Filial Piety

Filial Piety is defined as love, respect and loyalty to our parents. In several societies and especially in Asian societies there is a lot of emphasis on the importance of filial piety. There is a belief that our parents have raised us and we are indebted to them over anyone else. However taking this in stride and refusing to go ever against your parents is not feasible either, there are cases when we truly need to put the needs of others above those of our parents. There does need to be a distinction as to when one should stand behind their parents and when one should go against them. In order to make this distinction a little easier, relationships can be thought of in terms concentric circles and gridlines. Thinking in concentric circles means that in any dispute ‘we side with our in-group’ (Holbo pg. 70), that is our parents, siblings and close friends and relatives. Suppose we draw circles around us and place people who are closer to us emotional in the inner circle and those less close to us emotionally in a circle further away, when there is a dispute we side with those who are closer to us, that is those in our in-group’. Conversely, thinking straight means ‘setting personal ties aside’ (Holbo pg. 71) and being impartial. This would be when we draw gridlines instead of concentric circles and then proceed to place people in the grids randomly. This is a metaphor for treating people equally regardless of our emotional closeness to them. Thus concentric circles indicate that we should favour our own over strangers regardless of the circumstances. Conversely, gridlines makes everyone equal in your eyes, meaning that you should support the one that is right even if it means going against your own.

There can be several views as to which approach is better and should be subscribed to but we need to carefully consider the views and decide which approach we have the best reasons to follow. There are people, like Euthyphro, who believe that they need to blow the...