【This article was originally published in Philosophy and Social Criticism.】

The ideal of filiality (xiao) – care and reverence for elderly parents and ancestors – is one of the central values in Confucianism. During the May Fourth Movement (1919), the most significant challenge to Confucianism came in the form of denying the legitimacy of filiality and advocacy of the view that the new generation should break away from familial relations and parental authority. However, this radical stance has not been sustained in post-revolutionary China. On August 13, 2012, the new version of The Twenty-Four Filial Exemplars was jointly released by the National Women’s Federation Office for Aging Coordination, the Office of the National Working Commission on Aging and the National Organizing Committee of the Heart-Linked Series. Filiality became not only a personal moral requirement but also an official ideology to be promoted in education and politics.

In modern China, dissatisfied parents often criticize their children for being ‘unfilial’ if the latter do something that fails to please them. The accusation of being ‘unfilial’ is a very serious charge in China, not only in ethical terms but also at a political level: In the Analects of Confucius, You Zi said, ‘There are few who have developed themselves filially and fraternally who enjoy offending their superiors. Those who do not enjoy offending superiors are never troublemakers’. In Communist China, the political im- plications of filiality are still taken seriously: In Qufu, near the birthplace of Confucius, a government official considered for promotion will be assessed by an evaluator from the organization department who will ask his/her parents if the adult child is filial. If the answer is no, the promotion will probably fail. In official terminology, ‘Unfilial officials cannot be promoted’ (幹部不盡孝不能提拔, ganbu bujinxiao buneng tiba).

More often than not, however, filiality has been misused and vulgarized in practice, leading to significant human suffering. Hence, there is a need to articulate a morally defensible and realistic interpretation of filiality that is appropriate for the Chinese context. In the past two decades, mainland Chinese philosophers tended to focus on discussing the metaphysical and religious aspects of filiality. One reason is that, in the face of the impact of individualism in the modern world, filiality has become the foundation stone of Confucianism. Similar to Song and Ming Neo-Confucianism, in- terpreters of Confucianism often argue among themselves, but few question the supreme status of filiality, which is considered central to what it means to be Confucian. In real life, however, intergenerational conflict is pervasive, and parents and children often do not share the same understanding of what constitutes filiality. Parents accuse their children of being unfilial, while children believe that their parents’ demands are excessive. Hence, there is a need to articulate a morally defensible and realistic interpretation of filiality appropriate for the contemporary Chinese context that can be deployed to distinguish between justifiable and unjustifiable uses of filiality.

First, we need to be clear about what precisely is filiality. It is best understood as the ideal of care and reverence for elderly parents and ancestors with different components. What exactly are the components of filiality? There are some excellent normative dis- cussions on this topic. Li Chenyang’s recent book Reshaping Confucianism: A Pro- gressive Inquiry is a systematic effort to make this core Confucian value morally defensible for progressive modern societies, and he argues there are three components of filiality which can be globally applicable: physical support, psychological respect and moral vigilance. This is a helpful threefold distinction, but Li rejects piety and obedience on the grounds they are not progressive enough for modern societies. In contrast, I will argue that by setting certain conditions on piety and obedience, they can still be relevant in the modern Chinese context. For these reasons, I will add two components to Li’s threefold distinction: piety for ancestors and obedience to sick and dying parents.

Hence, I will distinguish between five components that must be reinterpreted to be made defensible for the contemporary Chinese context. I will discuss, in turn, ‘material support’ (養, yang), ‘respect’ (敬, jing), ‘remonstration’ (諫, jian), ‘piety’ (虔, qian) and ‘obedience’ (順, shun). ‘Material support’ (養, yang) refers to the financial and material support that adult children provide to their elderly parents who have lost their ability to work. ‘Respect’ (敬, jing) means treating parents with courtesy and manners when caring for elderly parents, rather than blindly satisfying their psychological needs. ‘Remon- stration’ (諫, jian) includes not only the relationship between parents and children but also the consideration of not bringing shame to ancestors and descendants. ‘Piety’ (虔, qian) is an emotional attachment to deceased ancestors and very old grandparents. When parents are very old and close to death, a certain degree of ‘obedience’ (順, shun) may be necessary, but this obedience should not be practiced too early. However, I do not mean to imply that filiality is limited to these five components. As society evolves, the content of filiality will naturally adapt and change. Nor do I mean to imply that these five components of filiality are universally shared. They are influential in mainland China now and I draw on examples and empirical research from mainland China to support my arguments, but I leave open the question of applicability to the rest of the world. My main aim here is to put forward an ideal of filiality with five components appropriate for mainland China and that can be used to criticize misuses of the ideal in practice. Let us now turn to each of these five components.

Still from the Chinese movie “Confucius.”

Material support (養, yang)

Material support (養, yang) refers specifically to the relationship between aged parents and grown-up children. Since the time of Confucius, Confucian scholars have generally considered support to be the minimum standard of filiality, with the implication that it is not so difficult to achieve. But is this really the case? I will argue that it is often difficult for adult children to be able to provide materially for their parents. The significance of material support is underestimated in Confucian ethics. To make my case, I will (1) reinterpret a famous line in the Analects about material support; (2) discuss two different kinds of difficulties that arise in rural and urban areas; and (3) ask whether the legal enforcement of filial care for parents in China can be morally justified.

In one of the most famous lines in the Analects about material support (養, yang), Confucius said:

‘Nowadays filiality means being able to feed your parents. But everyone does this for even horses and dogs. Without respect (jing), what’s the difference?’ (Analects, 2.7).

On the surface, this saying appears to mean that it is not so difficult to realize material support for parents but that the filial child must do much more to treat them with respect (敬, jing). It is worth noting, however, that Confucius uses horses and dogs for com- parison, not pigs, cows or sheep. Cows were important labourers in families in agricultural societies, while pigs and sheep were important sources of meat. According to The Records of the Grand Historian, Yao bestowed some gifts on Shun: ‘Yao then gave Shun clothes of fine hemp, a zither, and the task of building granaries, and provided him with cows and sheep’. Cows and sheep are important in the sequence of gifts because they refer to material support. But it’s a different case for dogs and horses. In Liji-Neize, Zengzi, a disciple of Confucius who was well-known for his filiality, said, ‘Thus what his parents loved he will love, and what they reverenced he will reverence. He will do so even in regard to all their dogs and horses, and how much more in regard to the people (whom they valued)!’ Dogs and horses are animals that parents love and value. Therefore, as a filial son, one should also cherish the dogs and horses that their parents love.

Whether in the time of Confucius or in today’s China, horses are not animals that any ordinary family can keep; only wealthy families could afford the material resources and labour it takes to keep a horse. Still today, keeping and riding a horse remains a symbol of a relatively higher social class. Confucius once returned from court to find his stable on fire. He asked if anybody was hurt but he did not ask about the horses, which became a well-known story. The point here is that horses should be regarded as luxuries that should not be valued over people in a situation of danger or scarcity. Dogs have always been loyal and adorable companions to humans. Dogs as pets are often treated as members of the family. Dogs are especially known for needing attention and love from their owners. We hear stories about people spoiling their pet dogs without restraint. Unlike raising pigs, cows or sheep, raising dogs and horses is for emotional pleasure, not for economic or nutritional value. What is Confucius trying to emphasize? Raising horses and dogs may lead the owner to excessive love of the animals. The owner may overindulge them to the point of crossing the boundaries acknowledged by ritual propriety. In short, Confucius does not mean to deny that material support for elderly parents is hugely important. However, when treating our elderly parents with respect (敬, jing), we should not indulge them as we might with dogs and horses.

Material support for parents is especially important when they are very old. The character ‘孝’ consists of the upper component ‘耂’ (old man) and the lower component ‘子’ (son). Carrying one’s father on one’s back is a very special image. Mencius fa- mously said Shun, a legendary sage king who was filial towards unloving parents, should ‘secretly carry his father (if he murdered someone) on his back and flee to the edge of the Sea’. The Jungian psychologist Luigi Zoja’s analysis of the Aeneid in his book The Father is relevant here. The Aeneid is an epic poem about Aeneas, a Trojan who carried his crippled father on his back to escape after the fall of Troy. In these different contexts, the son carrying his father’s aged body points to a certain kind of existential vulnerability. When the father’s survival is threatened, it is a son’s incumbent duty to carry him on his back. Of course, such extreme ways of manifesting filiality are highly unusual. But the point can be taken to mean that support for elderly parents is particularly important when they are frail and sick and in need of help.

In modern China, the lack of material support for elderly parents is a burning social problem. According to a survey conducted by sociologists in rural China, adult children’s material support for their elderly parents is far less than parents’ contribution to their children’s upbringing. The main motivation for having a son in rural areas is to pass on the family name and continue the lineage (傳宗接代, chuanzong jiedai), rather than to pursue intergenerational balance between the contribution of parents in raising their children and that of children in supporting their parents. He Xuefeng found a saying in the local countryside: ‘Kindness flows downward’ (恩往下流, enwang xialiu), meaning that the relationship between children and parents is regarded as ‘a relationship where children take advantage of their parents’ kindness and re- sources’. In most rural areas, older individuals who are still capable of working are expected to continue farming until they pass on the responsibility of their land to their children. At this point, the children start providing financial support for their parents. The inability to work is often associated with illness, and although children may cover the costs of treating minor illnesses, serious health conditions are typically not ad- dressed effectively. Consequently, the elderly often pass away within a few years of becoming incapacitated. Thus, in practice, children’s material support for their parents is usually far less than their parents’ commitment to their children.

The suicide rate among rural elderly people in contemporary China is an even greater source of worry. With the development of the economy and the transformation of society, China has seen a substantial decrease in suicide rates since the economic reforms starting in the late 1970s. However, the suicide rate among rural elderly people shows an upward trend. According to sociologist Liu Yanwu’s field work in twenty-four villages in six different provinces in China, the proportion of suicide deaths among rural elderly people (over sixty) has been the highest in the entire population since 1980, accounting for 48.84% of deaths among elderly people. The proportion of those over seventy years old among the rural elderly who committed suicide is 65.6%. Among the rural elderly aged sixty and above who committed suicide, those suffering from various diseases accounted for 78.43%. The two most important reasons for suicide among rural elderly people are material hardship and the pain caused by diseases. For many elderly people in modern rural China, material support is literally a matter of life and death. Although the Chinese government has been promoting the new rural social pension insurance (新型農村社會 養老保險, xinxing nongcun shehui yanglao baoxian) since 2009, material support and care from children to their parents is still crucial for the well-being of elderly parents in rural areas.

In China’s cities, the situation is problematic in a different way. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, China has experienced a severe economic stagnation. The official data from China shows that in June 2023, the unemployment rate for young people aged 16 to 24 rose to 21.3%. The government stopped disclosing the urban surveyed unemployment rates by age group until December 2023. The official unemployment rate for 16–24-year- olds, excluding students, in March 2024 was 15.3%, still significantly higher than the national urban surveyed unemployment rate for the same period.

In this social context, the term ‘full-time children’ (全職兒女, quanzhi ernü) – like ‘full-time job’ – emerged as a new internet buzzword, which is used to describe young people who have left their jobs to live with their parents. In exchange for a certain amount of labour, they receive financial support from their parents. Many full-time children do not have a clear plan for their future careers and education. This is because retired urban elders have a substantial pension, while the youth unemployment rate is quite high. It can be imagined that if adult children are content with being full-time children, they may lose horizontal connections with society, to some extent lose social communication skills, channels and resources, and eventually lose the ability to return to society and participate in work. In the long run, how can they provide material support for their parents?

It is also worth asking if material support for elderly parents should be enforced through legal means. According to The Law of the People’s Republic of China on Protection for Rights and Interests of Older Persons, ‘supporters of the elderly shall fulfill the obligations of providing for the elderly economically, taking care of them in daily life and comforting them mentally, and attend to their special needs’. This law aligns with the Confucian idea that adult children need to provide financial and emotional care for their elderly parents. However, in cases of dysfunctional family relationships, especially when children are in relationships with abusive parents, do these adult children still need to fulfil their filial obligations? On this issue, Li Yong argues that we do not have an obligation to support extremely problematic parents. Tan Sor Hoon argues that we can distance ourselves from those who abuse us. Stephen Angle holds the view that al- though Confucianism expects everyone to do their best, it does not require everyone to perform filiality at the expense of their mental health. In contrast, Philip J. Ivanhoe suggests that children in dysfunctional familial relations ‘may still elect to cultivate and show their parents at least some degree of filial piety’. My own view is that for children in these extreme cases, they can at least provide some material support (養, yang) to their elderly parents (e.g. by sending money without visiting them), but it is too much to make it compulsory for children to provide emotional care for their abusive parents. In this sense, the part of the Chinese law that mandates economic support for elderly parents may be justified, but not the part about mandating emotional support.

In summary, the ability of adult children to provide material support for their parents is a crucial aspect of filiality. It should not be considered a lesser manifestation of filiality, as it is not easy to accomplish, whether in the past or in modern China. But respect is also important. We know what respect is not: treating elderly parents as spoiled pets. But what exactly is respect?

Respect (敬, jing)

‘Respect’ (敬, jing) is an important component of Confucian filiality. A common modern interpretation of respect is fulfilling the psychological needs of parents. This argument is premised on the belief that all of the parents’ psychological needs are reasonable, but this may not be the case. I will argue that respect means to serve parents with ritual propriety (禮, li). In modern China, a common psychological need of parents is to break boundaries with their children, but ritual propriety (禮, li) implies maintaining appropriate boundaries.
The idea of satisfying parents’ psychological needs is questioned in the Confucian classics. There is a difference between short-term and long-term interests. Satisfying parents’ unreasonable desires might seem to be filial in the short term. But in the long run, such self-sacrificing filial piety can be harmful to both the child and the parents. Emperor Shun (舜) is the archetypal figure of a filial son in Chinese culture. According to Sima Qian’s The Records of the Grand Historian– Annals of the Five Emperors: ‘Shun’s father, Gusou, was blind, his mother insincere, and his brother, Xiang, arrogant. They all tried to kill Shun, who was obedient, and never by chance failed in his duty as a son, or his fraternal love. Though they tried to kill him they failed, and when they sought him, he got out of the way’. But note that even in the case of Shun’s extreme commitment to filiality, Shun did not satisfy his parents’ unreasonable psychological needs. Shun’s father’s desire was to kill Shun, but Shun escaped several of his father’s attempted murders. Moreover, Shun did not sacrifice his marriage by telling his parents in advance. According to Mencius’ interpretation, ‘Because he would not have been allowed to marry if he had told them. A man and woman living together is the most important of human relationships. If he had told his parents, he would have to put aside the most important of human re- lationships and this would sour the relationship with his parents. That is why he did not tell them’. If an adult child sacrifices his or her well-being to satisfy parents’ unrea- sonable demands, it will ultimately have a negative impact on the parents’ well-being as well. In short, respect cannot be viewed as blindly meeting the psychological needs of parents; the needs should not require undue hardship on the part of the adult children.

In modern China, the idea of meeting parents’ psychological needs does not usually take such extreme forms. What is common, however, is that parents have psychological needs that are difficult for their children to fulfill, such as a strong desire for control. Children, especially those born under the ‘one-child policy’, are often regarded as precious jewels by their families. They receive huge economic and emotional support. In ancient times, it took less than twenty years to raise a child, as they would start working and get married early. However, in modern China, parents have devoted at least ten more years of effort to raising a child. This leads parents to believe that they have the right to interfere in their children’s lives.

Child psychologist Haim G. Ginott created the term ‘helicopter parents’ in his 1969 bestseller Between Parent and Teenager to portray parents hovering over the child like helicopters, arbitrarily intervening in their children’s life choices. The term ‘tiger mother’ (虎媽, huma) was first introduced to the general public by Yale Law School professor Amy Chua in her 2011 memoir, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. This excessive control essentially stems from parents’ love for their children, but excessive love can slide into control. The WeChat public account ‘Renwu’ (人物) distributed more than 400 questionnaires on the theme of ‘helicopter parents’ to respondents mainly between 25 to 39 years old. The content of the reports was strikingly similar, with the subjects being accused by their elderly parents of being ‘ungrateful’ and ‘unfilial’: they constantly felt watched, their diaries were snooped on and they felt restricted in their social interactions, for example, by being pressured to choose a major at university that was not their own preference. These adult children received similar criticisms, such as ‘You should do whatever I tell you to do’ and ‘You are just a piece of flesh from my body’. Another important factor is the popularity of smartphones and the convenience of social platforms, which make this ‘hovering’ possible. If the children resist, they will be scolded by their parents for being unfilial. If the parent–child relationship is without personal space for adult children, many develop a lack of self-confidence and even low self-esteem, and gradually lose their ability to be independent, to establish intimate relationships, and to feel happy. Again, paying blind attention to elderly parents’ psychological needs can be damaging to the adult children and in the long term, to the parents themselves: if the children are prevented from flourishing, how can the parents be happy?

So what is ‘respect’? In the Confucian classics, respecting parents was based on ritual propriety (禮, li), meaning that it was not about satisfying the parents’ needs but rather following the norms of ‘li’. ‘Li’ indicates differentiation (禮別異, li bieyi). Differen- tiation implies that there should be appropriate boundaries between ethical subjects, and respect (敬, jing) exists within this distance between subjects. In Liji-Neize, it is specified that sons and their wives ‘should not move the clothes, coverlets, fine mats, or undermats, pillows, and stools of their parents; they should reverently regard their staffs and shoes, but not presume to approach them; they should not presume to use their vessels for grain, liquor, and water, unless some of the contents be left in them; nor to eat or drink any of their ordinary food or drink, unless in the same case’. In modern China, some rituals are still preserved, similar to those practiced in ancient times. For example, during family dinners, no one starts eating until the elder grandparents have picked up their chopsticks; one needs to speak cautiously in front of the elder grandparents, avoiding unlucky and rude words. Moreover, children should treat their parents’ belongings with respect and not rummage through them. Of course, it depends on the age and condition of the elderly parents. If they are very elderly, or suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, then the norm may not apply. In general, however, maintaining a polite sense of boundary towards parents is an important manifestation of respect.

As mentioned, the main problem in modern China is that parents often infringe the boundaries of their children, even when the children are adults. So the idea of respecting boundaries needs to be applied not just in the case of respecting the boundaries of parents, as the Liji specifies, but also the boundaries of children. Parents should not feel entitled to blindly infringe the boundaries of their children simply because they feel a need to correct their children’s wrongdoing. More than that: sometimes children have an obligation to correct the mistakes of their parents. For Xunzi, the highest manifestation of respect towards parents is remonstration. So, what exactly is remonstration?

Remonstration (諫, jian)

‘Remonstration’ (諫, jian) means using language and actions to correct the moral mistakes of one’s parents and also promoting the moral improvement of one’s parents. I will provide two perspectives particularly relevant for modern China: (1) For some parents, moral progress may not be easy, and children can only compensate for their parents’ mistakes through actions; and (2) the significance of remonstration not only applies between parents and children but also aims to avoid shaming ancestors and to set a good moral example for future generations.
I will begin with the first argument. Let’s take the legend of Shun as an example. In the Confucian classics, Shun did not carry out any moral remonstration towards his father. It is perhaps understandable that a son would be reluctant to remonstrate with his father, but it is a Confucian requirement for an elder brother to educate his younger brother. There is no record that Shun provided moral education to his younger brother, Xiang. Moreover, Confucians request that parents should provide moral education for children because the profoundly influence the development of children’s personality and character traits. According to The Records of the Grand Historian – Annals of the Five Emperors, Shun’s son Shang Jun was not a virtuous person. Shang Jun’s mother was Emperor Yao’s daughter Nü Ying, and the Biographies of Exemplary Women (列女傳, Lienü zhuan) praises the wisdom and virtue of Yao’s two daughters. Under such conditions where both parents were virtuous, it is particularly surprising that Shang Jun did not become a virtuous person.

Mencius was fond of discussing the stories of Yao and Shun. But he did not explain why Shun could not remonstrate with his parents or educate his younger brother and son. In other words, Mencius might not believe that moral education and remonstration necessarily lead to moral progress in practice. Here, let us consider Mencius’ argument regarding the hypothetical situation that if Gusou (Shun’s father) committed murder, what should Shun do. This dialogue is one of the earliest thought experiments in Confucianism:

‘Tao Ying asked, “When Shun was Emperor and Kao Yao was the judge, if Gusou killed a man, what was to be done?”

“The only thing to do was to apprehend him.”

“In that case, would Shun not try to stop it?”

“How could Shun stop it? Kao Yao had authority for what he did.” “Then what would Shun have done?”

“Shun looked upon casting aside the Empire as no more than discarding a worn shoe. He would have secretly carried the old man on his back and fled to the edge of the Sea and lived there happily, never giving a thought to the Empire.”’

This passage is often interpreted as Mencius supporting the idea that filial duty overrides civic duty. But I need to point out some important details about this thought experiment. First, Gusou tried to kill his son Shun several times. He was not a typical example of a father. It is highly unlikely that a verbal remonstration by Shun would have been effective and there is no evidence that he tried. Secondly, when faced with Tao Ying’s question, Mencius’s instinctive reply was not to have Shun help his father escape, but rather that Gusou should be arrested. When Tao Ying asked if Shun should stop the arrest, Mencius answered that it was best to abide by the country’s laws. It was not until Tao Ying’s third inquiry that Mencius said Shun should carry his father on his back and flee to the seaside. While escaping to the seaside may not seem like a bad choice to modern people, for ancient people it was similar to committing suicide. Even Confucian critics like Zhuangzi believed that a person could not survive without a state. In ancient Greece, Aristotle also stated that those who lived apart from the city-state were either gods or beasts. This was a consensus in ancient civilizations that one could not live apart from a community bound by ethics and politics. Settling by the seaside can be viewed as a form of severe self-punishment. Besides, in this thought experiment, Gao Tao was the judge. Mencius argued that Gao Tao would undoubtedly arrest Gusou, but nobody knows how Gao Tao would sentence Gusou. Is it possible that Gao Tao would consider Shun being the emperor and thus give Gusou a lighter sentence? Carrying his father into self-imposed suicidal exile is a more proactive way of taking responsibility for the crime. In general, the power of language is limited, and Confucianism advocates correcting wrongdoing through action. In short, this story is not meant to suggest that filiality overrides civil obligations; the main point is that remonstration, or pointing out the wrongness of elderly parents’ actions, can be expressed through deeds not just words.

Of course, not all parents are as stubborn and deplorable as Shun’s father. Filial remonstration might be more effective under less extreme circumstances. Xunzi argued for a strong view regarding the possibility of filial remonstration, particularly in cases he called ‘great filiality’ (大孝, daxiao):

‘To be filial upon entering and to be a good younger brother upon going out is lesser conduct. To be compliant to one’s superiors and devoted to one’s inferiors is middle conduct. To follow the Way and not one’s lord, to follow the rightness (義, yi) and not one’s father is the greatest conduct’.

Nor was he alone. The Classic of Family Reverence (孝經, Xiao jing) has a chapter ‘On Remonstrance’:

‘Thus, if confronted by reprehensible (不義, buyi) behavior on his father’s part, a son has no choice but to remonstrate with his father, and if confronted by reprehensible (不義, buyi) behavior on his ruler’s part, a minister has no choice but to remonstrate with his ruler. Hence, remonstrance is the only response to immorality (不義, buyi)’.

These two passages share the view that remonstration is not only applicable to familial ethics (father–son relationship) but also to political ethics (monarch–minister relation- ship). In this sense, filial remonstration in the father–son relationship can be extended to political remonstration in the monarch–minister relationship. There is a consistent view that rightness (義, yi) is a more important value than blind obedience. But where does this moral sense come from? In Mencius-Gaozi I (2A.6), the heart-mind’s feeling of shame and aversion (羞惡之心, xiuwu zhixin) is the sprout of rightness (義, yi). Bernard Williams argues that shame is related to the gaze of others: ‘Even if shame and its motivations always involve in some way or other an idea of the gaze of another, it is important that for many of its operations the imagined gaze of an imagined other will do’.

What would be ‘the imagined gaze of an imagined other’ for a Confucian ethical subject? More specifically in terms of filial remonstration, who would be ‘imagined other’ for a Confucian ethical subject? For Confucians, deceased ancestors (列祖列宗, liezu liezong) and future descendants (子孫後代, zisun houdai) are two important imagined ethical others. Filial remonstration seems to occur between parents and children. However, we need to be aware that in ancient China, the nuclear family was not the mainstream form of family structure. Today, modern Chinese family structures are predominantly nuclear, but ancestor worship still occupies a significant part of Chinese beliefs. An immoral person will often be reproached as ‘a disgrace to his ancestors’ and ‘harming the fortunes of his descendants’. For someone who does not intend to have children, being scolded for ‘damaging the fortune of their descendants’ is still a severe curse, where ‘descendants’ refer to the entire family’s offspring. It is worth noting that the ‘ancestors’ and ‘descendants’ mentioned here do not particularly refer to any certain person but rather a vague overall indication. According to Confucian ethics, a person’s existence needs to be confirmed within the family’s lineage, encompassing the blessings of ancestors and the prosperity of descendants. In this sense, we can understand that remonstration in the form of ‘great filiality’ (大孝, daxiao) refers to contributing to the morality, reputation and fortune of the entire family rather than just being limited to the relation with one’s own parents.

In short, deceased ancestors are important imagined ethical subjects when remon- stration is carried out in Chinese families. Hence, ancestors need to be worshipped as well. Piety means to show reverence for deceased ancestors, a subject to which I now turn.

Piety (虔, qian)

‘Piety’ is a relatively controversial aspect of filiality. In Reshaping Confucianism, Li Chengyang argues that ‘filial piety’ is not a proper translation of 孝 (xiao) because the primary meaning of ‘piety’ in English is religious piety. The Confucian concept of filial piety requires children to support their parents materially and to honour them, which differs from religious piety that requires one to make offerings to God or to awe the gods. On the other hand, some scholars argue that piety is an important part of filiality. Philip J. Ivanhoe argues that piety often carries a spiritual sentiment. Ancestor worship and in particular the need to carry out sacrifices to ancestral spirits is an important part of Chinese belief and contributes a great deal to the sense of xiao (孝). James St Andre ́ argues that in ancient Chinese literature, the character xiao (孝) was commonly used as reverence for ancestors. I agree with the latter viewpoint, and I will argue that filial ‘piety’ is not only appropriate for ancestors but also for very elderly grandparents who are often viewed as living ‘venerable ancestors’.

In the Analects, Confucius demands that after the death of parents, adult children should bury them with propriety and then worship them with propriety. Filial piety refers to a person’s emotional attachment to their deceased parents and ancestors. For example, for the Qingming Festival (清明節, Qingming Jie) in contemporary China, filial children often take time off from work (and ask for leave for their children from school) to return to their hometowns to sweep the tombs of their ancestors. As more and more people took time off, the Qingming Festival was eventually established as an official holiday by the government. When we talk about filial ‘piety’, it can be more commonly expressed in the remembrance of deceased parents and ancestors.

In addition to deceased ancestors, piety also applies to very elderly grandparents in the family, as longevity (壽, shou) is viewed as a blessing both in ancient and modern China. Seventy years old was considered a high life expectancy in ancient China. There’s a Chinese proverb, ‘Living to seventy years old has been rare since ancient times’ (人生七 十古來稀, rensheng qishi gulai xi). Life expectancy reached seventy-nine in 2020, and today modern Chinese criminal law tends to be lenient towards crimes committed by elderly people over seventy-five.

In Chinese families, a long-lived grandparent is referred to by children and grand- children as the ‘venerable ancestor’ (老祖宗, laozuzong). Although the grandparents are still alive, they can already enjoy being the living ‘ancestor’ (祖宗, zuzong). If the ‘venerable ancestor’ lives a long and healthy life, it means that the family has filial descendants, and this family will be praised as being virtuous. Also, the ‘venerable ancestor’ can be seen as a significant symbol of the family. If he or she is healthy and happy, it means that the family is prosperous. In addition, longevity can even indicate that this person is virtuous. Confucius stated at the age of seventy, he could follow his heart’s desire without transgressing the norm (Analects, 2.4). Just as Aristotle believed that practical wisdom (phronesis) can be brought about by age, Confucianism also believes that older people who live longer usually have more experience and wisdom. In sum, as a Chinese proverb puts it, ‘Having an elder in the family is like having a treasure’ (家有一 老, 如有一寶, Jiayou yilao, ruyou yibao).

In practice, it means that the ‘venerable ancestor’ can often intervene in the relationship between children and grandchildren and regulate conflicts in the family. Younger family members rarely dare to challenge their authority, or even to upset them. If the elderly ‘venerable ancestor’ becomes angry, considering his/her age, it could significantly impact their health. Causing a ‘venerable ancestor’ to fall ill would be a grave act of being unfilial. One of the most famous ‘venerable ancestors’ in the literature is Grandmother Jia (賈母, Jiamu) in Dream of the Red Chamber. As Dore J. Levy argues, Grandmother Jia’s age and good health justified her absolute authority in her family because longevity and health are signs of the favour of heaven. Confucian doctrines might suggest that her eldest sons should manage the Jia Family. However, after Grandmother Jia’s husband died, the two sons of Grandmother Jia did not dare to overrule her because she was the ‘venerable ancestor’.

The attachment to elderly grandparents has been central in the hearts of Chinese people. Li Mi’s (224–287) essay on filial piety, Chenqingbiao (陳情表), has been es- pecially influential: Zhao Yushi (1172–1228) commented that those who do not shed tears while reading Chenqingbiao are not filial. In modern China, the essay has been part of high school textbooks since 2002, and students are required to memorize the entire text. It has also appeared in the college entrance examination multiple times. In this essay, Li pleads with Emperor Wu of Jin (236–290) for permission to withdraw from an official position so that he can stay at home to take care of his elderly grandmother:

‘It is only because my grandmother, Madame Liu, is nearing the end of her life, with feeble breaths and on the brink of death, that I cannot be sure in the morning if she’s still alive at night. Without my grandmother, I would never reach my current status; and without me, she would not be able to live out her remaining years. The two of us, grandmother and grandchild, can only depend on each other for survival, which is why I cannot abandon my duty to care for her and be far away. I am now 44 years old, and my grandmother is 96 years old. It seems that I still have a long way to go in showing my loyalty to Your Majesty, while the time for me to fulfill my filial piety to my grandmother, Madame Liu, is very short. With the similar sentiment of a crow feeding its parents, I beg for your permission to allow me to take care of my grandmother and see her through her final days’.

Upon reading this piece, Emperor Wu of Jin said, ‘Li Mi is not merely known for his filial piety in name only!’ He was deeply moved and granted Li Mi two servants and ordered the local government to supply food for Li Mi’s grandmother. Only then was Li Mi able to fulfil his filial duty to his grandmother until the end of her days.

Chinese families now tend to be nuclear families, but elderly grandparents can still play a positive role. If immediate conflicts between parents and children intensify, it can be difficult to resolve them without a third party to act as a mediator. If there is a ‘venerable ancestor’ in the family, filial piety may require parents and children to make concessions so as not to upset the ‘venerable ancestor’ and affect his or her health. Even better, if the ‘venerable ancestor’ is an elder with practical wisdom, he or she can mediate the conflict between parents and children.

Age matters a lot in Confucianism. Piety can be appropriate not only towards deceased ancestors but also towards grandparents who are venerable in years. That said, piety does not translate into blind obedience. The degree of obedience is also tied to age and the health condition of the parents.

Obedience (順, shun)

Obedience is generally considered an important element of filiality in Confucian ethics. However, progressive Confucian scholars argue that obedience is no longer applicable to modern society, and they often view ‘remonstration’ and ‘obedience’ as a pair of in- compatible terms. Since filial children should correct their parents’ mistakes, they should not submit to their parents.

Another concern is related to politics. Li Chenyang points out that governments throughout various dynasties often misused Confucianism as an official ideology, equating children’s filiality to parents with subjects’ obedience to the monarch. I would like to distinguish between the historical misuse of Confucianism and the original normative arguments of Confucianism. One of the earliest texts concerning the politi- cization of filiality comes from the Classic of Family Reverence (孝經, Xiao jing), ‘It is only because exemplary persons (君子, junzi) serve their parents with family reverence that this same feeling can be extended to their lord as loyalty (忠, zhong)’. It is worth noting that the ‘loyalty’ here is not ‘obedience’. Moreover, the next chapter in the Classic of Family Reverence is titled ‘On Remonstrance’. In the Confucian classics, when filial piety is extended to the political level, the discussion is mainly about remonstration, not obedience.

However, we should not remove ‘obedience’ from filiality within the family context. In the family setting, both ‘obedience’ and ‘remonstration’ can coexist, but ‘obedience’ should depend on the age and physical condition of the parents. I will argue that when parents reach their twilight years, children can demonstrate a certain level of obedience, or at least make an effort to show their elderly parents that they are being obedient. Confucians do not seek to justify blind obedience to parents as a component of fil- iality. Even the story of Shun’s seemingly blind filiality has often been misinterpreted. In the Confucian tradition, the legend of Shun seemed to justify the idea that even if parents did not love their children, the children should be obedient to their parents. But it may not be the correct lesson. Tan Sor-Hoon notes that Shun’s parents’ attempts to kill him occurred when he was already an adult. By that time Shun had married two daughters of Emperor Yao and was established as ruler. Shun was more powerful than his parents at this point. Thus, the legend of Shun shouldn’t be viewed as a model for abused children who lack power to blindly obey parents in dysfunctional familial relations. In other words, it is precisely because Shun was an emperor that he was able to achieve such filial obe- dience. It was not because of his filial obedience that Shun became a sage-king.

Confucius and Mencius seemed to advocate a conservative view of filial obedience, but they add conditions. When serving parents, Confucius requested that filial children should ‘keep your respect for them and do not distance yourself from them. Work without complaining’ (又敬不違, 勞而不怨; youjing buwei, lao’er buyuan). But Confucius also says that age matters: ‘Your parents’ age should not be ignored. On one hand, their longevity brings joy, on the other hand, their advanced age brings fear’. This is es- pecially true for adult children whose parents are in the palliative care ward. Sometimes their condition suddenly improves, which brings joy to the children, while other times it worsens rapidly, bringing the fear of losing their parents.

Mencius famously criticized the case of a father and son being at odds over a moral issue and he suggests that the son should be obedient: ‘In his case father and son are at odds through taxing each other over a moral issue. It is for friends to demand goodness (責 善, ze shan) from each other. For father and son to do so seriously undermines the love (賊 恩, zei en) between them’. It is worth asking: If it is natural for friends to offer constructive criticism to one another, and for parents to provide guidance to their children when they are young, why is it so challenging for children to correct their parents’ wrongful behaviours and why do they need to obey? Why is remonstrance and persuasion according to rituals ineffective in this context? Perhaps Mencius suggests that the relation between father and son is more fragile than friendship; thus, the son cannot criticize the father’s moral mistakes. But this is not a justification for blind obedience. The relationship between adult children and their elderly parents can be fundamentally fragile, but it depends on the age of parents. The fragility is not due to the frailty of the relationship itself but rather that to the fact that adult children perceive the fragility of their parents’ lives when facing the shroud of old age, illness and death. In the face of this vulnerability, adult children should be willing to ‘work without complaining’. As Li Mi wrote in Chen- qingbiao: ‘…with feeble breaths and on the brink of death, that I cannot be sure in the morning if she’s still alive at night’, we may consider obeying them at some extent.

But this obedient relationship has strict age limitations. It exists when are parents in their twilight years and their adult children are in their prime. Under these specific conditions, even if the parents have a strong desire to control or dominate, Confucians will still advise adult children to ‘work without complaining’. One of the manifestations of filial obedience is difficulty in refusing the final wishes of elderly parents. For example, a dying mother may wish to see her feuding children reconcile their differences and restore a harmonious relationship. If she expresses such a desire, her children have a filial duty to obey their mother’s last wish. It does not necessarily mean her children must resolve every disagreement or conflict, but they should at least make a genuine attempt to understand each other’s perspectives and find common ground. If reconciliation proves to be difficult, the children should consider maintaining a peaceful relationship on the surface, especially in the presence of their dying mother. Even if deep-seated issues remain unresolved, this act of maintaining a façade of harmony can provide emotional comfort to their mother, reducing her distress and worry in her final days.

However, these wishes can come in various forms and may often be unrealistic or undesirable. For instance, a parent might express a wish for their child to achieve ex- traordinary success in their career, a level of achievement that may be far beyond the child’s current capabilities or life circumstances. Alternatively, a parent may wish that her daughter reconciles with and remarries her ex-husband. This could be a difficult prop- osition, needless to say. Still, it might be difficult for filial children to outright refuse or express their inability to fulfil these unreasonable requests. They are more likely to say, ‘I will try my best’, even when they are aware of the improbability or the undesirability of the parent’s wish. Such a response, however, should not be dismissed as mere ‘lip service’. It reflects the need to provide comfort to the dying parent. From the parent’s point of view, the adult child still shows some form of obedience.

Note, however, that the conditions for filial obedience apply only in these highly unusual circumstances, that is, in the parent’s final days. If filial obedience is misused too early, or if the absolute authority of parents over children is stressed from a very young age (an all-too-common occurrence), it can lead to generational conflicts and filiality may burn itself out. When the parents reach a ripe old age and need care, the adult children may be less motivated to provide it. In short, some sort of obedience may be justified if the parents are very old and frail, but it should not be practiced too early.

Nor should obedience in a filial context be carried over into politics. As mentioned, the political implications of filiality are still taken seriously in contemporary Chinese politics. Because filial obedience has the most preconditions and the most restricted application among the five components of filiality and considering the substantial harm it could cause if used in a political context, such as producing blindly obedient citizens, it is particularly crucial to underscore that filial obedience should not be applied in a political situation.

Conclusion

According to the World Health Organization, the percentage of Chinese citizens aged over 60 is expected to hit 28% by 2040, a result of increased life expectancy and falling fertility rates. The Chinese government advocates the traditional view that the responsibility for caring for the elderly falls upon the family, rather than the state. Filiality as a central notion of Confucianism plays an increasingly important role in both personal ethics and political ideology. At the same time, intergenerational conflicts in Chinese society are becoming more and more serious. It is vital to clarify what filiality means in modern China.

This article provides a progressive and realistic reinterpretation of filiality in modern China. I present an age-based perspective that reveals the importance of a parent’s age and health condition in the discussion of all five components of filiality, which has been overlooked in previous normative discussions of filiality. To realize the virtue of filiality, all five components are important, but their manifestation depends on the age and health condition of parents. Theoretically, if a person can perform all five components of filiality in an age-sensitive way, then we can say that he or she possesses the virtue of filiality. In reality, however, it is almost impossible to do all of these acts: even the sage-emperor Shun, for example, did not engage in filial remonstration. So filiality in practice may be a question of degree and which parts to emphasize depends on the context. Here, I would like to introduce Winnicott’s concept of the ‘good-enough mother’, meaning she cannot always be empathic, available and immediately responsive. A ‘good-enough filial child’ is similar. In modern China, it is important to provide more material support to elderly and labour-incapacitated parents. But other filial acts depend on whether the parents were loving towards their children. A progressive Confucian would not require a child with abusive parents to fulfil all acts of filiality. When the parents are in their twilight years, however, then the obligations of filiality, including obedience, become much stronger. In modern China, moreover, filial obedience is best confined to the family context rather than extended as blind obedience to political authorities.