Hallo, this is Dr. Bin Song at the course of “Foundations of Morality” at Washington College.

Individualism, in terms of its emphasis upon the irrevocable worth of individual human life, is a great achievement of modern western civilization. Once each individual of the humanity feels validated about their whatever way of life fits their unique perception of the world and their preference of decision-making, there is really no other worldview which can compete. Think about the following quote from one of the classical modern writers on liberalism, Mr. John Stuart Mill (1806-1873 C.E), and ask yourself sincerely: who could possibly disagree with this?

“As it is useful that while mankind are imperfect there should be different opinions, so is it that there should be different experiments of living; that free scope should be given to varieties of character, short of injury to others; and that the worth of different modes of life should be proved practically, when anyone thinks fit to try them … Where, not the person’s own character, but the traditions or customs of other people are the rule of conduct, there is wanting one of the principal ingredients of human happiness, and quite the chief ingredient of individual and social progress.” (John S. Mill, On Liberty, Chapter Three)

There are two key words in this quote which represent quite well the mentality of modern mankind: “when anyone thinks fit to try them” and “short of injury to others”; in other words, as long as one’s free experiment of living, viz., one’s freely-chosen lifestyle, does not impede the execution of the freedom of others’, anything goes.

As affirmed above, individualism is a great progress achieved by human beings in the period of early modern Europe, especially when being considered in contrast with the religious monopoly by the Catholic church and the existence of varying monarchical authoritarian regimes in medieval Europe. However, as being similar to the fates of many other great philosophies in history, the progress achieved by individualism may turn into regress if being assessed from a more evolved perspective.

Let’s do a thought experiment to show why this is the case. My question concerning the mentality of individualism would be: is there any real life situation where the execution of my freedom does not impede others’? Here, by “real life situation,” I mean that nowadays, practically all human beings need to live with others in one way or another. So, our thought experiment can start from how I start my everyday life in my family.

As a writer who deliberately and freely choose writing as among the central interests of my life, I would prefer to go to bed not too late and get up relatively early. However, from the very moment I wake up, I need to be careful about not moving too loudly so as to disturb my wife’s sleep. This means that the execution of my freedom to get up early risks impeding the one of my wife to enjoy her sleep. After I get up, the first thing for me to do is normally to make and drink a cup of coffee. I normally store a bottle of Nestle instant coffee powder in my pantry, and make a delicious cup of it using hot water and milk. Employing all available criteria, I can say my choice of this early morning routine is free; however, even so, when I pour the powder into my cup, I need to consider at least two things: firstly, I should not pour too much of it since I believe my body can only consume a reasonable amount of coffee each day; and secondly, my wife also needs to drink coffee, and I am not fond of imagining a scenario where she found none powder left in the bottle when she needed it. This means that I need to consider the need of at least two beings when I execute my freedom of drinking the first cup of coffee: the need of my body, and the one of my wife. And this story about the daily practice of my freedom barely starts. When actually sitting down before the desk in my study, I still cannot start to do research or write as freely as I want. Because apart from being a writer, I am also a teacher, a scholar, a school administrator and hence, should take care of the need of every human being who remains connected to me in varying professional areas of my life. In particular, I need to check my calendar and reply to important emails before “my own thing” can get started. Sometimes, this may mean a radical change of my plan, and re-directing my energy and interest to things significantly different from writing, and these things, as anticipated, are not always pleasant.

So far, this thought experiment re-plays the first few minutes of one of my ordinary days. I find that none of my free decisions made to flourish my way of life per my own perception of the world and my own preference of living, if conducted inappropriately, does not injure or impede the execution of other people’s freedoms. But these are merely the first few minutes of one of my mornings! If we extend the timeline of the thought experiment to the entirety of our everyday life, you will find that in real life situations of human living today, it is very hard, if not entirely impossible, to find any of our free decisions which does not risk impeding the freedom of others. If we add the living rights of plants, animals and other natural beings who share the same planet with us into our consideration, we will find that our free decisions are even more consequential to the entire surrounding world!

Therefore, If none of my free decisions does not potentially impede the freedom of others in this brave, ultra-connected new world, what’s the value of a philosophy which advocates the mentality of “anything goes” for the execution of the freedom of each human individual? Indeed, there is a brake for “anything goes” in the classical expression of individualism to prohibit the impeding outcome of one person’s freedom upon others’. However, considering the reality that almost none of our free decisions does not potentially impede the living needs of others, shall not we re-assess the value of the classical philosophy of individualism, and ask ourselves, instead, whether the conception of human self as a free, autonomous, and isolatable moral agent is still viable in the contemporary human world”?

So, my conclusion is that in the ultra-connected human world today, the mentality of “anything goes” implied by early modern individualism does not and should not prevail. If individuals demand the world to revolve around their own selves, it will greatly sour their inter-personal relationships, and jeopardize the very good human living that each individualistic person longs for. Using the same thought experiment as above, I can imagine that in a totally alternative possible world, I may just get up very early, stomp the floor, rush into the coffee machine, pour as much powder as I like, and then, rush back to my study and start writing whatever I want to regardless of my email boxes and calendar marks. In other words, I may demand the world to revolve entirely upon my own preference of it, but unfortunately, I can also anticipate that my demand will lead to very distressful situation of my personal life particularly in the area of inter-personal relationships with my family, friends, and colleagues. Sometimes, this thinking fallacy of “demanding the world to revolve around me” can be realized in a very subtle way. For instance, a professional may be very considerate towards their clients, customers or colleague in their workplaces, because they know this is their job, and they need to do their job well. However, in the off-hours, a very successful professional may demand the world of their family life to revolve around their preferences. For instance, a lawyer may downplay the time spent with their family, and even start to calculate how much money they will lose just because of the couple of hours they need to spend on the family dinner table. Similarly, a college professor may keep ruminating over how to deliver a wonderful conference presentation even if they direly need to take a break to listen to their spouse or children who constantly and regularly need their attention. In both the instances, the professionals extend their workplace experience endlessly to other aspects of their life, and thus, demand the world revolve around them in a way very unpleasant to people surrounding them.

So, what should we do? Is the conception of human self implied by early modern individualism entirely valueless today? Do we need a more reasonable and viable philosophy of self to combat the fallacy of “demanding the world revolve around me”? Clearly, to get out of the undesirable situation, we need to develop a considerable degree of empathy towards the world. But how much empathy do we need for the world? Do we need to completely eliminate our selves so as to fulfill our concern to connect to the people surrounding us? Here, I will use a contemporary Chinese Confucian philosopher, Liang Shuming (1893-1988)’s thought, to share how I position my self in an empathetic relationship with the world.

The thought of Liang Shuming that I think is particularly relevant to the current topic derives from his book “Cultures and Philosophies in the East and West” published in 1921. In this book, he says the driving force of human life is called “will of life,” a will to live, a will to flourish, and a will to seek meaning and power for one’s given, yet limited and ambiguous human life. The best manifestation of this will of life is one’s desires. Desires of all sorts of objects: food, security, sex, fame, wealth, power, human relationship, meaning, etc. And there are three major different kinds of ways in the cultures of the world to deal with the relationship between one’s desire and its objects.

The first path is the western path. It tells that if you desire something but you cannot get it, then, the right way for you to deal with the situation is to step forward, advance yourself, and thus, try the best means to overcome any obstacle down the road so as to eventually get what you want, and satisfy your desire. But once your desire is fulfilled, this path will still urge you to seek more, grab more, and thus, be involved in a perpetual process of ego-expansion, self-aggrandization, and world-conquering.

The second path is the Chinese path, or using Liang Shuming’s term, the Confucian path. The path denies neither the legitimacy of human desire, nor the natural right of beings that are desired by human beings. For instance, if you ever ponder the issue of whether to be a vegetarian, a Confucian path would say: animals have their right of living, but humans also have their natural need to consume meat. Therefore, the right path to live through this apparent dilemma is that let’s keep both, but modify both so as to harmonize the needs of both in order to achieve a certain kind of co-thriving. In a more concrete term, this path will tell you, the human need to consume meat is natural, but it cannot go over its due measure. So let’s improve the meat industry to raise animals while treating them better, and also make sure not bring any other negative consequences to the environment such as global warming. So the Confucian path thinks human needs, desires, and emotions are natural. None of them are intrinsically bad, and all we need to do is to have them achieve the appropriate measure for the sake of harmony and co-thriving of all beings in the world.

The third path is the Indian way, the way best represented by a Buddhist ethic. According to Liang Shuming, when humans desire an object, the Buddhist ethic will deny the necessity of the desire all together. This is because firstly, unfulfilled desires always cause suffering, and secondly, even if we fulfill some of our desires, another desire will follow; once fulfilled, another desire will follow; and in the process, we would be never genuinely happy because there are always unfulfilled desires in our life. Therefore, the Buddhist solution is that, let us simply not desire. That means to eliminate human desires by all sorts of methods. For instance, Buddhist philosophy will teach you how illusory your understanding of the world is, and the Buddhist tradition also includes skills of meditation so as to have you focus upon the right understanding of the world, and eliminate those desires which cause your suffering.

In a nutshell, according to Liang Shuming, when we desire any object to manifest the will of human life, the western path wants to overcome the obstacles of desires so as to chase objects while fulfilling those desires. The Confucian path wants to harmonize the desires and the objects so as to achieve a certain degree of co-thriving. Meanwhile, the Buddhist path eliminates desires all together to avoid suffering. So, comparatively speaking, the western path is a path forward, the Buddhist path is a path backward, while the Confucian one lies in the middle.

So, how can we translate Liang Shuming’s thought to our understanding of human self in the context of the philosophical therapy needed to heal the thinking fallacy of demanding the world to revolve around me? Before I give my answer to the question, I have to caveat that I do not entirely agree with Liang Shuming’s typology on the world cultures and philosophies, since if being investigated in greater details, each mentioned culture by Liang Shuming actually contains a considerable amount of inner variations and diversities. However, this does not preclude us from using Liang’s concepts as an ideal model to think about a case of philosophical therapy in question.

In my view, the western path to conquer whatever impedes one’s desires represents the mentality of “anything goes” in early modern individualism quite vividly. This path of human thought can lead to the fallacy of “demanding the world revolve around me.” If it is put into one’s everyday practice of inter-personal relationship, I would imagine no people will feel pleasant if they are thought of as obstacles to be conquered for fulfilling other people’s desires and preferences. Therefore, for the sake of good human living, I would not recommend this path.

The Indian path illustrated by Liang Shuming lies opposite to the western path. In inter-personal human relationships, it would entail the elimination of human self in order that all strivings for one’s desired objects freeze their vigor. However, this also implies that once we enter into an empathetic relationship with other human beings, we should totally abandon our own individuality so that we put our feet completely in others’ shoes, viz., live our own life under the heteronomy of others. Honestly, I do not think the lack of individual authenticity in this ultra-empathetic way of life can bring much relief to human sufferings.

Eventually, the Confucian path lies in the middle between the two extremities of over- and under- distancing in varying human relationships. It requires each individual to keep their free, autonomous moral agency, while recommending the operation of this free agency upon varying human relationships. In other words, human self is conceived by this Confucian path as a free moral agent who acts as a manager of their own human relationships and networks. In their managerial relationship with other human beings, these free moral agents abandon neither their own lifestyles nor others’ preferences of way of living. Rather, with a continuous effort, each individual, as one independent relationship manager, tries to harmonize the needs of all involved beings in their world so as to create an evolving situation of co-thriving. If “autonomy” is a too individualistic word to refer to this way of co-thriving, “harmonomy,” which lies between the extremities of autonomy and heteronomy, would be my alternative term to recommend.

In a word, to combat the thinking fallacy of demanding the world to revolve around me, I would take the Confucian path illustrated by Liang Shuming to conceptualize my self as an evolving, all-interconnecting, and continually developing free moral agency who always operates itself in varying relationships. While empathizing with the world surrounding me, I would neither demand “autonomy” to envision a world to revolve around me, nor “heteronomy” to completely abandon my own independent thought. Instead, I want to achieve a certain kind of “harmonomy” to promote the co-thriving of all beings living in my own world.