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Inverse View
It is not the case that A superior person must regard the well-being and parents of one's friends as one regards one's own well-being and parents.
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Reasons For
2 perspectives
Reason for 1 of 2
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1.
Partiality toward one's own parents is not a moral defect but constitutive of filial piety, which Confucian ethics treats as foundational to all virtue.
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2.
Equalizing care for friends' parents with care for one's own parents dilutes the special obligations that give familial relationships their moral weight.
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3.
Bernard Williams' integrity objection shows that agent-neutral demands can destroy the personal commitments that make a life morally coherent.
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Reason for 2 of 2
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1.
Mozi's doctrine of jian ai (impartial caring) was explicitly rejected by Mencius as incompatible with graded human affection rooted in human nature.
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2.
If the claim requires treating friends' parents identically to one's own, it collapses into the Mohist impartialism Mencius himself argued produces moral disorder.
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3.
A standard that demands equal regard across relationships of unequal intimacy cannot be universally acted upon without undermining the social fabric Mencius sought to preserve.
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Reasons Against
1 perspective
Reason against
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1.
Being a superior person in the world requires treating others' interests as one's own.
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2.
Treating the parents of one's friends as one's own parents is the standard of impartial caring.
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