Episode 15: Ritual in the Analects

It is indisputable that ritual is at the heart of Confucianism—buy why? In this episode we examine Analects 3.17 in which Confucius seems keen to defend a ritual sacrifice of a lamb which his student regards as excessive. We discuss this passage in light of Richard Wollheim's paper, "The Sheep and the Ceremony" which offers a deep and illuminating exploration of this passage and the value of ritual more broadly. We examine questions about the possibility of seeing ritual as intrinsically valuable or constitutive of a good human life, and offer some suggestions about why the Confucians may have been right to place such significant weight on ritual practice.

Many thanks to The Hong Kong Ethics Lab for sponsoring this podcast series.

Want to continue the discussion? Need links to some of the sources mentioned? Go to the support page for this episode on Warp, Weft, and Way.

We thank Lena Li (LI La 李拉 ) for her expert editing and sound engineering. We also thank the blog Warp, Weft & Way for hosting the discussion for this episode.

Co-hosts:
Richard Kim's website
Justin Tiwald's website

Chapters

• 0:00 Part I -- Introduction
• 25:10 • Preface to today's topic
• 25:52 Part II -- Ritual in the Analects
• 26:40 • The value of rituals for Confucians (instrumental and non-instrumental)
• 30:13 • Analects 3.17
• 34:16 • Does Confucius actually maintain that the lamb sacrifice should be preserved?
• 38:20 • If the ritual is worth preserving, does it require a community that sees it as meaningful and valuable?
• 39:50 • What is the point in preserving the "hollowed out" version of the ritual?
• 41:10 • Is the expressive value of ritual analogous to the expressive value of art?
• 53:01 • The final or intrinsic value of showing up at a funeral
• 56:00 • The final or intrinsic value of showing respect (greeting rituals)
• 58:09 • Subjectivist vs. objectivist bases of expressive value
• 1:06:03 • The tendency to be drawn to instrumental justifications of ritual
• 1:12:22 • Closing thoughts: future discussions of Confucianism and ritual