Friendship, Filial Obligations and Confucianism

John N. Williams (Singapore Management University)

Email: johnwilliams@smu.edu.sg

 

ABSTRACT:

Much that has been written on friendship within Western philosophy assumes that (1) a degree of relative autonomy is needed between friends, in the sense that X is friends with Y only if X is in some sense autonomous from Y and that Y is, in that same sense, autonomous from X.. This assumption appears to preclude friendship between employers and employees, as well as friendship between doctors and patients, and friendship between parents and children. In apparent opposition to this assumption, another line of thought within Western philosophy holds that (2) we can indeed be friends with our parents. Some go further to claim that we have no obligations to our parents solely in virtue of being their children, but that any non-contractual obligations we do have are obligations of friendship. By contrast again, the Confucian world-view appears to hold that (3) we cannot be friends with our parents but that we do no obligations to our parents solely in virtue of being their children. In this paper I examine the relation of these three positions to each other and discuss whether any of them are true.