hello!! i had a question about 忠孝仁义-- thank you for your post, it was super informative! but i was wondering, are these values ranked? as in, if two or more of them conflicted, there's some rule somewhere that says you should put 忠 before 孝 or etc? or is it just up to the poor bastard to follow their heart or something? WWX had the option of sacrificing himself when stuff conflicted, re: the Wens and the fate of the Jiang sect, but I'm curious about what could happen if it wasn't an option.
And this is where I realize how limited implicit knowledge is! So, the post I made was limited to how I interpreted wwx’s actions within the concept of virtues I was familiar with due to my chinese cultural background. I have not studied confucianism in detail. I can read some literary chinese but I don't have any non-parental bestowed academic training in that regard. (Heck, I chose to drop my intro to literary chinese class in college during shopping period because I decided running off to a boy scout camp and fire spinning was what I actually wanted to do with my time and that meant i would have no classes on friday and i could spend fridays working in a lab. Oddly enough, i have zero regrets… but i digress!)
I love this question! Mostly because I've never thought to ask this question before, but let’s see what I can cobble together from myself and the interwebs. If anyone finds a mistake, PLEASE PLEASE CORRECT ME BECAUSE I AM NOT AN EXPERT!!!!
1) Confucian/Ruism thought is where these virtues stem from. If your country spends DYNASTIES following a school of thought, it becomes part of the culture (e.g. look at Europe and Christianity). Ruism believes that moral education is the foundation of governing. From the perspective of pure Ruism, 仁 is the most fundamental virtue. With humanity and benevolence, everything else if possible. However, assessing these virtues while remembering they were constructed for the sake of state/country stability would be wise.
2) There are SO MANY MORE virtues than the four I listed. Like I said, I chose those four to focus on because they’re basic and common. However, if you dig a little deeper, you see the four in a longer list, in a different order: 仁义礼智信忠孝悌节恕勇让. These concepts are considered the core of Ruism thinking. I’ve bolded where the four I discussed come up in the list.
信 - honestly/truthfulness
悌 - respect of elder brother (like 孝 but for older people of your generation)
恕 - forbearance (paired with 忠 as a ruler-subject relation and both point back to 仁)
勇 - bravery (but one that follows 仁义礼智)
让 - yield/deference (out of consideration for others)
You’ll notice a lot of these virtues are related to each other. Within the school of thought, many concepts are intertwined (孝悌, 忠恕, 勇 in the context of 仁义礼智, etc)
3) Classification and hierarchical order gets CONFUSING. I was overwhelmed by how many different ways thinking and traditions piece different virtues together. Let’s look at some examples (that i’m not going to translate because i’m lazy):
Per pure Ruism, 仁义礼智信 are collectively called the Five Constants (五常)
But culturally, there are the 四维八德 (Four anchors and eight virtues) where the four anchors are 礼、义、廉、耻 and the eight virtues are 忠、孝、仁、爱、信、义、和、平。
You also see virtues clustered into sets of six as follows:
为臣之六德 (6 virtues for a minister)：诹、谋、度、询、咨、周
为民之六德 (6 virtues for the people)：知、仁、圣、义、忠、和
兵家之六德 (6 virtues for the military)：礼、仁、信、义、勇、智
From these few examples, you can tell the order isn’t consistent. Which virtues are included in a list aren’t consistent. AND the application of the list of virtues changes based on your target audience.
So, I don’t think there is an actual hierarchy to the four virtues. It depends on what you’re doing and who you are. From a Ruism perspective, 仁 is fundamental. Everything stems from 仁. So that would go first. But when the thoughts are applied to government, order becomes important so 忠 becomes the priority. In fact, if you’re a minister to an emperor, you better prioritize 忠 (and to be a good minister, prioritize 仁) but 孝 and 义could end up as lip service. But if you’re a wandering martial artist on the jianghu, you may not have a need for 忠 but you will prioritize 义 and 仁.
So what does wwx do if he can’t sacrifice himself? Since there isn’t a clear order of priorities, I think he would look at the Jiang Sect Motto and go from there. He needs to decide where the line is drawn. What is good? What is bad? What is black? What is white? He will likely focus on and 仁. And his choice of action vs inaction will ultimately be how he interprets his own morality.
