By Xinqi Jia, Beijing Normal University
Ordinarily, a Chinese teacher of ethics who had never set foot in a Western country
before the age of forty and a Jewish-American sociologist born in the former Soviet
Union would have no reason to cross paths. Yet, throughout 2010, they spent an entire
year in Boston in close contact. Should anyone someday write a biography of the late
Professor Liah Greenfeld, this story alone would be excellent material for exploring
how her theory has influenced the world, and how, as an outstanding theorist, she
continually expanded the boundaries of our understanding of it.
Studying ethics
One afternoon in January 2010, Professor Liah Greenfeld stepped out of her office on
the sixth floor of the School of Theology at Boston University and stood in the hallway
to welcome a visiting scholar from China — that is, me. Only a few months earlier, I
had received a grant that allowed me to study abroad for a year as a visiting scholar. I
contacted Professor Greenfeld and quickly received a positive reply. It might have
seemed odd because Professor Greenfeld is a sociologist, while my specialty is
philosophy — more precisely, ethics, and mainly the history of Chinese ethical thought.
But to me, it made perfect sense.
It is well known that ethics studies morality, and one of its important aims is to respond
to real-world problems such as social justice, ecological degradation, and spiritual crises
from a moral perspective. Among ethicists, two views are common: first, that moral
issues can be separated from the social system and treated as independent phenomena
— and even when the relationship between morality and other social factors is
acknowledged, the understanding is often very superficial; second, that morality is
something constant, and accordingly, one should seek quick fixes to real-world
problems. These are non-systematic and ahistorical views.
In my opinion, ethicists trapped in such misconceptions, even if they occasionally
produce seemingly profound and subtle philosophical insights, are of little real help in
solving problems such as social justice, environmental degradation, and spiritual crises.
I lean toward a different approach: morality is only one element within the social
system. Only by first understanding its relationship with the social system can we know
what we can do with it and how. At the same time, the social system itself evolves from
tradition to modernity to the future. Only by understanding this process can we grasp
the essence of modern society and the roots of its problems — and their solutions.
Around 2005, I happened to buy a book from a bookstore ⎯ that was Professor
Greenfeld’s The Spirit of Capitalism: Nationalism and Economic Growth, which had
just been translated into Chinese. Frankly, I have read many books, but few have
resonated with me as strongly as this one, because its theoretical perspective aligned so
well with my own. Even now, I consider it Professor Greenfeld’s finest work (after
2009, I read some of her other books). It left such a deep impression on me that, years
later, when I was looking for a mentor as a visiting scholar, her name came to mind
immediately.