RESPONSIBILITY IN CONFUCIAN THOUGHT
This chapter will use responsibility as a “bridge” concept between the Confucian and Western moral and political traditions. A key feature of the concept lies in its root meaning “to respond.” Confucian thought focuses on how the responder is entrusted and relied upon to respond, to answer to, the needs and to the vulnerability of the one to whom response is due. Confucian thought focuses on how to cultivate the qualities enabling such responsiveness. Another overlapping meaning of responsibility with Chinese concepts is that of “being held to answer for what one has done or is required to do.” One might be faulted or blamed, or credited and praised, for responding appropriately or not to the needs and vulnerabilities of others. An important strand of Confucian thought distributes responsibility in the sense of “being held to answer for” not only to the direct agent of the act in question but to others who have the most control over the conditions that shape the choices of the direct agent. Finally, another strand of Confucian thought implies that responsibility can outrun whatever is under the individual’s control.
