It is indisputable that ritual is at the heart of Confucianism—buy why? In this episode we examine Analects 3.17 in which Confucius seems keen to defend a ritual sacrifice of a lamb which his student regards as excessive. We discuss this passage in light of Richard Wollheim’s paper, “The Sheep and the Ceremony” which offers a deep and illuminating exploration of this passage and the value of ritual more broadly. We examine questions about the possibility of seeing ritual as intrinsically valuable or constitutive of a good human life, and offer some suggestions about why the Confucians may have been right to place such significant weight on ritual practice.
Key passages
Analects 3.17
子貢欲去告朔之餼羊。子曰：「賜也，爾愛其羊，我愛其禮。」
Zigong wanted to do away with the practice of sacrificing a lamb to announce the beginning of the month.
The Master said, “Zigong! You regret the loss of the lamb, whereas I regret the loss of the rite.”
(Analects 3.17, Edward Slingerland’s translation)
Things mentioned in the episode (people, organizations, terms, people, texts, shows)
• Elizabeth Anscombe
• Charles Taylor
• Alasdair MacIntyre
• The Isaiah House of Southern California (and the Southern California Catholic Worker Movement)
• Dorothy Day, The Long Loneliness
• Xunzi 荀子 (the classical Confucian with complicated views about ritual and religious belief)
• Pantheism
• The Ethics of Belief
• The New Atheism Movement (whose major representatives include Richard Dawkins)
• R.M. (“Richard”) Hare
• Pascal’s Wager
• David Lewis
• Rituals, rites (li 禮)
• Analects 12.1
• Kwong-loi Shun, “Ren 仁 and Li 禮 in the Analects” (highlights and tries to improve upon the “definitionalist reading” of ren 仁 [humaneness, goodness])
• Richard Wollheim, “The Sheep and the Ceremony,” a chapter in Wollheim’s The Mind and Its Depths
• Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130-1200) (one the traditional commentators mentioned)
• Xing Bing 邢昺 (932-1010) (another traditional commentator mentioned)
• Analects 10.20 (the last line of the passage linked, marked as Analects 10.13 in the linked version)
• atelic value, atelic activities
• Herbert Fingarette, Confucius—The Secular as Sacred
• behaviorism
• “volunteerism” vs. “realism”/”objectivism” (Wollheim’s terms)
• The objective list theory of well-being
• The hedonistic theory of well-being
As it happens, Peter Adamson and Karyn Lai posted an episode on a similar topic this week. Ours is on ritual in the Analects of Confucius, theirs is on ritual and Heaven for all three of the founding figures of classical Confucianism (Confucius, Mencius, and Xunzi).
We make some fleeting references to Xunzi’s interesting views on the religious foundations of ritual. Listen to the last episode of 2024 in Adamson’s and Lai’s China series (part of History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps) for much more on that.
On Confucius starting out on foot: I hadn’t realized the situation was that the horse later catches up to Confucius. That probably just went over my head. Is that discussed in the commentary tradition? One neat thing about that interpretation is that it means that the ruler wouldn’t know that Confucius paid him respect in that way, which connects it to your discussion of attending a big funeral where the family of the deceased wouldn’t notice your presence. It also reminds me of Aristotle wondering whether the dead can be harmed or helped, since they can be honored or dishonored.
I noticed that you connected success conditions with the intentions of an agent. That’s certainly relevant, but I wonder if there’s a way to detach success conditions from an agent’s intentions in a way that bridges the subjective-objective divide a little bit.
Here’s a silly scenario. Suppose I look at a hammer and nails and decide that what I should do with them is use the hammer to slice the heads off the nails. I have failed to use the hammer properly. One way you could cash out my failure is to say that I chose the wrong tool for the job (I should have chosen a hacksaw or a rotary tool or something). But another way to look at it is that I chose the wrong job for the tool: the hammer’s shape and material dictates certain success conditions for its use, whatever my intentions with the hammer are.
A less silly scenario. I was writing a story once where I very explicitly did not intend two characters’ relationship to be romantic, because I don’t like writing romance. But it was obvious to any reader that that was where things were headed. What was my mistake? It wasn’t in failing to carry out my intention: it would have been a worse story if I had rewritten the characters to fit my intentions. It was actually the reverse: I needed to realign my intentions with the success conditions the story itself dictated. (I’ve had similar experiences writing philosophy papers: sometimes I have to let go of the argument or structure I want because the paper demands a different one.)
Likewise, you could make the case that certain ritual actions have certain goals or success conditions apart from the intention of the agent, and the agent’s job is actually to get his intentions in line with the ritual, which the ritual helps him do. (I suppose that’s a slightly Xunzian way of looking at it.)
Here’s where it starts to bridge the gap: all that could be the case even if the success conditions of the ritual are culturally mediated, because cultures aren’t agents. “Sacrificing a sheep during the Zhou dynasty” might have an intrinsic value that “sacrificing a sheep in 21st century America” doesn’t have, in both cases apart from the agent’s intentions, because they are different actions. If I, today in the suburbs of Chicago, kill a sheep, sincerely intending what the Zhou kings intended by it, I’ve still done something disturbing, no matter what my intentions.
Hi Jacob,
Very interesting points, and I completely agree with you that intentions alone do not determine the success or failure of ritual practice. The broader context that gives the ritual its point and purpose is indeed very important.
It’s intriguing to consider whether there might be two different actions, as you suggest. I’m not entirely sure this is the case, though, since both Confucius and perhaps someone today could “slaughter a sheep for sacrifice” while living in radically different contexts and times. They might still share the same intention.
For example, I might bow to pay my respects in 2025, and suppose someone also bowed in 1300 in Korea (did they? I’m not sure, but perhaps they did). I think it’s possible that I’m performing the same action as someone bowing in 1300 in Korea, even though the cultural context is drastically different. We might both answer Anscombe’s “Why?” question in the same way: “To pay my respect to that person.”
Still, as you noted, the value or morality of the action might vary depending on the context. That seems right since there may be some facts that one should know and is culpable of not knowing.