Flexibility and Moral Cultivation in the Analects of Confucius

Abstract

Flexibility, or acting in line with the needs of the situation rather than strictly adhering to prefigured rules and principles, has long been seen as a primary feature of early Confucian ethics as articulated in the Analects of Confucius. This paper develops an understanding of flexibility in the Analects through a close reading of two passages, 18.8 and 17.4. The goal is to both add nuance to standard readings of flexibility in the text and contribute to contemporary discourse, where consideration of moral flexibility is lacking. I show that while flexibility in the Analects is presented as an exemplary ethical approach, it requires a high level of moral cultivation, making it inaccessible to many. For those incapable of a flexible approach, a rigid approach that strictly adheres to rules and principles provides a means of both proper conduct and further ethical development. The Analects thus offers a fairly nuanced consideration of the notion of flexibility and the role of moral cultivation that can enliven contemporary ethical discourse.

1. Introduction

Confucius (trad. 551–479 BCE) has been known for having a flexible ethical approach at least since the time of the Confucian philosopher Mencius (trad. 372–289 BCE). One passage of the Mencius describes three other sages who were “pure (qing 清)”, “responsible (ren 任)“, and “accommodating (he 和)” and then describes Confucius as the sage who was “timely (shi 時)”. This means, as Bloom translates, he was “the perfect ensemble (ji da cheng 集大成)” (Bloom 2009, p. 111). Rather than following a fixed approach, the Mencius says that Confucius always acted as needed depending on the situation: “When it was right to act quickly, he was quick; when it was right to be deliberate, he was deliberate. When it was right to retire, he retired; when it was right to serve, he served. That was Confucius (可以速而速，可以久而久，可以处而处，可以仕而仕，孔子也)” (ibid.).

The Analects, the text that provides a canonical record of Confucius’s pronouncements and conduct, has a number of passages that provide a similar view of Confucius. For example, Analects 9.4 states that “The Master [Confucius] stayed clear from four things: no conjecture, no demand for absoluteness, no inflexibility, and no self-absorption (子絕四：毋意，毋必，毋固，毋我)” (Ni 2017; all translations of the Analects from Ni unless otherwise noted). In 4.10, Confucius says that the exemplary person is set on appropriateness rather than having preset preferences (“君子之於天下也, 無適也, 無莫也, 義之於比”). Analects 9.3 shows Confucius sometimes following the majority and adopting updated practices and sometimes not, depending on his judgment. In 18.8, a passage that will be a focus of this paper, Confucius compares his own approach to those of six other historical figures. Whereas the other figures all follow approaches that are fixed and rule-bound in some way, Confucius takes an approach of “no preconceptions about the permissible and the impermissible (我則異於是，無可無不可)” (Lau 1979). These passages, along with others and assessments by Mencius and later commentators, lead to a reading of Confucius as the flexible, timely sage who acts with appropriateness rather than according to fixed rules. Accordingly, a flexible ethical approach is often taken as a goal for conduct in early Confucian ethics.

The centrality of flexibility in the Analects stands in contrast to the dearth of discussions about flexibility in contemporary ethical discourse. While the notion of ethical flexibility has been investigated in psychology (e.g., Gino 2016; Kwon et al. 2022; Whitton et al. 2014), it has been relatively neglected in philosophy. Flexible ethical theories have been discussed (see, e.g., Garcia-Gibson and Rivera-López 2020, discussed at the end of this paper), but flexible ethical approaches have not. By an ethical approach, I mean the metaethical manner in how one approaches action and chooses to engage or not with the various ethical theories, principles, and rules available to one. Therefore, a discussion of Confucian flexibility as it appears in the Analects can offer something new to contemporary ethics. In this paper, I provide such a discussion through a close reading of two passages central to discussions of flexibility in the text: 18.8 and 17.4. While 18.8 is often referenced in such discussions, 17.4 is not. In doing so, I pay special attention to the question of how universal a recommendation flexibility is supposed to be. While the Analects is often read as privileging flexibility over more rigid approaches that strictly adhere to rules and principles, I show that the text in fact presents rigid approaches as valid alternatives to flexible approaches. Flexible approaches require a high level of moral cultivation. For those incapable of them, rigid adherence to rules and principles can guide persons to moral action and allow them to continue to develop ethically. The Analects thus provides a nuanced discussion of flexibility that can enliven contemporary ethical discourse.

The goal of this paper is accordingly twofold: First, to reach a refined understanding of the Analects. Second, to present Confucian insights on flexibility as holding possible relevance for us today. In using the Analects for the latter purpose, I follow a modified form of Hans-Georg Moeller’s conception of post-comparative philosophy. Moeller understands post-comparative philosophy as “neither focus[ing] on differences between non-Western and Western philosophies nor on their sameness. It makes an argument or develops an idea in any philosophical sub-discipline by building on more than one philosophical tradition” (Moeller 2022, pp. 217–18). In this paper I draw on a single tradition, but in doing so I try to develop the idea of Confucian “flexibility,” for which no single Chinese term exists in the language of the Analects, into one that can be of use to us today. The point is not to explore how modern-day Confucians can use the ideas in the Analects but how anyone can use such ideas. Given that “flexibility” has a certain resonance in English but lacks a precise equivalent in the language of the Analects, the notion of flexibility developed here is one that depends on the interface between the ancient Confucian tradition and our modern context, and it can be said to be post-comparative in that way. This approach can also be said to be post-comparative because it is one whose validity depends on comparative philosophy having allowed Confucian philosophy to engage in dialog with Western thought and be seen as (1) philosophical and (2) having potentially universal rather than parochial relevance (though some today still deny these things—see, e.g., Van Norden 2017 for examples). Prior to this, Chinese thought was generally perceived as valuable by Westerners only as a way to better understand or interface with Chinese society (if it was perceived as valuable at all). Any approach that treated Chinese insights as holding contemporary relevance in the same way as Ancient Greek or Roman insights would likely be seen as invalid. The current project is thus also post-comparative in that it can only happen now that traditional comparative philosophy has allowed Chinese thought to be seen as potentially relevant to modern-day humans of any cultural background.

In what follows, I first discuss how “flexibility” can and has been understood in the context of the Analacts. Next, I engage in a close reading of two passages in the Analects that challenge simplistic accounts of the status of flexibility in the text: 18.8 and 17.4. I conclude by briefly noting some of the differences between Confucian flexibility and the flexible moral theories that have been developed in analytic philosophy. Overall, my goal is to present insights from Confucian ethics in a way where their relevance outside of the Confucian tradition can be clear and thus continue the comparative task of broadening the resources available to scholars in present-day ethics, both religious and secular.

2. Confucius’s Flexible Approach in 18.8

“Flexible” is the term I use to describe, primarily, Confucius’s approach of “no preconceptions about the permissible and the impermissible (無可無不可)” from 18.8, which may also be translated as “no musts, no must nots”. The full passage is as follows:

Men who were unable to serve: Bo Yi, Shu Qi, Yu Zhong, Yi Yi, Zhu Zhang, Liuxia Hui, Shao Lian. The Master said, “Not to lower their purpose or to allow themselves to be humiliated describes, perhaps, Bo Yi and Shu Qi”. Of Liuxia Hui and Shao Lian he said, “They, indeed, lowered their purpose and allowed themselves to be humiliated, but their words were in accord with their station, and their deeds with circumspection. That was all”. Of Yu Zhong and Yi Yi he said, “They lived as recluses and gave free rein to their words, but their persons accorded with purity and their departures with the right measure. I, however, am different. I have no preconceptions about the permissible and the impermissible”. (逸民：伯夷、叔齊、虞仲、夷逸、朱張、柳下惠、少連。子曰：「不降其志，不辱其身，伯夷、叔齊與！」謂：「柳下惠、少連，降志辱身矣。言中倫，行中慮，其斯而已矣。」謂：「虞仲、夷逸，隱居放言。身中清，廢中權。」「我則異於是，無可無不可。」)

(Lau 1979, modified)

When commentators discuss this passage, the final line is usually taken as the most important: Confucius’s statement that he has “no preconceptions about the permissible and the impermissible (無可無不可)”. Given that the topic of 18.8 seems to be government service—either how to comport oneself while serving or when and how to withdraw from service—one might understand his statement as limited to that topic rather than being a broader expression of flexibility.1 Indeed, Ma Rong 馬融 (d. 166) understands Confucius’s words as proximally responding to that topic, commenting as follows: Confucius “did not necessarily enter [service] and did not necessarily retreat [from service] but only resided in appropriateness (亦不必進，亦不必退，唯義所在)” (Li 2018, p. 789). However, by describing Confucius’s approach as “residing in appropriateness” (yi suo zai 義所在), Ma makes implicit connections to other passages in which appropriateness (yi 義) appears, indicating that Confucius’s approach here is part of a broader pattern. Accordingly, later commentators have followed Ma in taking this statement as a paramount expression of Confucius’s flexibility and practice of appropriateness over fixed codes of conduct, with relevance beyond the immediate topic of government service. In this paper, I do the same.

The phrase wu ke wu bu ke 無可無不可 is difficult to translate, but given that ke 可 and bu ke 不可 are used in a similar way throughout the Analects to mean something being acceptable, workable, or possible (see, e.g., 11.11), the meaning is clear, and Lau’s way of translating here is a common one. Confucius distinguishes his approach from those of the exemplars discussed earlier in the passage, who embody three different alignments of the acceptable (ke 可) and unacceptable (bu ke 不可) with regard to conduct in one’s government post. In the first alignment, which Bo Yi and Shu Qi represent, what is unacceptable is to lower one’s purpose (jiang qi zhi 降其志) or allow oneself to be humiliated (ru qi shen 辱其身). In the second one, represented by Liuxia Hui and Shao Lian, lowering one’s purpose and being humiliated are both acceptable, but keeping one’s words in accord with one’s station (yan zhong lun 言中倫) or one’s deeds with circumspection (xing zhong lü 行中慮) are unacceptable. In the final one, represented by Yu Zhong and Yi Yi, those things are now acceptable—one can be a recluse and give free rein to their words (yin ju fang yan 隱居放言), but what is unacceptable is to relinquish purity (shen zhong qing 身中清) or exit society in an imprudent manner (fei zhong quan 廢中權). These sets of acceptable and unacceptable are all rules that guide their actions, that mark the boundaries of potential action in advance of them facing specific situations. By contrast, Confucius does not have any such rules, and this is concordant with passages in the Analects cited above.

3. The Use of the Term “Flexible” in the Context of the Analects

In describing Confucius’s approach as “flexible,” it should be noted that no single Chinese term in the Analects can be readily translated as “flexible”, though “rigid” or “inflexible” do have a translation in gu 固 or bi 必 (see 9.4 cited above and also Confucius’s description of the petty person at 13.20). In fact, the Analects uses no single term to describe Confucius’s approach at all. As seen above, the “nothing permissible, nothing impermissible” approach is often connected with yi 義 (rightness, righteousness, or appropriateness), and so one might consider that term to be a better descriptor than “flexible”. At Analects 4.10, yi is used to describe an approach that looks to be very similar, if not identical, to the “nothing proper, nothing improper” approach of 18.8. However, appropriateness in the Analects has a broader meaning that goes beyond acting according to the situation instead of following prefigured rules or guidelines (for example it is the quality that stops a courageous person from robbing or rebelling in 17.23), which is why it has often been translated as “righteousness” or “rightness”. Therefore I find “flexibility” to be more suitable than yi in one of its various translations. If a single term were to be selected from the early Chinese lexicon, timely (shi 时), which Mencius uses to describe Confucius, might be best, but shi does not appear in that sense in the Analects. Furthermore, in English the meaning of “timely” is insufficiently vague. “Flexibility” communicates better in English and also has greater usage in contemporary discussions of Confucian ethics. Therefore, I have opted for “flexibility”. But it should be kept in mind that the only near-literal translations of “flexibility” available in the Analects are bu/wu bi 不/毋必 or bu/wu gu 不/毋固, which have a more limited reach in the text and are not used in the main passages I discuss in this paper.

Two more clarifications about the term “flexibility” are in order. Flexibility usually denotes the bending of something solid and so may seem to imply the bending of principles to fit the circumstances rather than a detachment from principles entirely. However, flexibility can also have the meaning of changing oneself or one’s practices (rather than one’s principles) to fit different circumstances, and this is how I use it here.2 In this sense, a flexible approach can also be understood as “pragmatic” in the simple sense of the term in that it prioritizes particulars over pre-set rules or notions. I opt for “flexible” to avoid confusion with the philosophical sense of pragmatic.3

Confucian flexibility (or something similar to it) has been described differently by other scholars. Mercedes Valmisa asserts that often what is termed “flexible” in Chinese thought should instead be termed “adaptive,” where being flexible is a prerequisite for being adaptive but being adaptive involves other characteristics like being situationally responsive, creative and innovative, and tolerant of ambiguity and uncertainty (Valmisa 2021, pp. 53–54). I have chosen to use “flexible” because my paper has a more limited focus. Hall and Ames (1987) describe the Confucian approach as an esthetic one that involves feeling or sensing the optimal arrangement of particulars rather than rationally assessing and conceptualizing.4 Andrew Lambert summarizes as follows:

This notion of the esthetic generates a practical task, the creation of social order, which is taken up by exemplary persons (junzi) […] This ongoing and subtle reordering of the community distinguishes the Confucian tradition from a reactionary social order mired in inflexible social convention. Here, the meaning of “esthetic” shifts from passive response to active intuitive judgment. Although this esthetic order can be described objectively or impersonally, its foundation resides in individual esthetic judgments of “rightness” or “appropriateness” (yi).

(Lambert 2021, p. 144)

Here, esthetic judgment is the means by which flexible ethical action replaces rigid conformity to rules. In a similar vein, Lin Yutang famously stated that for Confucius and the Chinese, “reasonableness is placed on a higher level than reason”. Reasonableness (qingli 情理) denotes an appeal to both reason (li 理), which Lin describes as “the immutable law of the universe”, and human nature (qing 情), which Lin describes as “the flexible, human element” (Lin 1939, p. 90, in English). Lin also describes this Chinese reasonableness as compromising, intuitive, and “practically identical with English common sense” (p. 109). Valmisa’s adaptiveness, Hall and Ames’ esthetic judgment, and Lin Yutang’s reasonableness all provide additional specification of how a flexible approach operates differently from one that strictly follows rules or principles.

4. Distinguishing Confucian Flexibility from Relativism and jing–quan 經權 Flexibility

Confucian flexibility in the Analects can also be distinguished from two other ideas it may be confused with: relativism and the jing–quan 經權 flexibility that appears later in the Chinese tradition. First, it should be highlighted that Confucius’s rejection of “musts” and “must nots” is not to say that Confucius was somehow able to cast off his tradition or other guides to action. An embrace rather than a discarding of tradition is a hallmark of the Analects and Confucian thought. Similarly, the Confucian approach does not doubt the tradition(s) or culture(s) one is part of in a relativistic manner or engage in unconventional conduct because such conduct might be able to be justified from within a different culture or ethical framework. In casting off “musts” and “must nots”, Confucius acts in a maximally appropriate manner given the situation, which is also maximally appropriate according to the culture he belongs to (although, to refer back to Hall and Ames, there is also an understanding that exemplary conduct positively changes the culture, or rather that culture is partially formed through exemplary action). Therefore, the Confucian approach is not a relativistic approach.

The understanding of flexibility that I read out of the Analects in this paper is also different from what came to be known as jing–quan flexibility later in the Confucian tradition, which involves weighing and adapting (quan 權) models such as exemplars, values, and principles (jing 經; see D’Ambrosio 2023 for a discussion). The term quan is used in the Analects (e.g., in 9.30 above), but its meaning is not as precise as it becomes later in the Mencius, where Zhao Qi 趙岐 (d. 201) interprets it as “what would lead to the good after the contravention of the norm (反經而善者也)” (Wang 2011, p. 412). Notably, quan appears in Analects 18.8 as something that Yu Zhong and Yi Yi insist on when exiting society (fei zhong quan 廢中權). This implies that Confucius’s position does differ from a stance of quan. Valmisa (2021, p. 57) also draws a distinction between quan in this more precise sense, concerned with situational concerns overriding general rules, and adaptiveness, which makes do without general rules and is more akin to Confucius’s approach in 18.8.

With Confucius’s approach, jing (such as rules and principles) are available for consideration, but they need not be adhered to or “weighed” to fit situations; rather, actors can use or discard jing as they see fit. However, this does not imply the complete exclusion of, or affected ignorance about (to borrow Michele Moody-Adams’s term), whatever jing might be relevant in a given situation. As D’Ambrosio (2024) notes in his discussion of the all-encompassing nature of Confucian ethics, “All of these […] from principles and rules to calculations, virtues, and emotions are relevant for Confucian ethics. None of them are wholly relied upon, but neither can they be excluded” (p. 9). In acting flexibly, Confucius is aware of the principles and rules that may apply to the present situation—he is just not committing himself to following them. This leads Chung-ying Cheng to describe Confucian ethics as a mix of an “ethics of principles” and an “ethics of situation”. Cheng himself describes the Confucian ethical approach as involving “something stable in people’s common feelings, based on human nature; and something varying and changeable, based on the situation” (Cheng 2013, p. 729; compare Lin Yutang’s pairing of qing 情 and li 理 above). The difference between this approach and a rigid, fixed approach is that a rigid approach treats ethical principles and rules as inviolable guides, whereas for Confucius they are just one thing among many to consider.

5. Reexamining the Status of Rigid Ethical Approaches in 18.8 and Elsewhere

In most understandings of Confucian flexibility, Analects 18.8 is taken as endorsing ethical flexibility over the more rigid approaches practiced by the other worthies. For example, Qian Mu 錢穆 (d. 1990), in commenting on 18.8, observes that “only the way of Confucius stands out (惟孔子之道，高而出之)” (Qian 2004, p. 663). Brooks and Brooks comment, “The Master’s concluding remark rejects all these models in favor of a more flexible standard” (Brooks and Brooks 1998, p. 181). Edward Slingerland states that “This sums up what separates a true gentleman such as Confucius from the merely pure or fastidious: he is the ‘timely sage’ (Mencius 5B1), and thus is able to respond flexibly to the demands of the situation” (Slingerland 2003, p. 217). Peimin Ni remarks that the key point of the passage is the final line (Ni 2017, p. 416).

However, I argue that closer analysis of this passage and others reveals Confucius to be giving equal space to rigid approaches in ethics. A first thing to notice is that, throughout the Analects, Confucius gives many opinions on what constitutes acceptable and unacceptable conduct. When he says that he has no preconceptions of what is acceptable and unacceptable, he does not mean that he does not make pronouncements on those things but rather that he does not abide by such strict rules himself. Second, Confucius never says that his way is better, only different. A respected teacher like Confucius pointing out that he does things differently involves an inherent endorsement of his own approach, but the fact that he does not denigrate the other approaches is notable. In fact, looking at how some of the figures in the passage are mentioned elsewhere in the text gives reason to doubt that Confucius thought that their ethical approaches were inadequate compared to his flexible approach.

Liuxia Hui, Bo Yi, and Shu Qi are the only figures mentioned in 18.8 that appear in other passages of the Analects or about whom much is known, and they are praised in multiple passages in the Analects. In 15.14, Liuxia Hui is said to be virtuous (xian 賢), and Zang Wenzhong, the Minister of Justice in Lu, is faulted for not promoting him in office. This fault is serious enough that Confucius implies that Zang Wenzhong should be dismissed from office. At 18.2, Liuxia Hui is discussed in depth:

When Liuxia Hui served as a criminal judge, he was thrice dismissed from his office. Someone said, “Can you not, sir, just leave?”

He said, “Serving people in the upright way, where can I go without being thrice dismissed? Serving people in a crooked way, why would I need to leave my home state?” (柳下惠為士師，三黜。人曰：「子未可以去乎？」曰：「直道而事人，焉往而不三黜？枉道而事人，何必去父母之邦。」)

(Ni 2017)

Here, Liuxia Hui is presented as persistently virtuous despite it causing him to be repeatedly dismissed, as well as persistent in his intentions to keep serving society rather than give up. I take this to be a flattering account of him, especially given the emphasis on following a “straight/upright path (zhi dao直道)”, which is not contrasted with a superior flexible approach but with a “crooked path (wang dao 枉道)”. Bo Yi and Shu Qi are mentioned several times in the Analects, and Analects 5.23 provides a basic assessment of the pair: “The Master said, ‘Boyi and Shuqi never kept old grudges, and hence there was little resentment’ (叔齊不念舊惡，怨是用希)”. Ni’s translation retains the ambiguity of the final phrase (“and hence there was little resentment”), which can be taken to mean that Boyi and Shuqi did not resent others, that others did not resent them, or that there was little enmity on either side. Whichever way it is interpreted, the assessment is a positive one. In a later passage (7.15), Confucius deepens his praise and says that Bo Yi and Shu Qi not only lacked resentment but were also worthy (xian 賢) and obtained the supreme Confucian virtue of humaneness (ren 仁). Humaneness, it should be noted, is something that Confucius denies he has achieved (7.34). Confucius thus presents Bo Yi and Shu Qi as having attained a level of moral excellence that Confucius himself has not.

In light of the consistent praise of Bo Yi, Shu Qi, and Liuxia Hui offered throughout the text, interpretations of 18.8 that read Confucius as privileging flexibility to the exclusion of moral rigidity seem implausible. Rather, I propose that Confucius’s statement that he is different be taken literally: he is merely different. Moral rigidity and flexibility are both acceptable ethical approaches to take. Accordingly, 18.8 can be read as an endorsement of different ways of being ethically rigid and one way of not being so—as showing us that there are multiple sets of ke (acceptable) and bu ke (unacceptable) one could abide by, including the position of not following any ke or bu ke at all.5

Analects 18.8 thus provides a picture of ethical diversity in the form of different allowable ethical approaches. The different types of moral rigidity practiced by the six worthies mentioned in the passage are not necessarily to be discarded in favor of the more flexible approach Confucius presents at the end of the passage. Rather, Confucius’s approach can serve to complement those of the other worthies, perhaps in the same way that “the gentleman is harmonious with others but not the same (君子和而不同)” (13.23).6

6. Killing Chickens with an Ox Knife

Another passage that bears on discussions of flexibility in the Analects, though I have never seen it mentioned in that connection, is 17.4, where Confucius is seen talking with his disciple Ziyou and makes a joke about using an ox knife to kill a chicken. This passage, as I will demonstrate, shows Confucius to be promoting a more rigid approach to someone whom he deems unable of taking a flexible approach. It thus complements and expands on the preceding discussion of 18.8. In 17.4, Confucius is visiting his disciple Ziyou, who is the mayor of a town called Wu. Ziyou, as the mayor, has initiated a program of music and chanting in the town for the moral development of the people. Upon arriving, Confucius hears the sound of this music and chanting and makes a remark about it to Ziyou. The full passage is as follows:

The Master came to the town of Wu. Hearing the sound of stringed instruments and chanting, the Master smiled and said, “Why use an ox-knife to kill a chicken?”

Ziyou replied, “In the past I heard from you, Master, that ‘when people of high station learn about the Way, they will love their fellow people; when the common people learn about the Way, they will be easy to command.’”

The Master said, “My young friends, Yan [Ziyou]’s words are right. What I said was only joking.” (子之武城，聞弦歌之聲。夫子莞爾而笑，曰：「割雞焉用牛刀？」子游對曰：「昔者偃也聞諸夫子曰：『君子學道則愛人，小人學道則易使也。』」子曰：「二三子！偃之言是也。前言戲之耳。」)

(Ni 2017)

Commentators on the passage have disagreed about what exactly Confucius initially means the ox knife to refer to (see Slingerland 2003, p. 200, for an overview of various interpretations). However, the meaning of the joke is well-established: An ox-knife is excessively big for a chicken; a smaller knife would be sufficient. To use an even bloodier English metaphor, it is “overkill”. Ziyou obviously takes the knife to refer to the methods he is using to govern Wu. On this reading, Ziyou is doing too much—he could do less and still govern the town effectively. However, multiple commentators take the knife as initially referring not to this but rather to Ziyou as the tool used to govern the town. On this reading, Ziyou himself is overly qualified for his job.7

Whether the ox knife refers to Ziyou or his methods is not altogether very important. In either case, the fact that what Confucius saw makes him smile or laugh indicates that he finds something inappropriate in the use of music in Wu—not harmful, but at least excessive enough to motivate a joke. Unless Ziyou is trying to make people laugh by being humorously excessive, which it does not seem like he is, less here would be more appropriate. Ziyou is someone whom Confucius has previously described as being skilled in “culture” (wenxue 文学, Analects 11.3), which includes memorizing the classics as well as being skilled in the rites and music. Therefore, Ziyou is likely sensitive to the issue of moral education. Furthermore, in Analects 19.12, Ziyou is seen criticizing his fellow disciple Zixia for not attending enough to the roots of moral education when educating his followers—Zixia is only teaching them how to act but not how to think and feel. Thus we can see Ziyou’s use of music in Wu as aimed at attending to the roots.

What then is the function of Confucius’ somewhat ambiguous joke about the music in the town? A joke about someone’s conduct can open a space for critical distance if the person is willing to let themselves laugh, and I find this to be a plausible guess at Confucius’s original intention: His joke is an invitation for Ziyou to see his situation in a new light. Ziyou’s problem, as will be clear from his response, is that he seems to only evaluate his actions by how well they enact the principles he has learned. The joke is a chance for him to take on Confucius’s perspective and see things more holistically, a precondition for loosening his grip on his rigid, rule-bound ethical approach.

How does Ziyou respond to this invitation? Ziyou does not laugh. Instead, he rebuffs Confucius’s apparent suggestion that he is doing too much by reciting a principle that Confucius taught him on the use of moral education for all classes of society. This response, and the fact that Ziyou is unable to enjoy the humor of the situation, shows Confucius that Ziyou operates according to rules and is unwilling or unable to change, even to step outside of his perspective for a moment to laugh. Consequently, Confucius responds—to all disciples present—that Ziyou was right and Confucius was only joking. If Confucius were to tell him to not use that principle here and change what he is doing, Ziyou would likely make a new principle to replace the one he is currently following. Presumably, however, there is no principle that would work better for this situation as well as all similar situations (excluding the meta-principle of acting with maximum appropriateness, which does not provide specific enough guidance for Ziyou to use). Therefore, when Confucius says he is only joking, he means, “that principle is the right one and you are using it correctly here”. In doing this, Confucius not only reaffirms the principle in question but also reaffirms Ziyou’s rigid approach to using principles, even if they lead to a somewhat humorous outcome. After all, principles are teachings, and Ziyou is being a good student, doing what he and the other disciples must do as they learn from Confucius.

In sum, by presenting a scene of Confucius encouraging his student to follow a rigid, rule-bound approach because he is incapable of acting more flexibly, Analects 17.4 reinforces the tolerance (and sometimes even esteem) for rigid ethical approaches found in 18.8 and throughout the text. Together, 18.8 and 17.4 point towards a more nuanced understanding of flexibility in the text. Here, Li Bingnan’s 李炳南 (d. 1986) remarks on 18.8 are instructive: the way of Confucius is “the judicious way of the sage; it is not what the [merely] worthy are able to do (這是聖人行權之道，非賢人所能行)” (Li 2018, p. 789). While Confucius’s way might be superior to the other approaches mentioned in 18.8, it is not one available to most people. Confucius thus praises rigid ethical approaches and offers principles and rules with the understanding that they are necessary for those at lesser stages of ethical development—or perhaps simply those who operate differently (as there is nothing to suggest that Bo Yi and Shu Qi are at a lesser stage of ethical development).

7. Flexibility and Moral Development

The reading of 17.4 and 18.8 presented above reinforces the commonly acknowledged but sometimes forgotten fact that the Analects is more interested in providing a path of moral development than a moral doctrine. The orientation towards moral development is clear from numerous passages in the text. For example, Analects 9.11 provides a picture of Confucius’s favorite disciple, Yan Yuan, expressing the difficulties of learning from the master:

Yan Yuan [Yan Hui] sighed deeply and said, “The more I looked up, the higher it seems; the more I tried to penetrate it, the harder it becomes. I looked at it in front of me, and suddenly I find it right behind. The Master is good at leading people, step by step. He broadens me with culture and restrains me with ritual propriety”. (顏淵喟然歎曰：「仰之彌高，鑽之彌堅；瞻之在前，忽焉在後。夫子循循然善誘人，博我以文，約我以禮。」)

(Ni 2017)

As this passage shows, the Analects is very aware of the difficulties of moral development and the fact that ethics is far more than deciding on the appropriate ideals and putting them into practice. Numerous well-known passages in the text discuss the course of moral development. Analects 2.4, for example, gives Confucius’s description of his own moral development, including the steps of being free of perplexities and following one’s heart’s wishes without overstepping the bounds:

At fifteen, I had my heart-mind set on learning. At thirty, I was able to take my stand. At forty, I had no more perplexities. At fifty, I knew the mandate of heaven. At sixty, my ears were attuned. At seventy, I could follow my heart’s wishes without overstepping the boundaries. (子曰：「吾十有五而志于學，三十而立，四十而不惑，五十而知天命，六十而耳順，七十而從心所欲，不踰矩。」)

(Ni 2017)

As Ni writes (Ni 2017, p. 97), being free of perplexities is often taken to mean having mastered the art of discretion (quan). Accordingly, the final stage of Confucius following his heart’s wishes without overstepping the bounds might be equated with the flexible “nothing acceptable, nothing unacceptable” approach of 18.8. This flexible approach is not one that just anyone, or anyone at any stage of moral development, can practice.

While the connection between flexibility and moral development in the Analects has sometimes been missed, the centrality of moral development in the text has been well-documented. Wang (2011) writes that “for Confucius moral cultivation consists in a long process of progression. So, as long as they set their minds and actions toward the call of the right ideal, those who have different natural endowment and capabilities may well choose different courses of action germane to the concrete situations, all with some degree of rightness” (p. 401). That is, the ethical choices Confucius is concerned with more often involve a spectrum of rightness than a binary of right and wrong, and moral cultivation (rather than, for instance, correct knowledge of moral truths) is how one reaches better outcomes. Wang later describes Confucius as a “moral connoisseur” and offers the beautiful analogy of how the difference between moral choices for Confucius is “more like that between a bottle of vintage Pinot Noir and mediocre Merlot than like that between what is good and evil or pharmaceutical and poisonous” (p. 410). This esthetic differentiation between outcomes recalls Hall and Ames’s description of the esthetic nature of Confucian thought and points to how the most stellar ethical outcomes might be limited to flexible approaches that have a “free hand”, so to speak, in reaching an ideal outcome.

Peimin Ni develops a view of the Analects as oriented towards moral development, including the implications of this for rigid and flexible ethical approaches, much more fully with his gongfu reading of the text (see, e.g., “The Gongfu Orientation” in the “Introduction” to Ni 2017). In particular, Ni points to an additional function of principles and rules when he posits that statements in the text should not be read as inviolable principles but as instructions to help people develop and live well. He describes these statements as “driving instructions,” describing how they are “meant to help people to obtain embodied skills rather than to be a restriction one has to obey in all circumstances. Once a driver embodies the skills, she will know when not to follow them!” (Ni 2017, p. 266). Karyn Lai makes a similar point in her paper on the relationship between ritual propriety (li 禮) and moral development in the Analects, noting how more flexibility is allowed with ritual propriety in the later stages of moral development than in the earlier stages and that this is enabled by ritual prescriptions. She writes, “Gradually, along the developmental path, li cease to act as constraints to behavior and instead facilitate expressions of an aesthetically and ethically refined self” (Lai 2006, p. 80). Ni and Lai here point to how Confucius’s endorsement of rigid, rule-bound approaches is not only meant to provide guides to action to people who need them but also to give people a moral scaffolding or framework that they can use to develop ethically to the point where they can “break” the rules. They thus serve two functions: to guide action to the best outcomes that people are capable of while also helping people develop morally. Such a conclusion is perhaps obvious when reflecting on all the rules, principles, and heuristics used in parenting, teaching, and the like, but it is one that stands in contrast to simplistic understandings of flexibility in the Analects, as well as contemporary discourse that often focuses on the articulation of rules and theories to the exclusion of more flexible approaches.

8. Conclusions

This paper has developed an understanding of flexibility in the Analects that pushes back to some degree on common readings of the text that view it as simply encouraging the pursuit of flexibility. Confucius does not always promote this flexible approach, seemingly because not everyone is capable of it. Flexibility might be the ideal, but flexibility is hard to practice and not something that may be possible in early stages of moral development. As a result, Confucius taught his students to follow principles and rules, gave them rules to follow, and praised exemplars who, at the higher stages of moral development, still followed rigid, rule-bound approaches. The Confucian stance may be an elitist one in that it places flexibility out of reach for many, but it also takes moral development as a given and does not denigrate the rigid ethical approaches that those incapable of flexible approaches follow. Rather, rigid ethical approaches go hand-in-hand with moral development as the means of reaching higher levels of ethical cultivation and ability.

The distinctiveness of the Confucian understanding of flexibility might be best understood by examining Confucian flexibility alongside the flexible moral theories that have been developed in analytic philosophy. Garcia-Gibson and Rivera-López (2020) provide a helpful summary of such theories, specifically flexible deontological and rule-consequentialist theories. The flexibility in these theories does not arise from the theory allowing the moral agent to stray from the theory and act in the way they find most suitable but in the theory itself taking into account an increased number of particulars. In the theories that Garcia-Gibson and Rivera-López discuss, those particulars are the level of compliance with an action by other agents in a given situation. The level of compliance determines, among other things, the permissibility of the act. Therefore, such theories end up being a more sophisticated version of the rule-bound approaches that Confucius distinguishes himself from in 18.8. They are also the road that Confucius chose not to take with Ziyou: in the face of Ziyou’s humorously excessive conduct, Confucius did not provide a more sophisticated principle that could have better suited the present situation but rather reinforced the principle that Ziyou had been using.

The Confucian approach to ethics can thus be seen as making a comment on the limits of such rule-bound theories but also on their applicability and use. Such theories will often likely lead to inferior results compared to a flexible approach practiced by a moral exemplar, but for many they provide necessary guidance for moral action and can allow people to develop into exemplary moral agents capable of acting without the aid of such theories. And again, as Huiayu Wang and others have noted, Confucianism is also more interested in shades of rightness than in a binary of right and wrong. Whether a cultural program in a small town is humorously excessive is likely not the type of situation that an analytic moral theory is crafted to address, whereas it is well within the scope of Confucian ethics. As Peimin Ni notes, “No doubt Confucius is concerned about morality, but our common conception of morality today is too narrow to capture the Master’s aim, which obviously goes far beyond obligations into the realm of mastering the art of living” (Ni 2017, p. 27). This is thus an additional contribution that the Analects and Confucian ethics can make to contemporary discourse: prompting us to consider broadening our understanding of the ethical beyond right and wrong to encompass shades of moral and esthetic accomplishment. In sum, the Confucian understanding of flexibility and the role it accords to moral development offer multiple contributions to contemporary ethics that will make a continued, post-comparative engagement with it very worthwhile.