up to technology due to its relational view on human beings, Confucianism can embrace technology into the practice and realization of self-cultivation. Accordingly, Confucian persons do not only consider and organize carefully their relationships with their parents, seniors, and friends, but also creatively make use of various technologies or even (re-)designs them. They know that both people and technology connect to them have the potential to help them to become moral subjects who deserve the name of a paradigmatic person ( junzi 君子). For example, Confucian persons may pay attention to both the positive and negative sides of social media, e.g., Facebook, try to understand the basic operational logic of post-sharing and privacy settings, and use the social media properly to not only keep in touch with others in a polite and amicable manner but also deliver news and comments in a responsible way. They may even submit a design suggestion to the Facebook company when there is something (ethically) problematic and thereby reshaping social media to become better and more ethical. This kind of self-cultivation is needed for every Confucian person in the age of technology. A technological-mediation-theory-informed Confucianism, therefore, does not only require technology to be designed in accordance with Confucian values (cf. Wang 2016; Wong 2013a) but also encourages the practice of self-cultivation in developing creative and responsible relations with technology-in-use.

3.4  Bringing Confucianism into technological mediation The idea of technological mediation can also be enriched by bringing Confucianism into itself. Originated from the Western culture, the idea of technological mediation can hardly detach itself from the tradition of individualism, although it has already shifted itself away from the Kantian image of human beings. We can discern the individualistic tendency from its “micro” approach to the analysis of human-technology relations. In investigating how users interact with technology, researchers of technological mediation tend to look at the relations between each user and the technology-in-use, analyzing how a specific technology shapes its users and vice versa. Framed in this individualist perspective, it often focuses on the danger of the loss of what is crucial to the individual, namely freedom. This explains why there is so much discussion about freedom under technological mediation; and, Verbeek has to strongly assert that “resistance is futile” and proposes to see technology as in terms of accompaniment rather than a threat (Selinger 2014). The theory of technological mediation tends to neglect the collective dimension of technological mediation and traps itself into countless debates with the defenders of the individualist understanding of freedom.9 If the theory of technological mediation takes seriously Confucianism, the situation would be different. Based on a relational understanding of human beings, Confucianism rarely focuses on the issues of individual freedom. There might

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be some discussion of individual freedom, but the discussion barely takes the center of the development of Confucianism. It does not mean that people in Confucian cultures do not possess individual freedom; it merely shows that the issues of individual freedom have never been prioritized in the Confucian tradition, and that clinging to the question of how to protect individual freedom can be more or less a misplacement. A Confucianism-informed technological mediation theory, therefore, would start directly with the relational image of human beings. This starting point may ease the difficulties in connecting human existence to technology. After all, when humans are already understood through human-human relationships, it only seems natural to extend this understanding to include things. By taking the relational nature of human beings for granted, the Confucianism-informed technological mediation theory would relieve itself from the burden of answering the doubts and objections vis-a-vis the problems of individual freedom. Due to its individualistic tendency, the theory of technological mediation is less competent in accounting for technology that could have collective mediating effects. It requires either explicit or implicit agreement from all users, otherwise some of the users could object or disagree with the technology in the name of freedom. For example, a public building designed to encourage stairs-climbing for sustainability by removing the elevators could make some workers and visitors to experience being forced to behave pro-environmentally. Although designing this type of building is exactly moralizing technology, the practice becomes difficult unless all potential users agree to be technologically mediated in such a way. So long as a technology-in-design has collective mediating effects, in an individualist framework, the technology has to be supported, or at least not to be opposed, by every user. To overcome this kind of obstacle, democratic procedures for decision-making are often recommended, and it has also been suggested that these procedures should better be in a deliberative form to avoid the tyranny of the majority. With individualism at its core, it is no accident that theorists of technological mediation have appealed to deliberative democracy as a solution to the tensions between technology’s collective effects and individuals’ willingness to be mediated. However, this strategy is constrained by both practical as well as theoretical considerations. In practice, consensuses are unlikely to be reached because of the diverse and divergent interests of the participants. Accordingly, there will always be objections to the collective effects that a technology-in-design may have (Hung 2014b). Also, in theory, inclusive consensuses are not possible because collective consensuses (of insiders) can only exist and be identified when there are outsiders (Mouffe 2009). In other words, consensus always comes with an exclusion, which means there will always be people who are unwilling to be mediated by a collectively mediating technology. “No consensus”, therefore, is the most severe challenge to the realization of moralizing technology. Fortunately, this challenge can be avoided if we introduce Confucianism into the technological mediation theory.

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Starting with human relationships instead of individuals in isolation, Confucianism does not draw a clear boundary between the individual and the collective, the self, and the community, or the private and the public. Harmony (he 和) is the principle to keep this boundary blurred, and, at the same time, being used to describe a tensionless state. Harmony can be reached because the moral responsibility of each social role is prescribed in Confucianism. Besides wulun, which concerns the relationships between parents and children, ruler and subject, husband and wife, siblings, and friends, rites (li 禮) and benevolence (ren 仁) are often invoked to guide people’s behaviors toward one another, even when they are strangers. It means that Confucian persons interact with others not only politely but also kindly. Being polite and kind, therefore, is part of Confucian morality and not merely required by social norms. As relationship is the starting point of Confucian ethics, harmony is inherently prioritized as a desirable and achievable goal, and the primary moral values in Confucianism are derived for the goal of harmony. Since Confucianism does not emphasize the idea of the individual and the related concept of freedom, it leaves more room for designing and implementing artifacts that could have collective mediating effects. Moreover, the prioritization of harmony implies a paternalistic style of governance. In the Western, liberal democratic context, paternalism is often questioned and considered to be untrustworthy, and it is closely connected to authoritarianism and interventionism. But this is not the case in the Confucian tradition. Note that the most fundamental relationship in wulun is the one between parents and children (Wong 2013b). This relation is so basic that it is the guiding metaphor for thinking about the relationship between the governor and the governed (Aycan 2006). For instance, city (or county) mayors are called fumu guan (父母官) in Chinese culture, in which “ fu” means father in Chinese, “mu” mother, and “guan” public officers. As parents love and guide their children, doing the things that are good for them, so should the governors do to the governed. Hence, the legitimacy of a governor does not come from the authorization of the governed, whether it is through voting or contracting. Instead, the governors are and must be qualified by successfully assuming the social role(s) of governors the Confucianism prescribes. The worry over governors’ overuse of power, therefore, is rarely a serious political issue in Confucianism. Indeed, power relation is not something troubling and disturbing but a constitutive part of harmony. It is demonstrated by the fact that, except for the relationship of friends, four of the five relationships in wulun are underlain by power. It is no accident that paternalistic leadership is common in the East Asian region, e.g., Japan, Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan, even though they have developed some democratic forms of government (Chan, Huang, Snape, & Lam 2013; Chen & Farh 2010; Cheng, Chou, Wu, Huang, & Farh 2004; Cheng et al. 2014; Farh & Cheng 2000; Wu, Huang, Li, & Liu 2012). The paternalistic tradition in Confucianism makes state agencies’ intervention in the form of technological mediation more acceptable or even welcoming. In Taiwan, e.g., most blame is often on the government when accidents such as children or youth falling into a pond or lake occur. People request the

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government to install more warning signs as well as balustrades, and the government also admits having the responsibility to do so. As a result, there are always balustrades in scenic zones and daily life areas in Taiwan. In contrast, this is not the case in the Netherlands. There are only a few balustrades in Dutch cities, even though canals are everywhere. In other words, being technologically mediated by those who are qualified to make decisions is not something to worry about or to resist against in Confucian cultures. Collectively mediating technologies, designed and implemented without full, collective consent, are an issue for the individualist cultures but not for Confucianism. If technological mediation theory incorporates Confucianism into it, the tensions and obstacles arising from the individualistic tendency will likely dissolve, fade, or evaporate. Confucianism, therefore, provides room for practicing and realizing moralizing collectively mediating technologies.

3.5  A practical Confucian ethics of technology Consider the fact that East Asia has been culturally influenced by the United States and other European countries since the late 19th century; it is difficult in practice to design and implement mediating technologies without taking people’s freedom into account. That is to say, while the forceful design of technological mediation is fully permissible in a pure Confucian society, it will be inappropriate to do so in a Confucianism-based culture. It does not mean that harmony is no longer important to the East Asian societies; harmony still takes very high or even the highest position in their value system. Paternalism still assumes a significant role in these societies, which can be well confirmed by the fact that “honorifics speech” (keigo 敬語) is still heavily used in Japan and Korea as well as some honorific terms in Chinese. However, individuals and their freedom are not neglectable anymore. In this respect, the approach of “nudge” probably is the best means to bring the proposal of moralizing technology into Confucianismbased cultures, as I shall argue. The idea of nudge is proposed and elaborated by behavioral economist Richard Thaler and legal scholar Cass Sunstein (2009). “A nudge”, as originally defined, “is any aspect of the choice architecture that alters people’s behavior in a predictable way without forbidding any options or significantly changing their economic incentives” (Sunstein & Thaler 2009, p. 6). They argue that, because rationality is bounded and people do not make decisions in a vacuum, designing the environment in which people make choices—namely, the choice architecture—can guide them to do the right things.10 For example, shelving healthy food at eye level in a college canteen can significantly increase the probability of students’ healthy eating; and, printing an image of a housefly on urinals in men’s room at Schiphol Airport is reported to decrease the spillage by 80% (Sunstein 2014; Sunstein & Thaler 2009). The idea of nudge clearly overlaps with that of moralizing technology in their appeal to design as a “material” guidance for people’s behaviors, especially when nudges appear in a physical, concrete form. Nudges, therefore, can be seen as a specific type of technological mediation.

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Most importantly, the idea of nudge is grounded on what has been called “libertarian paternalism”. Using this term, Thaler and Sunstein indicate that, on the one hand, the government can and should help people through the design of nudges, as the governmental groups of experts are more competent in avoiding cognitive biases through scientific research; and, on the other hand, people remain free under the nudges because the cost of opt-out is in principle low. The main difference between moralizing technology and the idea of nudge is that the former looks for agreements from all the users who may be technologically mediated, and the latter admits the inevitability and necessity of paternalistic decision-makers and designers in the process of designing and implementing technology. By combining liberalism and paternalism, nudging is compatible and favorable in the Confucianism-based cultures, and it creates room for putting the proposal of moralizing technology into practice in East Asia. Harmony, as a normative ideal in Confucianism, can be preserved and promoted through this approach. The design of camera phones in Japan is a good example. The first camera phone—the mobile phone with a built-in camera— arrived in the Japanese market in 2000, and it became extremely popular very quickly in big cities like Tokyo. Since then, “covert photography” has gradually become a serious social problem; as digital cameras have no shutter sound due to their technical mechanism, when they are built into mobile phones, covertly taking photos becomes much easier. The camera phone endangers the harmony of Japanese society because the residents are being exposed to the risk of becoming the subjects of covert photography, thereby diminishing the trust between individuals. From the perspective of Confucianism, such a design of camera phone neglects the importance of harmony; it makes the act of using a mobile phone ambiguous: is it an act of sending messages, playing games, or taking photos? This design blurs the boundary between the use as a phone and as a camera, but it also leaves the choice of what to do with their mobile phone to the users, regarding it as a matter of personal choice. For Confucianism, this design in itself can be viewed as unethical because it has not considered the Confucian ideal of harmony. Hence, not integrating the function of the camera into mobile phones, or removing the function from them, can be seen as a Confucian ethicization of technology. There is another way to do Confucian ethics of technology in the case of camera phones. By simulating shutter sound and removing their capacity to remain silent when taking photos, covert photography can be prevented effectively. This design does not only make the previously invisible behaviors visible through audible sound; it also brings back a clear boundary of the use of camera phones for photo-taking and other usages. It reminds both the photo-takers and the people around them that what is in the photo-takers’ hands is, in fact, a camera but not a mobile phone. Moreover, it can reverse the subjects of risk: the shutter sound exposes covert photography, and those who take these photos are now at risk of being noticed and tagged as an immoral person, and so the risk now is of photo-takers rather than their victims. This design, therefore,

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mediates users’ behaviors toward a moral direction, helping them to practice li and thereby harmonizing them with one another. This Confucianism-informed response is a typical attempt of moralizing technology, where the target is not the technology itself but its users, i.e., the ultimate goal is not to redesign camera phones but to redesign users’ behaviors—the former is a detour for the latter. Most importantly, unlike the proposal to detach cameras from mobile phones, this design does not make photo-taking via mobile phones impossible, and the users can still enjoy the convenience and instantaneity of using camera phones to take pictures. This is, in fact, how the Japanese have redesigned their camera phones (Ito 2016; Smith 2016). The shutter sound of all mobile phones sold in Japan cannot be disabled, and some of the mobile phones sold outside Japan will automatically unmute shutter sound when a Japanese SIM card is inserted. The design of camera-phone-with-shutter-sound demonstrates well how a practical Confucian ethics of technology can be realized through a nudge-like approach to the design of technological mediation.

3.6 Conclusion The theory of technological mediation has become a prominent approach to understanding and exploring the roles of technology in and for shaping human existence. Although the theory is gaining influence in East Asia, it has not been discussed and elaborated in the context of Confucianism. The effort of this chapter to elaborate on the theory with reference to Confucianism shows that they can benefit each other, and the mutual benefit is made possible by their similar understanding of human beings: both see human beings in terms of relations. As Confucianism concerns mainly about human-human relations, integrating the idea of technological mediation helps extending the Confucian relational understanding of human beings by including the relation(s) to artifacts. In addition to the recognition of people’s power in moralizing each other, Confucianism should also acknowledge the moral roles artifacts can assume in moralizing people. Accordingly, the meaning and practice of Confucian self-cultivation can be expanded as well. To nurture one’s moral subjectivity is not only to organize and adjust their relationship with other human beings, but also to build and develop relations with technology in a creative and responsible way. By taking Confucianism seriously, the theory of technological mediation can avoid the critique of its individualistic tendency and relieve the theory from the burden of answering the questions and worries concerning human freedom. The priority of harmony in Confucianism offers room for paternalistic design and the implementation of morality-mediating artifacts. Moreover, considering most East Asian cultures are Confucianism-based rather than purely Confucian, the idea of nudge, which is backed by libertarian paternalism, can be a practicable strategy to promote and practice moralizing technology. Indeed, there is a recurring worry that people in East Asia are losing their morality (daode 道德) because of the waning of Confucianism. However, what Latour (1992) has suggested will be of

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value to East Asia’s worry over moral degradation: the ethicists who complain about moral decay are simply looking in the wrong direction; morality should be looked for not merely among humans but also in things. This hopefully is where the Confucian ethics of technology I proposed here can contribute.

Notes 1 To avoid repetition, I shall not recapitulate the basics of Confucian ethics in this chapter. For an overview of Confucian ethics, see Wong’s “Dao, Harmony, and Personhood” in this volume. 2 The third and fourth relations are less discussed in the technological mediation theory, so I shall only mention them here. Sometimes, we treat technologies as if they are “(quasi-) others”. For example, a vending machine “swallows” the coins we “feed” into it, and a few seconds later it “spits out” the drinks or snacks we want. We interact with such technology because it possesses a kind of independence. This is the “alterity relation”, which can be expressed as “human—technology(–world)”. The last relation is called the “background relation”, indicating a situation that we are not really “in touch with” a technology when it is functioning. A nice example of this relation is a working air conditioner. It provides us with a stable, comfortable environment so that we are unaware of the fact that it is functioning there. This “absence” of technology in our relation to technology and to the world can be described as “human (—technology/world)”. 3 For Verbeek, the relation we have to technology is similar to that “to language, oxygen, or gravity. It is absurd to think that we can rid ourselves of this dependency, because we would remove ourselves in the process. Technology is part of the human condition” (Verbeek 2011, p. 155). 4 John Rawls’ idea of the veil of ignorance represents well such a view, see Rawls (1971). For criticisms of this view, see Sandel (1998) and Mouffe (2006). 5 Rosemont & Ames (2008) translate xiao as “family reverence”. In this chapter, I use the term interchangeably with the meaning of xiao as “filial piety”. 6 It should be uncontroversial that interaction between parents and children in Confucianismbased cultures is generally closer and more frequent than that in “Western” cultures. 7 “I am sometimes asked: ‘But if power is everywhere, there is no freedom’. I answer that if there are relations of power in every social field, this is because there is freedom everywhere” (Foucault 1997, p. 292). 8 It is, therefore, no accident that Hahm (2001) also argues that as Confucianism concerns mainly about becoming a virtuous person, it should be understood and interpreted in a Foucauldian way. 9 It is demonstrated by the discussion of Verbeek’s Moralizing Technology, which focuses exclusively on technological influences on individuals, and the discussion of collective benefits of moralized technologies is largely absent, see Selinger (2014). 10 This is in line with Sarkissian (2017), who argues for a situationist approach to moral behaviors and refers to the work of Xunzi as an example. However, while Xunzi belongs to the Confucian tradition, his presumption on human nature is different from other major Confucian philosophers. For Xunzi, the nature of human beings is bad (or evil) rather than good, and so the main objective of a “fabricated” situation, e.g., rituals, is to enable people to counter their bad human nature.

References Akrich, M., & Latour, B. (1992). A summary of a convenient vocabulary for the semiotic of human and nonhuman assemblies. In W. E. Bijker & J. Law (Eds.), Shaping technology/ building society: Studies in sociotechnical change (pp. 259–264). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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Aycan, Z. (2006). Paternalism: Towards conceptual refinement and operationalization. In U. Kim, K.-S. Yang, & K.-K. Hwang (Eds.), Indigenous and cultural psychology (pp. 445–466). New York: Springer. Boer de, B., Hoek, J., & Kudina, O. (2018). Can the technological mediation approach improve technology assessment? A critical view from ‘Within.’ Journal of Responsible Innovation, 5(3), 299–315. Boshuijzen-van Burken, C. (2016). Beyond technological mediation: A normative practice approach. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology, 20(3), 177–197. Brey, P. (2014). From moral agents to moral factors: The structural ethics approach. In P. Kroes & P.-P.Verbeek (Eds.), The moral status of technical artefacts (pp. 125–142). Dordrecht: Springer. Chan, S. C. H., Huang, X., Snape, E., & Lam, C. K. (2013). The Janus face of paternalistic leaders: Authoritarianism, benevolence, subordinates’ organization-based self-esteem, and performance. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 34(1), 108–128. Chen, C. C., & Farh, J.-L. (2010). Developments in understanding Chinese leadership: Paternalism and its elaborations, moderations, and alternatives. In M. H. Bond (Ed.), Oxford handbook of Chinese psychology (pp. 599–622). New York; London: Oxford University Press. Cheng, B.-S., Boer, D., Chou, L.-F., Huang, M.-P., Yoneyama, S., Shim, D., . . . Tsai, C.-Y. (2014). Paternalistic leadership in four East Asian societies: Generalizability and cultural differences of the triad model. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 45(1), 82–90. Cheng, B.-S., Chou, L.-F., Wu, T.-Y., Huang, M.-P., & Farh, J.-L. (2004). Paternalistic leadership and subordinate responses: Establishing a leadership model in Chinese organizations. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 7(1), 89–117. Cheng, H.-D., & Jia, L.-M. (2014). Materializing morality—An analysis of moral mediation of technical artifacts. Morality and Civilization, 6, 111–116. Dorrestijn, S. (2011). Technical mediation and subjectivation: Tracing and extending Foucault’s philosophy of technology. Philosophy & Technology, 25(2), 221–241. Dorrestijn, S. (2012). The design of our own lives: Technical mediation and subjectivation after Foucault (Doctoral Dissertation). University of Twente, The Netherlands. Dorrestijn, S., & Verbeek, P.-P. (2013). Technology, wellbeing, and freedom: The legacy of utopian design. International Journal of Design, 7(3), 45–56. Duden, B. (1993). Disembodying women: Perspectives on pregnancy and the unborn. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Farh, J.-L., & Cheng, B.-S. (2000). A cultural analysis of paternalistic leadership in Chinese organizations. In J.T. Li, A. S.Tsui, & E.Weldon (Eds.), Management and organizations in the Chinese context (pp. 84–127). London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Feenberg, A. (2013). The mediation is the message: Rationality and agency in the critical theory of technology. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology, 17(1), 7–24. Foucault, M. (1997). Ethics: Subjectivity and truth. New York: New Press. Geisler, C., & Rogers, E. H. (2000). Technological mediation for design collaboration. In Proceedings of IEEE Professional Communication Society International Professional Communication Conference and Proceedings of the 18th Annual ACM International Conference on Computer Documentation: Technology & Teamwork (pp. 395–405). Piscataway, NJ: IEEE Educational Activities Department. Hahm, C. (2001). Confucian rituals and the technology of the self: A Foucaultian interpretation. Philosophy East and West, 51(3), 315–324. Hekkert, P., Tromp, N., & Verbeek, P.-P. (2011). Design for socially responsible behavior: A classification of influence based on intended user experience. Design Issues, 27(3), 3–19.

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Hung, C. (2013). Completing Environmental Education with Artifact Design: An Integrated Perspective of STS and Philosophy of Technology Presented at the International Conference on Social Environmental Education for an Emerging Eco-Civilization, Taipei, Taiwan. Hung, C. (2014a). Beyond Heideggerian criticism toward technology: The implications of Dutch society-oriented philosophy of technology for STS in Taiwan. Presented at the 2014 Taiwan STS Annual Conference, Taipei, Taiwan. Hung, C. (2014b). Moralized technology or technologized morality? Book review on Verbeek’s moralizing technology. Taiwanese Journal for Studies of Science, Technology & Medicine, 20, 225–236. Hung, C. (2019). Design for green: The ethics and politics of/for behavior-steering technology (Doctoral Dissertation). University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands. Ihde, D. (1990). Technology and the lifeworld: From garden to earth. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Ito, D. (2016, June 19). Japan’s iPhone sounds shutter sound even in silent mode. BuzzFeed.News. Available Online at: https://www.buzzfeed.com/jp/daichi/why-japanese-smartphone Jelsma, J. (2006). Designing ‘Moralized’ products. In P.-P.Verbeek & A. Slob (Eds.), User behavior and technology development (pp. 221–231). Dordrecht: Springer. Johnson, D. G., & Noorman, M. (2014). Artefactual agency and artefactual moral agency. In P. Kroes & P.-P.Verbeek (Eds.), The moral status of technical artefacts (pp. 143–158). Dordrecht: Springer. Kudina, O., &Verbeek, P.-P. (2019). Ethics from within: Google glass, the Collingridge dilemma, and the mediated value of privacy. Science,Technology, & Human Values, 44(2), 291–314. Latour, B. (1991). Technology is society made durable. In J. Law (Ed.), A sociology of monster: Essays on power, technology, and domination (pp. 103–131). New York: Routledge. Latour, B. (1992). Where are the missing masses? The sociology of a few mundane artifacts. In W. E. Bijker & J. Law (Eds.), Shaping technology/building society: Studies in sociotechnical change (pp. 225–258). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Mitcham, C. (2014). Agency in humans and in artifacts: A contested discourse. In P. Kroes & P.-P.Verbeek (Eds.), The moral status of technical artefacts (pp. 11–29). Dordrecht: Springer. Mouffe, C. (2006). The return of the political. New York:Verso. Mouffe, C. (2009). The democratic paradox. New York:Verso. Pandey, S. (2018). Framing smart consumer technology: Mediation, materiality, and material for design. International Journal of Design, 12(1), 37–15. Rao, M. B., Jongerden, J., Lemmens, P., & Ruivenkamp, G. (2015). Technological mediation and power: Postphenomenology, critical theory, and autonomist Marxism. Philosophy & Technology, 28(3), 449–474. Rawls, J. (1971). A theory of justice. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press. Rosemont, H. Jr., & Ames, R. T. (Trans.) (2008). The Chinese classic of family reverence: A philosophical translation of the Xiaojing. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press. Sandel, M. J. (1998). Liberalism and the limits of justice. New York: Cambridge University Press. Sarkissian, H. (2017). Situationism, manipulation, and objective self-awareness. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 20(3), 489–503. Selinger, E. (2014). Confronting the moral dimensions of technology through mediation theory. Philosophy & Technology, 27(2), 287–313. Smith, M. (2016, September 30). Japan’s noisy iPhone problem. Engadget. Available Online at: https://www.engadget.com/2016/09/30/japans-noisy-iphone-problem/ Spahn, A. (2015). Mediation in design for values. In J. van den Hoven, P. E.Vermaas, & I. van de Poel (Eds.), Handbook of ethics, values, and technological design (pp. 251–266). Dordrecht: Springer.

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Sunstein, C. R. (2014). Why nudge? The politics of libertarian paternalism. New Haven: Yale University Press. Sunstein, C. R., & Thaler, R. H. (2009). Nudge. New York: Penguin Books. Swierstra, T., & Waelbers, K. (2012). Designing a good life: A matrix for the technological mediation of morality. Science and Engineering Ethics, 18(1), 157–172. Verbeek, P.-P. (2005). What things do: Philosophical reflections on technology, agency, and design. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press. Verbeek, P.-P. (2006). Materializing morality: Design ethics and technological mediation. Science,Technology & Human Values, 31(3), 361–380. Verbeek, P.-P. (2008). Obstetric ultrasound and the technological mediation of morality: A postphenomenological analysis. Human Studies, 31(1), 11–26. Verbeek, P.-P. (2011). Moralizing technology: Understanding and designing the morality of things. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Waelbers, K. (2011). Doing good with technologies:Taking responsibility for the social role of emerging technologies. Dordrecht: Springer. Wang, S. (2014). Material morality: A posthuman ethics of technology—On Verbeek’s Moralizing Technology: Understanding and Designing the Morality of Things. Philosophical Analysis, 5(1), 190–196. Wang, T. (2016). Designing Confucian conscience into social networks. Zygon, 51(2), 239–256. Weiss, D., Propen, A., & Reid, C. E. (2014). Design, mediation, and the posthuman. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Wong, P.-H. (2013a). Confucian social media: An oxymoron? Dao, 12(3), 283–296. Wong, P.-H. (2013b). The public and geoengineering decision-making: A view from Confucian political philosophy. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology, 17(3), 350–367. Wu, M., Huang, X., Li, C., & Liu, W. (2012). Perceived interactional justice and trust-in-supervisor as mediators for paternalistic leadership. Management and Organization Review, 8(1), 97–121. Yan, H.-X., & Yang, Q.-F. (2011). Research on things from the perspective of philosophy of technology: On ‘what things do philosophical reflections on technology, agency, and design. Philosophical Analysis, 2, 189–195. Zhang, W., & Wang, Q. (2012). On the internalist approach of ethics of technology. Studies in Philosophy of Science and Technology, 29(3), 46–50. Zhu, Q. (2010).Technological mediation theory: A phenomenological way of ethics of technology. Studies in Philosophy of Science and Technology, 27(1), 101–106.

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4 SELF-CULTIVATION OF THE CONFUCIAN ENGINEER What Engineering Ethics Education can Learn from Confucian Moral Theory Qin Zhu

4.1  Introduction: questioning the epistemological dimension of engineering education Problem-solving is central to defining engineering as a profession ( Jonassen, Strobel, & Lee 2006). Engineers are widely portrayed as “problem-solvers”. Arguably, such emphasis on problem-solving somehow has directed the attention of engineering educators and policymakers to the epistemological dimension of professional education that focuses on the “acquisition of necessary knowledge and skills” and “opportunities for applying them” (Dall’Alba 2009). This epistemological emphasis is evident in ABET’s (incorporated as the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, Inc.) criteria for the accreditation of engineering programs. For instance, ABET stipulates that students who graduate from accredited programs need to possess “an ability to apply knowledge of mathematics, science, and engineering”, “an ability to design a system, component, or process to meet desired needs within realistic constraints such as economic, environmental, social, political, ethical, health and safety, manufacturability, and sustainability”, and “an ability to use the techniques, skills, and modern engineering tools necessary for engineering practice” (ABET 2017; author’s emphasis). In this sense, engineers are often assumed to be “instrumentalists”. A widespread ideology in the engineering profession is that engineers especially tend to become instrumentalists when working with technologies they are familiar with (Newberry 2007). Engineering ethics is thus seen as a process of solving ethical problems by employing necessary ethical knowledge (e.g., ethical theories, frameworks, codes of ethics) and skills (e.g., ethical reasoning skills). These knowledge and skills are viewed as “actionable guidelines”, which are comparable to and in parallel with other technical guidelines in engineering handbooks. Engineers are often taught how to develop and apply these ethical knowledge

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and skills in “well-structured” (often hypothetical) ethical problems and asked to choose and justify one best solution among a variety of possible courses of action (van de Poel & Royakkers 2011). Such problem-solving approach to ethical decision-making significantly overlooks the reality that many ethical problems are “ill-structured”. Matthew Duperon (2018) challenges the disconnection between ethical theory and ethical practice in ethics courses at most American universities. These ethics courses often focus on “training students in the rigorous use of intellect to resolve moral conflicts, provide reasoned justifications, and construct arguments toward ethical conclusions” Duperon (2018, p. 4). While not denying the importance of knowledge and skills, this chapter reconfigures professional education as “a process of becoming” (Dall’Alba 2009). Instead of trying to identify what knowledge and skills are central to professional education and how students can apply these knowledge and skills to solve problems, I focus on what it means to be a professional and how to transform the self in becoming a professional. In professional education, this ontological dimension that examines the “professional ways of being” has been substantially overlooked (Dall’Alba 2009). More specifically, in engineering ethics education, scholars are less interested in investigating the transformation of the moral self in professional formation. As engineering educators, we seldom help students reflect on themselves and ask questions that are essentially self-critical or self-reflective such as: a. b. c. d. e.

What does it mean to be an engineer? What constitutes a good engineer? What kind of engineers do they want to be or are they becoming? What kind of engineering do they want to practice? What technical artifacts do they want to produce/make?

Professional education should not only teach students what they know and can do but also provide opportunities for them to think critically about who they are (becoming). In doing so, I draw on the theory of self-cultivation that is central to Confucian moral theory and explore how this theory may provide useful tools and methods for prospective engineers to cultivate a reflective moral self in their everyday practice. Introducing Confucian moral theory into engineering ethics has three “pragmatic” concerns. First, most engineering ethics textbooks in the West (especially the United States) often adopt an “applied ethics” approach that starts with an introduction of three ethical theories, i.e., deontology, consequentialism/ utilitarianism, and virtue ethics, that are fundamental in the Western philosophical canon and expect students to apply these theories to specific ethical situations. For instance, most textbooks include the Ford Pinto case that invites students to question the limitations of consequentialist thinking in corporate decision-making (see, e.g., McGinn 2018; van de Poel & Royakkers 2011; Mitcham & Duval 2000). This chapter hopes to expand this narrow Eurocentric

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focus on ethical theories and their applications, and diversifies the intellectual resources for teaching engineering ethics. Second, engineering students today are more likely to work with engineers from other cultures than their predecessors given the increasingly globalized work environment. Knowing Confucian values becomes critical for working effectively with engineers from Confucian heritage cultures (CHCs), including Mainland China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan. Third, this research is expected to shed light on the development of engineering ethics theories that better serve the Confucian socio-cultural contexts, given the lack of professional tradition in CHCs.

4.2  Understanding the self in Confucian moral theory As one of the most distinctive characteristics of early Confucian ethical thought, self-cultivation or self-transformation comes about as a result of one’s own reflective efforts at self-improvement. Self-cultivation serves as the “starting point and source of inspiration for character building” (Tu 1999, p. 27), which is the primary purpose of Confucian education. The Confucian moral self has a relational nature and the cultivation of such moral self often takes place in concert with others (Wong 2014). In other words, for a person, becoming benevolent is something we either do together, or not at all. David Wong points out that humans in the Confucian sense are all interdependent by nature and they “need the help of others to develop as agents” (Wong 2004). Pak-Hang Wong further argues that people are all “born into a web of social relationships” and they cultivate their virtues and become morally mature within such a web of social relationships (Wong 2012). The word “self ” (ziji 自己) in Chinese consists of two characters zi (自) and ji (己) that represent two aspects of the self (Cheng 2004). From Chung-Ying Cheng’s perspective, zi is the more engaged, temporal, and time-engaged aspect of the self, which is the aspect of the self that interacts with others on a daily basis. In contrast, ji is the more transcendent and subjective aspect of the self that a person aims to cultivate and grow as a lifelong project based on their critical reflection on the everyday interaction between the zi aspect of the self and others. Joel J. Kupperman argues that self-cultivation involves two interrelated yet inseparable processes: “what one does” and “what is done to one” (Ames & Rosemont 2014). More specifically, it is easy to imagine that, “Anyone’s character is likely to be affected, at any point in life, by social norms, a person’s social class and family relations, how that person spends most of her or his time, and so on; as these factors change, a change in character will be the natural (although not inevitable) result”. (Kupperman 1991, p. 56) Self-cultivation is not only possible but also necessary. Self-cultivation is possible. Everyone has the potential to become morally good. Mencius’s moral

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egalitarianism particularly embraces the idea that “[humans] are malleable, since none of them have innate defects; hence the direction of a [human’s] moral growth depends very much on education” (Munro 1969, p. 15). Selfcultivation is also necessary. As pointed by Cheng, a good society and a righteous government must “start with and hence be founded on the moral perfection of the human person” (Cheng 2004, p. 124). The fundamental role of self-cultivation in Confucian ethics can be recognized in The Great Learning (Daxue 大学) where students of Confucianism are told that “the root is self-cultivation” and self-cultivation prepares one for other social affairs including qijia (i.e., looking after the family, 齐家), zhiguo (i.e., rightly governing the state, 治国), and pingtianxia (i.e., bringing peace throughout the world, 平天下) (Fingarette 2003). There are many implications we can draw from the fundamental role of self-cultivation in Confucian ethics. For instance, such a fundamental role of self-cultivation can provide a basis for self-control, self-discipline, or restricting one’s own power and it serves to “mitigate the abuse of power even without an institutionalized system of checks and balances” (Lim 2000, p. 306). One needs to cultivate oneself before trying to work on much larger projects, including bringing harmony to the world or working on any other public affairs projects.

4.3  Self-cultivation and moral development1 According to philosopher Karyn Lai (2003), self-cultivation involves three interconnected processes: observation, reflection, and practice. This three-dimensional Confucian model of self-cultivation has been thoroughly discussed in The Analects, including the following two passages, “In strolling in the company of just two other persons, I am bound to find a teacher. Identifying their strengths, I follow them, and identifying their weaknesses, I reform myself accordingly”. (The Analects 7.22, in Ames & Rosemont 1999, p. 116) “Watch their actions, observe their motives, examine wherein they dwell content; won’t you know that kind of person they are? Won’t you know what kind of person they are?” (The Analects 2.10, in Ames & Rosemont 1999, p. 78) To become a morally competent person, according to Confucius, we need to observe how moral exemplars behave in different situations. We need to observe how experienced moral practitioners practice social and moral norms (li 礼) in different circumstances. Observing ritual practices is crucial as the practices of these rituals often exemplify the substance of ethically significant attitudes such as respect (Wong 2018). Therefore, in order to develop desirable ethical dispositions, one needs to observe, reflect on, and practice these rituals in everyday life. It is worth

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noting that practicing rituals is different from simply following rules. Rituals need to be performed with utter sincerity. As agued by Confucius in The Analects, “Ritual performed without reverence, the forms of mourning observed without grief—these are things I cannot bear to see!”. (The Analects 3.26; in Waley 1989, p. 101) Nevertheless, observation does not mean “just looking” or imitation. We are advised to critically evaluate and reflect on these behaviors in different situations and understand the reasons to act. In this sense, for Confucius, observing moral failures or incompetent leaders is as useful as observing moral successes or exemplars. A person should work to avoid becoming like these moral failures. Reflection is supposed to develop moral sensitivity to others and to situations, and it helps the moral learners to tease out the morally significant factors in particular situations. Practice is also critical when moral learners apply what they have observed and learned in new situations. Through practice, moral learners are able to integrate the moral sensitivity developed from previous experiences and test to what extent their understanding of the morally significant factors work in new situations. In general, the reiteration of the three processes cultivates inner virtues of a person. At the same time, such persons gain moral respect from the community and develop ethical leadership. From the perspective of self-cultivation, moral development goes through four different stages: the beginner, the developing learner, the paradigmatic person ( junizi 君子), and the sage (Lai 2003). The beginner at the first level often emphasizes complying with Confucian norms li and acting within circumscribed contexts. Beginners are followers under the apprenticeship of their leaders. The developing learner at the second level has acquired some inner moral dispositions such as compassion (ren 仁) and moral sensitivity. Through interactions with others, the developing learners exhibit the moral character they have acquired in “nurturing” the moral self. The developing learner is in the process of taking on some ethical leadership and has increasing potential to become a moral leader. At the third level, junzi is able to draw upon one’s own resources in ethical deliberation. To the junzi, norms are often flexible. The junzi sometimes is able to improvise on existing moral norms. The junzi has developed most or all virtues that a competent moral leader needs to possess. Sagehood is a higher stage than junzi, which has an even higher level of flexibility in moral action. To the sage, moral principles are no longer constraints. What the sage desires are what exactly the moral principles stipulate. The ways the sage behaves can be the moral guidance for others. The level of sage is extremely hard to attain, and it often serves as the ideal personality for leaders. The whole developmental model of four stages well captures the process of how followers can become leaders in moral practice. Confucian ethics places a strong emphasis on the role of emotions (e.g., passion, commitment) and attitudes in moral learning and practice. For instance, in

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The Analects, Confucius emphasized that passion and commitment of the students are critical for quality teacher-student relationship and learning experience: “Only one who bursts with eagerness do I instruct; only one who bubbles with excitement, do I enlighten. If I hold up one corner and a man cannot come back to me with the other three, I do not continue the lesson”. (The Analects 7.8, in Waley 1989, p. 124) In other words, whether one is motivated toward or passionate about learning is a prerequisite for effective moral development and self-cultivation. Moral learning, or any sort of learning, is not a project that can be completed solely by the teacher or the student. It requires a charismatic teacher, a self-motivated student, and their interaction. In addition to the nurturing of the self, self-cultivation has another major goal which is to develop “a perspective that sees oneself as situated within a particular historical, cultural, and social context” (Lai 2003, p. 117). Lai argues that practicing li within such historical, cultural, and social context is a prerequisite for the cultivation of the moral self (Lai 2003). More specifically, if one is eager to fully engage with others within a particular social and cultural context, they need to first understand “existing social, cultural, and moral norms operative within that framework” (Lai 2003, p. 119). Self-cultivation takes place in a particular environment, and it is worth noting that the notion of li is rooted in that tradition. Here, Lai draws a distinction between the broader social and cultural context or culture (wen 文) in which li is practiced and li itself, “It seems that wen encompasses norms in general, such as decorum, comportment, traditional customs, and other culturally specific norms including etiquette. Li, on the other hand, connotes acting in ways that are morally and perhaps even religiously acceptable”. (Lai 2003, p. 118) In a general sense, wen is a much broader term than li, and wen is often guided by li. Lai further argues that the ends of wen and moral cultivation are different, “One can only cultivate oneself if one is familiar with existing cultural and traditional norms and customs. However, acting strictly according to normative prescriptions and ideals within a particular tradition is insufficient for self-cultivation […] The Confucian junzi is in many ways detached from popular opinions and popular valuations […] Cultivation of the self, which includes the cultivation of meaningful relationships with other people, requires more than an awareness of one’s historical and socio-cultural setting and of the norms that operate within that setting”. (Lai 2003, p. 119)

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Therefore, what moral cultivation requires is not simply an awareness of but also a critical engagement with wen or one’s historical and social-cultural contexts and the norms that work within these contexts.

4.4  Implications for engineering ethics education This section discusses some implications that can be drawn from the Confucian theory of self-cultivation for engineering ethics education and professional formation of engineers. In particular, it explores possible ways to incorporate the self or the ontological dimension of moral development we learned from Confucian moral theory into engineering ethics education. First, it is widely recognized in the engineering education community that engineers are world-changers. However, a Confucian engineering education program may invite engineers to reflect on how their moral selves are changed in the world-changing process. Antonio Dias de Figueiredo (2008) identifies four different dimensions of engineering knowledge that practicing engineers employ to solve problems: basic sciences, social sciences, design, and practical realization. Accordingly, as a professional, engineers combine the qualities of a scientist, a sociologist, a designer, and a doer (de Figueiredo 2008). Engineers are thus portrayed as professionals who employ the knowledge and skills from the four different dimensions of engineering epistemology to transform the world. Nevertheless, scholars like de Figueiredo have not explicitly addressed the question of whether and how engineers transform themselves in the process of transforming the world. From the Confucian perspective, engineers should reflect on not only how they change the world but also what kind of engineers they are becoming in the world-changing process. In their everyday practice, engineers should consider more than just meeting deadlines, completing the “technical tasks” assigned by their supervisors, and claiming their autonomy is rather limited (e.g., they only do what they are told to do and thus have limited power in determining the social and ethical impacts of technology). Philosopher Caroline Whitbeck (2011) suggests that engineering students and engineers should think more about self-reflective questions in their learning and practicing of engineering, e.g., (1) what makes a good engineer and good engineering, and (2) what are the reasons that support one’s value judgments about engineers and engineering. In other words, it is a mistake to teach our engineering students that non-technical decisions, e.g., political decisions, must be made by other professionals, including managers and politicians. People may argue that engineers should all have the freedom to decide by themselves what kind of career they want to pursue. Nevertheless, a further question worth asking might be: do different career possibilities make any difference for a professional engineer besides salary differences? Benjamin Todd (2017) argues that people should be aware of the impacts of their careers on society and themselves. One should not take a harmful job even if such a job can eventually generate more good than harm, e.g., working at a lab developing dangerous

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biotechnology so that one can blow the whistle if one sees something particularly dangerous happening. He argues that taking these jobs, while it might be justified by utilitarianism, could potentially harm one’s reputation and moral character, e.g., it is more likely that one will pick up the attitudes and social norms of the people in their work environment and become a less moral person in general. Furthermore, from the Confucian perspective, taking immoral and harmful jobs may also bring relational harm, such as negatively affecting the relationships between engineers and the communities they serve. For instance, engineers who work at a lab developing dangerous biotechnology so that they can blow the whistle if they see something particularly dangerous happening. By participating in this lab, the engineers need to reflect on how their relationships with the public are (or will be) perceived and affected in society. Second, Confucian ethics emphasizes the importance of observing and practicing rituals in cultivating ethical dispositions. If we look at the everyday practice of engineers, it is crucial for them to be able to reflect on the social and cultural norms practiced by themselves and other engineers. Many everyday practices in engineering have ritualistic significance such as the implementation of codes of ethics and even the practice of the so-called “team spirit” at work. Professional codes of ethics can be considered as artifacts that reflect morally acceptable and even encouraged norms pertaining to the engineering profession. It is crucial for engineers as professionals to observe how their fellow members of the profession practice their codes of ethics, such as the most important canon “engineers shall hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public”, because these codes of ethics are often abstract and need to be contextualized in everyday engineering. Then, engineers could identify the best practices that have been adapted by other fellow engineers to implement codes of ethics and try to incorporate these best practices in their own implementation of codes of ethics. Certainly, it is crucial for engineers to critically reflect on how others practice codes of ethics. For instance, engineers may ask themselves if they are truly believing and practicing the codes of ethics, should they take the positions in specific companies? Are there better ways of holding paramount of the safety, health, and welfare of the public? Codes of ethics should be practiced with appropriate emotional dispositions, e.g., sympathy and empathy. Simply remembering and skillfully applying codes of ethics is not sufficient for cultivating positive ethical dispositions for engineers. Without appropriate emotional dispositions, practicing codes of ethics is simply “checking boxes”, which most engineering educators today have already been unsatisfied with. In many cases, what engineers are expected by society to do is more than their codes of ethics, which often stipulate what they should not do to prevent the public from being harmed. However, engineers are not told by their employers or codes of ethics what they should and can do to make a better society and what virtues are necessary to build a good society (Harris 2008). Arguably, without the emotional investment that engineers put into their everyday practice,

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it is rather difficult for them to be motivated to do (morally) good work. Instead, what these engineers get is a superficial, surface level understanding of codes of ethics rather than the values that underlie, support, and justify the codes of ethics. In effect, philosopher Michael Davis argues that some emotions are parts of what constitute a good engineer. For instance, he argues that “a good engineer will fear the bad consequences of his work, especially when the bad consequences could include substantial loss of life or property” (Davis 2015, p. 6). Also, the emotion of anger is something good for engineers to have on occasion. It would be reasonable for an engineer to be angry “if management rejected her design for the waste facility” in an underdeveloped country (Davis 2015, p. 6). Third, engineering ethics education should be considered as a lifelong process of character-building and moral refinement. Confucian ethics considers moral education as a developmental process. Hence, engineering ethics education does not terminate as students graduate from their engineering programs. It takes place not only in the classroom but also in the workplace. In this sense, engineers need the necessary knowledge and skills for not only moral reasoning but also lifelong moral learning. Despite the fact that ABET engineering accreditation criteria stipulate that students who graduate from accredited programs should develop lifelong learning competencies, it is often unclear what these lifelong learning competencies are, how to assess them, and whether they include any competencies focusing on lifelong moral learning. It is also unfortunate that ethics education in the workplace (at least, in the United States) often focuses on rule-based ethical compliance rather than character-building. It is unclear whether such rule-following moral practice would actually contribute to the cultivation of the moral self, especially when practicing engineers who are not motivated to reflect on these ethical rules or guidelines. From the Confucian perspective, a good engineer should be self-motivated to refine their moral decision-making on a daily basis and to strive to develop positive moral dispositions. Furthermore, engineering companies that are interested in sustaining their work should develop lifelong professional development programs that encourage their employees to develop positive (moral) dispositions. Fourth, engineers are invited to learn from their peers, including, in particular, those who are more experienced professionally, through their everyday interactions with others at the workplace. The three-dimensional model of Confucian self-cultivation that consists of observation, reflection, and practice can be a useful tool for practicing engineers to develop moral expertise. The following paragraph from The Analects is another example that exemplifies how the three-dimensional model of self-cultivation can help people to develop moral virtues on a daily basis: “Watch their actions, observe their motives, examine wherein they dwell content; won’t you know what kind of person they are? Won’t you know what kind of person they are?” (The Analects 2.10, in Ames & Rosemont 1999, p. 78)

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A crucial, yet overlooked, resource for moral learning is through reflective observations. Most engineering ethics textbooks in the United States treat engineers as isolated, autonomous, and rational individuals (Luegenbiehl 2004). This notion of professional autonomy connotes that competent engineers should be able to make independent moral judgments. Most ethical codes of engineering do not explicitly emphasize the value of learning from peers at work for developing moral expertise. Learning from peers and critically observing what they do is especially crucial for early career engineers who are in the process of becoming familiar with their work environment, including the norms for professional decision-making. However, how to identify, observe, and follow role models at work do require skills that are not often taught in the current engineering curriculum. Engineering professors may say to their students, “you just have to figure out by yourselves”. Early Confucians such as Mencius has emphasized the value of “deference”— or, respecting those who are morally or politically powerful—for the cultivation of individual character and communal culture. For early career engineers, it is crucial for them to show their courteous and yielding behaviors to especially those who are morally excellent. The idea of “honoring the excellent” (zunxian 尊贤) requires “attentive and respectful listening to those whose authority and wisdom outstrip one’s own, regardless of one’s social position” (Stalnaker 2013, p. 445). In fact, deferential behaviors are beneficial to both early career engineers and experienced engineers with higher level positions. It is beneficial for early career engineers, as they often lack enough practical experience and thus need to observe how their more experienced and powerful colleagues make good ethical judgments. It is also good for engineer leaders, i.e., when they are aware of the fact that they are being observed by their subordinates, they are more motivated to maintain higher moral standards for themselves. Finally, various contexts of engineering practice, such as cultural, historical, and social contexts, are crucial (and often the prerequisites) for the development of engineering moralities and identities. Engineers need to be aware of the contexts in which their moral practices take place. Social and moral norms for their work are rooted in the tradition of the engineering profession in a specific culture. What we have learned from Confucian ethics is that to become a good person or professional engineer is more than simply acting in accordance with some sets of normative prescriptions in one’s work environment. Engineers should not just uncritically accept the existing norms in their context(s). Instead, they need to develop a sensitivity to the contexts that give meaning to the social and moral norms at work. For instance, being loyal to employers is deemed a widely accepted moral norm for American engineers. However, American engineers should critically examine the tradition of the loyalty norm in the history of American engineering and evaluate under what circumstances such a norm makes sense. Should engineers always be (unconditionally) loyal to their employers? What were some major concerns that early American engineers held with regard to the loyalty norm in engineering? Is it okay for an American engineer

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to work for a company that builds immigration walls for the Trump administration? The engineer might ask oneself: by agreeing to build the walls, what kind of engineer is one becoming? Empirical studies in moral psychology have shown that what we do does affect “who we are and what we believe, just as what believe guides what we do” (Hulsey & Hampson 2014, p. 1). Engineers should not unconditionally and uncritically accept every decision their supervisors have made. On the contrary, they have a moral obligation to “chastise leaders when they fail to fulfill their obligations” (Stalnaker 2013, p. 445). It is such behavior of chastising morally failed leaders that makes the engineers truly deferential and respectful to their supervisors. In this respect, the moral deference of subordinate engineers is related to and crucial for the moral development of their superiors and their corporation. If engineer leaders do not serve as good role models or demonstrate virtues reliably in communal contexts, then they are not capable of justifying or maintaining the power they possess. Accordingly, they will not be worthy of deference, trust, or respect.

4.5 Conclusion In conclusion, the professional formation of engineers should go beyond the epistemological dimension of professional education that exclusively focuses on teaching engineering knowledge and skills and how to apply the knowledge and skills to solve problems—ethical or otherwise. What is missing in most engineering education initiatives is the ontological dimension of professional education, i.e., how engineers transform themselves while making small, everyday and seemingly “amoral” choices such as what materials should be used, what technical procedures should be followed, what tasks are worth being undertaken, and what career pathways should be pursued. It is undeniable that engineering educators are too familiar with their historical tradition of teaching engineering skills, and it might be difficult to change the culture of teaching skills. Nevertheless, for any responsible engineering educator, at least some valuable questions we could ask are: if we seriously care about the well-being of our engineering students, have we taught them sufficient “skills” to reflect on and cultivate their moral selves? A Confucian scholar may argue that if engineers cannot take good care of their own moral selves, how can we trust them to be morally sympathetic to the needs of people for whom the engineers serve? We need to embrace a much broader approach to understanding and teaching engineering ethics. Engineering ethics education is more than just teaching students ethical decision-making tools, e.g., codes of ethics, ethical theories, other decision-making tools, as it has been advocated in most textbooks. From the Confucian perspective, ethics education is a lifelong project that takes place in social and cultural contexts and involves continuous and self-conscious moral refinement. This project can hardly be completed by engineers themselves. Rather, it requires interaction with others and critical reflection on the experience of and from the interaction.

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Notes 1 This section is based on an earlier publication, see Zhu (2018) for a more comprehensive discussion on the topic.

References ABET (2017, October 20). Criteria for accrediting engineering programs. Available Online at: https://www.abet.org/accreditation/accreditation-criteria/criteria-for-accreditingengineering-programs-2018-2019/ Ames, R. T., & Rosemont, H. Jr. (2014). From Kupperman’s character ethics to Confucian role ethics: Putting humpty together again. In C. Li & P. Ni (Eds.), Moral cultivation and Confucian character (pp. 17–46). Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Ames, R. T., & Rosemont, H. Jr. (Trans.) (1999). Analects of Confucius: A philosophical translation. New York: Ballantine Books. Cheng, C.-Y. (2004). A theory of Confucian selfhood: Self-cultivation and free will in Confucian philosophy. In K.-L. Shun & D. B. Wong (Eds.), Confucian ethics: A comparative study of self, autonomy, and community (pp. 124–147). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Dall’Alba, G. (2009). Learning professional ways of being: Ambiguities of becoming. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 41(1), 34–45. Davis, M. (2015). Engineers, emotion, and ethics. In S. S. Sethy (Ed.), Contemporary ethical issues in engineering (pp. 1–11). Hershey, PA: IGI Global. de Figueiredo, A. D. (2008). Toward an epistemology of engineering. Presented at 2008 Workshop on Philosophy and Engineering. London. Available Online at: https://papers.ssrn. com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1314224 Duperon, M. (2018). Learning for oneself: A Confucian-inspired case for moral formation in ethics pedagogy. Teaching Theology & Religion, 21(1), 4–20. Fingarette, H. (2003). The problem of the self in the analects. In K.-C. Chong, S.-H. Tan, & C. L. Ten (Eds.), The moral circle and the self: Chinese and Western approaches (pp. 283–294). Chicago, IL: Open Court. Harris, C. E. (2008). The good engineer: Giving virtue its due in engineering ethics. Science and Engineering Ethics, 14(2), 153–164. Hulsey, T. L., & Hampson, P. J. (2014). Moral expertise. New Ideas in Psychology, 34, 1–11. Jonassen, D., Strobel, J., & Lee, C. B. (2006). Everyday problem solving in engineering: Lessons for engineering educators. Journal of Engineering Education, 95(2), 139–151. Kupperman, J. (1991). Character. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Lai, K. (2003). Confucian moral cultivation: Some parallels with musical training. In K.C. Chong, S.-H. Tan, & C. L. Ten (Eds.), The moral circle and the self: Chinese and Western approaches (pp. 107–139). Chicago, IL: Open Court. Lim, P. W. (2000). A re-evaluation of Asian values. In S. Masuyama, D. Vandenbrink, & C. S. Yue (Eds.), Restoring East Asia’s dynamism (pp. 297–319). Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Luegenbiehl, H. C. (2004). Ethical autonomy and engineering in a cross-cultural context. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology, 8(1), 57–78. McGinn, R. (2018). The ethical engineer: Contemporary concepts and cases. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Mitcham, C., & Duval, S. (2000). Engineer’s toolkit: A first course in engineering. London, UK: Pearson. Munro, D. J. (1969). The concept of man in early China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

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Newberry, B. (2007). Are engineers instrumentalists? Technology in Society, 29, 107–199. Stalnaker, A. (2013). Confucianism, democracy, and the virtue of deference. Dao, 12(4), 441–459. Todd, B. (2017). Is it ever okay to take a harmful job in order to do more good? An in-depth analysis. 80,000 Hours. Available Online at: https://80000hours.org/articles/ harmful-career/. Tu, W. (1999). Self-cultivation as education: Embodying humanity. In D. M. Steiner (Ed.), The proceedings of the twentieth world congress of philosophy: philosophy of education (Vol. III, pp. 27–39). Charlottesville,VA: Philosophy Documentation Center. van de Poel, I., & Royakkers, L. (2011). Ethics, technology, and engineering: An introduction. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Waley, A. (Trans.) (1989). The analects of Confucius. New York:Vintage Books. Whitbeck, C. (2011). Ethics in engineering practice and research (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Wong, D. (2004). Relational and autonomous selves. Journal of Chinese Philosophy, 31(4), 419–432. Wong, D. (2014). Cultivating the self in concert with others. In A. Olberding (Ed.), Dao companion to the analects (pp. 171–197). Dordrecht: Springer. Wong, D. (2018). Chinese ethics. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Available Online at: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2018/entries/ethics-chinese/. Wong, P.-H. (2012). Dao, harmony and personhood: Towards a Confucian ethics of technology. Philosophy & Technology, 25(1), 67–86. Zhu, Q. (2018). Confucian ethics, ethical leadership, and engineering ethics education. International Journal of Ethics Education, 3(2), 169–179.

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5 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, PERSONAL DECISIONS, CONSENT, AND THE CONFUCIAN IDEA OF ONENESS Pak-Hang Wong

5.1 Introduction Suppose Jack is in urgent need of a job, and he opens an account on freejobmatching.com with some personal information (including, e.g., nationality, age, gender, home address, education, previous work experience, etc.) hoping to get a job match. Freejobmatching.com is a (fictional) job matching platform, which operates on an artificial intelligence (AI) system that collects and analyzes its users’ personal information and inputs, e.g., search results, views of and responses to job ads, and the success rate of job matching, and on that basis categorizes its users and decides what job ads to show and which potential employers to match them to. Jack, despite his college education and several years of work experience, is unconfident and only searches for and views job ads of junior and intermediate positions and is eventually matched with an unskilled and low-salary job. Subsequently, he is classified by freejobmatching.com’s algorithm in the category of “low-potential applicants”. Now, Bob, who lives in Jack’s neighborhood and shares many of Jack’s attributes, such as nationality, age, gender, education, and previous work experience, also registers a freejobmatching.com account to look for a job. Given the similarities between Bob and Jack, the platform’s algorithm also classifies Bob into “low-potential applicants” and only shows him job ads of unskilled and junior positions and match him with these openings. Here, Bob seems to have missed out on career opportunities in part because of Jack’s decisions and behaviors on the platform. In this scenario, is it justified for Bob to blame Jack for his decisions and behaviors on the platform? Has Jack wronged Bob for costing his chance to match to more senior or even executive positions? Or, Should Jack be responsible for Bob’s missed career opportunities? Our intuitions on these questions, I contend, push us in opposite directions: on the one hand, Jack does not intend his decisions and

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behaviors to affect Bob, nor does he know they will have such impacts on Bob; on the other hand, Jack’s decisions and behaviors on the platform does affect Bob’s career opportunities. The fictitious case I have outlined is not far off from reality, as algorithmic systems and data-driven technologies—or, more broadly, AI systems—become a major means of conducting everyday life.1 Insofar as the imaginary scenario foregrounds a set of questions about responsibility our society has to grapple with, I think that accounting for our intuitions about the scenarios is important. In this chapter, I attempt to account for the conflicting intuitions, and argue that, in an important sense, Jack is indeed responsible to Bob for his loss. There are many other lessons to be drawn from the imaginary scenario. We can, for example, examine the ethical issues related to privacy and the use of personal data. Alternatively, we can also question whether the platform’s algorithm is biased, discriminatory, or unjust. The above topics have been explored extensively in the current discussion on the ethics and governance of AI systems.2 This discussion, however, is insufficient as the focus has primarily been on the responsibility of designers and engineers of AI systems (i.e., to design ethical AI systems), the companies (i.e., to use AI systems ethically), and the state agencies (i.e., to properly regulate and govern the design and use of AI systems); and, the discussion thus far has overlooked the responsibility of individual end users. Yet, if Mike Ananny is correct that AI systems “are embedded within the sociotechnical structures; they are shaped by communities of practice, embodied in standards […, and] the relevance, quality, and stability of algorithms depend upon end users” (2016, p. 98), then any satisfactory ethical reflection of AI systems has to include the end users as well. I contend that personal decisions made and informed consent given by individuals have acquired new moral significance due to a new background condition that follows from the growing pervasiveness of AI systems. In this chapter, I shall refer to the new background condition as “the interconnectedness condition” and show that it has transformed the moral character of everyday decision-making and consent, thereby bringing forth a new responsibility to individuals qua users of AI systems. In addition, I propose that the idea of oneness in Neo-Confucianism affords a better understanding of the new responsibility, and thus allows us to make sense of the conflicting intuitions about the imaginary scenario.

5.2  Moral significance of personal decisions and informed consent One of the goals of this chapter is to demonstrate the transformed moral character and significance of personal decisions and informed consent, but to do that we must first clarify what they are and what their moral character is prior to the outset of the interconnectedness condition. It is typically taken for granted that, unless there are overriding reasons, we should accept and respect the personal decisions of others and refrain from

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interfering with them. Similarly, we generally agree that if a decision (or an act) could exert significant impacts on others, it is necessary to first obtain their consent before we make the decision (or perform the action). In other words, dismissing and disrespecting the personal choices of others without relevant reasons can be viewed as morally problematic; and, the same is true of making decisions and performing actions that could significantly affect others without first getting consent from them. The moral wrongness of the above behaviors is most easily explained by liberalism and one of its core values: personal decisions and informed consent are the expressions of autonomy from the liberal perspective. Accordingly, the dismissal of and disrespect to other’s personal decisions and the failure to obtain consent are morally wrong as they violate the (liberal) value of autonomy. The moral character of personal decisions can be spelled out in more detail. Personal decisions have two defining features: first, they are autonomous choices, namely they are intentional and well-informed decisions made by a person without controlling influence from other individuals or external factors (Beauchamp & Childress 2001, p. 58); second, they are self-regarding, therefore, do not directly affect anyone but the decision makers themselves. This analysis of personal decisions allows us to better understand their moral character and why it is wrong to dismiss and disrespect others’ personal decisions. More specifically, as personal decisions are autonomous choices, if we accept the (Kantian or Millian) liberal view that autonomy has intrinsic value, and that personal decisions are expressions of autonomy, then it is morally wrong for us to dismiss or disrespect other’s personal decisions unless their decisions directly affect the well-being of others (Beauchamp & Childress 2001, pp. 60–63; Christman 2020). In this respect, John Stuart Mill’s harm principle is a good example to illustrate the liberal view on the moral significance of personal decisions, “That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. […] To justify that, the conduct from which it is desired to deter him, must be calculated to produce evil to someone else. The only part of the conduct of anyone, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign”. (Mill 2003, pp. 80–81) More broadly, liberalism views persons as separate and distinct individuals (from other individuals, their community, and the society), who are capable of rational decisions, and thus are also the best and only candidates for deciding their own

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course of lives in accordance with their own values and interests.3 As such, we ought not to interfere with others’ personal decisions. Moreover, liberalism asserts that individuals have the right to pursue their own ends (Dworkin 1978; Rawls 1993). It is through making their own decisions and acting on them can individuals plan and live a life that is based on their own vision of the good life. So construed, personal decisions can be viewed as a fundamental right from a liberal perspective. Some liberal theorists go even further and defend “a right to do wrong” (see, e.g., Waldron 1981; Herstein 2012). Of course, the liberal view does not entail that we may not criticize the poor personal decisions of others, but if the decisions only affect the decision makers, then our criticisms can only be practical and prudential rather than moral. In short, so long as our personal decisions do not directly affect others, we alone are only responsible for them and their outcomes. Individuals, however, are members of society, and thus are bound to be affected by the decisions made by the state. Similarly, everyday interactions between individuals are going to directly affect one another. Yet, if the liberal view about the value of autonomy as absolute and fundamental is correct, then every state’s public policy and interaction between members of the society become morally questionable, which is obviously absurd. Here, one of liberalism’s answers to the absurdity, while maintaining the value of autonomy, is the idea of consent.4 In liberal political theory, there is a long tradition to view consent as the ground for political legitimacy (Waldron 1987). It is the consent of the people that confers legitimacy on the state to have political authority over them, and it is also their consent that legitimatizes the decisions made by the state.5 In other words, by consenting to the state’s authority and the decisions it makes, the people endorse the decisions (or the state agencies that make these decisions) as theirs, and thus the decisions they have consented to can be seen as being made by themselves. So construed, when individuals genuinely consent, i.e., consenting voluntarily and in a well-informed manner, their consent reflects the autonomy of the consenting individuals as they see and accept the decisions made by the state as their own. We can also use other examples to illustrate the moral significance of informed consent. It has been pointed out that imposing significant risks on people without their consent is prima facie wrong, and that consent is morally necessary for risk imposition (MacLean 1982; Teuber 1990). This is why medical ethics and research ethics insist that informed consent must be obtained from patients and research participants prior to surgery and experiment. With their informed consent, the patients and research participants will not be seen as being forced to undergo surgery or to take part in the experiments. More importantly, with their informed consent, the patients and research participants can also be seen to have accepted the risks of surgery and experiment voluntarily and thus also assumed the responsibility for the risks. In fact, consent has a permissive function, which can justify performing some actions on individuals that would otherwise be morally impermissible

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without their consent (Kleinig 2010). For instance, the difference in the moral character between trespassing and visiting a friend, which are similar in practice, is that in the case of visiting a friend, the visitor has the consent from the person being visited, whereas as in the case of trespassing the trespasser does not. Likewise, the difference between cutting up someone’s body and that of performing surgery on a person is that the surgery involves the informed consent of patients to surgeons. Consent, therefore, can be viewed as decisions to permit others to act (on oneself ), and so can also be viewed as an expression of autonomy. The above discussion shows that personal decisions and informed consent are the expressions of autonomy, which is one of the core values in liberalism. More importantly, as the moral significance of personal decisions and informed consent is grounded in the value of autonomy, provided that our decisions and consent do not significantly affect others, we are only required to consider our own values and interests in making personal decisions and giving consent and to assume the responsibility for their outcomes to ourselves. In other words, there is no obligation for one to take into account the values and interests of others in their decision-making and consent-giving.

5.3  AI systems and the interconnectedness condition AI systems have raised numerous concerns about their social, ethical, and political implications, and it is essential to point out these concerns stem not only from the unprecedented consequences of the application of these technologies but also from the fact that AI systems have fundamentally transformed the way we interact with each other and the world. Here, I shall first explain the change brought about by the pervasiveness of AI systems via the idea of the interconnectedness condition and then return to the question about how the condition transforms the moral character of personal decisions and informed consent. The interconnectedness condition refers to the fact that, with the increasing application of AI systems in various areas of our life, all aspects of people’s lives online and offline have become tightly and seamlessly connected. More specifically, the interconnectedness of the interconnectedness condition can be conceptualized in two different ways, namely the technical understanding and ontological understanding of interconnectedness. Firstly, we can interpret the idea of interconnectedness through the minimum technical requirement for a technology to operate or through the technology’s overall impact. Let’s call this understanding of interconnectedness the technical understanding. Like railway systems and the Internet, a majority of large (socio-) technical systems have to be applied widely in order for them to perform and realize their intended functions; at the same time, it is very often the case that once these systems are successfully implemented, most individuals in the society will become their users (or will be directly affected by them). By turning individuals into co-users of the (socio-)technical systems, the systems act as an

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intermediary of the people and connect them together, i.e., they turn individuals into a user group. Algorithmic systems and data-driven technologies are such technologies. To be effectively implemented, they must be taken up widely in both the horizontal and vertical sense. AI systems need to have a sufficient amount of data for analysis for them to identify reliable patterns and meaningful statistic correlations, thereby making accurate predictions and relevant recommendations. As such, AI systems have to collect a significant amount of data in their operation. Relatedly, these systems also need continuous data input to verify their predictions and recommendations and to train and improve the systems. More importantly, as AI systems mature, they are said to be capable of predicting the decisions and behaviors of those who have not previously provided (personal) data to the systems, as the systems can use a small number of features to classify them into categories and made predictions in accordance with the categories they belong.6 In this respect, AI systems bring forth the interconnectedness condition: (potential) users of AI systems become interconnected through the systems’ categorization. The implications of AI systems on personal decisions should be obvious. Since an AI system will be capable of using a small number of features about individuals to make relatively accurate predictions about them based on how they are classified by the system. When the system is rolled out to the public, and the state agencies and companies have a small amount of information about individuals, they can already use the system to make good predictions about the individuals. It becomes difficult for individuals to avoid being targeted by the state agencies and companies, and it is also difficult for them to refuse to become “users” of the system. Hence, we can always become a subject of analysis and prediction through AI systems unless we can avoid all data collection. More important for the present purpose, so long as AI systems make predictions and recommend specific options to individuals qua users (or, even decide for them) based on previously collected and analyzed data of oneself and of others, our space of personal decisions will be restricted by those data and the algorithm (see, e.g., Grafanaki 2017). The technical interconnectedness from AI systems also poses challenges to informed consent. Sven Ove Hansson (2006) has argued informed consent to be impossible in any large engineering project because of the multiplicity of impacts and the different levels of the impacts for different groups of individuals who are, or will be, affected by the project. The uncertainty about the impacts of the engineering projects renders it impossible to know whose consent is required. Moreover, Hansson also points out that, given the diversity of values and interests held by different groups of individuals, it is implausible to expect all of those who will be affected by the projects to endorse, and therefore consent to them. Being large (socio-)technical systems, algorithmic systems and data-driven technologies also face the problems raised by Hansson. More specifically, whose consent is required before implementing the AI systems remains unclear as in the large engineering projects, e.g., is it sufficient to obtain consent from those

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who will use the systems, or we must also obtain the consent from those who can be targeted and analyzed by the systems? And, even if we can identify whose consent is required, it remains questionable that they will all endorse the systems given the different values and interests users (and non-users). A different understanding of the interconnectedness condition is the ontological understanding that can be best illustrated with Luciano Floridi’s neologism. To use Floridi’s terminology, AI systems are re-ontologizing technology, and by “re-ontologizing”, Floridi refers to “a very radical form of re-engineering, one that not only designs, constructs, or structures a system (e.g. a company, a machine, or some artefact) anew, but that fundamentally transforms its intrinsic nature, that is, its ontology”. (Floridi 2010, p. 11) AI systems, and in particular data-driven technologies, encourage and demand us to be digitalized and datafied, which reduce the ontological friction between us and others and allow easier exchange of information of and about one person to another as well as to the third parties, such as state agencies and companies (Floridi 2005). Recall the imaginary scenario at the start, the platform’s algorithm classifies individuals into different categories according to various parameters, e.g., nationality, age, gender, home address, education, previous work experience, search results, views of and responses to job ads, the success rate of job matching, etc., and then makes predictions or decisions with reference to the category the targets (e.g., Jack, Bob, and other users) of analysis belong. In this respect, we may view AI systems as engaging primarily with the categories formed by data points individuals left behind (e.g., low-potential applicants) but not with the individuals themselves. As a result, the values and interests of individuals are unimportant in comparison to the values and interests of the categories to the systems. Since a majority of algorithms and data-driven technologies are neither public nor transparent in their functioning, there is often no way for individuals to know how AI systems classify them and what categories they will be in. It is, therefore, difficult for individuals to give genuine consent to the systems. Moreover, if consent is required for the systems and their decisions to be morally acceptable, as the decisions made by the systems are directed at the categories, and thus are specific to the different user groups the categories represent, then every member of a category must give consent to the decisions, which seems implausible given the differences among the members within a category. For these reasons, some researchers propose there is the need to take “group” as an additional unit of ethical and legal analysis (Mantelero 2016; Taylor, Floridi, & Van der Sloot 2017) and explore concepts such as “group consent” (see, e.g., Schrag 2006; Grill 2009; Bullock & Widdows 2011) and “collective consent” (see, e.g., Varelius 2008, 2009).

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5.4  Personal decisions and informed consent: from self-regarding acts to other-regarding acts AI systems and the interconnectedness condition follows from their increasing application challenge our view on the moral significance of personal decisions and informed consent as well as the applicability of other fundamental moral concepts. Some scholars have responded by rethinking the idea and value of autonomy and related notions (see, e.g., Stalder 2010; Grafanaki 2017), while other scholars look to broaden our scope of ethical analysis and reflect on the impact of AI systems on groups (see, e.g., Mantelero 2016; Taylor et al. 2017). While I agree with them the importance of the above topics, I think there is not enough attention to the changing moral character of actions as a result of the interconnectedness condition and the new responsibility arises in the condition. So, I shall use personal decisions and informed consent as examples to illustrate how AI systems transform the moral characters of our actions and introduce new responsibility. Before discussing how AI systems transform the moral character of personal decisions and informed consent, I will first introduce the problem of group privacy as elaborated by Brent Mittelstadt (2017). Mittelstadt points to the AI systems’ capability to analyze personal data, classify individuals into ad hoc groups, and then use the ad hoc groups as reference for the systems’ decision-making. He argues that the ad hoc groups can reveal important—private and intimate— features of their members through the information about the group membership; however, as the identity of an ad hoc group is distinct from the identity of individual members of the group, where the former is a shared identity created from and composed of selected features of individuals by an AI system, the current legal protections, which focus on individuals and their rights, are unable to sufficiently protect it. For the ontological difference between individuals and (ad hoc) groups, and the potential impacts AI systems can have on individuals through their decision-making about the ad hoc groups, Mittelstadt contends that current ethical and legal thinking about privacy need to give more serious attention to the idea of group privacy. My brief detour to Mittelstadt’s discussion of the problem of group privacy aims to show that AI systems may create new ethical issues and call for new concepts in ethical reflection, but also that the discussion has not paid enough attention to the changing moral characters in some of our own actions. Particularly, Mittelstadt’s and other scholars’ concerns remain largely about the interference on autonomy and the resulting harm, albeit through different means, and they have not (re-)consider the meaning of our behaviors in the interconnectedness condition. Earlier, I have summarized the moral character of personal decisions and informed consent; in particular, I note that in making personal decisions and giving consent, we only need to consider our own values and interests so long as we take responsibility for the outcomes of the decisions and consent, and,

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at the same time, the decisions and consent do not significantly affect others. In short, both personal decisions and consent are self-regarding acts. However, as the problem of group privacy and the imaginary scenario indicates, our personal decisions and informed consent, when mediated through AI systems, do directly affect others. So construed, personal decisions and informed consent are no longer merely self-regarding, but they are also other-regarding acts as well. More specifically, in the fictitious case, Jack’s decisions and other behaviors on the platform provide new information about himself as well as those who share similar features with him, which, in turn, allow the platform to understanding better not only him but also those who are similar to him and to (re)formulate the treatment of them accordingly.7 In the imaginary scenario, Jack’s decisions and behaviors on the platform lead to Bob only seeing specific kinds of job ads and being matched to specific types of employers. In this way, I maintain that Jack’s decisions and behaviors have direct impacts on Bob—and other individuals who share similar features—through the platform’s algorithm. Through AI systems, our personal decisions are not merely personal, but they are personal-group decisions and thus affect those who are, and can be, in the same group and/or share similar features with us. Since personal decisions are transformed into other-regarding acts in the interconnectedness condition, we are not only responsible to ourselves when making personal decisions but also responsible to others who are in the same group and/or share similar features with us. Accordingly, when making personal decisions, we ought to also consider the values and interests from a group perspective and be mindful of the impacts our personal decisions may have on others who are like us. And, the same can be said about informed consent: assuming a person gives consent on a platform along with other personal information, the person’s consent will enable the platform’s algorithm (and the platform owners) to know more about the person and those who are like him; his consent will also convey to the platform who is more likely to give consent, and how to best secure consent from people like him. In some cases, his consent may even entail the consent of the similar people, e.g., by giving consent for the use of one’s genetic data, the person’s consent is effectively a consent of those who share a genetic link to him (see, e.g., Bullock & Widdows 2011; Barocas & Levy 2020). Again, informed consent is not merely self-regarding but other-regarding as well. So, just as personal decisions in the interconnectedness condition require us to take others’ values and interests into account, informed consent also requires us to do the same.

5.5  Confucian idea of oneness: personal decisions, informed consent, and responsibility reconsidered So far, I have argued that the moral character of personal decisions and informed consent has changed under the interconnectedness condition, and that individuals ought to, in making personal decisions and giving consent, consider others’ values and interests. This new responsibility can be difficult to

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understand and accept, at least, from a liberal perspective that views persons as separate and distinct.8 To strengthen the case for the new responsibility, I will turn to Confucian philosophy for answers. Confucian philosophy has long regarded people as responsible for taking into account the values and interests of others in making decisions (even if the decisions are directed toward the decision maker themselves). By elaborating on the Confucian view, we can provide an alternative way to defend the new responsibility under the interconnectedness condition. Oneness of Heaven and Humanity (tianren heyi 天人合一) is a normative ideal of Confucian philosophy, which specifies the relationship between human and nature as well as between humans themselves that we ought to strive for. The Confucian idea of oneness is best exemplified by the Neo-Confucian philosopher Zhang Zai’s Western Inscription. He writes, “Heaven is my father and Earth is my mother, and even such a small creature as I find an intimate place in their midst. Therefore that which fills the universe I regard as my body and that which directs the universe I consider as my nature. All people are my brothers and sisters, and all things are my companions. The great ruler (the emperor) is the eldest son of my parents (Heaven and Earth), and the great ministers are his stewards. Respect the aged—this is the way to treat them as elders should be treated. Show deep love toward the orphaned and the weak—this is the way to treat them as the young should be treated. The sage identifies his character with that of Heaven and Earth, and the worthy is the most outstanding man. Even those who are tired, infirm, crippled, or sick; those who have no brothers or children, wives or husbands, are all my brothers who are in distress and have no one to turn to”. (in Chan 1963, p. 497; author’s emphasis) Central to Zhang Zai’s philosophy, and to Neo-Confucian philosophy more broadly, is the notion of one body (and, relatedly, one family).9 Zhang Zai intends the description of human and nature relationship as one body not as metaphorical but as metaphysical. For Zhang Zai, it is precisely because we, every human being, share the same substance and being one with and through the universe that we ought to tend ourselves as tending our universe and other beings and vice versa. If the Confucian idea of oneness is right, then people’s decisions and actions that will harm (or, will be bad for) the universe and other beings will also harm (or, will also be bad for) themselves, as they are parts of the one and so harming (or degrading) the one essentially worsens the basis for their flourishing.10 Correspondingly, people’s decisions and actions that will harm (or, will be bad for) themselves, will also harm the universe and other beings. From the perspective of Confucian oneness, people need to be mindful of their interconnection with the universe and other beings in their decisions and actions, even if they are seemingly only directed at themselves.

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Recently, P. J. Ivanhoe summarizes this Neo-Confucian philosophical view with the oneness hypothesis, which “is a view about the nature of the world; its primary moral aspect concerns the nature of the relationship between the self and the other people, creatures, and things of the world; its core assertion is the claim that we—and in particular our personal welfare or happiness—are inextricably intertwined with other people, creatures, and things” (Ivanhoe 2017, p. 1; also, see Ivanhoe 2015, 2018). Moreover, Ivanhoe (2015) argues that the Confucian idea of oneness leads to an expanded view of the self and an enlarged view of responsibility. For Neo-Confucianism, as we come to see that there is no distinction between the self and others, we recover a deep connection between us and other people, creatures, and things. This deep connection allows us to understand and feel for them, and the deep connection also motivates and obliges us to care for them. This expanded view of the self, in effect, calls for us to actively promote the flourishing of other people, creatures, things, and the universe, as Zhongyong (The Doctrine of Mean) states, “Only those who (are) absolutely sincere can fully develop their nature. If they can fully develop their nature, they can then fully develop the nature of others. If they can fully develop the nature of others, they can fully develop the nature of things. If they can fully develop the nature of things, they can assist in the transforming and nourishing process of Heaven and Earth, they can thus form a trinity with Heaven and Earth”. (The Doctrine of the Mean 22, in Chan 1969, pp. 107–108) It should be clear how the Confucian idea of oneness offers an alternative argument for the new responsibility to take into account others’ values and interests in making personal decisions and giving consent. Nonetheless, it is instructive to briefly examine the Neo-Confucian diagnosis for people’s failure to achieve oneness. In particular, the Neo-Confucian philosopher Wang Yangming views self-centeredness, i.e., an excessive and exclusive focus on oneself when a person approaches the world and other beings, as the key obstacle to achieving oneness (Ivanhoe 2017, 2018; Tien 2012). For Wang Yangming, because self-centeredness prioritizes people’s own perspective over other perspectives, and as prioritizing one’s view and centered on it draws a sharp distinction between the self and others, self-centeredness makes it difficult for people to recognize and experience the interconnection with the world and other beings, thereby also making it difficult for them to achieve oneness.11 We can now formulate the Confucian argument for the new responsibility. Neo-Confucian philosophers start with the view that human beings are inherently interconnected to the world and others. For them, it is the deep connection we have with other people, creatures, and things that motivates and obliges us to care for them and improve their well-being, as failing to do so is, in an important sense, a form of self-harm and self-degradation. Consequently, in making personal decisions, a person ought to consider others’ values and interests regardless

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of whether the decisions are self-directed or other-directed. In line with the Confucian idea of oneness, we can even abandon the difference between the moral significance of self-regarding acts and other-regarding acts and consider them to be on par morally. As I have attempted to show, the interconnectedness condition follows from the pervasiveness of AI systems (re-)creates the tight and seamless connection among people not unlike the deep connection as characterized by the Confucian idea of oneness, and thus the responsibility toward others as insisted by the Neo-Confucian philosophers can also be applied to the interconnectedness condition. Following the Neo-Confucian view, individuals qua users of AI systems ought to be mindful of the impacts their decisions and actions can have on other users (and non-users), and the users’ failure to do so will be seen as a moral failing and a form of self-harm and self-degradation. Moreover, we may go further and argue along with Neo-Confucian philosophers that we are responsible to actively promote the well-being of others, and thus users ought to ensure their interaction with AI systems will positively affect other users (and non-users). Returning to our imaginary example, the Neo-Confucian view will regard Jack to have the responsibility to consider the possible impacts his decisions and behaviors on the platform may have on others, including Bob, before making any decision and even before using the platform, because of the interconnection among Jack and others who are similar to him, which is made possible by AI systems. When Jack fails to do so, and the result is harmful to Bob and others, Jack is indeed morally wrong from the Neo-Confucian perspective. In effect, Jack ought to have considered how his decisions and behaviors on the platform could have promoted the well-being of other users (and non-users), which is required by the normative ideal of oneness. In the fictitious case, we may also explain Jack’s failure in terms of self-centeredness. After all, his decisions and behaviors on the platform are entirely about himself. Of course, the platform also contributes to Jack’s self-centeredness when it engages with Jack in a personalized way, thereby limiting the tendency for Jack to think beyond himself.

5.6  Concluding remarks Algorithmic systems and data-driven technologies have changed the moral character of our actions, e.g., they have transformed personal decisions into personal-group decisions. This way, I have sought to offer a revisionist account of “personal decisions” and “informed consent”, and to defend a new responsibility for this new understanding of personal decisions and informed consent. In this chapter, I argue that because of the transformed moral character of personal decisions and informed consent, when making personal decisions and giving consent, individuals qua users of AI systems ought to take into account the values and interests of other users, especially those who are similar to the individuals themselves, as well as potential users and non-users. Finally, to make a stronger

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case for the new responsibility, I refer to the Confucian idea of oneness to elaborate on the responsibility we have once we acknowledge the deep connection we have with the world and each other, and apply it to the interconnectedness condition follows from the pervasiveness of AI systems. The foregoing discussion, I hope, has succeeded in arguing for a new responsibility individual qua users ought to assume, and that they can be seen as responsible for the harm and/or bad outcomes of AI systems due to either the technical or ontological interconnectedness. Yet, the exact details of the new responsibility have to be worked out further. Particularly, while I have argued that individuals qua users ought to consider others’ values and interests in making personal decisions and giving consent, such an obligation seems to be epistemically over-demanding: in an AI system, it is not only difficult for the users to know the values and interests of others, it is even more difficult to know the exact impacts of their decisions and behaviors, and, relatedly, whose values and interests they need to take into account. Satisfactory answers to the epistemic issues are required for the new responsibility I propose to be plausible. Before the end of this chapter, therefore, I want to suggest two broad answers to them. Firstly, we can accept the fact that users of AI systems have no suitable way to know the values and interests of other users or to comprehend sufficiently the possible impacts of their decisions and behaviors on AI systems, but insist that the users ought to have attempted to do so within their epistemic limitation. In doing so, we aim to ensure individuals are not being irresponsible users of AI systems (cf. Andre, Fleck, & Tomlinson 2000). Secondly, we can explore possible technological designs to alleviate the epistemic limitation of the users of AI systems. For example, by highlighting and/or visualizing to users how their decisions and behaviors may affect other users who are in the same category, or even by providing a simple notification to them that their decisions and behaviors may affect the others, thereby prompting them to reflect on their decisions before actually making and acting on them.

Notes 1 I use the terms “algorithmic systems and data-driven technologies” interchangeably “AI systems”, as the European Commission High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence defines AI systems as “software (and possibly also hardware) systems designed by humans that, given a complex goal, act in the physical or digital dimension by perceiving their environment through data acquisition, interpreting the collected […] data, reasoning on the knowledge, or processing the information, derived from this data and deciding the best action(s) to take to achieve the given goal. AI systems can either use symbolic rules or learn a numeric model, and they can also adapt their behaviour by analysing how the environment is affected by their previous actions” (AI HLEG 2019, p. 36), which thus includes algorithms (or, algorithmic systems) and data-driven technologies under the broad category of AI systems. 2 For an overview of the research on group privacy, see Taylor et al. (2017), for the use of big data, see Mittelstadt & Floridi (2016), and for the ethics of algorithms, see Mittelstadt, Allo, Taddeo, Wachter, & Floridi (2016).

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3 See Bockover (2010) for a discussion of the liberal view of the persons. 4 There is a general agreement among philosophers and other researchers about how to understand consent (or informed consent), but there remains disagreement over the details of the idea. In this chapter, I shall not defend a specific view of (informed) consent, but to use the terms “consent” and “informed consent” to refer to voluntary and well-informed decision-making. For an overview of (informed) consent, see Wong (2016) and Eyal (2019). 5 Here, a distinction between the legitimacy of the state and the legitimacy of the decisions made by the state can be made, as it is possible for a legitimate state to make illegitimate decisions, see Christiano (1999) and Grill (2009). Since the distinction does not affect my discussion in this chapter, I shall not elaborate on it. 6 Such a vision of AI systems is best illustrated by a leaked Google video, titled “The Selfish Ledger” (Savov 2018). 7 An alternative way to illustrate how individuals may directly affect others through personal decisions is to look at the relational (and socio-interpersonal) nature of privacy. Barocas & Levy (2020) have offered an excellent discussion of the different ways in which individuals may unintentionally and/or unknowingly disclose (private) personal information of others through disclosure of their own personal information. 8 I suspect this is the reason why current discussion focuses almost exclusively on how to protect individuals (and groups) from third parties and neglects the responsibility of individuals qua users of AI systems. 9 For instance, another key passage is in Inquiry on the Great Learning of Neo-Confucian philosophers Wang Yangming, which states, “[t]he great man regards Heaven and Earth and the myriad things as one body. He regards the world as one family and the country as one person” (in Chan 1963, p. 659). It should be noted that the idea of oneness in Neo-Confucian philosophy is supported by a specific cosmological view and metaphysics of qi (vital stuff 气) and li (pattern 理), which I am unable to elaborate further in this chapter. In fact, the argument I offer in this section will not rely on the Neo-Confucian cosmological view and metaphysics but the metaphysics that regards data and/or information as basic (see, e.g., Floridi 2010). For an introduction to the idea of qi and li in Neo-Confucianism, see Angle & Tiwald (2017, Chapter 2). 10 A more radical version of the Confucian idea of oneness in Zhang Zai maintains that oneness is an identical relationship, i.e., we are identical to the universe and other beings. In this more radical formulation of oneness, harming (or degrading) the universe and others can be viewed as direct self-harm and self-degradation. 11 Again, Wang Yangming’s diagnosis is given in terms of siyu (self-centered desire 私欲) and within the Neo-Confucian cosmological view and metaphysics, which are not shared by the modern scientific worldview (Ivanhoe 2017, 2018; Tien 2012). However, as Ivanhoe (2018) rightly argues, the relevance of oneness and the related problem of self-centered desire can be formulated without referring to the Neo-Confucian cosmology and metaphysics.

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Bockover, M. I. (2010). Confucianism and ethics in the Western philosophical tradition I: Foundational concepts. Philosophy Compass, 5(4), 307–316. Bullock, E., & Widdows, H. (2011). Reconsidering consent and biobanking. In C. Lenk, J. Sándor, & B. Gordijn (Eds.), Biobanks and tissue research (pp. 111–125). Dordrecht: Springer. Chan, W.-T. (Trans.) (1969). A source book in Chinese philosophy. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Christiano,T. (1999). Justice and disagreement at the foundations of political authority. Ethics, 110, 165–187. Christman, J. (2020). Autonomy in moral and political philosophy. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (fall 2020 edition). Available Online at: https://plato. stanford.edu/archives/fall2020/entries/autonomy-moral/. Dworkin, R. (1978). Liberalism. In S. Hampshire (Ed.), Public and private morality (pp. 113–143). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. European Commission High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence (AI HLEG). (2019). Ethics guidelines for trustworthy AI. European Commission. Available Online at: https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/ethics-guidelines-trustworthy-ai Eyal, N. (2019). Informed consent. In: E. N. Zalta (Eds.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Spring 2019 Edition). Available Online at: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2019/ entries/informed-consent/ Floridi, L. (2005). The ontological interpretation of informational privacy. Ethics and Information Technology, 7, 185–200. Floridi, L. (2010). Information: A very short introduction. New York: Oxford University Press. Grafanaki, S. (2017). Autonomy challenges in the age of big data. Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal, 27, 803–868. Grill, K. (2009). Liberalism, altruism and group consent. Public Health Ethics, 2, 146–157. Hansson, S. O. (2006). Informed consent out of context. Journal of Business Ethics, 63, 149–154. Herstein, O. J. (2012). Defending the right to do wrong. Law and Philosophy, 31(3), 343–365. Ivanhoe, P. J. (2015). Senses and values of oneness. In B. Bruya (Ed.), The philosophical challenge from China (pp. 231–252). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Ivanhoe, P. J. (2017). Oneness: East Asian conceptions of virtue, happiness, and how we are all connected. New York: Oxford University Press. Ivanhoe, P. J. (2018). Selfishness and self-centeredness. Journal of Korean Religions, 9(2), 9–31. Kleinig, J. (2010). The nature of consent. In F. G. Miller & A. Wertheimer (Eds.), The ethics of consent:Theory and practice (pp. 3–24). New York: Oxford University Press. MacLean, D. (1982). Risk and consent: Philosophical issues for centralized decisions. Risk Analysis, 2, 59–67. Mantelero, A. (2016). Personal data for decisional purposes in the age of analytics: From an individual to a collective dimension of data protection. Computer Law & Security Review, 32(2), 238–255. Mill, J. S. (2003). On liberty. New Haven, CT:Yale University Press. Mittelstadt, B. D. (2017). From individual to group privacy in big data analytics. Philosophy & Technology, 30, 475–494. Mittelstadt, B. D., & Floridi, L. (2016). The ethics of big data: Current and foreseeable issues in biomedical contexts. Science and Engineering Ethics, 22, 303–341. Mittelstadt, B. D., Allo, P., Taddeo, M., Wachter, S., & Floridi, L. (2016). The ethics of algorithms: Mapping the debate. Big Data & Society, December 2016. Available Online at https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2053951716679679 Rawls, J. (1993). Political liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press. Savov,V. (2018, May 17). Google’s Selfish Ledger is an unsettling vision of Silicon Valley social engineering. The Verge. Available Online at: https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/17/ 17344250/google-x-selfish-ledger-video-data-privacy

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Schrag, B. (2006). Research with groups: Group rights, group consent, and collaborative research. Science and Engineering Ethics, 12(3), 511–521. Stalder, F. (2010). Autonomy and control in the era of post-privacy. Open! Platform for Art, Culture & the Public Domain. Available Online at: https://www.onlineopen.org/ autonomy-and-control-in-the-era-of-post-privacy Taylor, L., Floridi, L., & Van der Sloot, B. (2017). Group privacy: New challenges of data technologies. Cham: Springer. Teuber, A. (1990). Justifying risk. Daedalus, 4, 235–254. Tien, D. W. (2012). Oneness and self-centeredness in the moral psychology of Wang Yangming. Journal of Religious Ethics, 40(1), 52–71. Varelius, J. (2008). On the prospects of collective informed consent. Journal of Applied Philosophy, 25(1), 35–44. Varelius, J. (2009). Collective informed consent and decision power. Science and Engineering Ethics, 15(1), 39–50. Waldron, J. (1981). A right to do wrong. Ethics, 92, 21–39. Waldron, J. (1987). Theoretical foundations of liberalism. The Philosophical Quarterly, 37, 127–150. Wong, P.-H. (2016). Consenting to geoengineering. Philosophy & Technology, 29, 173–188.

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6 CONFUCIAN PERSONHOOD AND THE SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT Ren as the Foundation of Confucian Ethics of Technology Fei Teng

6.1 Introduction New Confucianism endeavors to identify the essence of Confucianism as a virtue-based theory and reconstruct Confucianism to respond to various social, ethical, and political issues in the modern world. Leading scholars in New Confucianism, including Tang Junyi, Mou Zongsan, Zhang Junmai, and Xu Fuguan, co-authored The Manifesto for a Reappraisal of Sinology and Reconstruction of Chinese Culture in 1958 to argue Confucianism is not only about hierarchical social orders and rules of the old society but also an inclusive humanism centered at the cultivation of virtue-based personhood. Their reconstruction of Confucianism has a particular historical background. Confucianism has long been criticized for not being able to promote the development and modernization of China since the beginning of the 20th century. To defend the relevance of Confucianism for the contemporary world, New Confucianism attempts to show that Confucian humanism can offer the philosophical resource to ground a scientific spirit. Tang Junyi, a leading New Confucian scholar, provides a plausible way to understand personhood and its implications in various domains, and his discussion regarding the formation of the scientific spirit based on Confucian personhood provides us with a set of theoretical claims, which could be a useful insight for Confucian ethics of technology. This chapter adopts the basic arguments of New Confucianism and defends the centrality of a virtue-based account of Confucian personhood in Confucian humanism. Based on the earlier discussion on the scientific spirit in New Confucianism, I aim to show how Confucian virtues provide a normative ground for the development of science and technology. In what follows, I first illustrate the concept of virtue-based personhood in Confucian humanism, and then clarify the working definition of the scientific spirit and discuss the controversial issues about the relationship between Confucianism and science. Based

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on this discussion, I further explain New Confucianism’s view on how to incorporate the scientific spirit in Confucian humanism, and then present a version of Confucian scientific spirit, which is built on the innate virtue of ren (仁). Finally, I outline some potential critiques to my account and response to them, and then conclude with the potential implications of Confucian personhood for the ethics of technology.

6.2  Virtue as the basis of Confucian personhood In his study on Confucian ethics of technology, Pak-Hang Wong was correct to point out that personhood is one of the critical concepts in Confucian ethics.1 However, the interpretation of the concept of “personhood” can vary within different Confucian traditions. This section attempts to defend a virtue-based account and further points out that it serves as the spiritual root of Confucian ethics. I shall start by first introducing some influential accounts of Confucian personhood. Among various interpretations of Confucian personhood, the role-based interpretation is one of the influential theories that sees the Confucian person as a relational concept. In the role-based interpretation, role-bearing persons are constituted by their social network. The self (person) is a unique sum of social roles concerning specific others that they encounter in their lifetime (Ames 2011, pp. xiv–xvi). According to this pattern of self-identity, self-cultivation is to develop one’s moral competence to cope with their expanding social relationships. During people’s lifetime, learning is about acquiring growing knowledge of what is the proper thing to do in specific situations (Hall & Ames 1987, p. 118). In this endless process of self-cultivation in Confucianism, human beings should be understood as human becomings, which means that human nature is an openended and ever-changing resource of what we will become in our social environment (Ames 2011, p. 175). Becoming a good person, who is leading a good life, is defined by the expanding social relationships. The role-based account of Confucian personhood has been systematically presented by Roger Ames (2011), in his book Confucian Role Ethics—A Vocabulary. Many other theorists, such as David Hall, Henry Rosemont Jr., Herbert Fingarette, and A. T. Nuyen, share this view on relational and developmental personhood (Fingarette 1972; Nuyen 2009; Rosemont 1976; cf. Ramsey 2016). This account of the Confucian role ethics formulates an interpretation of Confucianism as a type of role-based ethics, which views social roles and the personal interaction in people’s social networks to be the primary basis of moral guidance (Ames 2011). Following the role-based interpretation, Confucian ethics of technology will draw attention to the significance of social roles in and of technology design and use. It may imply that the nature of specific social roles and the responsibilities attached to them are the starting point of how we should conceptualize the Confucian ethics of technology. For example, Wong has encouraged researchers to examine how technology may influence the nature of the social roles and the related responsibilities in modern times. Here, I sympathize with

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Wong’s view that social roles are the critical indicators for ethical thinking in Confucianism. However, it is essential to address the fundamental role of the innate virtue of ren in the context of Confucian personhood. Pace Wong, I argue that, as one of the crucial dimensions for Confucian ethics of technology, personhood should be interpreted as a virtue-based concept in Confucianism. In the Manifesto for a Reappraisal of Sinology and Reconstruction of Chinese Culture, New Confucian scholars advocate that what stands at the center of Confucianism is the cultivation of human nature and mind (xinxing 心性). They consider it to be superficial and mistaken to understand Confucianism by only focusing on interpersonal relationships and social rules. New Confucianism maintains that there is a spiritual dimension that serves as the foundation of the ethical rules in interpersonal relationships; therefore, Confucianism should be interpreted as focusing on the realization of one’s human nature and inner moral mind (xinxing), and that is the fundamental driving force and guideline for daily moral practices (Zhang, Mou, Tang, & Xu 2006). This claim mainly Mencian. New Confucians believe the innate virtue of ren (仁, often translated as humaneness or benevolence) is the particular moral nature of human beings. Ren is also the nature bestowed by Heaven (tian 天). Accordingly, human virtue is also the virtue of tian. The realization of human virtue, i.e., ren, is the ultimate goal of human development and the Confucian moral life. Here, the cultivation of innate virtue is nothing more than a process of coordinating and expanding one’s moral relationships with others; in this way, one can deepen the cultivation of innate virtue (Zhang et al. 2006, p. 570). According to New Confucianism, the cultivation of the heavenly endowed virtue stands at the center of such moral idealism. Human beings differ from other kinds of beings because we possess a special kind of moral capacity and nature, i.e., we are not only able to cultivate our nature, but we are also able to assist others in cultivating their nature. Contrarily, other kinds of beings, like animals or plants, can only develop their own nature. The responsibility to enable others to fully develop their nature, however, is not an external requirement decided by social rules or social relationships; every person possesses this responsibility through their innate virtue. According to Mencius, the original revelation of such an innate virtue is human’s natural tendency to be compassionate toward others. Eventually, our natural tendency can be cultivated to its full nature, as it has been described in The Doctrine of the Mean, “Only those who are absolutely sincere can fully develop their nature. If they can fully develop their nature, they can then fully develop the nature of others. If they can fully develop the nature of others, they can then fully develop the nature of things. If they can fully develop the nature of things, they can then assist in the transforming and nourishing process of Heaven and Earth. If they can assist in the transforming and nourishing process of Heaven and Earth, they can thus form a trinity with Heaven and Earth”. (Chapter 22, in Chan 1963, pp. 107–108)

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This means, through a process of cultivating one’s innate nature, every person could become a sage. We could view Confucian ethics as an attempt to universalize the goal of cultivating the innate virtue of ren. That is, every person has the potential to fully realize and awaken their innate virtue, and every person should also respect this potentiality in human. Hence, in honoring the virtue-based personhood of every person and in cultivating the innate virtue in oneself, we must accept the moral responsibility of not interfering others in their realization of their nature; and in some cases, we must also accept the responsibility of assisting others in their moral cultivation. For example, the social and moral responsibilities in the direct and personal relationships, such as filial piety toward parent and love toward children, should be understood in terms of enabling or assisting one’s virtue cultivation. I elaborate on the essential role of virtue in understanding Confucian personhood for the following reasons. Firstly, the virtue-based account of personhood provides a more plausible and authentic reading of Confucianism than the rolebased view that only recognizes the social dimension in Confucian ethics. The role-based view sees Confucian ethics primarily as regulating people’s behaviors by imposing a set of moral obligations to each social role. Accordingly, one could argue that social role is normative and decisive for one to identify their responsibility in concrete situations; and, proper behaviors are learned from good examples of sages and improvised in specific situations in accordance with the person’s social role(s) (Ames 2011, pp. 258–259). For the virtue-based personhood, however, social roles are merely external indicators for people to cultivate their innate virtue. The innate virtue can serve independently as the moral resource for defining moral conduct, i.e., what is the right thing to do in an actual situation is the creative performance in accordance with the innate virtue of ren. In understanding Confucian ethics as a virtue-based ethics, social roles do play a significant role in Confucian moral thinking, but it is only in the sense that the ideal of attaining innate virtue of ren should always take place within the context of social relationships and social roles because the full realization of ren must go through infinite connection with others. In short, the innate virtue of ren should be the normative force as well as the ultimate goal of the Confucian moral life, and its significance should be identified beyond social relationships and social roles. This is because, as I discussed earlier, the innate nature of ren is perfectly endowed to every person. Moral cultivation is a process of awakening the perfect innate nature. Secondly, viewing virtue as the fundamental dimension in Confucian personhood allows Confucianism to cope with new relationships in a changing society. For the virtue-based account of personhood, proper moral conducts are mainly creative performances in accordance to the requirement of innate virtue of ren in concrete situations. Deferring to people’s internal moral strength and its creativity leaves more space for self-determination, self-reflection, and self-articulation in response to novel situations we never had. For instance, existing social roles cannot easily provide sufficient normative guidelines for our moral relationships

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with artificial intelligence or future generations. The virtue-based account of personhood can avoid the limitation of the role-based view and allow more space for critical thinking and further articulation. In sum, this section defends a virtue-based account of personhood as an essential concept in understanding Confucianism based on New Confucianism’s view that the heavenly endowed virtue and its cultivation provide the spiritual dimension of Confucian ethics. Yet, this account is often criticized for not being able to provide adequate philosophical ground for the development of modern science and technology due to the focus on the inner development of the person and the spirituality.

6.3  Scientific spirit and its absence in Confucianism It is difficult to find a standard definition for “scientific spirit”, but it is commonly believed to be a pluralistic concept that reflects the essential attitude toward science and scientific studies. Despite there being various interpretations of the term, there are two significant aspects in understanding this concept. Firstly, it is a system of beliefs, values, and norms, which is formed in the process of scientific exploration. Secondly, it also represents the inner spirit of truth-seeking and innovation of intellectual subjects, including scientists and other researchers ( Jiang 2017, p. 9). Scientific spirit indicates a truth-seeking character, which is guided by rational thinking. For example, the scientific spirit manifests in the love for the laws of the material world regardless of their practical use and the enjoyment of logics underlying this exploration in the ancient Greek tradition (Robin 2003, pp. 8–15). From this ancient Greek tradition, Robert Merton (1979) summarizes four characteristics of the scientific spirits in modern science as the following: (1) universalism (i.e., an expression of the claim for truth and/or objectivity), (2) communism (i.e., the common ownership of scientific knowledge), (3) disinterestedness (i.e., the passions for knowledge, altruistic concerns for the humanity, etc.), and (4) organized skepticism (i.e., a detached, questioning attitude toward any claim to knowledge that requires uncritical respect or cannot be objectively analyzed). In his article On the Western Concept of Scientific Spirit, New Confucian scholar Tang Junyi maintains that the scientific spirit is the defining characteristic of scientific, intellectual subjects (Tang 2005b, pp. 79–81). Tang suggests there are two essential features that distinguish the spirit of science from art and morality. First, it is a sense of exploration for pure (scientific) knowledge. The ultimate goal of scientific research is to explain the nature of reality and to look for the laws of mathematics and physics, which is beyond our daily life and experience. Pure scientific knowledge might be applied to practical matters, but the original purpose of scientific study is not necessarily for practical use. In other words, the goal of scientific exploration is to make a breakthrough from the limitation of the experiential world, even without knowing what the functional significance of this breakthrough is. Tang believes this is an idealistic feature of the scientific

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spirit and the essence of scientific study (Tang 2005b, p. 83). Second, the spirit of science is a sense of rational analysis. Science is analytical and abstract, i.e., the concepts, assumptions, and laws in scientific research are abstracted from particular aspects of natural objects and aim to explain the nature and the structure of things. Unlike art and morality, scientific research does not rely on emotions or value judgments. Tang’s account of scientific spirit is mainly based on natural sciences, but he admits that this spirit also plays a significant role in other fields, e.g., in social sciences and in the technology development, because they rely on the similar analytical reasoning and research methods to examine the social and human phenomena (Tang 2005b, p. 88). Confucianism is often believed to be incompatible to the above understanding of the scientific spirit, and thus it is often blamed for hindering the development of modern science and technology in China. Scholars have provided several reasons to support this criticism (Fu 1987; Fung 1922; Wei 1990). First, it is believed that Confucianism (over-)emphasizes the significance of being an inner sage. That means Confucianism only focuses on the achievement of moral cultivation of the innate virtue. As a result, the study and learning efforts always aim at one’s inward awakening but ignore the importance of scientific knowledge. In Confucianism, knowledge about virtues is prioritized over scientific knowledge and other types of knowledge about the external, physical world. Second, Feng Youlan maintains that Confucianism, as well as other Chinese traditions, does not clearly separate the human (subjective) and the natural (objective) world. Without a subjective self, which stands in contrast to the objective others, Confucianism is not eager for a profound understanding and explanation of the physical world (Fung 1922). Third, from the Confucian perspective, a crucial way to moral cultivation and become a moral person is to respect and learn from the exemplars of virtuous sages. The love for Confucian virtues, unlike the love for the order of the external world from the ancient Greek, does not foster an attitude for organized skepticism. So construed, many scholars believe that the spirit of Confucian humanism stands in contrast to the spirit of science. Tang Junyi and other New Confucians, such as Zhang Junmai, Mou Zongsan, and Xu Fuguan, admit the absence of scientific spirit in the Confucian tradition—or, even in Chinese culture in general. While, in some significant periods in Chinese history, there were major achievements in sciences and technological development, the achievements were by no means promoted by the scientific spirit. Similarly, Tang points out that even though there was a sophisticated sense of space and time in ancient China, they were mainly conceived for other purposes than for the pursuit of knowledge (of physics) itself, i.e., the sense of time and space is often used for and in rites (li 礼) (Tang 2005b, p. 92). Unlike pure scientific knowledge, which is driven by the scientific spirit, the early scientific and technological achievements were produced to serve specific practical purposes in daily life. They are, therefore, always attached to particular cultural values and functional utility. Tang also admits this is a particular feature

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of Chinese culture: because of the focus on utility, it does not encourage the pursuit of knowledge that goes beyond mundane life, nor does it require analytical rationality that is abstract and distant from everyday experience. Confucianism’s emphasis on moral practice could not direct sufficient attention to sciences, and it helps explain why the scientific spirit has not developed in Confucian humanism (Tang 2005b, p. 92; Zhang et al. 2006, p. 207). To defend the contemporary relevance of Confucianism, New Confucian scholar Tang Junyi offers a response to this critique within a broader context, where he attempts to show how a virtue-based understanding of moral consciousness and moral self can foster all kinds of cultural activities. Moreover, Tang attempts to argue that Confucian tradition must introduce a scientific spirit if the modernization of China is to be successful.

6.4  Incorporating scientific spirit in Confucian humanism There are numerous ways to incorporate the scientific spirit in the Confucian tradition. Following the famous phrase by Zhang Zhidong, who is one of the most prominent officials of the end of Qing dynasty, “Chinese learning for substance, Western learning for function” (中学为体、西学为用), Confucianism could adopt a pragmatic approach to the development of science and technology, i.e., using the advanced scientific and technological development from “the West” merely as instrumental means to promote the development of the Chinese society. New Confucians, however, do not agree with this approach. They believe, for Confucianism, a humanistic world is an ideal that includes science, technology, and all other domains. New Confucians also believe the modern idea of the scientific spirit, which is originally from the ancient Greek, is insufficient. Here, they argue that scientific spirit ought to be based on (human) virtues, which, in turn, can introduce a moral perspective to the scientific spirit and enhance the project of Confucian modernity. In other words, they argue that we must comprehend the meaning of scientific and technological development from the internal demands of the Confucian tradition. Indeed, they suggest that Confucianism is not against scientific and technological development, nor Confucianism ignores the knowledge of the external, physical world. In the Confucian tradition, there is indeed a demand that the cultivation of innate virtue (zhengde 正德) should be interrelated to practical utility (liyong 利用) and to improvement of living conditions for ordinary people (housheng 厚生) (Zhang et al. 2006). Accordingly, the inwardness of moral cultivation is necessarily linked to a process of externalization (of virtue). Yet, New Confucians admit that the interrelations among them in the traditional interpretation of Confucianism fail to inaugurate the scientific spirit because, traditionally, the cultivation of innate virtue is directly transformed into the practical utility. Between the two processes, the accumulation of theoretical scientific knowledge as an intermedium process is missing, and New Confucians believe that without the proper intermedium process, the two other

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processes could not be fully cultivated, and the project of modernization could not succeed (Zhang et al. 2006). Tang Junyi explains in more detail why it is essential to derive scientific spirit from Confucian humanism and to view it as an internal demand of Confucianism. Firstly, Tang believes the virtue of ren should be the normative foundation of the scientific spirit because, without the moral guidance, it may lead to misapplications of science and technology against humanity (Tang 2005a, p. 25). If we uncritically extend the mentality and the methods of scientific research to other facets of human life, e.g., to social phenomena, we may transform every subject into a scientific pursuit, and the consequence is that we will have the illusion that the mentality of science can be the normative standard to govern humanity. While the rational, analytical, and logical way of thinking is an excellent quality in and the nature of scientific spirit, it ought to be governed by a more fundamental moral concern for humanity. Indeed, as this way of thinking focuses on one specific aspect of the subjects under (scientific) investigation and tries to, at least temporarily, detach this aspect from the other concerns, it engenders a reductionist view of the human lifeworld and ignores the moral perspective and the holistic unity of the world (Tang 2005b, p. 98). Here, Tang’s argument may help understand the prominence of “technological solutionism” (Morozov 2013), with the endless expansion of the mentality of science to other parts of our lifeworld. Based on the model of scientific study, which is devoid of moral and other humanistic considerations, people may have no hesitation in advancing (more efficient) technological means and view them to be the future of humanity. New Confucianism will argue against the idea of technological solutionism because it contradicts to the Confucian view of humanity’s relation to science and technology. For New Confucianism, science and technology are parts of humanity, and humanity is to be understood through the virtue-based account of personhood (Tang 2005a, pp. 20–33). Accordingly, the problem with “technological solutionism” is that it overstates the role of the mentality of science in humanity, i.e., the spirit of science is valuable for the pursuit of knowledge but it alone is insufficient to guide the use of knowledge. Secondly, a full realization of Confucianism in modern society relies on the formation of the spirit of science and the related development of science and technology within the Confucian moral idealism. Tang believes the formation of the scientific spirit in Confucian humanism is not only possible but also necessary. The reason for this could be pragmatic. According to Confucian humanism, the highest ideal of a person is their realization of the innate virtue of ren. The ideal of Confucian humanism is the universalization of such an achievement of the self-realization of personhood for everyone. In other words, the goal of societal development is not only to provide sufficient material goods for each person, as the provision of material goods should be understood in terms of providing the necessary condition for individuals to realize their virtue. Scientific and technological

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development, which requires the spirit of science, could bring about the sufficient material condition to achieve the ideal of Confucian humanism.

6.5  Scientific spirit in Confucian personhood Given the aforementioned differences between the scientific spirit and Confucian humanism, Tang Junyi and other New Confucians aim to reclaim the contemporary relevance of Confucian (and Chinese) value and defend the view that the Confucian tradition is indeed compatible with the development of modern science and technology (Zhang et al. 2006). For instance, Tang Junyi defends the view that it is not only possible but also necessary to generate a unique spirit of science within the context of Confucian humanism. In Cultural Consciousness and Moral Reason and The Development of the Chinese Humanistic Spirit, Tang shows the way in which the scientific spirit can be formed within the Confucian humanism (Tang 2005c). He responds to the commonly held belief that science and morality are two independent domains, in which the former is descriptive and the latter is prescriptive, by showing that the scientific spirit can be understood in terms of a particular mode of moral mind. He poses the question that if the hard work of revealing the truth of the natural world or the society is something beyond or independent of morality, then why are we inclined to praise and respect the scientists who devote themselves to scientific study? Tang believes the answer lies in an understanding of scientific spirit within a moral context with the innate virtue of ren being its foundation; and, Tang uses a two-step argument to show that ren could serve as the foundation of the scientific spirit. First, the innate virtue of ren is the foundation of all social and cultural activities. I have argued that the virtue-based personhood is established on the belief of the endowed innate virtue of ren. Here, it is necessary to present three more arguments to explain its significance. 1. Being the central concept of Confucian humanism, Tang Junyi believes the innate virtue of ren is the highest good. It is unrestricted and is inclusive of all things in the universe. In The Establishment of the Moral Self, he asserts that human nature is the innate, authentic self, which exists truthfully and perfectly and is shared by all human (Tang 1944, p. 57). He says, “I believe my mind in itself is the highest good. I analyzed all kinds of moral mind and found out that all of them are derived from our ‘moral self ’ which is beyond our physical self in the universe. The moral mind in itself must possess endless goodness. The endless kindness flows out of the moral mind. At the same time, I believe the moral mind in itself must be perfect. Because it is beyond time and space, and it can cover and include all things in the universe. It must be perfect”. (Tang 1944, p. 61; author’s translation)

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For Tang, the scientific spirit can be included in the innate virtue of ren because ren is unrestricted. 2. The cultivation of innate virtue is not only a process of awakening the innate moral self. The “moral self ” is the authentic self that shows the true nature of human virtue (Tang 1944, p. 41). The innate virtue of ren is endowed by tian and possessed by all human beings. However, without awakening their innate virtue, one may be trapped in the present space, time, and their selfish desires. The cultivation of innate virtue and the transformation to the moral self in Confucianism is necessarily through the connection to others. Accordingly, acting morally is not merely about doing good to others. It is also a transformation of the moral self. 3. Tang argues that acting morally is a creative conduct of acting from and between two moral principles. The first moral principle is the Golden Rule of Confucianism: “[d]o not impose upon others what you yourself do not desire” (The Analects 12.2, in Slingerland 2003, p. 126). As the most basic moral principle, it applies to all kinds of relationships regardless of the social distance. For Mencius, it is the sense of discomfort in seeing others suffer (see, e.g., Mencius 4B19, in Van Norden 2001, p. 136). Tang further explains that the feeling of discomfort in seeing others suffer or in seeing others being incapable of developing themselves drives one to the moral actions. In effect, the higher demand from our innate virtue of ren is to encourage and support others in the development of their (moral) nature. For the second, non-universal moral principle, Tang considers it as the highest expression of innate virtue of ren, “[I’m] not only seeking my love to others. I also hope that others could love their others; [I’m] not only pursuing my virtue of ren, I also hope others have the virtue of ren. As a result, I hope others have all the virtue that I possessed. Therefore, my virtue of ren goes through a higher level of rationalization and it has a higher level of expression. The basic principle is ‘do not impose what you do not want to others’, to avoid hindering other’s will; what I will, I will give to others.’ So, I could help achieve the will of others. This is, to establish myself is to enlarge others. It is the highest expression of the virtue of ren”. (Tang 2005c, pp. 466–467; author’s translation) In short, the moral principle, i.e., “to establish myself is to enlarge others”, is driven by an aspiration that every person can fully realize their inner self and drives individuals to support others in their endeavor to cultivate the inner self (cf. The Analects 6.30, in Slingerland 2003, p. 63). Moreover, moral conduct is creative because the application of moral principles must be adjusted to specific situations to serve the ultimate goal, namely the realization of the moral self.

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Second, moral meanings are the basis of the spirit of science. There are various means to accomplish the cultivation of innate virtue and the moral self. Similarly, the moral value of the scientific spirit can also be demonstrated in different disciplines. Although the research in different fields employs different research methods, they share the aim of pursuing some truth about the natural or social world. Ideally, the truth they aim to establish will be the knowledge that all individuals should recognize and accept. Thus, scientific truth in the research can connect the minds of all people; and, underlying the belief that there is true knowledge that everyone can share is an assumption that everyone shares a universal mind that allows them to accept the scientific truth. Tang maintains that if the scientific research is conducted by scientists with an unselfish, universal mind, when the truth is established in their study, the scientists will naturally feel the responsibility to share the knowledge to others and to make proper use of it for the sake of all people (Tang 2005c, pp. 312–313). Accordingly, he argues that moral meanings and moral responsibilities are the bedrock of scientific study. The scientific spirit grounded on the innate virtue of ren motivates the pursuit of objective truth and scientific knowledge and the aspiration to share the knowledge for the proper use vis-à-vis the full realization of Confucian moral idealism. In other words, the purpose of scientific and technological development, according to the Confucian scientific spirit, is not merely instrumental but also moral, i.e., to empower people to realize their very (human) nature. This is so-called “to seek for knowledge for ren, and to love knowledge according to ren” (Tang 2005b, pp. 132–133). For Tang, as an effort to pursue truth for the sake of knowledge instead of personal fame or other desires, a scientific study can be viewed as an expression of Confucian personhood. Moreover, the Confucian scientific spirit based on the innate virtue of ren can overcome an obsession of abstract and theoretical systems, and it can remind of the importance of their values in and for the broader human society (Tang 2005b, p. 132). Hence, Tang suggests that the spirit of science can be one illustration of the innate virtue of ren, and, at the same time, ren can also be the normative foundation of the spirit of science. Tang’s two-step argument shows that the criticism of Confucianism being incompatible with the spirit of science should be rejected. Confucian moral cultivation is not only an inward exercise focusing on the innate virtue. As Tang Junyi and other New Confucians point out the awakening of the innate self is necessary to connect to the outer moral practice, and in the project of modernizing Confucianism, the (outer) moral practice is to be understood broadly, i.e., it is not only limited to the social practice within the domain of morality, but the virtue-based personhood in Confucianism should be practiced in all kinds of social and cultural activities, including scientific research and technological innovation. More importantly, Confucianism does not preclude the scientific spirit and scientific knowledge. Indeed, the grounding of the scientific spirit based on the Confucian tradition is considered to be a key in the project of Confucian modernity.

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6.6  The criticism for pan-moralism in Confucian scientific spirit So far, I have illustrated that the possibility of grounding the scientific spirit with Confucian humanism and its new meaning from the perspective of New Confucianism. I suggest that Tang Junyi has offered a robust argument for the view that Confucianism is neither anti-science nor ignoring the importance of scientific knowledge and technological innovation. More importantly, the scientific spirit is not only compatible with Confucian humanism, but the innate virtue of ren in Confucian personhood seems to allow us to overcome the problem of technological solutionism. However, the Confucian understanding of scientific spirit faces a number of challenges. Here, I shall respond to a major criticism against Tang’s view, namely the criticism for its pan-moralism. Confucianism has often been accused of being pan-moralist, especially with New Confucianism drawing special attention to the cultivation of innate virtue as the normative foundation of all other forms of social and cultural activities. The account of Confucian scientific spirit presented cannot avoid this critique of pan-moralism either. Pan-moralism means that the expansion of moral consciousness beyond the domain of morality to other social and cultural domains such as economy, politics, and science, and it overrides their independence from morality. Accordingly, science is undermined merely as tools or an inevitable extension of moral practice to serve the Confucian moral ideal; and, the worry is that the Confucian moral ideal will not only influence every social and cultural activity but dominate them as well. It is considered to be the most severe defect of Confucianism (Wei 1990, p. 88). More specifically, when it comes to the issue of grounding the scientific spirit on Confucian humanism, the critics suggest that scientific knowledge will be seen as inferior to morality in Confucianism. It implies that the pursuit of scientific knowledge is ultimately in the service of moral practice, and scientific knowledge and the scientific spirit do not stand on their own with their value. Confucian personhood is, first and foremost, a moral subject, and it is always more important than an intellectual subject. Also, the pursuit of pure scientific knowledge is evaluated by the utility to morality. It is, therefore, criticized for easily confusing the issue of fact with value; and, the critics assert that the confusion of fact and value contradicts the objective of scientific research and, ultimately, is against the scientific attitude; therefore, they argue that Confucian humanism cannot provide an appropriate ground for the scientific spirit (Fu 1987; also, see Wei 1990; Meng 2000). My response to the critique of pan-moralism is that, when it comes to the relations between the scientific spirit and the moral self, the criticism of pan-moralism has mixed together two different issues. The first issue concerns the understanding of the fundamental status of the moral self, which serves as the normative foundation of the scientific spirit. The other issue is whether the Confucian scientific spirit can be independent of the domination from the innate virtue of ren. It is necessary to distinguish the two issues because a proper understanding of the first issue avoids the result that the moral self will inevitably

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infringe the scientific spirit. On the first issue, Tang Junyi believes that the scientific spirit is grounded on the innate virtue of ren. Ren is indeed the common ground of all social and cultural activities, and it should be understood in the sense that all social and cultural activities possess the inner demand to improve and transcend outer reality through the efforts in different domains of human life. For instance, in the domain of science and technology, the scientific spirit is a particular manifestation of the innate virtue of ren. It is the innate virtue that drives the pursuit of knowledge to advance scientific knowledge or technological innovation, which, in turn, is the outer practice of an inner demand. Although the content and the nature of social and cultural activities vary and the activities are independent of each other, there is a common ground to them, namely the inner demand and ideal to cultivate our innate virtue. For the second issue, if we accept the innate virtue of ren to serve as the normative foundation of the scientific spirit, does it entail that science becomes merely a tool for or extension of morality. Here, I think we should resist the idea that all social and cultural activities are merely tools or the extension of morality. Tang and other New Confucians maintain that while every individual is a moral subject and possesses the innate virtue of ren, when one conducts scientific research, the moral subject is manifested as an intellectual subject. Accordingly, knowledge is in itself an independent objective and evaluative standard of one’s effort. Here, the moral subject shall withdraw from non-moral concerns and follow the spirit of science. Still, one may further criticize that, even if the scientific spirit is separable from morality during the scientific study, conducting scientific study remains a particular way to manifest the innate virtue of ren, and thus morality remains an overriding concern over other concerns in Confucianism. In response, Lee Minghui offers a plausible explanation to defend the claim that morality does not override the concerns in other social and cultural activities. He suggests that Confucianism puts moral consciousness at the core and tends to explain the meanings of all practical human activities through Confucianism, but Confucianism does leave sufficient space to recognize and insist on the independence of different domains of human life (Lee 1991).

6.7  Conclusion: a Confucian way to the ethics of technology In the preceding sections, I have discussed the compatibility and the relationship between the scientific spirit and the virtue-based account of personhood. According to New Confucian humanism, the virtue-based account of personhood can offer ground for the scientific spirit. Indeed, the grounding of the scientific spirit within Confucianism is a necessary task for modernizing Confucianism. The purpose of the above discussion aims to elaborate on the view that Confucian personhood can be a fundamental, normative resource for approaching the ethics of technology. More importantly, the virtue-based account of Confucian personhood and the moral responsibility attached to it can help avoid many ethical and social problems with scientific research and technological innovation. Based on the earlier discussion on the New Confucianism’s view of the scientific spirit,

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108  Fei Teng

I shall single out some four Confucian propositions that can serve as the essential starting point for the Confucian ethics of technology. 1. From the Confucian perspective, the moral ideal is to create a humanistic world that enables the universal achievement of moral sagehood. This ideal is derived from the basic assumption in Confucianism that tian is the generative force of human virtue. Virtue is perfectly endowed to every person at the start of their life. Human development, therefore, is to awaken this innate virtue by extending the moral mind to others in daily life. 2. The ideal of the humanistic world, which aims to encourage and support all beings to realize their nature, is the starting point of Confucian ethics. Because of the unique moral capacity of human, they can form a trinity with Heaven and Earth to nourish all beings and transform the universe. In the social realm, Confucian humanism demands the moral responsibility to refrain from interfering with others in realizing their nature and, in some cases, to support them in their moral cultivation. 3. The humanistic world of Confucianism is inclusive. It includes science and technology as well as other domains of human life, e.g., religion, morality. The moral concern should also be extended to non-human beings. 4. (New) Confucianism offers a humanistic end for scientific and technological development, which is to enable every individual to realize their nature. It is captured by Tang’s claim, i.e., “to seek for knowledge for ren, and to love knowledge according to ren”. It can provide a moral perspective in scientific and technological development, and it can also provide a counter-perspective to the notion of technological solutionism, which zooms in on the power of technology but is in danger of working against humanity.

Note 1 See, Wong’s “Dao, Harmony, and Personhood: Towards a Confucian Ethics of Technology” in this volume.

References Ames, R. T. (2011). Confucian role ethics: A vocabulary. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Chan, W.-T. (Trans.) (1963). A source book in Chinese philosophy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Fingarette, H. (1972). Confucius: The secular as sacred. New York: HarperCollins Publisher and Waveland Press. Fu, W. (1987). The tasks of Confucian thought in modern time and is solutions. Confucius Studies, 4, 105–119. Fung, Y. (1922). Why China has no science—An interpretation of the history and consequences of Chinese philosophy. The International Journal of Ethics, 32(3), 237–263. Hall, D. L., & Ames, R.T. (1987). Thinking through Confucius. Albany: State University of New York Press.

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Jiang, D. (2017). Multi-dimensional analysis of the scientific spirit. Studies on Science Popularization, 3, 8–18. Lee, M. (1991). On the so-called pan moralism of Confucianism. In Z. Mou (Ed.), Collected essays on contemporary New Confucianism (pp. 179–245). Taipei: Wenjin Press. Meng, J. (2000). Including science within humanity. Studies in Dialectics of Nature, 16(7), 7–11. Merton, R. K. (1979).The normative structure of science. In The sociology of science:Theoretical and empirical investigations (pp. 267–278). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Morozov, E. (2013). To save everything, click here: the folly of technological solutionism. New York: PublicAffairs. Nuyen, A. T. (2009). Moral obligation and moral motivation in Confucian role-based ethics. Dao, 8, 1–11. Ramsey, J. (2016). Confucian role ethics: A critical survey. Philosophy Compass, 11(5), 235–245. Robin, L. (2003). The origin of Greek thought and scientific spirit. Guilin: Guangxi Normal University Publish House. Rosemont, H. (1976). Confucius—The secular as sacred. Philosophy East and West, 26(4), 463–477. Slingerland, E. (Trans.) (2003). Confucius Analects: With selections from traditional commentaries. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. Tang, J. (1944). The establishment of moral self. Chongqing: The Commercial Press. Tang, J. (2005a). The reconstruction of humanistic spirit. Guilin: Guangxi Normal University Publish House. Tang, J. (2005b). The development of Chinese humanistic spirit. Guilin: Guangxi Normal University Publish House. Tang, J. (2005c). Cultural consciousness and moral reason and the development of the Chinese humanistic spirit. Guilin: Guangxi Normal University Publish House. Van Norden, B. (Trans.) (2001). Mengzi (Mencius. In P. Ivanhoe & B. Van Norden (Eds.), Readings in classical Chinese philosophy (pp. 115–159). New York, NY: Seven Bridges Press. Wei, Z. (1990). Confucianism and modern China. Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Publishing House. Zhang, J., Mou, Z., Tang, J., & Xu, F. (2006). A manifesto for a reappraisal of sinology and reconstruction of Chinese culture. In The history Neo-Confucian thought. Beijing: China Renmin University Press.

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EPILOGUE The Future of Confucian Ethics of Technology Tom Xiaowei Wang, Pak-Hang Wong

In the previous six chapters, the authors have demonstrated their own ways of bringing Confucianism into the philosophical and ethical analysis of technology. These chapters are very different in their approach and theoretical orientation and in the issues they intend to address, and they differ even in the period of Confucianism, i.e., early Confucianism, Neo-Confucianism, and New Confucianism, the authors refer to in making their case for the relevance of Confucianism to ethics of technology. Although we promised in Introduction a more systematic account of Confucian ethics of technology, we shall not subsume the chapters under the label of the Confucian ethics of technology for the diversity among them. We are, however, not disappointed from the lack of uniformity because we are reminded that the same can be said about philosophy and ethics of technology, i.e., the field is characterized by its heterogeneity and interdisciplinarity and the multitude of methods, approaches, and theoretical frameworks advocated by philosophers and scholars of technology to study technology. While we have not provided the Confucian ethics of technology, we believe the ideas, concepts, and theories presented in the six chapters will challenge, inform, and inspire the different methods, approaches, and theories in the current ethics of technology. More importantly, as Wong explains the idea of Confucian harmony in Chapter 2, the lack of uniformity (sameness) does not preclude harmony, and we think the chapters in the volume do complement one another and foreground some unique features of the Confucian ways to approach the philosophical and ethical challenges of technology. In the Epilogue, we shall review some recurring themes that are woven throughout the chapters and speculate on the future of Confucian ethics of technology. All authors of the volume share the view that Confucianism affords a different understanding of person (or human) and that this different understanding of person is crucial to our normative thinking about technology. We have

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seen Wang’s cosmological personhood (Chapter 1), Wong’s expanded view of the self (Chapter 5), and Teng’s virtue-based personhood grounded on ren (仁) (Chapter 6). Likewise, Hung emphasizes the relational dimension of Confucian person and contrasts it with individualism (Chapter 3), and Zhu, too, defends the importance of relationships in professional moral development and the view of (moral) person as a process (Chapter 4). Since Confucian person is one of the basic normative concepts in Confucian ethics, the prominence of the idea should not be surprising (Chapter 2). The Confucian understanding of person (or human) is of consequence to the ethics of technology in that it presents a different set of values, or a different priority of values, for guiding the design and use of technology; and, it also raises new considerations for assessing the impacts of technology. Indeed, if the ethics of technology is, as Peter-Paul Verbeek (2011, 2016) argues, about human-technology relations, where human is one of the relata, then a different understanding of person (or human) is bound to affect how we analyze human-technology relations. More specifically, we can discern throughout the volume an inclination toward what Wang refers to as “relational ontology of technology” (Chapter 1), which is manifested in the “Confucian relational view of person” (Chapter 2) as the authors explore the ethical implication of technology and technological practices. There are certainly differences among the authors over the scope of relations; in particular, Wang’s cosmological personhood appears to be the most radical formulation of the Confucian relational view in that it considers human beings as related to—or, more precisely, in the unity of—the myriad of things. Yet, it is also because of this metaphysical relation with things that the cosmological personhood can bring forth the ritual dimension of (technological) artifacts and allow us to view artifacts as agency-constituting. A similar view, but in a less radical form, is advanced by Hung based on the Confucian emphasis on interpersonal relationships. He convincingly argues that if good human-technology relations can facilitate better human-human relations, then Confucians should have no qualms about (human) relationship-enhancing technologies; and, Confucians should even advocate collectively mediating technologies insofar they help to realize proper human-human relations. So construed, Wang and Hung offer alternative ways of thinking about the nature of human-technology relations through the Confucian relational view. Unlike Wang and Hung, the Confucian relational view discussed by Zhu, Wong, and Teng does not directly concern human-technology relations. Instead, their discussion of the Confucian relational view focuses on the individual’s relations to the (professional) community and society, to one another, and to humanity, respectively. By insisting on the normative primacy of relationship, they identify new loci of moral significance in the professional practice of engineers (in Zhu), in the everyday practice of decision-making, and in scientific practice and technology development (in Teng), and they also specify new moral responsibility for engineers, ordinary users of artificial intelligence (AI) systems, and scientists and technologists. In this way, the Confucian relational view inspires different perspectives for thinking about technology normatively.

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Moreover, there is an affirmation of everydayness shared by all authors as well. This affirmation of everydayness is best exemplified by Zhu’s defense of the significance of small, everyday and seemingly “amoral” choices in engineers (and our) moral development; and, Zhu’s argument for everydayness is grounded on the Confucian developmental view of person that takes personhood as an on-going process of human becoming but not static nor given. This normative demand to transform oneself is also evident in the discussion of Wang, Hung, and Teng, but even more notably in their discussion is where the transformation takes place: for Wang, it is in the living room with a chair; for Hung, it is with everyday objects such as mobile phones; and, for Teng, it is by the daily works of scientists and technologists. For Confucian ethics of technology, therefore, what is of normative significance is not necessarily the well-publicized scientific and technological controversies but ordinary technologies (Puech 2016). Accordingly, the affirmation of everydayness and the related Confucian development view of person shall redraw and extend the scope of ethical reflection of technology and technology-related issues. This extension of the scope is most obvious in Wong’s argument for new moral responsibility in everyday personal decision-making and consent-giving. The Confucian emphasis on relationships and everydayness should lead us to harmony. As Wang indicates in Chapter 1 and Wong elaborated on in Chapter 2, which is subsequently picked up by Zhu and Hung, proper relationships are about mutual complementarity, and harmony is the cosmological/normative concept Confucians use to refer to this ideal of mutual complementarity. Indeed, all authors have shown in their chapter the realization of proper relationships—and, therefore, the moral cultivation of oneself—requires a specific environment and takes into account various factors in a particular context. Accordingly, we are not to ask what is right or what is good but what is optimal in and of the concrete situation.1 Recall, once again, Zhu’s defense of the moral significance of small, everyday and seemingly “amoral” choices; for Zhu, the normative standard for this type of choices will indeed be harmony. Besides, the affirmation of everydayness in Zhu’s defense of “amoral” choices, in Wang’s ritual dimension of technology, in Hung’s discussion of ethicization through everyday objects, in Wong’s new responsibility in the interconnectedness condition, and in Teng’s account of scientific practice as a moral practice should remind us that our encounters with technology are not discrete moments but on-going processes that require a continuous negotiation and adjustment, i.e., harmonization. Here, we propose Confucian ethics of technology to be an ethics that strives for harmonious technology and harmonious technological practices, i.e., to design and use technology in ways that are mindful of the relational impacts of technology and technological practices and aim for mutual complementarity. In an important sense, this account of Confucian ethics of technology revives the role of ritual artifacts for technology as described in Li Ji (Book of Rites) and Xunzi, “Thus it is that the dark-coloured liquor is in the apartment (where the representative of the dead is entertained); that the vessel of must is near its (entrance) door; that the reddish liquor is in the hall; and the clear, in

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the (court) below. The victims (also) are displayed, and the tripods and stands are prepared. The lutes and citherns are put in their places, with the flutes, sonorous stones, bells, and drums. The prayers (of the principal in the sacrifice to the spirits) and the benedictions (of the representatives of the departed) are carefully framed. The object of all the ceremonies is to bring down the spirits from above, even their ancestors; serving (also) to rectify the relations between ruler and ministers; to maintain the generous feeling between father and son, and the harmony between elder and younger brother; to adjust the relations between high and low; and to give their proper places to husband and wife. The whole may be said to secure the blessing of Heaven”. (Li Yun, in Legge 1885) “[F]ine ornaments and coarse materials, music and weeping, happiness and sorrow—these things are opposites, but ritual makes use of them all, employing them and alternating them at the appropriate times. And so, fine ornaments, music, and happiness are that by which one responds to peaceful events and by which one pays homage to good fortune. Coarse mourning garments, weeping, and sorrow are that by which one responds to threatening events and by which one pays homage to ill fortune. Thus, the way ritual makes use of fine ornaments is such as not to lead to exorbitance or indulgence. The way it makes use of coarse mourning garments is such as not to lead to infirmity or despondency. The way it makes use of music and happiness is such as not to lead to perversity or laziness. The way it makes use of weeping and sorrow is such as not to lead to dejection or self-harm. This is the midway course of ritual”. (Xunzi, Chapter 19, in Hutton 2014, p. 209) So far, we have attempted to illustrate an account of Confucian ethics of technology based on the chapters in this volume. However, there is a justified complaint on this project we ought to mention before closing the volume. We have been told that, as we are not engaged with an interpretation and detailed analysis of Confucian texts in developing the Confucian ways of approaching technology, we are not doing “Confucian philosophy”; in fact, the project has been charged as a piecemeal application of Confucianism. Unfortunately, we are unable to respond directly to the complaint in the epilogue, but we would defend the claim that there is more than one way to do Confucian philosophy (and Chinese philosophy). However, even if we accept the lack of interpretation and detailed analysis of Confucian texts as an insufficiency, we see this as yet another task for developing a more comprehensive Confucian ethics of technology. A similar complaint can be made about philosophy of technology. With the notable exception of Wang (Chapter 1), the authors have not delved into the nature of technology from the Confucian (Chinese) perspective (see, e.g., Yosida 1979), i.e., to address philosophy of technology as first philosophy. Yet, even in Wang’s descriptive phenomenological analysis, the lesson remains overtly ethical,

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namely how performing rituals of and with certain artifacts may constitute a person’s moral agency. We can only restate that the present volume focuses on the ethics of technology, which differs from related works such as Yuk Hui’s ontological account in The Question Concerning Technology in China (2016). We do, however, fully acknowledge the necessity to examine the nature of technology in China both philosophically and historically; in particular, we believe the archeological and historical knowledge about Confucian rituals and ritual artifacts are essential to advance our notions of harmonious technology and harmonious technological practices—and that includes actual perception and usage of (ritual) artifacts in different periods of Chinese history, the etymology of words such as “thing” (wu 物), “techne/skill” (qi 技), and representation of (technological) artifacts in art like fiction, poetry, and painting. The six chapters in the present volume have presented different ways to bring Confucianism into the ethical analysis of technology. In this epilogue, we have summarized the key themes via the notions of harmonious technology and harmonious technological practices. We have also identified some future work for developing Confucian ethics of technology. However, the success of our project and the multicultural turn ultimately depend on the community of philosophers and scholars of technology taking Confucianism and other cultural traditions seriously. We shall, therefore, end the volume with a call to the community for serious intellectual exchange and collaboration on multiculturalism in philosophy and ethics of technology.

Note 1 Teng, in her chapter, argues for the innate virtue of ren as more basic than personal relationships as the normative basis of Confucian ethics, and therefore has not framed her discussion in terms of personal relationship. However, we contend that the same point about harmony applies to her discussion insofar as the realization (or cultivation) of innate virtue of ren can only be achieved in a specific context by taking into account the peculiarities of the situation.

References Hui,Y. (2016). The question concerning technology in China: An essay in cosmotechnics. Falmouth: Urbanomic. Hutton, E. L. (Trans.) (2014). Xunzi:The complete text. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Legge, J. (Trans.) (1885). The Li Ki. In Sacred books of the East (Vol. 28, Part 4). Available Online at: https://ctext.org/liji/li-yun Puech, M. (2016). The ethics of ordinary technology. New York: Routledge. Verbeek, P.-P. (2011). Moralizing technology: Understanding and designing the morality of things. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Verbeek, P. P. (2016). Toward a theory of technological mediation: A program for postphenomenological research. In J. K. Berg, O. Friis, & R. C. Crease (Eds.), Technoscience and postphenomenology:The Manhattan papers (pp. 189–204). London: Lexington Books. Yosida, M. (1979). The Chinese concept of technology: A historical approach. Acta Asiatica, 36, 49–66.

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INDEX

ABET 66, 74 actionable guidelines 66 algorithmic systems 80, 84, 90 Allenby, Braden R. 2 Ames, Roger 36, 96 The Analects 33, 37, 69, 71, 74 Ananny, Mike 80 artificial intelligence (AI) systems 2, 79–92; and interconnectedness condition 83–85 autonomous choices 81 Baxinzhuo 21 Beijing AI Principles 4 Brey, Philip 42 calligraphy 17, 25 classical phenomenology 12–13 Cline, Erin 37 codes of ethics 66, 73, 74, 76 concrete technologies 6, 11, 12 Confucian archery case 14–15 Confucian cosmological personhood 15–17, 19, 25 Confucian cosmology 6, 15, 16, 19, 24 Confucian cosmos 15 Confucian ethics, basics 37–40; harmony as an ideal 41; see also Confucianism Confucian heritage cultures (CHCs) 68 Confucian humanism 95, 96, 100–103, 106 Confucian idea of oneness 79–92

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Confucianism 5, 6, 13, 17, 25, 30, 32, 33, 35, 36, 40, 51, 54, 56, 58, 61, 95, 97, 98, 100, 101, 105–107, 110; foundation of 30–32; harmony in 32–34 Confucianism-based cultures 50–62 Confucian moral idealism 102 Confucian moral theory 66–77; self-understanding 68–69 Confucian personhood 34–36, 95–97, 99, 101, 103, 105–107; and scientific spirit 95–108; virtue as basis of 96–99; see also Confucianism Confucian philosophy 6, 7, 88, 113 Confucian ritual technicity 14–22; Confucian archery case 14–15; Confucian cosmological personhood 15–17; taishi chair case 18–22 Confucian role ethics 96 Confucian thought 30–33, 36 consent 79–92 cosmological personhood 15, 17, 18, 111 covert photography 60 Cua, Antonio 39 Cultural Consciousness and Moral Reason 103 Dao: ethico-political connotation of 31; foundation of Confucianism 30–32; priority of 40–41 data-driven technologies 84 Davis, Michael 74 deference 75 de Figueiredo, Antonio Dias 72

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The Development of the Chinese Humanistic Spirit 103 The Doctrine of the Mean 32, 36, 97 Dorrestijn, Steven 55 Duperon, Matthew 67 Durkheim, Émile 23 engineering education: epistemological dimension 66–68 engineering ethics education 6, 7, 66–77; implications for 72–76 The Establishment of the Moral Self 103 esthetics, ritualized artifacts 19 ethical analysis 4, 5, 7, 10, 41, 86, 110, 114 ethical theories 37, 66–68, 76 ethical thinking 39–42, 97 everydayness, affirmation 112 Fan Ruiping 35 fatal accidents 2 Feng Youlan 100 Floridi, Luciano 2, 85 Foucault, Michel 55 genetic data 87 genome editing technology 10, 22–24 global positioning system (GPS) 26 Golden Rule of Confucianism 104 Governance Principles for a New Generation of Artificial Intelligence: Develop Responsible Artificial Intelligence 3–4 Hall, David 36 Hansen, Chad 31 Hansson, Sven Ove 84 Harmonious Artificial Intelligence Principles 4 harmonization 34, 35, 39, 41, 42, 112 Heidegger, Martin 11, 12 hermeneutic relation 52 human-technology relations 6, 52, 55, 56, 111 Ihde, Don 11, 14, 51, 53 informed consent 80–84, 86–87, 90; moral significance of 80–83; other-regarding acts 86–87 innovation 4 interconnectedness 41, 83–85 interpersonal relationships 35, 97, 111 Ivanhoe, P. J. 89 Jishan, Liu 15 Kant, I. 15

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knowledge 10, 13, 66, 67, 72, 76, 99–102, 105, 107, 108 Kupperman, Joel J. 29, 40, 42 Lai, Karyn 38, 69, 71 Latour, Bruno 51–53, 61 Leach, Edmund 22 Li, Chengyang 33, 34 liberalism 82 liberal political theory 82 lifestyle, significance 43 Li Ji 112 Manifesto for a Reappraisal of Sinology and Reconstruction of Chinese Culture 95, 97 mediating technologies 6, 57, 59, 111 Mencius 32 Merton, Robert 99 Mill, John Stuart 81 Mittelstadt, Brent 86 modernity 22 modern mentality 26 morality 4, 53, 61, 62, 99, 100, 103, 105–108 moralizing technology 12, 51, 53, 57, 59–61 moral learning 71 moral meanings 105 moral principles 31, 39, 42, 70, 104 moral responsibilities 53, 58, 98, 105, 107, 108 moral self 67, 68, 70, 71, 74, 101, 103–106 moral sensitivity 39, 70 moral subjectivity 61 multicultural turn 3, 5 music 25 Neo-Confucianism 15, 80, 89, 110 New Confucian humanism 107 New Confucianism 7, 95–97, 99, 102, 106, 107, 110 normative thinking 2, 3, 5, 7, 110 oneness hypothesis 89 On the Western Concept of Scientific Spirit 99 paradigmatic person 36, 39, 40, 56, 70 personal decisions 7, 79–92; moral significance of 80–83; other-regarding acts 86–87 person-making 36 philosophy, diversifying 3–5 philosophy of technology 2, 5, 10–26, 29, 43, 50, 113 postphenomenological approach 11

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postphenomenology 12–13 power 55 practical Confucian ethics of technology 59–61 practicality 20 practice, significance 43 problem-solving approach 67 professional codes of ethics 73 professional education 7, 66, 67, 76 relational ontology 11 ren 95–108 re-ontologizing technology 85 responsibilities 35, 36, 42, 43, 80, 82, 83, 86–91, 96–98 responsible innovation 4 rituality 14, 18, 20, 21 ritual technicity 22–23, 26 Sarewitz, Daniel 2 scientific knowledge 5, 99, 100, 105–107 scientific (instrumental) rationality 22 scientific spirit 7, 95–108; absence in Confucianism 99–101; in Confucian personhood 103–105; criticism for pan-moralism 106–107; incorporating in Confucian humanism 101–103 self-centeredness 89, 90 self-cultivation 6, 7, 36, 37, 55–56, 61, 66–73, 96; of Confucian engineer 66–77; and moral development 69–72 self-identity 96 self-modification 39–43 self-realization 102 self-regarding acts 86–87 self-transformation 39–43, 68 shared identity 86 social media 24 social relationships 35, 36, 68, 97, 98 social roles 6, 35, 36, 38, 40, 42, 43, 58, 96–98; significance of 42 spirit of science 99, 100, 102, 103, 105, 107 Sunstein, Cass 59 taishi chair case 18–22 Taking Back Philosophy: A Multicultural Manifesto 3 Tang Junyi 95, 99–103, 105–107

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team spirit 73 technological artifacts 4, 11–14, 17, 21, 22, 25, 26 technological development 100, 101, 105, 108 technological imperialism 5 technological innovation 105–107 technological mediation 6, 50, 51, 53–59, 61; bringing Confucianism into 56–59; into Confucianism 53–56; Confucianism-based cultures 50–62; and moral implication 51–53; theory of 51–53 technological solutionism 102, 106, 108 technology 23–26; development 4, 5, 7, 10, 55, 100, 111; moralizing 53; philosophy 10–26 Thaler, Richard 59 Tiwald, Justin 38, 39 Todd, Benjamin 72 values 2, 4, 5, 25, 30, 31, 74, 75, 99, 103, 105, 106, 111 Van Norden, Bryan W. 3, 5, 30 Verbeek, Peter-Paul 11–12, 25, 43, 52, 53, 111 virtue-based personhood 7, 95, 98, 99, 102, 103, 105, 107, 111 virtue ethics 38, 39, 67 virtue-forming character, functional tools 19 Walzer, Michael 35 Wang Yangming 89 Weiming, Tu 41 Whitbeck, Caroline 72 Wong, David 35 Wong, Pak-Hang 96 Yan Hui 20 yigu xingwu concept 17 Yu, Erika 35 Yu, Kam-por 33, 34 Zhang Zai 88 Zhang Zhidong 101 Zhongyong 89 Zhu, Qin 7, 112 Zhuangzi 19, 20

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