Talk:Filial piety

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Comment[edit]

I think this article should be redirected to Confucianism#Some key concepts in Confucian thought, its already expounded in more detail than this in the main article.

  • Unfortunately you can't redirect to a section of a page, only to the page itself. If you think that would be more convenient for users, go right ahead and redirect it, like this:

#REDIRECT [[Confucianism]]
Kappa 09:44, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)


The article was recently edited to begin: "In Confucian and Buddhist thought". Is there any evidence that filial piety ever occurs independently in Buddhist thought? - Nat Krause 8 July 2005 09:34 (UTC)

  • Ideas about childrens obligations to their parents are universal I guess. In the Chinese tradition, even the Daoists used the concept of xiao, as did and do indeed also Chinese muslims and christians. /Bero



Is the current third reference, "^ Walker, Byrne (2007)" valid? I am not someone researching in this particular field, so I do not know what significance is something this person said/wrote in 2007 can/would support argument made in the article. - 96.48.114.204 (talk) 17:17, 10 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

CopyVIO[edit]

i was duped by the copyvio accusation of another user. and added a copyvio tag by mistake. please ignore the addition of the tag, and i apolagize for any inconvenience this may have caused. --jonasaurus 21:34, 5 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Copy editing needed[edit]

This is a decent article but there's some issues with the translation. I've gone ahead and added a {{copyedit}} tag and listed it on WP:Cleanup. I'll try to come back and have a look at it myself, but am busy fixing disambiguation links at the moment. --Daduzi talk 18:08, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My Editing Efforts[edit]

I just wanted to let you all know that I have attempted to give this article more structure, and also made some sentence structure/phrasing/word choice changes. I'll be the first to admit that (1) I'm a newbie, and (2) I know very little about this topic. I hope that my efforts helped, please feel free to leave me any criticism or comments. I'm sure that someone who knows more about this topic could more effectively edit it. Thanks! Sonrisasgrandes 16:56, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Indian Buddhism[edit]

The section on Indian Buddhism is blatantly at odds with numerous Pali scriptures which explicitly encourage filial piety as a very high virtue to be encouraged. That the decision to live the "higher life," of a monk is regardly even more highly than the fulfillment of filial vows does not make filial piety itself any less of a virtue. Verses 331-333 of The Dhammapada express this explicitly. This section needs obvious reworking.Good4allpeople 07:17, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]



Filial Piety (Western Version)[edit]

This entry for Filial piety seems very narrow. Japan has a slightly different version of filial piety that is engrained in the culture and is not based in Confucianism. So the focus on Buddhism certainly would help a great deal. But there is more.

In Western philosophical thought, there is an alternative concept that is often referred to as "filial piety". The focus is not on individual lineage and ancestry, but on national and/or ethnic identity. Filial piety, in this case, refers to promotion of members of one's own ethnic or national group to the top of a revered category, e.g., scientists, politicians, artists, writers, etc. For example, a Nobel Prize laureate who emigrated from Hungary to the USA, might be heavily promoted as a Hungarian scientist by Hungarians, particularly in government-sponsored textbooks or official propaganda, while Americans consider him to be one of their own. If the scientist in question happens to be Jewish, he will also be identified by many Jews as a pinnacle of Jewish achievement as well. At least for the Hungarians and the Jews, and perhaps for Americans as well, identifying with this successful individual would be an example of filial piety.

In this case, the national identification is relatively benign. However, this is not always the case. Filial piety is quite often an outgrowth of malignant nationalism. In Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, native scientists and thinkers were heavily promoted as having primacy in their field, often ignoring or outright suppressing, historical facts.

In Germany, this took on the character of purging Jews from the history of science and cultural history, sometimes going so far as to purge not only the individuals, but also the ideas that they brought into the field. At the same time, historical revisionism allowed such figures as Georg Cantor to be adopted as German, in order to hide their Jewish heritage.

In Soviet science, filial piety took on the character of crediting ostensibly Russian scientists and inventors with ideas and inventions usually credited to others. Even where the credit can be in dispute, because of the independent nature of discovery by two or more individuals or simultaneous work conducted in different parts of the world, Soviet literature, particularly official textbooks, suppressed all information about non-Russian aspects, making it appear that the credit should be given entirely to the Russian. For examples, consider the credit of invention of radio to Alexander Stepanovich Popov (cf. Guglielmo Marconi, who was often omitted from Soviet textbooks and history books) and of incandescent light bulb to Pavel Yablochkov (cf. Thomas Edison). The absurd nature of Soviet filial piety was not left unnoticed in the folklore. A fairly common joke among the Soviet intelligentsia was the comment, "Lomonosov discovered the law of Lavoisier," that referred to the usual Soviet textbook claim that Mikhail Lomonosov was first to discover the chemical law of conservation of mass, while making no references to Lavoisier at all. It is important to note, however, that credit to filial piety should not serve as an excuse to discount any such claims. For example, Lomonosov's claim to primacy in case of conservation of mass may have some credit.

It is important to distinguish the Eastern tradition of filial piety from the filial piety of Western nationalism.

[citation needed]. Thank God you didn't put that stuff into the article bro. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.195.250.2 (talk) 02:06, 22 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The term "filial piety" is used by Catholics to describe such things like the proper manner in which to address bishops who have erred and now require correction (e.g., we criticize the bishop in a spirit of filial piety and respect). Please refer to CCC 2215 for an example (https://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s2c2a4.htm) --2604:2000:1240:C799:6805:C82A:845D:CC0A (talk) 15:44, 22 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Filial piety the first virtue in China?[edit]

"Filial piety is considered the first virtue in Chinese culture" -- It's that important? I'd like to see a cite, please. -- 201.50.254.243 11:19, 21 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

We also need a citation for: "These traditions were sometimes enforced by law; during parts of the Han Dynasty, for example, and those who neglected ancestor worship could even be subject to corporal punishment." Bao Pu (talk) 01:49, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Filial piety the first virtue= 万恶淫为首,“百善孝为先”.--刻意(Kèyì) 10:53, 26 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"hyo" redirects here...[edit]

Why does hyo redirect to this page? It's not mentioned a single time. Could anyone add what hyo means in this context? Thanks, Ibn Battuta 03:28, 5 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

hyo (효) is a Korean word which means Filial piety. The fact that Korean filial piety is not mentioned in the article is an obvious ommision given that hyo redirects to the page. Filial piety is just as strong (if not stronger) in Korea as in China. I thought that this whole topic was rather strange, given that it pretty much just seems to talk about how Buddhism was introduced to China, dispite the lack of filial piety in some of its teaching... DeanHarding 05:05, 5 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Rome[edit]

In Rome there was filial piety (lares).

Yes, and there was filial piety in ancient Greece as well (read the Aeneid), there should be more mention of these as well. From what I can tell, although it's not exactly the same as Chinese xiao, it is very much the same idea (distinct from the nationalism type mentioned elsewhere in the discussion page). Chunlong (talk) 11:52, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why do you think Filial piety is declining in Japan somewhat?[edit]

As I think its kinda a sad thing, and i may like to know excatly why or something like that. it seem that japanese society is in some form or another destroying itself, especially that Filial piety is in decline as the population is getting older and older or Aging and so. But i may know the reason but i like to have your full explainations or Theories. So please tell me then and such, please. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.242.15.121 (talk) 03:09, 18 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

One theory is the influence of Western culture. Another, perhaps more accurate one, is that people have always shirked these duties expected by society, it's just that they covered it up in public. Only now do people examine their lives and the lives of others and see how little we live up to the standards we set ourselves. --86.146.162.13 (talk) 19:10, 7 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Heh. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/01/top-japanese-official-urges-elderly-to-hurry-up-and-die/ BillyTFried (talk) 18:59, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
There may be a number of causes. There is certainly such a thing as an excess of filial piety bordering on idolatry and perhaps of a narcissistic variety where the parent dominates the child and uses him or her for his or her own satisfaction. Or perhaps a failure on the part of the parents to instill such piety. The education system and the media can also become tools for social engineering where traditional norms are corrupted in the service on a political ideology (it certainly has been the case in the West). --2604:2000:1240:C799:6805:C82A:845D:CC0A (talk) 15:38, 22 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Irpa Ling?[edit]

The last lines of the introduction are confusing. What is the two year rule? Who is Irpa Ling? There's not even a wikipage on that philosopher and it's not explained anywhere in the text. EverGreg (talk) 11:25, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Leaving the text below, until it can be made sense of. It might be genuine. EverGreg (talk) 09:29, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
A newer interpretation of ancient Chinese literature has shed new light on the filial piety tradition. Professor Wai Qin Liang of the university of Shanghai philosophy department argues that obedience to the power of government is sometimes held higher than obedience to family in the ancient texts. His paper titled "Filial Piety Versus the Residency Obligation in Ancient Philosophy" (China Daily (English Edition), 17 November 2009, page 12) makes the case that only in the most exceptional circumstances should humanitarian and compassionate ideals trump the generous two year rule set out by ancient philosopher Irpa Ling.

In reality it is rarely practiced in the West as most children from a Judeo-Christian background do not honor and care for parents to the extent of those from Eastern backgrounds. This is because in the West, the individual is more important than the family and when an elderly parent becomes a burden to the adult child, the needs of the adult child to be burden-free supersedes any feeling of obligation to care for the elderly parent.[2]

This needs a heck of a lot more support than one source. This claim is absurd. Even if it is relatively less, that hardly means it does not exist or is superseded by needing to be "burden free". 76.91.21.207 (talk) 10:09, 11 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The last section exhibits the casual racism that I find very common in Chinese people. No, this is not a bigoted generalisation, I've had long term relationships with Chinese and lived with them, many believe that Westerners don't love their parents as much as Chinese. In reality, many Chinese seem to value status and material success above almost all else, and seek to achieve this through the achievements of their children. For the final paragraph to claim that Westerners will not care for ill or elderly parents is an absolute disgrace, and has no place in wikipedia. 115.64.9.69 (talk) 22:21, 5 October 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.64.9.69 (talk) 22:15, 5 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

First Sentence?[edit]

I'm going to be blunt. The first sentence of this article sucks. Isn't there a wiki-world rule on more general definitions in the first few sentences? Using "In Confucian ideals" feels like a specification for later elaboration rather than a general definition. "is one of the virtues to be held above all else" should most certainly not lead this article. 184.77.189.134 (talk) 05:08, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Buddhism and piety[edit]

"Buddhism

Hinayana Buddhism did not have a strong notion of filial piety. Buddhism in India involved many men leaving or abandoning their families, parents, wives, and children to become monks (Buddha himself was said to have done so). The true Buddhist had to reject all family ties, just as they had to reject social and class ties if they were to pursue Nirvana. Family was viewed as just another encumbrance of mortal life that had to be dealt with. Sorrow and grief were said to be "born of those who are dear."[5] Buddhist monks were obligated to sever all ties with their family and to forget their ancestors. Theravada Buddhism stressed individual salvation, and had little room for the interdependent society that Confucianism had created in China, which stressed the good of the community more than the good of the individual. In India, Buddhism also advocated celibacy among its monks which was unacceptable in the Confucian world view, given that it was viewed as the child's duty to continue the parental line.[6]"

That can not be called right, there are plenty of Buddhas teachings (suttas) which are very similar to those of Confucius. It's just that he also teaches a way out of worldly relationships, but he never had pressed on that. For those who prefer to keep on being in the circle of duties the laws and the teachings are nearly similar. One might look at the Sigalovada Sutta: The Discourse to Sigala - The Layperson's Code of Discipline http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/dn/dn.31.0.nara.html Where all layman's relations and duties are listed. Or look the Iti § 106 http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/iti/iti.4.100-112.than.html You can also look at the Mangala Suta

My english skills are to less to rewrite this article, maybe somebody likes to put some effort into it, as it s simply wrong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hanzze (talkcontribs) 04:02, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's "right" for "Buddhism", which in English generally means the things Siddhartha taught. Of course it gets a lot messier once they tried to market it to China and had to add in filial piety to avoid being considered immoral barbarians. — LlywelynII 06:35, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Why was the pic of the statue of the Japanese guy carrying his mother on his back removed?[edit]

I thought that was a really good graphical representation of filial piety. BillyTFried (talk) 19:02, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

See the deletion request at commons [1]. --Cold Season (talk) 14:31, 29 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Filial piety in the Bible[edit]

The Ten Commandments from the Hebrew Bible has this: "Honour thy father and thy mother", could it be counted as an example of filial piety? --EPN-001GF IZEN བཀྲ་ཤིས་བདེ་ལེགས། 10:25, 30 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've seen some Chinese christians connected the commandent "Honour thy father and thy mother" with filial piety, and even cited "Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right."(Ephesians 6:1) as an reference of filial piety in the Bible, so I came to ask about your opinions.--EPN-001GF IZEN བཀྲ་ཤིས་བདེ་ལེགས། 10:29, 30 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, Catholics actually use the term "filial piety" themselves, for example, to describe the manner in which criticism ought to be directed toward bishops who have erred in some way that requires correction. The Cathechism of the Catholic Church uses terms like "filial piety" and "filial respect"(CCC 2215 is such an example; see https://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s2c2a4.htm). --2604:2000:1240:C799:6805:C82A:845D:CC0A (talk) 15:33, 22 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Of course there was that one guy who specifically told everyone to completely ignore their parents and would've gone completely apeshit over the idea of protecting bishops instead of holding them to stricter account. If only he were somehow related to modern Christianity, it might be topical... — LlywelynII 06:39, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"Come here little grandson, and pull up a chair, ol' grandpa has to say something to you."[edit]

If you get that, you spend too much time online. KATMAKROFAN (talk) 04:00, 15 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Filial piety is also used for Buddhism[edit]

First of all, congratulations to all editors with this nice and beautiful article. I have an improvement to make though, which will make it even better: the Buddhist perspective was removed from this article in previous edits. I don't believe this is justified. The term filial piety is widely used in Buddhist studies, e.g. here and here. Though the term is mostly associated with Confucianism, many scholars study it from a social-cultural angle in East-Asian culture, without specifying the roots. I believe the lead and short description should be modified.--Farang Rak Tham (Talk) 19:58, 24 August 2018 (UTC) Edited.--Farang Rak Tham (Talk) 21:46, 24 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 13 March 2019[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: no consensus to move the pages to the proposed titles at this time, per the discussion below. Dekimasuよ! 07:08, 30 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]


– A. In social studies, the term filial piety is used in a general sense to indicate respect and care expressed by a child toward a parent, whether among Latin Americans, Asians, or any other culture—parental respect is used far less. B. Thus, the term filial piety is not limited to Confucianism-based cultures in East Asia,[2][3][4][5][6][7][8] as the the current article filial piety is.

C. The term was at first used in studies about ancient Roman culture, though,[1] and I believe it should still be used for that, but as a separate article under a specific title among the ancient Romans. Pietas is harder to search for and thus less desirable.

  1. ^ Hamilton, G.G. (1990). "Patriarchy, Patrimonialism, and Filial Piety: A Comparison of China and Western Europe". British Journal of Sociology. 41 (1): 78. JSTOR 591019.
Farang Rak Tham (Talk) 21:34, 13 March 2019 (UTC) --Relisting. SITH (talk) 22:39, 23 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose all - These are distinct and specific terms which in this move are in danger of being conflated. Pietas, in particular, is the name of a goddess that represents a virtue, and the name of the virtue itself - and is the WP:COMMONNAME (if obscure). The current state of Parental respect is unworthy to take over the primary topic for that title, since usage of Filial piety is generally specific toward Asia and is not WP:RECOGNIZABLE in a western context. -- Netoholic @ 18:52, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • specific terms ... are in danger of being conflated No, these are all phenomenon described in secondary, reliable sources as filial piety, as I have conclusively shown in the references and links above. @Netoholic: Have you looked at any of these?--Farang Rak Tham (Talk) 12:42, 15 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • The current state of Parental respect is unworthy ... No, the current state of an article has nothing to do with how content should be organized under certain titles in Wikipedia. Even if Michael Jackson is a terrible article, it is still the common name, and thus should be the title.--Farang Rak Tham (Talk) 12:42, 15 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • usage of Filial piety is generally specific toward Asia ... No,this is just not true, as I have shown above. You have not provided any evidence for your arguments. Filial piety is used in a range of contexts, not just East Asia. Furthermore, since there is already a general article called parental respect, it makes much more sense to call this article filial piety, to prevent confusion. If somebody wants to find some information about the specific subject of East Asian filial piety, they will be able to find filial piety in East Asia just as likely. Just looking at this talk page, you can already see many responses throughout the years of people expecting to find a general article, yet finding only information about East Asia. Nobody searches for a title like parental respect, as I have already shown in the above link. Finally, filial piety is recognizable, as it used by scholars as a a general term, also in a Western context, as I have shown in the sources above.--Farang Rak Tham (Talk) 12:42, 15 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Filial piety" is primarily an East Asian concept True, but as proven above, not entirely. Right now, filial piety is entirely about East Asia, without any general disambiguation page to point at other pages.--Farang Rak Tham (Talk) 22:05, 17 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion[edit]

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 09:38, 15 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

filial piety among vampire bats[edit]

I find this paper which explains about filial piety among vampire bats

"Experimentally starved mothers will typically be fed by sons or daughters [who were] often a mother's primary food donor" #filialpiety https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/eth.13146 Kaveinthran (talk) 15:27, 5 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Kaveinthran: This Wiki article is about East Asian filial piety. Perhaps you can create a section with this content in the more general Wiki article called Parental respect.--Farang Rak Tham (Talk) 18:21, 8 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
But it shouldn't be. "Filial piety" should cover all cultures, not just China. That said, there's probably a better zoological term for 'caring about your progeny'. — LlywelynII 06:33, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This is what I got from a search from perplexity.ai
The proper zoological term for caring for one's own progeny is "parental care"[1][5]. Parental care is any behavior that contributes to the survival of offspring, such as building a nest, provisioning offspring with food, or defending offspring from predators[1]. Patterns of parental care are widespread and highly diverse across the animal kingdom, and there is great variation in different animal groups in terms of how parents care for offspring and the amount of resources invested by parents[1]. In some animal groups, such as reptiles, offspring may be self-sufficient and require no parental care, while in other groups, such as birds, offspring may be helpless at birth and rely on their parents for survival[1]. Parental care is beneficial if it increases the parent's inclusive fitness, such as by improving offspring survival, quality, or reproductive success[1][6].
Sources
[1] Parental care - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_care
[2] Alloparental Care | SpringerLink https://link.springer.com/10.1007/978-3-319-47829-6_1400-1
[3] Alloparenting - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alloparenting
[4] Fecundity - Definition and Examples - Biology Online Dictionary https://www.biologyonline.com/dictionary/fecundity
[5] Parental Care and Investment - Gonzalez‐Voyer - Wiley Online Library https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9780470015902.a0021907
[6] What are the benefits of parental care? The importance of parental effects on developmental rate - PMC - NCBI https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4203283/
By Perplexity at https://www.perplexity.ai/?s=m&uuid=471ee9a6-aa75-4fd3-b50e-7ae32e8e6224 Kaveinthran (talk) 08:02, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hair[edit]

As long as this is only about East Asia, there needs to be much more about the impact on traditional Han hair styles. — LlywelynII 06:33, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]