Individual Autonomy and Responsibility in Late Imperial China By ...

Obviously, in China, like in Europe, we find thinkers stressing the centrality of the individual while others subscribe to more organicistic perspectives, but the theoretical context differs considerably from one culture to another.³ Needless to say, the quest for self-autonomy in China and the West is rooted in different cultural backgrounds and historical experiences, perspectives, and categories. This seemingly makes comparisons aimed at exposing each other’s merits and demerits destined to fail. There is no common agreement on whether the supposed Western paradigm can work for China and other East Asian civilizations or vice versa. Yet comparative research remains a useful tool to sort out differences and analogies. Worthy of attention is “[t]he distinction between Western forms of individualism and the Confucian concept of a person” which, according to David Hall and Roger Ames, “lies in the fact that difference is prized in Western societies as a mark of creativity and originality, while in China the goal of personality development involves the achievement of interdependence through the actualisation of integrative emotions held in common among individuals.”⁴ Personal autonomy in China is thus ingrained in a holistic vision of the individual and fulfilled through its participation in society and the cosmos.⁵ For a perspective of opposition between “individualistic” West and “collectivist” China, the classical study by Markus and Kitayama contrasts the cultural imperative internalized in individualistic societies, where an independent person strives for and openly expresses personal uniqueness, with that of collectivistic societies, where a person is to be a dependable member of a larger social community.⁶

At the other end of the spectrum, scholars like Heine Roetz and Erica Brindley have reexamined an ancient corpus of philosophical writings that uncovers how one’s natural internal source of authority was idealized. Roetz is the author of several works on the autonomy of the individual in ancient Chinese philosophy. ⁷ Brindley demonstrates how in early China the discussion on human nature and internal/external sources of authority at the core of political theory and the doctrine of self-cultivation contributed to the growth of a relational form of individualism which